The caravan decided to make camp on the bottom of the hill slope. The caravan carried gold from the Dranik Empire, that Kramer the Great had managed to earn after ridding the region of its many horrific monsters.
Kramer had lived a very eventful life, and had earned a reputation for himself. All of the Poliksh continent knew that if some monster turned into a real pestilence, you sent for Kramer. Kramer had a beautiful wife, and like the prized possession she was, Kramer took her everywhere he went. People even speculated that she was his lucky charm. Sometimes in hushed whispers they would discuss whether she was an actual enchantress, who gave Kramer his skills. His wife was pregnant now, with a baby. The druids said the baby was going to be a healthy boy who would live a very remarkable life. Kramer couldn’t wait to teach all that he had learnt from life to his first born.
As the tents for the night were being put up and the fire was being lit, an old witch cane into light.
“Oh how wonderful, I was just seeking shelter for night, and I saw this quaint settlement.”
A few men near her shifted uneasily, some hesitantly opened their mouths.
“What? I don’t bite!” She cackled.
“Not without reason anyway.” Her rotten teeth nearly seemed to fall out of her mouth. The black robe around her glimmered with the embers of flame dancing around the fire. Women were now pushing their children inside the safety of tents, a handful of men were about to unsheathe their swords when Kramer came out of his tent, unaware of the boiling ruckus outside.
“I am about to have a baby! Call the midwife!”
The midwife hurried into the tent. She had been made a part of this journey just to cater for such an eventuality. She scuttled in and Kramer was about to follow in too when one of the men hearkened him.
“What is it?”
“There’s a witch demanding shelter”
“Well tell her to bugger off.” He said this and went in.
The witch quietly smiled and sat down away from the camp. Her face was still illuminated partially by the camp fire. She muttered under her breath:
“Oh I think he’s going to need me anyways”
This was followed by a period of unease, as multiple loud cries of anguish and pain came out of the tent. Kramer’s wife seemed to be having trouble delivering the baby. The men and women outside sat solemnly now. They felt this delay in the birth ominous and the presence of the witch, giggling in the corner, foreboding.
“I don’t care! Save them both! I’ll strangle you with my own hands!”
The uproarious command by Kramer startled everyone outside, except the witch. She calmly stood up, and stretched her back to an unnatural extent. The popping of her joints was sickening, as she ambled across the camp. Nobody stopped her. Nobody dared to.
“I can save them”
She lucidly said this standing barely outside the tent. Somehow despite all the cries from his wife, Kramer heard the witch and stormed out.
“Don’t lie, old hag!”
The witch threw her hands up in helplessness and started walking backwards.
Kramer took a step backwards and then swallowed, his ego quite possibly, and spoke:
“How can you save them?”
The witch plastered an ugly smile on her face, swivelled and started walking back toward the tent. She bent down outside, plucked the grass from outside and sniffed it.
“Listen you big bearded fool, I cannot promise you your wife’s life. I will try but the thread has gone too thin. However I will save your son. In return, all I ask for is passage with your caravan.”
“Granted, but my wife-“
She patted him on the shoulder and walked in.
“Just stay out.”
Kramer collapsed down against a rock outside the tent. He had given in to his emotions in a moment of weakening resolve. He hoped he wouldn’t regret it. He sat, stroking his beard, which still had some crusts of monster blood stuck in them.
Nobody quite knew how much time passed because Kramer’s wife didn’t stop screaming. Her cries became more and more shrill. She didn’t seem to tire out. Nobody slept that night. Nevertheless before the first crack of dawn, her voice lost the verve. It seemed to shallow out, and just before it completely gave out, a new cry took its place. The cry of a baby.
The midwife came out holding the baby. Kramer’s son. Kramer managed to stand up and hold his son in his arms. Tears welled up in his eyes and streaked his cheeks. They burned his sleep deprived eyes.
“My wife....?”
“Dead.” The witch emerged from the tent, rubbing her hands together.
Kramer handed his son to the midwife, and stop quietly for a second; his head hung low. Then in a deep reverberating voice he said:
“You were supposed to save her.”
The witch scowled as she started moving towards her stash at the edge of the encampment.
“I said I would try. You should be glad the son lived, took all of my skills to get him out alive.”
The witch started putting her things in order, her vials clinked in her robe.
Kramer who had been standing motionless still, abruptly made his way across to the witch. With a single swift motion, he had struck the witch and landed her frail figure meters way.
“Get out.”
The witch who had been caught unawares by the blow, now stood up evenly, in a manner unexpected given her apparent age.
“Don’t make a mistake, you bearded fool.”
“I. SAID-“ and with this he was on her again. This time he held her by her throat, and nearly strangled her. The witch managed to read some incantation and slightly singe his hands. Kramer still flung her afar.
“Leave you filthy hag, and if I ever see your face again, I will make sure all of Poliksh knows of the torture I put you through.”
The witch lingered for a moment. Then she closed her eyes; spat on the ground; made gestures with her hand; and maliciously screamed:
“Listen then. Listen for I am cursing your son, Kramer of Ginia. I am cursing your son, to a fight he will not be able to win. A fight that will kill him eventually. He will fight a Hydra in his life, and as he slays one head of the Hydra, two more will come to take the place of the slain one, and so it will go on. Till your son will drop dead of exhaustion.”
Having said this, the witch ran away maniacally clicking her heels.
Kramer paid no heed to her words.
Yet, for some reason they stuck with him. For he trained his son, Remi to become the best fighter of the entire Northern Continent. Kramer himself somehow fell through the cracks of the world like an old forgotten legendary tale. He was no longer as effective at fighting after his wife’s death. This seemed to accredit the soothsayers theory that his wife was the source of his magical skills. Withal, Kramer didn’t mind what the people around him spoke. He had lived his life and he had wanted to retire anyway. The only job he felt he owed was to tell his son of the conditions in which he was born in and so he did.
Remi was initially dumbfounded. His father had never really talked about his mother, let alone about the circumstances of her death. He felt relieved and confident. He felt like he was finally ready to take on the real world. This felt like becoming a man.
And so little Remi, left the sanctity of his birth town to find what fate had in store for him. He wasn’t sure if the curse was even real, at the same time though, it didn’t hurt to be careful. He made friends; some of them good, some not so good. When fighting monsters didn’t pay well, he decided to become a fisherman in a port city. He met a sailor’s charming daughter there one night and before he could explain what about her attracted him so much he was married and had settled down. In the second year of their marriage they had a cute little baby boy who became the apple of every townsfolk’s eyes. He had started to believe that he was one of the few lucky people in the world who pull the long straws from destiny’s store. He had completely forgotten about his legendary but now dead dad and the tale of the witch’s curse.
Then the series of unfortunate events began.
His son died of a mysterious illness, and had showed no previous symptoms. They had a daughter next who was born still. Struck by grief and despair, for a couple springs Remi didn’t go to bed with his wife. Her wife of course blamed herself for not being able to produce him a healthy offspring. Their marriage seemed to be falling apart slowly. By some divine luck, they had twins later. When the twins came to be of two years old and showed no sign of any disease, only then did Remi breathed a sigh of relief. Elated he threw a feast to the entire town. Everybody joined in, in their celebration. The joy was preemptory though, for the very next day, the twins contracted food poisoning. This also proved to be the means to their end.
This put the final nail on their marriage’s coffin. They separated and many a fathers offered their daughters hand in marriage to Remi, since he was still a mighty man who pulled in more fishes than many men could even boast of. Remi refused them all. Perhaps maybe a part of him did suspect his wife of being the faulty half, because unknown to common knowledge, he had a baby with a street harlot. The baby died in womb.
Convinced of his rotten luck and having embraced the fact that he was the last of his lineage, he sold all that he owned; paid all his debts; cleared all his accounts and bought a cottage near the shore, where he spent out the rest of his life in complete loneliness.
The towns people notoriously secretly called him Remi the Childless One. One day a witch who happened to be passing by the town heard someone relating the tale of Remi the Childless One to a rapt audience in a bar. Her ears perked up and she stealthily inquired:
“Was this Remi you speak of, the son of Kramer of Ginia?”
“What? Who’s that?” the storyteller felt perturbed at being interrupted and he immediately continued his anecdote.
The witch paused for a moment and then took a big swig of the bitter gin from the mug.
Close observers could see her smiling nastily into the mug.
