The Bones Of Sordric

All In A Night’s Work

It had been a good night. The house he had robbed had no one in and no alarm, the other thing the back door had not been locked. He wandered through the house, this guy still had DVDs and CDs so obviously had not moved with the times.

The problem these days was that there was very little apart from jewellery and cards (you had to be quick with those) and hard cash and coins that you could benefit from financially as a burglar, but he did ok.

He bagged some scrimshaw, an elephant carved from an ivory tusk and a bag of what looked like blank dice, which he thought might be bone or ivory. There were twelve die shaped pieces with smoothed corners, blank faces making up a strange dice collection. They felt smooth but he also felt slight changes in the feel of the surfaces. He had seen rune stones bagged like this, but the bag was black and blank as the faces of the dice.

The lot went into his bin liner to take to his buyer and hopefully get enough money for rent, food and a few treats from one of his fences.

Emptying The Bin Bag

He emptied the bin bag onto the fences sorting table and the fence looked through, fingering the scrimshaw like a depraved Fagin, and checking the jewellery and a couple of fob watches.

Him: "That was an easy one, no one in the house and no alarm or dog"

Fence1: "You done good, that scrimshaw with bring me a decent lot and though the elephant is actually illegal, I have a few buyers who will pay good money for that, five hundred?"

Him: "That'll do me fine"

The fence counted out dirty, grubby ten and twenty pound notes from his dog eared purse and the checked them and pocketed his reward. He screwed up his bin liner to put it in his pocket and then felt something that had not fallen out when he emptied it on the table, the black bag of dice. He pulled it out and thought it might be worth something.

Him: "I also picked this up, not sure exactly they are, maybe you can elucidate"

The fence recoiled and had to suppress a scream.

Fence1: "FUCK!!! Where the fuck did you get that? You know what they are don't you. FUCK, I am not touching them"

Him: "Why? They are just some blank dice, I haven't a clue what they are or what they are for"

Fence1: "You don't know?"

Now he was getting worried. What had he stolen? Why was the fence so frightened? It was surely just a bag of bone dice.

Him: "No, but I think you need to tell me"

Fence1: "These are a set of evil divination cubes used by the likes of Aleister Crowley and his Golden Dawn associates. They are known as 'The Bones of Sordric" and were cast and the cursed and gathered up in a black bag and given to an intended victim as a gift. If the gift was accepted, and it always was, the intended victim, would disappear. It was used to get rid of rivals in business or rival lovers. No sign of the victims are ever found and that is probably why the house was empty and you were not disturbed while you burgled."

Him: "Shit so what do I do? Am I going to disappear? I wasn't gifted them, I stole them, and who the fuck was Sordric?"

Fence1: "Sordric was a Sumerian or Babylonian conjurer priest of dark magic. His original bone dice set was made from the bones of children he had sacrificed to his devil god. Obviously yours is not the original and your dice may bot be human but they are just as powerful.

The only chance of you saving yourself is to give these as a gift to someone, but you know that in a few days they will be gone"

Him: "Really? I have an idea"

Fence1: "I can't be sure, but it is what I would do. What is your idea?"

Him: "Who do you think would take something from you if you offered it to them and they thought it was valuable?"

Fence1: "I'm not sure I follow you"

Him: "I am going to give it to a member of the Government Cabinet as a thank you for all the 'good work' they are doing for the country, and if we are lucky it will get passed around the lot of them and we will be rid of them for good"

Fence1: "I am so with you on this, do it and there is a grand in my wallet for you"

He left clutching the Bones of Sordric and he knew who he was going to gift them to........