It was a simple ring, just a circle of bright copper, nothing else. The prophesy that rode with it, however, was startling, world-bending, life-altering. Standard rags-to-riches fare, too.

He whom the ring fit would change the world and attain great wealth and power at a high price.

Who wrote things like that? Who wished things like that on a person?

Who kept something like that around for centuries? And shouldn't it have grown green with verdigris? Shouldn't it have decayed and fell away in crumbling pieces? Yet, here it was, bright and flaming as the day it was forged.

It wasn't even a flat ring. It was as if a coil of copper wire had been twisted and hewn together. The craftsmanship was absolutely horrible, and there it sat, on a pedastol in the tomb of its forger, the nameless priestess or whomever it was. The records never survived the fire, three centuries back. So whomever made the ring, well, that was lost to history. And whomever was going to get the ring, that was lost to the future.

Camphor stared down at it and sniffed diffidantly. He'd been coming here for years, and pilgrims came all the time, seeking to wear the Copper Ring. But it was always was too big or too small. It never fit just right over the right middle finger of the pilgrims. Kings came, priests and priestesses, rebel leaders, knights errant and their lovers. It fit none of them.

Centuries had rolled by, and the ring had taken no owner. Surely that said something about its magical abilities. Surely.

Camphor had no desire to wear this ring. Frankly, it scared the living daylights out of him. Just how high was this high price? No earthly goods were worth the possible gamble of his soul, the protection it would grant to his children one day, when the work no longer came to his hands. And any goods gotten through a difficult life? He would leave them, and continue his life of comparative leisure, despite his daily labors.

Camphor, after all, was a carpenter. A Casketmaker to be specific. He was just learning the trade, but the general gist of it was that the more caskets he made and sold, the longer he himself lived. He didn't quite find the magic there, and he wasn't certain just how he'd stumbled into this, only that a woman named Vera had taught him, and she'd learned from a man named Parker. Just where Vera was now, Camphor wasn't sure, but that wasn't important.

There was never a need for more than one Casketmaker in a town. Never.

And they never stayed in one place too long, either.

Camphor knew he should be leaving soon. He'd finished his apprenticeship to Vera a month ago. She had told him to pick up and move almost immediately. Now, here he was, still staring at that ridiculous ring, envy of mens' hearts, or maybe just their wallets. He wasn't sure.

And he was sure he didn't care.

But then. Then why did he stay here? Why did he insist on remaining, staring at this coil of copper wire, shoddily soldered together at the ends, smoothed to perfection, to one circuitous hoop, just big enough, maybe, just maybe, to fit his right middle finger...

"Care to try it on?" a curator of the tomb asked, siddling up behind him. She had grey-streaked brown hair tied back in a severe bun, with a tight little scowl on her face.

"What is this, a penny-ante jewelry shop? Has it ever occured to you that I might just want to stare at it?"

The woman smiled, but the scowl was still there in her wrinkles. She must have been a smoker. She had those wrinkles around her lips. She removed the glass case from the ring and set it down beside it on the pedastol.

"I've seen that look before," she told him. "That wanting, yearning look."

"I'm telling you, woman, I'm just looking."

"Certainly. Certainly. Of course you are." She laughed and took his hand in hers, patted it.

She rubbed her gnarled fingers, skin loose around the bones despite her still-brown hair, over his hands. "My, what lovely fingers you have," she told him, the scowl melting just a touch. "So bare, so clean, so long. Are you a pianist?"

"I'm a carpenter, actually."

"Really!" she declared, eyes growing wide. "These don't feel like a carpenter's hands! They're so soft, so smooth!"

Camphor snatched his hand back. "Well. I only just finished my apprenticeship. I haven't had time to develop callouses and --" Without warning, the woman snatched his hand back and forced the ring over his middle knuckles.

Inexplicable pain wracked through Camphor's body, dragging him down to the knees as the woman, that accursed woman! She twisted the ring.

Camphor cried out in pain, and windows shattered in the tomb. The candles flickered and guttered, threatening to extinguish themselves completely. Other pilgrims stopped and stared, and Camphor could fill wind rushing to fill a vacuum somewhere around him.

A voice in an ancient tongue, and then a thousand voices in a thousand ancient tongues, filled the room, louder even than the wind rushing all around. Camphor felt sick, and he stared up as runes began to form themselves in the air, flashing fire through the sky, then disappearing utterly. He couldn't begin to guess what they said, what ominous portent of doom they were spelling out. And it had to be doom, because the hushed gasps that fell on the pilgrims sent chills up and down his spine.

He felt the shiver grow and consume him, enveloping his body, and felt a little tug in his hand, as if the ring was meant to be there. He whimpered and looked up at it, sweat slicking his dirty blonde hair to his forehead. He choked out a gasp and saw the curator was nowhere to be seen, nor were any of the other pilgrims.

He was alone in the tomb, and the glass was no longer shattered, the candles all burning brightly. He felt a little tug in the ring, and he reached down to pull it off, but his skin had grown up around it. He could no more move the ring than move his own bone, and he got the sickening feeling it had grafted itself there.

He retched, and vomitted up his latest meal.

All he could think was 'This cannot be a good thing.'