Five Magic Spindles: A Collection of Sleeping Beauty Stories

by Rachel Kovaciny

  “I tried two humans first,” she reminded him, flushing emerald with embarrassment. “Lady Mara couldn’t rid herself of the True Hero curse-breaking, but she did make it more difficult for us by casting a spell preventing elf heroes from waking the princess. There were more than enough of those left in King Pintamore’s kingdom who would have been glad to save the princess! But once that particular counter-curse was set, I had to look for heroes among other races. I tried humans first and . . . well . . . you’ve seen how they turned out. So I tried Eidor and then Crete. But . . .” She shrugged sadly. “They did their best! We simply couldn’t find the wands.”

  “What’s she saying?” Eidor demanded.

  “Hush,” said Crete. “They are probably plotting our daring escape even now.”

  Franz ignored them both. “So you picked me as your last chance.” He pointed at the book. “Because the Magic Cycle is about to end.”

  Roselee sucked in a surprised breath. “How did you know about the Magic Cycle? I never told you that!”

  Franz shuffled uncomfortably under her intense scrutiny. “Crete and Eidor told me some. And I read the rest here—”

  “You can read?”

  In her burst of excitement, Roselee shot to Franz’s side, hovering above his shoulder and pointing eagerly at the book. “Quick! Quick! Turn the pages! No one else has been able to read it! Oh, I just knew I’d picked you for a reason!”

  “What . . . what do you want me to look for exactly?” Franz asked with a shiver. Her ghostly presence so close was terribly disconcerting. He obediently opened the volume, however, and paged past the images of the three fairies and their spell-battle with Lady Mara, past the images of the apprentice’s arrival.

  “I want to know if there’s anything in there to indicate where Lady Mara hid the wands,” Roselee said. “Crete and I looked over all the pictures a hundred years ago, but they didn’t tell us anything, and neither of us nor Eidor could read the words. But you see? You see?”

  She pointed eagerly as the book opened to an illustration of Lady Mara and her apprentice. The Dark Lady was pulling the fairy wands out of his hands, and simultaneously seeming to cast a spell over his handsome face. It was difficult to see through the inky clouds surrounding him, but it looked as though he was being transformed into . . . into . . .

  “Hold on a minute,” Franz whispered, staring hard at the image, obscure though it was. “Is that . . . ?”

  He read the text on the page. He drew a sharp breath. “Crete? Eidor?”

  “Yes, mate?” said Crete.

  Franz looked up at the two heroes. “Do either of you know what Mutey’s real name is?”

  The dwarf and the homunculus exchanged glances. “No,” Eidor admitted. “He can’t talk, so he never told us. We just call him Mutey ’cause it seemed better than nothing . . .”

  A strange excitement caught hold of Franz. Roselee could feel the energy streaming out from his very spirit, and it thrilled her as well. Was he finally beginning to tap into that heroic instinct she knew he had deep inside?

  He shut the book with a slam then opened the front cover. There on the first page a couple of words were scrawled in the same spidery script as the rest of the book. Franz’s mouth moved as he read: “This book was written by . . .”

  Leaving the book on the bed, he crossed the cell in a few strides, put his face to the cell window, and grasped the bars with both hands. “Excuse me? Mutey?” he called into the darkness. “Mutey, are you there?”

  He let out a little shout when the dungeon keeper appeared suddenly before his vision. Stumbling back several steps, Franz recovered himself. “Oh! Yes, hullo. Um . . .”

  The dungeon keeper’s frog-like eyes brimmed with mute appeal.

  “I say,” said Franz with a little shake of his head, “is your name by any chance . . . Paisley?”

  A blinding burst of light! Roselee screamed and sank down into the floor, trembling there in insubstantiality. Then, her ectoplasm still pulsing, she slowly floated up to peek out of the floor. She saw Crete’s feet sticking out from under his bed. She saw Eidor standing on the same bed, his back plastered to the wall. She saw Franz crouched down on his knees, his hands over his head.

  And in the doorway stood . . . the ugly dungeon keeper with the goggly eyes. Apparently that magical blast had done nothing to improve his appearance.

  But on second glance Roselee noticed a striking difference in him: He was smiling. Not once in five hundred years had she seen this ghastly man smile!

  “You have liberated me from Lady Mara’s curse, hero!” he declared. His voice was pleasantly mellow despite coming from between those pointed teeth. “You have freed my voice and thus freed my magical abilities. Now I, in return, can free the three of you!”

  “Hoorah!” Roselee cheered, though only Franz could hear her.

  Franz pulled himself up off the floor, though he practically left his sagging jaw behind. “You are the apprentice then!” he breathed. “But you aren’t on Lady Mara’s side?”

  “Certainly not!” the Swamp Elf replied. Then he lowered his eyes. “That is . . . I was her devoted servant for many years. She took me in and fostered my magical abilities. Swamp Elves aren’t supposed to be magical, you know, and the other High Elves scorned me. But not Lady Mara. She saw my potential and decided to train me. I was devoted to her for giving me that chance! And when she sent me to spy on the princess . . . to gain her trust, and to infiltrate the barriers of Briardale . . . I was more than happy to oblige.”

  Tears brimmed in his eyes, rendering his pasty face less appealing than ever. “How could I have guessed that I would fall madly in love with dear, beautiful, brave Maralyn?”

  “Maralyn?” said Eidor from up on his bed. Then he gave a loud harrumph as the bed shifted and Crete appeared from beneath it.

  “Is that the princess’s name?” asked Crete. “I never heard it before.”

  “Yes. Princess Maralyn, named for her aunt mere moments before her aunt betrayed her,” sighed the Swamp Elf, placing a hand over his heart. “A rose too fair for a worm such as I to dare even look upon!”

  He did speak prettily, Roselee admitted, pursing her lips in appreciation. One could almost overlook his ugliness, so deftly did he turn a phrase in that rich, deep voice.

  “We became friends,” he continued, “the dearest of friends! I knew that I could never betray her, could never let Mara into Briardale and allow the curse to fall. But . . . but . . .”

  “Yes?” Franz urged gently.

  The elf let out a despairing sigh. “On the morning of her eighteenth birthday, we had a fight. A foolish fight. I said something . . . something unpardonable to her, and she vowed she would never, ever speak to me again.” He choked on his own voice, and Roselee feared he would succumb to tears then and there. He rallied himself, however, squaring his hunched shoulders. “I then made a foolish decision: I determined to let Lady Mara have her way, to let the curse fall upon the princess. But I intended to sneak back into the tower that very night, kiss her awake, and save them all. Then, I thought, she would have to forgive me.”

  “That was a pretty barmy plan, now wasn’t it?” said Eidor.

  Paisley the Swamp Elf couldn’t bear to answer for several moments. At last he said, “After Mara stole my voice and made me her slave, I did what I could to help any future heroes. I assembled that book, detailing the whole story in hopes that someone would realize what had happened to me and break this spell. Then I left it here for you. How could I have guessed that True Heroes never learn to read?”

  Franz stepped to the dungeon keeper’s side and patted his shoulder awkwardly. “No matter,” he said. “You’re free now. And maybe . . . could you use your magical powers to get us through the tower barrier? We’ve got several True Heroes here—surely one of them could kiss the princess.”

  “No, Franz,” said Roselee, rising completely out of the floor and shimmering before his eyes. “It has to be you. Their chances are up. You m
ust kiss the princess to save all of us.”

  Franz looked at her—making the others, who couldn’t see her, most uncomfortable—and shook his head. “But I’m not a hero, Roselee! Certainly not according to the . . . erh, the exacting standards of True Heroism. It can’t be me.”

  “It has to be.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “I say,” said Crete, taking a step forward and inadvertently walking into the middle of Roselee’s ghostly aura. She shuddered and jerked back, pulling a face. “I say, let’s not waste time arguing. Let’s just try to get through the barrier and see what’s what. I mean, it’s our only shot at survival anyway, isn’t it? Lady Mara will kill us all tomorrow at sunset, just as soon as the Cycle finishes. We might as well try as not.”

  “Right,” said Eidor, brandishing his fists. “I’d rather die fighting than while sitting in here twiddling my thumbs! I’d particularly like a shot at one of those two handsome idiots upstairs, I don’t mind saying . . .”

  Franz gave his head a sad little shake but did not protest. Instead, he turned to Paisley. “Can you get us through the barrier?”

  “Not in my own strength,” the Swamp Elf replied. “But I can tell you where Lady Mara keeps the three fairy wands. If you can retrieve those and return them to the fairies in the tower, they’ll be able to break the barrier for you.”

  “Excellent!” cried Roselee, clasping her hands. “Now we’re getting somewhere! Ask him, Franz. Ask him where the wands are, and we’ll go fetch them at once!”

  But Franz hesitated. Something in Paisley’s frog-eyes told him he wouldn’t like the answer to the question he was about to ask. “So . . . uh . . . where are the wands, exactly?”

  “In a place where only True Heroes may dare to tread,” said Paisley. He lowered his melodic voice to speak in a tone of dire portent:

  “The den of the Slavering Swamp Beast.”

  Chapter 9

  LADY MARA NEVER SLEPT at night. When she slept at all, she chose the brightest hours of midday, hiding away in her darkest chamber, slinking into shadows as far from sunlight as she could get.

  At night she walked the halls of Briardale, inspecting the cells of the mad inmates, studying the stone faces of the elves she had caught in her curse. Five hundred years, and still she did not tire of this nightly trek. Indeed, it would be strange after tomorrow night—after the statues had crumbled to dust and the lunatics had been set loose upon the countryside to ravage, pillage, and destroy—to find her centuries-old habit suddenly interrupted.

  She passed along the corridor where the mad murderers were housed. She had amassed quite a nice collection over the centuries, all kept in perpetual youth by the magic hanging over Briardale. But unlike the lovely princess, they did not sleep through the centuries but festered in their lunacy, growing more vicious and more violent by the year. Even True Heroes must tremble to face them now!

  Mara smiled at this thought—then suddenly the smile broke into a thousand pieces, scattering away at the onset of a frown. What was that? What was that rippling sensation flooding through the air, wafting over her in shudders of . . . of shattering? One of her spells? Broken? Impossible!

  She reached out with her spirit, testing the numerous curses and counterspells that clutched Briardale in a magically oppressive net. Which curse? Which curse had broken? Which curse had—

  “Paisley!” The name spewed from her lips for the first time in half a millennium.

  Then her shout rang through the halls of Briardale: “Heroes! Heroes, where are you?”

  Her two handsome henchmen appeared at the end of the hall, hands on their sword hilts, their stern faces alert and ready for action. Mara swept toward them, her veil wafting behind her like trailing smoke.

  “My slave, the dungeon keeper, has betrayed me!” she declared. “And he’s let the other three idiots loose! Hunt them down at once and make certain they cause no further damage. Chop off limbs if you must—but don’t kill them!” she added hastily, for even ordering someone else to commit murder would bring that wretched chicken’s curse down upon her head faster than lightning.

  The two former-heroes saluted and sprang into action, their short cloaks flying. Mara followed them out of the murderer’s hall, her eyes bright behind her veils, her magical senses straining. Paisley! His magic was no match for hers; but she had trained him herself, and she knew the potential of his restored powers. He would be determined to rescue the princess, fool that he was. As if he had hope this side of heaven of ever winning her vain little heart!

  A flash of something caught her eye. Red hair?

  “There!” she screeched, and her two henchmen, ahead of her by several yards, turned back to see where she pointed. They too glimpsed a shadowy figure darting down the passage—a very short figure running on two stumpy legs. “There they go! After them!”

  The heroes charged into action, and Lady Mara pursued behind them, building up magical power in the tips of her fingers. She would turn them all into gnats, and the moment the Magic Cycle ended, she would squash them with her thumb, one by one! Then she would—

  She stopped abruptly, as though hitting a wall. Her eyes narrowed to evil slits, and she turned. Something called to her magical senses, some slight plucking on the strings of her unconscious awareness . . .

  She peered into a side passage of Briardale. There in the shadows . . . an extra shadow that should not be there . . .

  “Did you think you could distract me with your little illusions?” Mara cried. “I taught you those tricks!” She flung out her hand as though throwing a dagger with terrible precision. “Il’ve!” she screeched.

  Darkness rolled from her fingertips, forming the shape of a giant, leaping wolf.

  “Do you think it will work?” Franz whispered.

  He and the ghost girl crouched in the dungeons below Briardale. Franz stood with his back pressed to the wall; Roselee’s back sank a little into the wall. They thought they heard rushing footsteps above.

  “Paisley seems pretty good at illusions,” Roselee replied with a little shivering shrug. “Those images of you and Crete and Eidor were good enough to fool me! They should definitely keep those two lugs busy for a while.”

  “Let’s just hope it’s long enough.” Franz turned his gaze to the dungeon corridor down which Crete and Eidor had just disappeared. The corridor which, according to Paisley, led to the den of the Slavering Swamp Beast, which slept on a chain beneath the castle each night, foaming at the mouth and as alert as a watchdog.

  “Should I go with you?” Franz had asked when the two heroes set out.

  But Crete shook his head. “You . . . um . . . you need to save your strength for the kiss, right? Wouldn’t want you to get worn out by all the rest of these heroics.”

  Franz hung his head at the memory. Though Crete’s words had been kind, Eidor had rolled his eyes, expressing in one gesture that Slavering Swamp Beasts were the business of True Heroes, not bank clerks.

  Roselee, sensing Franz’s distress, reached out an insubstantial hand and patted through his shoulder a few times. “Don’t worry,” she said kindly. “After five hundred years, I think I’ve learned what to look for in a hero. I’ve searched all over the world through every race, magical and mortal. And I picked you.”

  Franz couldn’t meet her eye. Wanting to change the subject, he asked a question which had been preying on his mind for some time. “Why are you the one to choose the heroes? I read most of Paisley’s book and looked at all the pictures, but I didn’t see you anywhere in there. Who exactly are you in all of this?”

  It was Roselee’s turn to hang her head. “To tell the truth,” she said in a whisper, “I don’t remember. My first memory is of waking up here at Briardale and realizing that I could fly and pass through walls, and that my complexion was extraordinarily green and see-through. I recall only little flashes of what it was like before . . . you know. Before I died? If I died. I’m not really sure about that.”

  She snif
fed as though trying to hold back tears, though Franz wasn’t sure if ghosts could actually cry. “Alicia, Lolly, and Viola—the three fairies from the story—told me my name and explained that they’d summoned me to help since they can’t leave the tower. They were trying to summon the spirit of King Pintamore, but without their wands their magic is unfocused. So the summoning went wild, and they called me instead. At that point they simply had to make do. And I really have done my best!” She smiled weakly, not quite meeting Franz’s studying gaze. “I’ve gotten to see parts of the world I’m sure I never would have seen otherwise. It’s been quite the adventure when all’s said and done.”

  Franz considered this, standing there in the darkness with only Roselee’s ghostly aura to light the dungeon around him. Suddenly he realized who she must be.

  Really, who else could she be? he asked himself. It makes sense that she would be the one to choose the hero . . .

  Then he wondered, But can I be hero enough for her when the time comes?

  This thought broke off abruptly as the roar of the Slavering Swamp Beast careened down the passage. Following hard upon the heels of that roar came the shouts of the two brave heroes facing a monster like none other.

  The two heroes—one short and bearded, one broad and dark—paused in the narrow doorway and peered into the cavernous chamber beyond. This was the deepest point of Briardale, down in the bedrock under the castle’s foundations. A natural cave etched out eons ago loomed before them, a trickle of river water flowing into a shallow pool in its center.

  On the edge of that pool lay the dozing form of the Slavering Swamp Beast. It gnawed on its own mighty forepaw like a child sucking its thumb, waiting for morning when it would be set loose to prowl the swamps.

  “Whoa,” Eidor breathed, supporting himself with one hand against the doorframe. “I’d forgotten how big he is!”

  “Never mind him,” Crete replied, though his voice trembled. “You see better in the dark than I do. Spot any wands lying about?”