Fate's Fables Special Edition: One Girl's Journey Through 8 Unfortunate Fairy Tales (Fate's Journey Book 1)

by T. Rae Mitchell

  Gerdie continued, “After Old Mother Grim made her first kill and brought darkness to the land, Brune tried to get us to move onto the next fable. But Oma couldn’t leave without destroyin’ the child eater, which woulda kept us trapped here. And Brune, she wasn’t havin’ any of that.”

  Gerdie’s movements became stiff as she picked up the bloody towels and threw them in the water bucket. “When I told you the villagers turned on Oma and burned her at the stake…” Her mouth closed in a tight quivering line. For a second, she looked as though she’d break into tears, but she sniffed, scrubbing the towels with a vengeance. “It was Brune who got them to do it.”

  “Your sister’s pure evil!”

  “I know, she got the hunger for power. It all started when she stole that Orb thingy off a priest.”

  Fate sat up straight. “What priest?”

  “He was the king’s counselor. Can’t recall his name…”

  “Was it O’Deldar?” As Fate asked the question, her spine tingled with an overpowering, restless energy.

  “Sounds about right,” Gerdie said. “We brought that story to a nasty end by stealin’ his Orb from him and puttin’ a spell on his king to make him trespass into the snake queen’s territory. But Brune, she got downright obsessed with the Orb. She figured out how to do things with it. Unnatural things, like killin’ animals and bringin’ them back to life. But they were never right afterwards. They were just movin’ carcasses. And she figured out how to make plants grow from seed to full size in a blink. That would’ve been good, except the fruit was always rotten on the inside. Then when she started wreakin’ havoc on the weather, Oma said to stop, that playin’ God would only invite the devil into the game.”

  A glowing pendant flashed in Fate’s mind, causing a mixture of concerns, one being Finn. Had Brune used the Orb to make him? If so, that meant there was something about him that could go wrong. A chill ran through her. Maybe the poison wasn’t the only thing to blame for what he was becoming.

  “Do you think Brune used the Orb to create Finn?” Fate asked.

  Gerdie looked reluctant to answer. “Once she got it, she always used the Orb to cast spells.”

  “But how could she have known about Finn?”

  “She wouldn’t have needed to. I remember a spell called Eyes of Eros. Anyone who knows magic knows it’s best used on top of love spells or summonin’ spells, cuz it sees the heart’s deepest desire and causes a restlessness in whoever’s bein’ spelled. That person’s forced to leave a perfectly happy life and find that part that’s missin’. But if you combine that kind of spell with the Orb, you risk conjurin’ up a doozy of a surprise.”

  It was all making sense to Fate now––why she’d left the book signing to go to the bookstore, and why Finn was exactly as she’d imagined. As her fear increased, she grasped for a solution. “If Finn was made by the Orb, and let’s say there’s something wrong with him, is there a way to fix him?”

  “The Rod might do it,” Gerdie said. “Brune was spittin’ mad when she couldn’t get the Rod after stealin’ the Orb. She knew it was why the Orb’s magic kept backfirin’. It isn’t complete without the Rod.”

  A thin gold bar engraved with the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe blazed in Fate’s mind. The image blinded her to everything else as her hand went to her neck with the expectation of finding it there. When she didn’t feel it, she lurched at Gerdie, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Where is the Rod? Did you take it?”

  “You’ve got that same hungry look in your eyes that Brune had.” Gerdie shrank back. “She spelled you, didn’t she? She sent you to get the Rod!”

  Fate shook her violently. “Tell me. Where’s the Rod of Aeternitis?”

  “With the priest,” Gerdie said, her voice a frightened whisper.

  Fate let go and paced the length of the caravan. She was consumed by a sudden, desperate craving, one that dominated her body, mind and spirit.

  Without warning, the caravan rocked violently. Fate fell, hitting her head on the table. Knifing pain throbbed on one side of her skull. As she sat up, the sounds of angry voices and pounding outside the walls brought her back to her surroundings. A trap door in her mind slammed shut on the Rod, wiping it from her thoughts completely.

  Rubbing the sore spot on the left side of her head and wondering why she was on the floor, Fate rose to her feet. She shook her head, clearing out the cobwebs, and headed toward the angry insistent voices outside the door.

  Just as she was about to open it, Gerdie yanked on her arm. “Don’t open that! It’s the villagers. They’ve come to do us in.”

  Fate looked at her like she was insane. “We’re heroes, remember?”

  Gerdie backed away from the door. “Don’t be so sure. They sound awful mad. You’d best get us out of here.”

  The caravan suddenly rocked back and forth in jarring waves. Frightened and bewildered, Fate decided Gerdie was right, but didn’t understand why. She rushed over to the big book. If something had gone wrong, the answer would be in the fable.

  Prying back the heavy cover, she turned the thick pages until she found what she was looking for. “Here it is. The villagers think we brought Old Mother Grim to Shytuckle. You’re right, Gerdie, they’ve come to punish us. It says here, once the caravan burns to the ground, happiness reigns throughout the land once more.” She looked at Gerdie with relief. “We’ve still got our happy ending, so long as we skedaddle.”

  Gerdie had her hand on the floor where thick smoke was flowing up through the cracks. “Better be quick. They’re burnin’ us from below and it’ll be fast. I smell lard.”

  Sithias groaned from his bed. He lifted his head, blinking through sleepy eyes. “Would sssomeone pleassse sssettle the boat. I’m feeling ssseasssick.” He flopped back down with a pained expression, stayed that way for a moment, then sat up ramrod straight. “What in the world isss going on?”

  Fate started toward him, jumping back as the floor buckled under the weight of the heavy table in the middle of the caravan. A wall of flames blasted from the hole burning up through the floorboards. Then the door busted open and the mob flung rocks at them. One hit Gerdie in the back of the head, dropping her to the floor.

  “Grab Finn’s hand!” Fate yelled at Sithias as she dragged Gerdie’s limp body by the arm and skirted around the edges toward him.

  Flinching as rocks zinged past him, Sithias reached across the span between beds and grabbed Finn’s hand. Forming the last link of the chain, Fate took hold of Sithias. Smoke billowed up from the rampaging fire, obscuring her view of the page left open to the seventh fable. She couldn’t read a thing, all she remembered was the title.

  So under the circumstances, Fate did the only thing she could do, and shouted it out at the top of her lungs.

  The Lightning Sword

  LONG AGO, IN THE MORNING OF the world, there arose from the cosmos great beings of immense power and magnitude. Born from chaos, these unpredictable beings helped to shape the earth, sea and sky. As time passed they came to be known as gods with many different names. They cared little for mortal affairs unless it suited their purposes, and woe betide the human who was noticed, as he was toyed with for sheer pleasure.

  As with all things great and small, these gods faded back into the stars, undone by either their own deeds or those of humankind. But they did not depart without leaving behind fragments of their power in which to slip back to this world for yet another chance to unleash their might.

  In this tale, such a fragment was the lightning sword, carved of deep blue marble streaked with crystal veins like lightning bolts frozen in time. How the lightning sword came to be sunk deep in a well of still water is unknown, but there it lay for thousands of years until something else shared its resting place. Something that saw the sword for what it truly was, and sought to put it into the hands of unsuspecting mortals.

  Beldereth, a mighty kingdom long ruled by men, lacked the gentle hand of women to lend its governance proper balance
. King Lortaun had the great misfortune to fall in love with his queen. This was unheard of, for the men of Beldereth believed a woman to be nothing more than the inert soil in which a man cast his seed, and altogether useless if she bore no sons. But Lortaun grew to love Heda, who came to him with grace and wisdom from a land where women were men’s equal. They conducted their love in secret, but when she bore three daughters and no son, the royal court ordered the king to take another wife. But the day Lortaun married another was the day Heda died of a broken heart. Stricken with grief, Lortaun banished his new queen.

  In the autumn of his life, the king’s thoughts turned to a successor. His young brother, Prince Rudwor, was next in line to the throne. This troubled the king, for Rudwor was lazy and entirely careless about politics, while his three daughters possessed both Heda’s good judgment and his leadership abilities. Leaving the throne to a woman was unthinkable, yet this is exactly what Lortaun intended to do.

  The day came when the king decreed his daughters would inherit the throne by order of birth, with Prince Rudwor last in line. The assemblage of stern, white-browed statesmen shook their fists and opposed this despicable proposition. In contrast, Rudwor sat quietly by, relieved to be lifted of the burden of kingship.

  And so an insidious plot against the king’s heirs took root that very day. The second daughter, Valesca, was the first victim. For two years, she was given a tiny drop of henbane mixed with black hellebore in her morning tea until she slowly grew crazed and dim witted. Another year passed peacefully until the eldest daughter Scylea’s horse ran headlong across the fields and leaped off the black cliffs of Razgard with her as its helpless passenger.

  Shortly after Scylea’s death, a servant discovered a chest containing evil items in Rudwor’s chambers. Inside were the heinous tools of a dark sorcerer: henbane tincture, the poisonous hellebore blossoms and a stone horse with Scylea’s golden locks wrapped around its broken form. There was also a figure carved from a cursed oak in the likeness of Bremusa, Lortaun’s youngest. Fearing what might happen to her if the carving was destroyed, the king kept it in his care.

  When word spread of Rudwor’s suspected guilt, the royal court demanded his execution. Lortaun knew his enemies had positioned Rudwor as their scapegoat, meaning to remove the royal bloodline altogether and establish their own king. To save Rudwor’s life, while also appeasing the public outrage against him, the king exiled his brother to Duenthorn, a bleak, lawless region in the East, filled with ruthless bands of murderers, thieves and outlaws known as the Bane. He doubted Rudwor would survive, but it offered him a chance, whereas being beheaded offered none.

  Lortaun climbed to the oracle set high in the mountain of Alderath to consult the scryer, a magical sea beast whose premonitions and wise counsel had granted the royal family much good fortune. The king’s ancestors had captured the creature and forced it to dwell within the Well of Eyes. For centuries, promises of freedom were exchanged for its invaluable foresight. As time passed, it was never a concern how the imprisoned scryer felt about being torn from the wild, free sea and housed within the confines of the well. A consideration that would have proved prudent for those further down the branches of the family tree.

  The sea creature’s piercing blue eyes fixed upon Lortaun, ever waiting for news of its release. When the king expressed only his selfish concerns, the scryer dropped its gaze to the glassy water and peered into the king’s future. Sinking beneath the water, the creature reappeared with an unusual stone sword. It laid the weapon before Lortaun and whispered these fateful words into the king’s mind: “Send your wooden daughter with the undeserving, then seek the goddess of war to protect all women. With this sword, she will cast out all who despise her. When their armies return to destroy you, take blade to your daughter’s throat in the name of Murauda. Do not fear, your daughter will be reborn. She will wage vengeance upon your enemies like no human can. But be warned, great grandson of my captor, it is better to have a thousand known enemies outside your gate than to have even one that is unknown within.”

  Upon Lortaun’s return to Beldereth, he had the undeserving Rudwor take Valesca with him to Duenthorn. He then had a temple erected in honor of Murauda, the goddess of war. As predicted, a temple for a female deity in Beldereth disintegrated the royal court. When the assemblage of old statesmen left, they took Lortaun’s army with them.

  The king took it upon himself to raise young Bremusa in the art of war. She grew to be a great warrior by the age of seventeen, and Beldereth became a haven for all women who’d suffered at the hands of men. Indeed, it seemed Beldereth flourished under the protection of Murauda, for the kingdom became the strongest nation in the land, protected by a formidable army of women.

  Over the same span of time, the assemblage of calculating old men, formed unholy alliances with Beldereth’s most ancient and abhorrent enemies, while their dark sorcerer, Gorm, gathered the forces of the North to wield an endless savage winter upon Beldereth.

  The siege came before sunrise, when all of Beldereth was low in spirit from enduring three grueling years of winter. Lortaun woke to the sounds of battle horns and the rock giants of Mount Helgunth beating at the gates. He was unprepared for what met his eyes. A massive sea of soldiers blotted out the snow. Beldereth’s downfall was inevitable.

  The king remembered the scryer’s words and told Bremusa of the sacrifice he’d been instructed to make. His brave daughter handed Lortaun her dagger and led him to the temple. Kneeling at the base of Murauda’s gigantic statue, she guided her weeping father’s hand to her throat and forced the blade into her flesh. As her blood poured over Murauda’s stone feet, Lortaun wept and a powerful storm raged in. The temple ceiling cracked and opened to the heavens. Savage winds rushed in, thunder rumbled and a bolt of lightning struck Murauda’s effigy, shattering her image into jagged shards. Yet the marble sword remained intact and fell onto Bremusa’s body.

  Upon the sword’s touch, she drew breath. Her skin took on an unearthly radiance and her eyes blazed with the brilliant light of the stars. An inner fire emanated from her heart, illuminating her armor with a blinding luster. Grasping the hilt of the lightning sword, she rose to her feet, growing in magnitude to the height of three men. Then Bremusa knighted her warriors, as well as the inexperienced women and girls in the kingdom, imbuing them with the powers of thunder, lightning and wind. She touched all aids of war with her sword, enabling horse and chariot to take to the sky and carry her army upon the wind’s currents.

  Bremusa’s enthralled army rumbled over the vast body of her enemy, raining flaming arrows and spears down upon the unsuspecting army below. When they descended to the battlefield, bodies were rent asunder by a single blow of their swords, and bones were shattered by the fierce war cries of the newly empowered Beldereth army. No sword, arrow or battleaxe could touch Bremusa’s warriors. They were as swift and shifting as the wind itself.

  When they were done, a lake of blood stained the snow. But the assemblage of plotting old men stood a safe distance away, cowering in the shadow of Bremusa’s army. They were delivered to King Lortaun, who ordered their immediate execution. Yet when Bremusa raised her sword over them, her hand would not obey. Even when she ordered her warriors to kill them, her body was pushed to defend the contemptible men.

  With wicked smiles, Gorm and the conspirators revealed talismans made of the same cursed oak Bremusa’s wooden image had been carved from. Gorm commanded Lortaun to surrender her wooden likeness, because he needed it to bind Bremusa completely to their will. When the king refused, Gorm torched his body with a bolt of red flames.

  Bremusa never defended Lortaun. His daughter was not the one who watched…it was Murauda.

  Poor King Lortaun died on that dreadful day, never realizing that the vengeful sea creature trapped within the Well of Eyes had orchestrated its captor’s ultimate downfall. But he should have known. The scryer’s warning had been quite clear. It is better to have a thousand known enemies outside your gate than to have
even one that is unknown within.

  Chapter 27

  ARCTIC WINDS HOWLED like savage beasts, raking everything in its path with claws of ice.

  Shivering convulsively, Gerdie tightened into a ball, almost surrendering again to the deep plunge into oblivion, where she hadn’t been aware of the bone-marrow chill and the dull ache at the bottom of her skull. But she’d weathered enough storms to know if she closed her eyes in frigid temperatures without finding shelter first, she wouldn’t wake up again. As she forced her eyes open, a pitiful whine joined the roaring wind. “I’m all alone!”

  She pushed up on one elbow. Squinting against the pelting snow, she could only see what was directly nearby. Finn was lying next to her, still unconscious, and the whiner was huddled close to her on the other side.

  “Oh thank g-goodnesss. One of you isss awake!” Sithias said, his shoulders hunched and teeth chattering.

  As she tilted into a sitting position, pain jabbed her temples and her stomach dipped in a sickening manner. She held still, waiting for the queasiness to pass. “Ooh, I forgot what a gut-wrenchin’ordeal it was to go from one fable to the next.”

  “You’re ill b-becaussse the ungrateful sssimpletonsss of Shytuckle know how to throw rocksss and make f-fire.”

  “Right. That explains the goose egg,” she said, rubbing the bump on the back of her head. The wind shifted, smacking ice and snow in her face as she tried to see through the blurring white. “Where’s Fate?”

  “Isssn’t she lying on the other ssside of Finn?” Sithias asked, fear pitching his voice even higher.

  Gerdie leaned on Finn, stretching over him to look. “I don’t see her.”

  Sithias stumbled to his feet, fighting with the vicious winds to keep his blanket wrapped around his shoulders as he circled around her and Finn. “Sh-she’sss gone!” he cried out in panic. “Fate’sss not here! Where isss she? What are we g-going to do? What am I going to do? Snakesss d-don’t do well in the cold you know. These c-clothesss are keeping me from icing through, but they won’t d-do for much longer.”