by Darryl Fabia
“Of course,” said the largest troll.
“She was talking to me, and I will be patient,” said the second largest.
“She was looking at me,” said the third. “And I will wait for as long as my lady takes.”
Art took a very long time. She went through the castle, top to bottom, gathering material for her dress. Sleep would’ve been a better way to spend the night, but she had to survive first, and more importantly, not spend a wedding night with a troll.
Hours passed, and the trolls passed those hours by arguing and sometimes fighting over who would marry “Grezzle.” In time, the night sky began to lighten, the stars began to dim, and despite their stupidity, the trolls realized that dawn was coming.
“Dear bride-to-be,” called the largest troll. “The sun will soon rise and we will be turned to stone if its light touches us.”
“I’ll be ready shortly,” Art said from one window. “You’ve been wonderful to wait.”
A little more time passed, and then the second troll said, “Dear wife-to-be, the sky is red with distant sunshine and we will be turned to stone if it touches us.”
“I’ll be outside momentarily to show you my dress,” Art said from another window. “I beg of you, have patience.”
A little more time passed, and then the third troll said, “Wife, we can wait no longer! The sun threatens from over the horizon and we will be turned to stone if its light touches us.”
“I’m coming out now,” Art said from yet another window. “Thank you for understanding.”
Art emerged from the castle’s gateway moments later. She had ripped and knotted and tied up shreds of black fabric, as soft and long as the castle’s curtains. She no longer wore her guise of a huldra troll, but the other trolls didn’t notice as they barreled into the safety of the castle. When they reached their sitting room, each sat down with a heavy sigh of relief, after which they each turned to stone, one, two, and three, as the sun’s light burst through the windows, now robbed of their black curtains.
“I am sorry, master,” Art said softly as she weaved her way through the castle’s new statues and retrieved her cart, where her master’s torso remained. “I did not wish to see any of your remains eaten by trolls, but the rest of you will make it to your patch of earth.”
Through the early morning hours, Art dragged the cart away from the castle, but did not find Varnistead where she thought it should have been. She found farming fields overrun with weeds and foundation stones where houses might have been, but no homes and no people. She found no clues as to where she was until she pulled the cart near to a cemetery, full of chipped stones and wooden markers, and discovered the word Varnistead carved into a stone at the front.
“There was a town here once, but no more,” Art said to her master. “A home might outlast a man, but sometimes a man outlasts his home, as you seemed to have done long ago. Did you wander because you knew this place was gone? No matter—I will bury you here, where you belong, and then set out on my way.”
Broken rocks littered the area and the grass was burned in places, as if a band of marauders had come destroying the town, but Art managed to find an unbroken shovel nearby, perhaps left by someone who was in the middle of digging a grave. She began digging a hole at the graveyard’s edge so she wouldn’t disturb an existing grave, and yet on her ninth plunge with the shovel’s edge, she broke through an opening in the ground. She begged the dead’s forgiveness and yanked the shovel free, but the ground beneath her loosened, and Art, cart, and Beggar Lord all tumbled into a cavern beneath the graveyard’s surface.
Darkness took Art’s consciousness for a while, and when she came to, she found it had taken the sky and her surroundings, for it was nighttime again. She saw only shapes at first, felt only dirt and scraps of cloth that might have been her master’s remaining clothes, and heard a chewing noise—the snap of bone and the wet gnashing of teeth against sinewy meat.
“I am sorry, master,” she said softly. “I did not wish to see the rest of your remains eaten, but at least it happened in your patch of earth.”
“Is someone else there?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Has someone else found us?” another asked.
“What has come to us?” asked a third.
Violet light shimmered from the eyes, claws, hooves, and tails of three naked women standing before Art. Red blood drenched their arms and jaws. Art had heard of these creatures too, though not in great detail, as tales of succubi didn’t make proper stories for young girls. She’d learned more of them from warnings involving leg-spreaders in the city, although if these three had been mortal women, they would be too beautiful to ever have to work in any trade.
Art did know that they toyed with men, ate men’s flesh, and knew little of mercy or kindness. She had no idea what they did to women. She only hoped that they would know sympathy for their own kind and put her master’s final lesson to the test. “I am a woman of darkness, like you,” Art said.
“You?” the tallest asked, laughing.
“A homely creature,” said another, the prettiest.
“Small and without fire,” said the most well-endowed.
“I was cursed by the man you’ve devoured,” Art said with a harsh tone. “I had seduced him, had him at my beck and call, and all seemed well. Yet when I took him to bed, to love him and then eat him, he somehow broke through my charms and realized my true nature. Some magic of his turned me into the normal, mortal woman you see here, dressed in curtains and dirt. I tortured him, ripping off his legs, and then his arms, but he died still refusing to break the curse and make me whole again, like you three. I beg of you, help me to become a proper succubus again. We must see this curse broken or perhaps someday it will take us all, and we’ll be forced to marry mortal men and die as mortal women. Our fun will be ruined forever.”
The violet-eyed succubi swarmed around Art, touching her tenderly and whispering encouragement in her ears. “You’ll have to act as a succubus to be one again,” said the tallest. “We will give you pride again, dear.”
“And glamour magic,” said the prettiest.
“And swagger,” said the most well-endowed.
“Fantastic,” Art said seedily, as she guessed the succubi would expect of her. “We must find a man who I can seduce.”
“Better than that,” the tallest said. “We’ll find a man who is difficult to seduce, one who will challenge you to rise beyond this mortal form, with our assistance.”
Well before sunrise, the succubi helped Art climb out of the cave. She looked forlornly back at the makeshift grave of her master and then followed closely, across the plains, until they reached the wall of a castle city. This castle was alive, with a king and royal family within. Art begged their help in climbing over the wall, in scaling the castle’s side, and in placing her on a window ledge, but that was as far as the succubi could go, for this palace had braced their windows with iron bars. Art was slim enough to slip through, but the metal would burn the succubi at a touch. All that passed of any succubus was her glamour being cast on Art to make her as sweetly seductive as they wanted her.
“Do not pass through the bars again until your fun is done,” said the tallest succubus, “or else the glamour will wear away and reveal either a plain woman if your curse is unbroken, or one of us if the curse is gone.”
Art nodded to show she understood and went creeping through the castle, appearing taller, prettier, and more swollen in some places than she’d ever been. Still dressed in the black curtains of the other castle, she was meant to go searching for the king, who was said to be an upstanding man of good faithfulness and honor. To seduce such a proud man would surely have broken the curse, if one existed. Even under the glamour of the succubi, Art believed she could sooner beg the crown from the king’s head than his manhood to her bed.
Instead, after hiding from guard patrols and slipping through corridors, she found the room of the crown prince, a strong young man who remained unwed fo
r the moment. Art woke him gently and she was a sight worth waking to, so the prince didn’t shout or cry out. “Dear prince,” she said, kneeling beside his bed. “I beg of you, spare some courage for a girl who has been haunted by three demons. They hide outside the castle window, disguised as beautiful women, but really they are monsters, hungering for men’s flesh and wishing to torment me for my own beauty.”
The prince understood at once, for he too felt there were demons often haunting him for the gifts he had been born with—he called them the poor. At once, he dressed in iron armor and drew a steel sword. Then he followed Art back through the castle to the window where the succubi waited.
“Back so soon?” asked the tallest.
“He wasn’t much of a man,” said the prettiest.
“A king is a man of words, not endurance, especially to our charms,” said the well-endowed.
Art reached through the bars and her glamour shed away instantly, revealing her normal face and normal body, wrapped in black curtains. She fell away from the window and reached out for the prince. “Look what they’ve done!” she cried, pointing at her face. “Look what they’ve done to me!”
Shocked, and now fearing the succubi could rob him of his beauty too, the prince rushed to the window, grasped the arm of the tallest succubus with his iron gauntleted hand, and yanked her through the bars. Had he worn anything else, she would have torn his arm off instead, but the iron stole her strength, broke her charms, and ripped the glamour off her body from head to hoof. Her beauty fell away at once, revealing curling horns, skeletal limbs, and a sharp-toothed jaw that hung down to her breasts. She screamed as the iron burned her flesh, and the prince pulled the prettiest through next, and squeezed the well-endowed one through last, bringing all the succubi into the room, shrieking miserably. Then the prince hugged them tight to his iron breastplate, and he and Art endured the pained shrieks that followed until all three succubi were no more than steaming skeletons.
“You are quite brave, my prince,” Art said when the screaming was over. “But my face and my body—they’ve ruined me. You are lucky they did not do the same to you. I must leave you now and hide myself away.”
The prince wouldn’t let her leave though. Over the next day, he had her dressed properly and taken to priests, wizards, and an old witch who saw through Art’s deception, but said nothing to the royal family. Art pretended to beg for release, but really she begged to continue the effort, as the prince began to dote on her. Soon he forgot the woman he’d seen for a few bleary-eyed moments in the dark and began to like Art’s own beauty enough that he wished to marry her.
Art put her master’s lessons into play better than ever then, and first went to the prince. “I beg of you, see reason. A prince of your dashing nature, handsomeness, and courage should find a woman of your status. To be attracted to a woman for her wiles and oddness is not becoming of a prince and would be looked down on by your parents.” The prince agreed, and he was more interested in doing things his own way than the way expected of him, or else he would have called for guards to defeat the succubi.
Art then went to the queen. “I beg of you, speak sense to your son, for I am not worthy of him.” The queen agreed with this sentiment, and so became endeared to the girl.
Art then went to the king. “I beg of you, forbid your son from marrying me, for I have only his best interests at heart and I believe he would be better off with a match made by his parents.” The king agreed with this sentiment, and so decided that a match should be made for his son.
One evening, court was called, and the king and queen together announced that their son would wed Artania. She had no need to beg anymore from that day forward. The castle became her home and the prince her husband, and if she wanted something, she needed only to demand or ask for it. She had walls and a full belly to guard against winter, she had attracted a man who was no troll, and she had found a place outside of the begging life she’d come from.
“Though my fake curse remains in their eyes, master, the true curse is broken,” Art said, sipping a glass of wine while gazing out a window one night. “You were right and you were wrong. All your lessons proved true, and so my dream has come true, but you were wrong about kings. You can beg for more off their heads than crowns. They’ll give you a throne if the begging is done right. Perhaps I had a look in my eyes that only women know, but I’d never have come so far without everything you taught me.”
Shortly after, she rounded up a good amount of food from around the castle and brought it into the streets where the beggars of this city lived. She gave each one a plentiful helping, and wine bottles were passed all around. When every beggar had plenty of food and drink, and each was grateful to their new princess, she raised another glass in toast and spoke with the authority of the royal family.
“To Robert Sastern!” she shouted over the dusty streets and dusty people, and all the beggars raised their bottles. “To the memory of the Beggar Lord, wise beyond his status and master of his art! Have hope, every one of you. The Beggar Lord understood that so long as mankind is vain, each will believe he or she is more generous than anyone else, better than anyone else, be they beggars or queens.” Art smiled. “And being so generous, they should always have deep pockets for you.”
A cheer rang through the street, and Princess Artania drank deeply, a beggar no more.
Death Dance
Once, in the sunset lands, a sickly man made a wager with Death. “You’re a taker of life, but do you know life’s making?” the man asked, for in his feverish state, he could see Death standing in the corner of his stone house, while his wife thought him delirious. “My wife is pregnant and the witch woman says she holds seven children. I say, I know the order of boys and girls that will emerge. For every one that I’m right, you will give up a part of your body, and for each that I’m wrong, you may take from that child.”
Death thought this a pointless wager, but one strange enough to rouse its interest. It nodded to the man and withheld his death long enough to see the children born. The man thought himself clever, as he’d now tricked Death into letting him see his children at least once, and if he took all of Death’s body, he would offer to trade back the pieces in exchange for a longer life.
But the man’s cleverness ended there. He was no seer and didn’t know for certain the true order of his children’s births—he only thought he did. While he guessed they would emerge from their mother as boy, girl, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, the true order was boy, boy, boy, girl, boy, girl, girl.
When the first boy emerged, the sickly man coughed out a laugh to the bewilderment of his wife, the witch woman delivering the babies, and the family present. “Ha, Death! That’s your feet!”
But then the other children came along, most of their guesses wrong, and so too were their bodies. Out came a boy with no legs, a boy half-formed, his gut missing, a girl without hands, a boy without arms, and a girl half-formed, her chest missing. The last girl emerged with a complete body, but by then the man truly was delirious, writhing in bed and screaming for Death to release him. Death acquiesced, and was footless and faceless while doing so.
The eldest boy, Thotan, was born with Death’s feet, though they looked like normal feet, and the youngest girl, Kehinde, was born with Death’s face, though she looked much prettier. They grew up innocent of their gifts, spending much of their time helping their three surviving, troubled siblings. The rest of their time, they defended their mother from other villagers when rumors spread that she’d been impregnated not by her late husband, but by some demon. Many in the sunset lands believed devil creatures roamed the same plains as elephants and zebras, and one could have easily lured their mother away.
One night, the children awoke to shouting outside. The villagers had surrounded their house and demanded their mother hand over the healthy boy and girl, or else they would burn her and the children alive. Thotan and Kehinde struggled and cried, but their mother promised they’d have a better future where the
y didn’t need to look after their siblings.
“You’ll be safer with us,” the village elder told them as he pried them from their mother. Yet once he had them away from their house, he looked to the other villagers and nodded. They boarded up the doors and windows, shoved lit torches through openings in the wood, and set fire to the roof. The surviving brother and sister cried, squirming in the elder’s rough hands, but he held them firmly and dragged them back to his house. The screams of their family chased them mercilessly until the elder locked them in a small, dark room.
“You can come out in a day, when you’ve calmed down,” he told the crying children. “Then we’ll have the witch woman examine you and see if you’ve been tainted in some way yet unseen. If all goes well, you may serve my family until you come of age.”
Neither child believed they’d ever calm down, but eventually they ran out of tears. “We must kill him,” Thotan said.
“Then what?” Kehinde asked. “We’ll have nowhere to go.”
“They won’t know we did it. We’ll burn him, like he burned our mother.”
“That’s not how his life ends. He dies when a big cat tears out his throat.”
Thotan scrunched up his face. “How do you know?”
“I saw his death. Sharp teeth rip his skin and he dies clutching his neck.”
Thotan tapped his foot, thinking. He didn’t know how his sister knew this, but he believed her. When the two were released from the dark room, he went on tapping his foot every time he had to stand and wait somewhere—in the elder’s kitchen, in his yard, outside the witch woman’s house, and then in the field to the east of the village. By then he tapped both his feet, left, right, left, right, his mind focused on a big cat, wondering when it would come.
The witch woman looked over Kehinde, inspecting her from head to toe, and then looked over Thotan. “Hold still, child,” she said.
Thotan went on tapping his feet. “I can’t.”
