by Darryl Fabia
“You must be clever and quick,” he told them, each standing to the height of a man’s knee. “You must be careful and quiet. The man with half a heart has room for something else and we will place something there. Perhaps it will kill him, perhaps it will change him. But what we place may give us a foothold here.”
The little workers clicked their arms excitedly and tapped the frozen ground with their pointed legs. “Fill his chest with yeast so he’ll grow tall,” said one. “Fill his chest with spiders so he’ll crawl like we do,” said another. “Fill his chest with one of us so we may work his limbs from inside,” said a third. They went on clamoring suggestions until Lutkey raised a hand to stop them.
“We will test him before we try to take him,” Lutkey said. “Then we will push him.”
The creature led his workers over the snowy battlefield and through the woods, following crisp footprints to the village where Gresgor lived. Lutkey watched from outside the populated place and sent his helpers out to do his work, with instructions on what to do and when to do it. They waited for dark of night and then the three creatures on rib-made limbs crept into the village, up to Gresgor’s home, and into his bedroom window. His wife slept in another room with the baby, fed up with her husband’s cold demeanor.
First the workers uncorked a jug of poppy milk, made potent enough to keep any living thing unconscious through storm, fire, and pain, and poured it into sleeping Gresgor’s mouth. Second, they lit a candle next to his face, to better see their nighttime work. Then their sharp, pointed limbs slit open his chest and cracked open his ribcage, opening the gap where his half-heart thumped steadily.
“Here we have a sweet singing bird,” one worker said, holding up a tiny iron cage. “When he can’t shut up his desire to sing, we’ll know the master’s intent has worked.”
“Or perhaps the bird will lay eggs in his chest, fly up his throat, and feed words into his mouth,” said another.
“Or perhaps it will stuff his half-heart with feathers and he’ll fly,” said a third.
The three workers argued, first over what the bird’s effect would be, and then which would place the bird in Gresgor’s ribcage, and they squabbled violently enough to knock the cage into the candle, and knock the flame into the cage. The bird burst alight, its song turned to screaming, and the workers scrambled to open the cage and put the fire out. By the time they opened the door, there was only a smoking chunk of embers remaining, and it plopped limply into the cavity in Gresgor’s chest.
“The bird is where it belongs,” one worker said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t burn what remains of his heart.” The workers pushed Gresgor’s ribs closed and sewed up his skin, and then scurried out through the window where they’d come.
Lutkey beckoned them close, listened to their report of the mistakes in Gresgor’s room, but didn’t punish them for it. “We’ll see what he does, whether he lives or dies. I haven’t pinned all my hopes and plans on a single man. We will watch.”
When Gresgor awoke the next day, he felt a warmth in his heart he could scarcely remember from his youth. He ran to where his wife and child slept, scooped them into his arms, and his laughter was so new and strong that it shook the walls of his little house. His wife found herself smiling, her face unused to it now, and his little boy giggled happily like a baby is meant to. Even when his heart was full, he’d never felt so good, so driven, so full of life. He made love to his wife for the first time since he left for battle after their wedding, and when it came time for him to lead soldiers again, he cheered and roared, and stirred them with fighting spirits. The next raiders who came seeking trouble in their area of the cold lands found ferocious swords and fiery hearts facing them instead of the cold they were used to.
“Life has returned to me,” Gresgor said at the end of a victorious battle. Not a single soldier of his had died that day—even one who’d lost both his legs went hopping on one hand and swinging a sword in another, and survived long enough to be saved. “Not my old life—a better life than I’ve ever known. I won’t waste it.”
Within weeks, Captain Gresgor led strong enough campaigns with his little troop of soldiers to wipe the raiding barbarians from the western hills, and they burned the dead trees that were wives to Lutkey’s kin in the northwestern forests. Villages cheered when Gresgor came marching through and he garnered the baron’s attention in their part of the cold lands, gaining praise, land, power, and more soldiers.
Lutkey and his helpers followed Gresgor back and forth, from battle to home to baron’s keep to home again. After a week and only a single battle, he had his answer as to whether the flame in the heart had an effect, but he let Gresgor continue for another month so he would have something to gain by changing what lay in Gresgor’s chest.
“He’s become someone special in the mortals’ eyes,” Lutkey said. “This we can turn to our advantage. He has their trust and now we’ll have him misuse it.” He gave his helpers another cage. “Do not burn this one or this time I will be displeased.”
Again the workers snuck into Gresgor’s home, only now they had to give the sleeping milk to both Gresgor and his wife, tangled in each other’s arms, and had to be extremely careful pulling his chest from her head. When skin and ribcage were open, they found the bird still burning subtly inside, with some of its blackened feathers fused to Gresgor’s half-heart. They swiftly snipped the dead bird away with their sharp talons and dropped it on the floor, leaving a fresh hole for the next occupant.
“Here we have a coiling serpent,” said one worker, holding up the iron cage given by Lutkey. “Perhaps the master’s intent is for hissing to replace all his speech.”
“The master wouldn’t waste his time testing that,” said another. “He wishes the man to crawl and won’t let him stand up until he bows to the master’s will, like one of us.”
“He will turn to a snake’s nature,” said the third. “He will become treacherous, his words venomous—that is the master’s purpose. And no more bickering or we’ll repeat our past error.”
They opened the cage over Gresgor’s chest and loosed the coiling serpent next to his heart. Then the workers closed his ribs and skin like before, and quietly made their way out of the house, happily reporting success to Lutkey, without incident.
“Now we will see what he does with his soldiers,” Lutkey said. “We will watch how the serpent turns him vile and cold again, how he will take the baron’s place and work for our purposes, as serpents do.”
They thought they would see a new Gresgor awaken in the morning, but all they saw at dawn was a stiff man and a screaming wife next to him. Doctors were called and each said that Gresgor’s heart had stopped beating, and suspected it had grown weary from having to keep his body running at only half-strength. The village gathered together in mourning, Gresgor’s soldiers worked at the frozen earth with shovels and picks until a shallow grave was dug, and they lowered Gresgor’s wooden coffin into the ground to the cries of his woeful widow, who’d only recently regained the man she married after the war had changed him.
When all the prayers were said, the sobs had died down, and all the villagers returned to their homes to sleep, Lutkey and his workers crept into the village graveyard. “Foolish men,” Lutkey said, and ordered the grave dug up. His workers scraped and scrabbled at the dirt until the wooden coffin lid was laid bare and Lutkey opened it to find Gresgor slowly freezing to death. “There is an empty shack on the village’s north side. Take him there and keep him under the poppy milk while you remove the snake and find another, one with no interest in constricting hearts.”
The workers carried Gresgor to the shack on their pointed limbs, drugged him, and opened him up to uncoil the snake from his heart. “Where will we find a serpent before spring?” asked one.
“We’ll have to travel far, and fast,” said another.
“I know where there is a serpent, and half a heart is a paltry thing for him to bother with,” said the third, and so two workers left while one re
mained to keep Gresgor subdued.
After a day and a night, the two workers returned rolling a tiny black ball through the snow to the shack. “This is a snake?” asked the one left behind.
“He coils around himself and his venom will surely do the master’s work,” said one of the ones who’d brought the black creature. They strained to lift it, dropped it into Gresgor’s ribcage where his half-heart still beat, and then left the shack to return to their master.
“We can only hope the villagers won’t think him a witch or wight,” Lutkey said. “Let us wait and watch.”
When Gresgor awoke at last, he did not remember being pronounced dead and had no recollection of being buried or brought to the empty shack. He remembered his chest feeling full of life and fire, but now he felt something else entirely and didn’t bother heading home. Instead, he sought out his men, roused them with anger instead of confidence, and lopped off one’s head when he wouldn’t move fast enough. He told them that demonic house imps had filled the walls of the houses and set his men to burning the village down. Death awaited anyone who resisted Gresgor’s orders.
When this evil deed was done, he set to hacking away the trees as he led his soldiers to the baron’s keep. Lutkey smiled to himself—this was what he wanted, a puppet of his own where the baron sat. He could rule secretly, taking from the villages, from other barons, perhaps even from the czar’s army. He could keep his kin and wife safe and make the dead trees sacred.
Yet none of this is what Gresgor wanted. When he reached the baron’s keep and was welcomed inside, he slew the baron, fought and killed his knights and soldiers, and then set the keep ablaze. Fire flew through its stone walls like they were made of a tiny bird’s feathers, as if some power inside Gresgor had cast the fire out of his chest and into his hands, where it could destroy all he touched.
Then came other villages, and trees, and soon the whole of the baron’s land was on fire. Lutkey realized that the flames would soon find his wife and he glowered over his workers in retribution. “I wanted a snake in his chest!” he bellowed. “What did you put?”
“It was a snake!” cried the worker who’d stayed behind.
“A snake who would never bother with a man’s heart when he could wrap himself around the world!” cried another.
“A serpent with destruction in his eyes and hunger in his coils,” said the third.
Lutkey realized that his workers had stolen away from the cold lands, away from the world, and found the World Serpent, Jormungandr. “The creature must have swallowed his tail so tightly as to be tiny enough to fit in Gresgor’s chest,” Lutkey said. “When he sleeps again, you will remove Jormungandr and leave nothing next to his half-heart. I will need to rethink my plans.”
At the same time as Lutkey returned to the roots of his wife, Gresgor awoke to the familiar sense of cold, only the gap where half his heart had been now filled with resentment. “I wanted to feel that warmth forever,” he said to himself. “I wanted to love my wife and not feel this nothingness inside.” He couldn’t bear to face her yet. He could hardly bear to live in his own body. “Something else has been living in here with me. Someone is toying with me and I will find out who they are. I’ve lost almost everything and I will find out why.”
Several nights later, while lying in the woods in self-imposed exile, Gresgor felt cold clay brush his lips, and opened his eyes to find an ugly creature of hair and bone holding a jug over his face. His fist knocked the jug away and his boot stamped on the creature’s chest. It scratched desperately at his pants, jabbed his skin with its pointed limbs, but Gresgor would not release it.
“Have you been toying with me?” he demanded.
“I am only a tool of the master,” the worker said. “He has been the one seeking a high purpose for your half-hearted life, placing things in your chest to help you live.”
“My life is mine to make a purpose of, no matter how much heart I have. You can have yours back if you’ll lead me to this master and he can do something about the space in my chest.”
The worker thought bringing Gresgor willingly would be of great use to Lutkey, who could then try different experiments until Gresgor was exactly the way he wanted. He led Gresgor through the woods and hills until they reached the black-barked, dead tree that was Lutkey’s beloved wife, and Gresgor knew the kind of creature he faced.
“What did you do to me?” the captain shouted from outside the tree’s roots. “Why did I kill the baron and burn his home, turning the people of domain against me?”
“My assistants placed the World Serpent next to your heart,” Lutkey said, hiding beneath his wife. “His venom drove you to ruin. I see that my assistants have failed to place a bit of my wife in your chest, for I hoped you would find her patience, stillness, and an understanding of me. Then we could work together and rule this domain, perhaps all the domains of the cold lands. Dead trees would be sacred in the courtyards of keeps and my kin would no longer prowl the villages at night for fresh bones, nor send crazed men to battle your soldiers. All would be given to them, by you and me.”
“I see no reason not to burn this tree now,” Gresgor said. “I want whatever made me love my wife and child to be placed next to my heart again. Do this and I won’t wet your tree with your own blood.”
“Very well,” Lutkey said. “I will fetch a burned-up bird, but you must lie down in the snow and drink the sleeping milk. Then we will cut open your chest, place the bird inside, and you’ll discover if your wife can ever forgive what you’ve now done.”
Gresgor was no fool. “Swear on your wife that you will only place what we’ve agreed.”
Lutkey swore, for his kind knew no oaths and a dead tree could not be held accountable for an oath-breaker. His helpers gave Gresgor the poppy milk, putting him to sleep, and then he had them open the man’s chest. “He will have fire in there for certain, but not as he believes. Fetch a rat from the woods and set it ablaze. He will have passion, but he’ll also have humility. We will then tame him.”
The workers went off searching the woods for nests and burrows until they disturbed a family of rats that came swarming up from the ground, gnawing at the bones and hair that made the workers. They struggled to set a fire as the rats scrambled over them, chewing up their joints and limbs. One worker fell apart by the time they had the fire burning, and another collapsed into a bony heap by the time the last had set a rat into flames. The little creature screamed and scurried, diving into the snow to save itself, and the surviving worker gave chase with only one arm and a dangling leg. His pointed arm jabbed at the snow bank until he found a dark, meaty lump.
“I suppose the rat’s tail must have fallen off, but it should make no difference,” he said to himself, and limped back to his master.
“Place it quickly,” Lutkey said. “I’ll make new brothers for you once Gresgor has slain a few more men, and perhaps fix your limbs as well.”
The worker dropped the dark lump into Gresgor’s chest, where it nestled snugly next to his half-heart, and then closed his ribs and skin once more. Gresgor soon awoke to Lutkey’s grinning and he felt no fire in his heart. In fact, he felt normal—not the demeanor of the half-hearted man who returned to his wife with the cold clinging to him, but as the man who’d left his wife for war only three days after their wedding.
“Well, my rat,” Lutkey said. “You must be bold and yet frightened by now, and so all confused inside. Not to worry. You’ll soon love me like a father, for I’ll protect you.”
Gresgor grabbed the remaining arm of the final worker and jammed the pointed edge into Lutkey’s chest. The bearded creature sputtered, twisted, and dropped into the snow, bleeding over the roots of his wife. Gresgor had half a mind to drag the corpse back to his ruined village, to show everyone he’d been manipulated into his terrible deeds, but he was tired of doing things with only half his faculties.
“You went searching for a burned bird, but you found something else,” he said to the surviving worker, his limb
now covered in blood. “This must be the woods where I first lost half my heart.”
The worker acted as if this was his intent all along and not another mistake Lutkey’s creations had made. He offered to follow Gresgor back to the ruined village, to make up whatever lies Gresgor needed to clear his name, and to show himself as proof that there had been wicked mischief afoot. The captain thought this fair enough in exchange for the bony creature’s life.
Gresgor and the creation walked through the woods then. The captain’s feet sank a little more into the snow than they had for the past year or so, his body a little heavier with new regrets and a full heart. He didn’t mind—a life half-heavy was one half-lived. He didn’t need the gap in his chest; he only needed a heart of hope that he could earn his wife’s forgiveness.
Ica and the Troll
Of the many places Ica had stopped for a night, the forlorn castle in the dead of winter was easily the worst. Its portcullis had been torn down and its walls overgrown with moss. Its windows looked like empty sockets in a skull and its moat better resembled a latrine. Women rarely traveled alone in those days and Ica often had to take caution that not too many men knew she was alone, leading her to take refuge in desolate places, like unchecked basements, storehouses, and on this occasion, a castle sitting in a desolate valley, blanketed in light snow.
For now, it was a place to sleep for the night, unmolested by wild animals and brigands. Ica unrolled a blanket on the only place on the stone floor not covered in debris, broken wood, or spider webs, and slept with a dagger pressed to her belly to dissuade danger from finding her.
Yet danger found her nonetheless. In the middle of the night, she awoke to an awful scream echoing through the castle halls and thought she might have stopped in a haunted place. She quickly packed her things, knowing that if she stayed with the ghosts through the night, she might be taken with them to the lands of the dead when the daylight came. When she was about to leave, Ica heard the scream again, followed by a clatter of metal.
