by Daniel Fox
Willuna shivered. "I've had lessons enough, thank you very much."
"Fine." The Miser turned his back and fished around in the coin sack. "Right then," he said, "three coins for three chores."
"I would take nothing less," Willuna sniffed.
The Miser handed over the three coins. Willuna had to tug them free from his fingers. "Are you sure you won't stay longer?" said the Miser. "You're ridiculously che- Er, efficient. You're surpassingly efficient."
"I'm sure," she said. "As of today I have acquired courage, wisdom, and an enquiring mind. Plus three coins. And now I'm off to claim my husband. Good day."
With that Willuna stuck her nose in the air and walked out.
And that's how Willuna learned that self-improvement was really rather easy. (Her belief that she had no desire to be a commoner was also strongly confirmed.)
***
Across the human kingdoms, beyond bogs and swamps, up a sharp mountain and down a narrow crag, there was a great dark castle. A proper castle. Not some squared-off thing with shameful white in its walls, but a castle of spires pointed like spears and walls with crumbling parapets that looked like some giant's rotting teeth. A castle to make you believe in evil.
Across the molding drawbridge, down around spiralling stairways and behind secret panels, in the very bottom of the castle dug far into the ground where no sunlight had ever touched, Bodolomous kept his laboratory.
The stone room flickered with torch-light. The walls were dank and darkly moist, the dim corners filled with cobwebs. Across wooden tables cauldrons bubbled and beakers coughed up noxious green smells.
Worst of all, one end of the long room was filled with bodies. Some were far gone, nothing left of them but skeletons and wisps of clothes. Others were fresh, looking more asleep than dead. They were piled with no reverence for the departed souls; fish in a market were laid out with greater care.
Bodolomous sifted through the bodies, looking for an arm. He pinched at one, strong but too bulky. He groped another, thin but too weak. Finally he found an arm just right, strong with a working-man's muscle but not so bulky as to get in its own way. He cut away the sleeve from the arm, then cut away the arm from the body. He took the arm to one of his tables where a body had been assembled from the finest legs and the best of torsos. Sewing the arm to the empty socket, he muttered words far too foul to be repeated here (and to be honest, the words were spectacularly hard to spell). He dabbed some potion, waved a particular wand, and just like that the body jerked, and jerked again, and then the eyes popped open. A new jester was born.
"Up you get," said Bodolomous. The jester sprang up to its feet, then to its hands, and then vaulted off the table, spinning in the air to land on its feet. "Rotter!"
Rotter, the one particular jester that Bodolomous had bothered to name, came scampering up to fawn at his cloak's hem. There wasn't really anything special about Rotter, but Bodolomous had wanted to be able to talk to somebody by name, and so one day he'd pointed at one and told it that from now on it was called Rotter. Bodolomous had sewn bells onto the points of Rotter's jester cap. Previously the wizard had kept losing him in the crowds of jesters, now Bodolomous just had to follow the little tinkling sounds.
"Right," said the wizard, "make sure this new fellow gets all dressed up nice. I won't have any minions of mine tumbling about with their goodies just flopping this way and that. People would think I'm not good enough at being evil to afford to properly clothe you. Off with him."
More jesters came and led their new sibling over to a pile of scrap clothing off near the bodies. Bodolomous grabbed Rotter's arm to hold him back. "Not bad eh, all this?" He waved a hand proudly at his beakers and bottles and potions. "Looks pretty evil to me. I mean, honestly, if you were some innocent little school girl who got dragged down into here, this would frighten you, right?"
Rotter nodded his head and pretended to quiver.
"Ha!" said Bodolomous, "exactly right! Miss my show, will she? Well, not this next one, I guarantee you that. This will be a display that they'll never stop talking about. Folks will be all like, 'You 'eard about Bodolomous the wizard?' 'Oh, don't say his name just out loud like that. He's the Most Evil Man Alive, you know.' 'I did know that, as a matter of fact. Everyone knows that. He's just that famous, Bodolomous is. Anyway, you 'eard about what he did to the Family Owl, how he sent in all his min…' What?
Rotter was shaking his head. The jester scurried over and tapped the glass of one of the many large mirrors that hung on the walls around the room. He scurried back, took Bodolomous by the sleeve, and drew him over to the mirror.
Bodlomous closed his eyes, concentrated, and muttered a few choice putrid syllables. The glass in mirror twisted, the reflected image of the wizard sinking away. Like air bubbles tumbling up from under water, the glass of the mirror filled with an image from far away. Bodolomous was looking into a bedroom of a castle, a castle made from white walls. There really wasn't much to see. The room was filled with a lot of pink things - blankets, cushions, the upholstery on the chairs, and not much else of interest.
"Well?" said Bodolomous to his minion. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"
Rotter waved his hand, encouraging the wizard to keep looking.
Bodolomous turned back to the mirror and passed his hand before it. The image changed. It was another room in the Castle Owl, one that was much less pink. "I'm still not seeing anything."
Rotter tapped a long claw-like nail on the mirror, pointing at the bed of the room.
"So?" said the wizard, "there's nobody there."
Rotter gave his head a vigorous nod. Bodolomous waved the mirror back to the first image, that room that was hopelessly pink. Nobody in that bed either. He changed the image to a third room, and a fourth. Every bed and every room was empty. "Where is everyone?" he said. "Is this thing working?" He gave the mirror a couple of good stiff slaps on its side. Nothing changed.
He rushed the mirror from one bedroom to the next and the next, finding no one. "Someone should be in bed by now," he said. "Nobody respectable should be up at this late hour." He turned to Rotter. "That's why I'm still up." Rotter nodded. "Why didn't you tell me about… about…" Bodolomous pointed at the mirror and the bedrooms beyond. "…this?"
Rotter opened his mouth and pointed inside.
Bodolomous threw up his hands. "Oh here we go about the tongue again. I've told you and I've told you, they rot away too quickly. And the alternatives…"
One time Bodolomous had tried to appease Rotter and his empty mouth. It was true, tongues just went bad too fast to be transplanted with any success. So the wizard had tried other parts. He'd really rather liked the baby arm sprouting out of the jester's mouth, it looked properly obscene, but every surface got incredibly sticky whenever the jester tried to enjoy an ice cream cone.
"How could they do this to me?" said Bodolomous. "Here I am working day and night to build myself an army and there's nobody for me to frighten. Just completely rude if you ask me. You," he said, pointing at Rotter, "grab up some of your chums and bring me word of what's going on over there in the Owl Kingdom. I won't have somebody mucking up my bid for infamy. Off with you now."
Rotter scurried away, joined by one jester, then another, and yet another.
"Go!" shouted the wizard after them, "go and find me someone to scare!"
That was how the dark wizard Bodolomous found out that someone out there was interfering with his plans.
***
Willuna's heart nearly stopped when the feet hit her in the face. Her mind had been kingdoms away, with Anisim, imagining their greatness together. Feet dangling in the air were quite the shock.
She picked herself up off the ground, dusting off the offensive dirt that had the nerve to cling to her dress. She looked up and found the farmer up in the air, a rope tied tight around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides.
"You!"
"Princess!"
The farmer tried to make her a bow, but did it poo
rly. The princess had to admit though, it probably wasn't the easiest thing to do while dangling in the air.
"You ought to watch where you place your feet."
"I will try my lady. Terribly sorry my lady."
"Look at you. You can't even hang yourself right. Why are you even here? Why aren't you back home farming your farm and wifeing your wife?"
"Ah, well, yes, I was on my way, you see. But your miserly friend caught up to me-"
Willuna held up a hand. "You're telling me that old, brittle, beanpole of a man did this to you? At least tell me he had henchmen."
"Well…"
"Black magic?"
"Umm…"
"A sword? A knife? A really frightening feather?" Willuna tilted her head to one side, considering the farmer. "You put the rope around yourself, didn't you?"
"He was really quite convincing!" The farmer craned his head around as he slowly twisted in the air. "He had this whole sad story about-"
"Don't care."
"Oh. Well. At least he didn't get me to hang myself, so kudos to me, right? I don't suppose I could ask you for the kindness of gently-"
The princess took three quick steps to where the rope, after passing over the branch overhead, was looped around the trunk of a thick tree. She pulled the rope loose of its knot. The farmer crashed to the ground.
"Thank you," he said, as he tried to get to his feet. Unfortunately his arms were completely asleep and just dangled at his sides like birds in a butcher shop's window. He finally got up and took a look around. "You're all alone?"
"I am now courageous and wise and perfectly capable of handling my own affairs, thank you very much."
"So you know that the Castle Owl is actually that way?" The farmer pointed out a direction that was very much not the direction that the princess had been walking.
"Of course I…" The farmer wasn't paying attention to her. The nerve! His finger was still out and pointed, but he was turning in a slow circle. "Excuse me, your princess was talking." He still paid her no mind. "What's wrong with you?"
Idwal scowled and shook his head. "There's something missing."
"I'll have my dresses and my handmaids and soon I'll have my husband. What could possibly be missing?"
"Does it seem quiet to you? I mean especially quiet? Peculiarly and exceptionally quiet?"
"We are in the middle of a forest, you silly-"
The farmer took her by the elbow.
"How dare you touch me?" said the princess. But then she forgot her anger. The farmer had guided her only a few footsteps along in the direction he had pointed out. They rounded the final bend in the forest and Owltown lay before them. It lay quiet. Completely quiet. It had stolen the hush of a graveyard. "Where is everyone?"
"Your Highness, I hope you won't think it too forward of me if I insist on escorting you back to the castle."
Willuna marched into the city, completely unafraid. Sure, it was unusually quiet, but this was her city after all. "Oh now you're worried about permission, you and your grabby hands."
"It was just your elbow!"
"It was a princessly elbow. Makes all the difference you know." They passed through the streets, seeing not a soul. Not even a dog or a cat. No birds passed by overhead.
They finally came within range of the walls of the castle. The princess shielded her eyes against the sun and spotted a guard standing at the top of the wall overhead. "You there!" she cried. "Tell my father that I've returned!"
The guard didn't move.
"You! Guard!"
Still nothing. The guard just stood there, looking out over the town.
But finally there was a noise. Something had shattered somewhere behind them in the town. It had sounded like someone had dropped a clay pot.
"Something's terribly wrong," said the farmer.
Willuna rolled her eyes. "Relax. You're with me. In my city. Nothing is going to harm me here, it's simply not allowed. You're perfectly safe." She turned her eyes back up to the wall. "Unlike a certain guard I could mention."
"There!"
Willuna spun around. The farmer was pointing back down into the city. Willuna squinted. "I don't see anything."
"The rooftops."
"What? A cat? Are cats too exciting for your boring little town?"
"It wasn't a cat."
"What else could it be? What else goes clambering around on rooftops?"
But there was something there. Something way down near the bottom of the city. Something moving incredibly fast, leaping from one rooftop to another. A tile slipped off of one of the roofs, smashing down to the ground below, making the same sound they had heard earlier.
It was too big for a cat. It didn't move like a cat. It was heading straight for them.
And there was more than one.
"I'll bet they know what's going on here," said Willuna. "They'll answer or they'll face me and my seriousness." She thrust out a royal finger. "You there!" she called.
The figure didn't answer. It just kept coming and coming.
"You know what?" said the farmer. "I think it's time we go."
"Go? We're not go-"
"Quick like bunnies."
The farmer grabbed the princess and slung her over his shoulder. He ran, huffing and puffing his way along the wall.
"Put me down!" said the princess.
The farmer spun around to get a look at the leaping figures behind them. The princess' feet scraped along the wall. "Watch what you're doing, you idiot!"
Whatever the farmer saw, it made him run all the faster. The princess couldn't lock her eyes on anything, the farmer was bouncing her up and down hard enough to make her teeth click. "My-eye-eye-eye fah-ah-ah-the-er-er-er is-s-s-s go-o-o-o-ing t-t-t-t-o k-k-k-k-ill you-ew-ew-ew!"
Behind them more tiles fell. Weather-vanes twanged.
And then they were running through the castle gates. The farmer skidded to a stop and put Willuna down.
"You!" said Willuna, shaking a finger in the farmer's face. "Oh, they're going to have to build a whole new dungeon just for you. Treating your princess like a potato sack, how dare…" Willuna realized the farmer was ignoring her. Again! She couldn't remember the last time she had been so angry (in fact the last time she had been this angry she had been six and her nanny had refused to get her a puppy. It hadn't mattered to the princess that the puppy already belonged to another little girl - she was the princess, she wanted something, she was supposed to get it, that's just how these things went).
Instead of quaking in fear at her wrath, the farmer went down to one knee. Well, that wasn't complete grovelling, but taking a knee was certainly better than his ignoring her completely. But then the farmer stood again. He had something in his fist. He turned over his hand and opened his fingers. Laying on his palm was part of a small stone statue of a bird in flight. It seemed a pity that it had been broken, someone had done an excellent job in the carving.
The farmer pointed past her.
Willuna turned, and her eyes went wide.
The courtyard of the castle was filled with stone statues. Statues of guards, statues of scrubbing boys. Maids, grooms, a squire, two knights. A dog, two cats. More broken birds. No people. No living animals. Just the statues.
"I was in a bit of a rush when I came through here last," said the farmer to her back, "but unless I'm entirely mistaken, these weren't here before, were they?"
"Maybe they were a gift?" said Willuna. "Maybe one of the other kings had them done as a present for my father. Or maybe one of the princes had them done as a way of wooing me. I do get a lot of gifts from admirers, you know. Although I have to say, there's no chance these are going to win me over. What would I do with a statue of the boy who cleans the manure from the stables?"
"Your Highness," said the farmer quietly, "I don't think these are just statues."
"What do you mean? Of course they're… Ilsa? Elsa?" Willuna had found the two statues at the edge of the courtyard. The two girls, her handmaidens, were looking ba
ck towards the fountain in the center. They were so lifelike. You could see every inch of terror in their faces. Their arms were raised to protect themselves from whatever they had seen coming. Willuna was starting to think the farmer was right.
Whatever had happened here, it seemed to have taken the whole castle. The whole town. Which meant…
"Daddy!"
Willuna lifted her skirts and sprinted into the castle, ignoring the farmer's call for her to wait.
Chapter 7
The statues were worse inside. The people were caught fleeing, knowing that something was coming for them. Idwal didn't know where he was going, and he'd lost sight of the princess. Her slippered feet made no noise in the hallways. The torches and braziers had long gone to ashes. What light managed to penetrate the gloom came through the open doors of rooms that had windows facing the sun. Idwal's mind had a hard time believing this was the happy bright home of King Torquil. The castle echoed now of nightmares.
He was in the castle proper, that much he knew. But he'd never been taken anywhere near the royal apartments. He sprinted one way, then another. In the back of his mind those things on the rooftops were drawing ever nearer. In this gloom they could be at the end of this very hall, or waiting behind one of the open doorways.
The princess' scream cut through the air.
Idwal followed the echoes, weaving through the statues. He found a heavy set of painted wooden doors, the Owl crest carved into the wood. He slipped through into a large waiting room, and from there through another single heavy door into a bedroom.
Willuna was crumpled on the floor, sobbing. Above her stood her father, now stone. In his hands was a map, more maps lay scattered across the bed and tables. Idwal reached out awkwardly to maybe pat the princess on the back, but then he thought maybe he shouldn't touch her again. Which was somewhat ridiculous, he realized, considering he had just hauled across half the city with her slung over his shoulder like a sack of wheat, but for whatever reason this now seemed too personal.
