The Gunslinger

Invocation (Scene 02)

After slamming her home's door shut, Charlie lit all the candles she had in her home and pulled out every book on spells and invocations she had. The ones she'd bought from wandering merchants in the secret of the night, the ones her mother had left her, and those she'd handwritten, the collections of spells she'd only heard talked about in other corners of the world, the few times she'd been allowed to leave Elwood.

All of them were priced possessions, their worth beyond measure to Charlie, but now she was throwing them onto the ground like sacks of potatoes. With a tall beeswax candle clutched in her right hand, she flipped through the pages of one of her late mother's books with her left.

She remembered a mystic figure her mother had told her about, late one night when sleep just wouldn't come. What her mother had called the figure, she couldn't remember, but Charlie still knew that she loved the story, even though her mother said she shouldn't.

The older witch had told her about this person armed with a magic weapon, a cursed weapon, who came to anyone who called them and had to fulfill whatever task they'd been called to do. In the days long past, that person had been respected like a King, though no royal blood could be traced in their veins. With time, that person's bloodline fell to ruin, the hero's descendants succumbing to the weapon's power and the allure of evil.

Nowadays, her mother said, whoever wielded that weapon could only be pitied, for their own blood had betrayed them and time had forgotten them. All they were now was cursed, left with the rot and ruin that had befallen their name.

Despite it being told as a bedtime story, her mother had insisted the story was true, and even shown her the spell that had, in times long past, been used to call upon these men. If only she could remember what they'd been called.

Charlie was frantic in her search, though she skipped not a single page as she flipped through the books pilled up around her. She couldn't hear any commotion outside yet but she knew Bill had gone and told on her. He was a bitter man and she'd refused him once too often; oh, why hadn't she just gotten over herself and said yes to him?

Life wouldn't have been what she'd dreamt of, but perhaps she could've really grown sweet on him? With a lot of time, perhaps it might've been possible.

Alas, that was all meaningless now and Charlie had to deal with her choice.

Just as she was about to give up her search, Charlie's green eyes found the symbol she'd been looking for. It matched the symbol she remembered perfectly. The page's headline said "The Redhand Invocation".

The Redhands, right, that was the cursed family's name. After the birthmark they all shared, their right palm red like just pulled from a pool of blood. It was a grim mark, the book called it The Mark of the Damned.

The invocation itself was simple enough. Charlie built up a small tent of wooden blocks and bark chips in a bowl and lit it with a candle. While the flames grew to a reasonable size, Charlie gathered what she needed - the Invocation texts, a handful of dried Ghostweed, and a sharp knife.

With those three things, she knelt down in front of the fire and read through the Invocation texts. Before she spoke them out loud, Charlie threw the Ghostweed into the flames and grabbed her knife.

Before, during, and after the reading of the texts she would need to drop some of her blood into the fire. How much, the text didn't say, only that the wound needed to be in the center of her palm - for something called the Pact, which wasn't further specified.

Charlie spilt a few drops of her blood into the flames as she began reading, her eyes not leaving the text in fear of messing up. The Invocation was written in a language called the Lost Tongue. It had been used ages ago and was now, well, almost completely lost to the public. Charlie herself barely spoke it, but for this, being able to read it was enough.

She let more blood drop and sizzle away in the fire during and after she was done reading the text and waited for some sign that the ritual had worked. Charlie looked back down into the book and looked for some hint as to when she could expect the Redhand - she hoped rather soon - and how to know if she'd done everything right.

There was only silence around her.

Looking into her bowl, Charlie saw that the fire had gone out suddenly and left no trace behind. The wood she chips she'd used to light the fire looked untouched - only the Ghostweed and the drops of blood she'd given were gone.