Curse-Makers

Curse-Makers are practitioners of curses whose threat to Edel is addressed by the Seven Seals, a protective system laid down by the first Curse-Breakers. The book places them within a larger history of magic: they were taught by a distinct, ancient undersea being, but are not the same kind of force as that teacher. Their presence helps explain why Edel’s protection depends both on the seals and on the people bound to guard them.

Origins and Place in the Magical History

The Seven Seals were laid down by the first Curse-Breakers to guard Edel against Curse-Makers from other shores. This account presents the threat as coming from beyond Edel, while also establishing the seals as a deliberate answer to it: the defenses are not natural features but protections made by an earlier group with knowledge of curses.

The history reaches further back to an ancient undersea being released from beneath the earth when the sea floor split at the shattering of Atlantis. She is described not as a Curse-Maker but as a Curse-Breather, and the distinction matters: she is a separate, older source of darkness and turmoil, not simply another member of the class she taught. Among her pupils were many of the original Curse-Makers, including Gwiddon Baba Yaga. The account therefore gives the makers a lineage without collapsing teacher and pupils into one category.

The Seals and Their Guardians

The Seven Seals are central to containing the danger associated with curses. Their protective force, together with the power of King Strom, keeps the undersea being from flooding Edel or bringing tempests down upon it. The seals thus stand between a threat rooted in the sea and the safety of the land; their function is protective, not merely symbolic.

Each seal has a guardian whose life is bound to it. The guardian must watch over the seal and keep it strong, so the defense of Edel carries a personal cost: the protection is sustained through an individual’s continuing duty and life. Curse-Makers’ threat to the country is consequently linked to the vulnerability of the seal system and to the people who maintain it.

The Boundary Between Curses and Spells

The distinction between Curse-Makers and other magic users becomes important in Galahad’s confrontation with Myrkur. Myrkur denies knowing of a curse, describing Meira as someone who willingly came to her for a spell. Galahad counters that the spell deprived Meira of any real chance to meet the bargain’s terms, leaving her to die through a choice she had made and allowing Myrkur to take her place as guardian. The exchange does not settle every question about how curses and spells differ, but it shows that naming an act a spell rather than a curse does not, by itself, resolve its coercive consequences.

Myrkur’s account also keeps the category of Curse-Makers distinct from the individual threat in this episode: the older undersea being is explicitly called a Curse-Breather, while her history includes teaching the original Curse-Makers. The distinction gives the magical history more than one source of danger. Edel is threatened both by curse-making from beyond its shores and by a deeper power whose influence helped bring that practice into being.