I do not wish this upon anyone. Not normally. It is the most cursed of all curses that I know, and it has been said that he who has been afflicted by it will die.
I mean, they all will die when afflicted by curses or not, but before the death, he will suffer a fate worse than a fate worse than death. That was what I was told by my guru as he was telling me the dark side of our faith, the one side that gurus do not always tell their followers unless they are fated to be gurus themselves.
There was always a need for the gurus to provide for new gurus in the future. Such has been how things were, such will be how things will be.
I am now a guru. Not by my choice since it involves the notion of fate, which I barely have limited control over, but I'm not bitter about it at all. Being a guru has its perks -- all the respect that the people give me due to the perceived power that I have over them -- but it also has its downsides; when the people are in trouble, it is my duty to be there to help them, whether I like it or not.
Even if it means that I have to cause the death of whoever or whatever it is that is threatening the people.
That man was a foreigner. White skinned, aquiline nose. Different from the rather tanned skin and muted features we have. He came with a small group of his own people. Said he wanted to trade. We did our best to work with them -- they had some interesting herbs that the people have not seen before but they weren't completely alien to me because of the knowledge my guru passed to me.
How he knew, I'll never know.
The herbs were useful. Not addictive like opium which we use sometimes to help heal over the inner fuzz in the head, but having a similar effect. They needed some food. They said they had run out of stores when their boat capsized and needed some food to help them tide over.
Our chief was cordial. He talked with them via gestures and gutturals that both sides seemed to have a common understanding over, with the help of our elders. An agreement seemed to have come about.
But that man, that white skinned aquiline nosed man, he turned. He suddenly whipped out a metal thing that looked like some kind of blowpipe, except that it had a wooden stock on it. Aimed it at our chief.
There was no time to react. I heard that the accompanying foreign peoples also pulled something similar and threatened everyone present. A young warrior was shocked and angered and leapt onto one of them with a dagger drawn. A loud bang was heard and the warrior was suddenly bleeding. But he was brave. He didn't back down -- he slashed and stabbed furiously at his target.
The rest of the foreigners seemed shocked at the warrior. The loud bang drew more warriors in, and seeing their fellow comrade hurt and attacking, they got berserked and attacked.
Our chief was quickly pushed to the ground by some of the elders and warriors, while the white skinned foreigners were making a retreat, with our warriors charging at them. Ever so often one of them would fire at us with their version of the blowpipe and some of the warriors were forced to retreat from their wounds. Our own blowpipers did their best to poison the retreating men, but they managed to only get one or two of them in the necks. The rest were wearing materials that couldn't be breached by our poison needles.
I was told only much later about the whole event. Our chief said that the leader of that band of foreigners must be cursed with our strongest curse as revenge for his duplicity. I listened calmly to our chief the way a guru should, and got more descriptions of the person.
I understood the situation. I assured our chief that it will be done.
He thanked me and left my hut.
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A few days later, our scouts reported finding the remains of a white skinned man, horribly maimed and in pieces, with parts of his red flesh covered in weird green and purple ooze. The one part that was more or less intact was his aquiline nose.
