by Hal Bodner
King Harold opened his tower and chortled. “My golden slattern! My treasure trove!” He pulled Ricka to her feet and hugged her. “You’ve done it, you wonderful little whore!”
“Now let me go,” Ricka pleaded.
“No.” King Harold shoved her to the ground with a grand smile. “I have other towers. You will spin for me until your fingers bleed, or I’ll feed you to my dogs.”
Rum pulled himself from the air. “King Harold.”
King Harold’s eyes widened with delight. He pulled a heavy sword from his belt and raised it. Iron. Of course.
“Rather puny, aren’t you?” Harold frowned.
“It is I who spun this straw to gold, I who made all you see here.” Rum kept himself up through sheer willpower, trembling like a leaf. “It is I who you must imprison, not Ricka.”
King Harold licked his lips. “I know this, of course. I am not a foolish man.”
“Fool or not, I cannot spin unless you let me rest.” Rum kept his tone even. “When I am rested I will make more gold.”
“No.” King Harold’s eyes hardened. “You will flee as soon as I show my back. I know how you fairies work. I have read all the Witchman scrolls. You are free to come and go as you wish, so long as I don’t speak your true name.”
“Correct.”
“So give it.” Harold’s brown pits glittered with greed and lust. “Give me your true name, so I may bind you to me. Do this, and I will release your slattern.”
Ricka just stared at him, eyes brimming with tears. She said nothing, and Rum did not expect she would. He was old, spent, lost. She had so much to live for.
“Agreed,” Rum said. “When she is gone from your palace three days, I will give you my name. My true name.”
Harold snapped his fingers to someone outside the door, and a cowering servant rushed in with another manacle. “You will wear this.”
“Iron hurts me. It will not compel me.”
“I know that. Now know this. I will wait your three days, but only if you wear this manacle. Now.”
Rum sighed. “As you wish.” He did not scream when the servant fixed the manacle on his ankle, though he wished too.
Satisfied, Harold kicked the servant. “Unlock her pin.”
The servant did so. Ricka watched Rum as she stood, free once more. “Please. Toroia--”
“That’s not my name,” he reminded her gently.
Harold shoved her toward the door. “You are exiled from my kingdom. Go, now, before I change my mind.”
“That is not acceptable!” Rum straightened in his iron manacle. Pain filled his leg. “You have two towers full of gold and more promised! Give her a bushel to make a new life!”
Harold looked around the tower. He snorted and then laughed. “A bushel? Fine. One bushel of gold for my own spinning fairy.”
He grabbed a clump of golden straw and tossed it at Ricka. She stumbled when she caught it, finding the treasure heavier than she expected, but Rum remained certain it would save her.
“Go,” Rum said.
She lowered her head, sniffled, and strode meekly from the tower. Relieved she did not argue, Rum relaxed. He remained too weak to influence her with his anima.
Their pact complete, Harold slammed the tower door. Rum fell into sleep, manacle tearing at his leg. Over the next two days he dreamed of Glitta and Bricka, his home and his love, yet Bricka had faded from his mind and Ricka lived there now. She hugged him, laughed him with, nursed him when he was sick. She became his life, his and Glitta’s, and that life was wonderful.
On the morning of the third day, Harold entered the tower and kicked Rum hard. Rum howled as the dreams faded, clutching at his wife and daughter to no avail.
“Three days.” Harold crossed his arms. “Say your name.”
Rum pushed himself up, burning with fever and pain, thinking only of his distant daughter. “Rumplestiltskin.”
“I bind you, Rumplestiltkin, as my servant, so long as we both shall live.”
Harold knew the words. The cursed Witchman scrolls had ruined so many of Rum’s kind. Invisible chains bound his wrists and ankles, chains that burned far hotter than iron. He would never have them off, but at least Ricka lived free. Ricka lived and she remembered him.
“It’s done?” There was someone beyond the tower door.
“Done.” Harold beamed. “You played him like a harp, my darling. Can you imagine? Our very own fairy!”
“How wonderful!” Smirking with delight, Princess Rosella strode into the tower. She walked with fluid grace, clad in fine red silks, but Rum still recognized a smell he knew, a smell he loved, even without her threadbare cloak or tattered sandals.
Princess Rosella fixed Rum with the gaze one lavished upon a prize horse, the gaze one lavished upon a possession, not a person. Her ruddy face was made up now, her brown hair bound and braided, but he could not mistake her for anyone else.
“I think he just figured it out.” She covered her mouth. “Oh look. He’s crying!”
***
Times were good for the people of Ashmount and Darrow, Glade Castle and Rosella Keep. The kingdom of Harold the Mighty grew, castles upon castles, towns upon towns. Its many industries soon devoured Toroia Wood. The graves of Rum’s wife and daughter were planted and plowed. No one heard any of the screams.
Rum spun gold as often as King Harold compelled him, hovering ever on the edge of death and life. The human king and his wretched scrolls knew exactly how much he could hurt and not die. He had no life but agony.
One day, after Princess Rosella had entertained her fifteenth suitor of the evening, Rum made himself seen with great effort. “Why did you do this? Are you incapable of love?”
Rosella arched a brow. “Oh, but I do love you. My darling fairy. You are here, with me. Your loving daughter.”
“My daughter is dead,” Rum said bitterly. “I would join her would you but let me. Why must you torment me? Greed? Sadism?”
Rosella’s voice grew hard. “You ungrateful little pig.”
“Ungrateful?” Rum grew baffled.
“Your forest is ash. Your people are dead. You would be but dirt on the wind had we not saved you, sheltered you. We kept you alive!”
“This?” Rum’s voice cracked. “This is not life. There are things older than me in this world, things that will remember your sin and your spite. One day, they will tell the world.”
Rosella tittered. “Will they?” She gripped his beard and pulled him close. “I’ve already commissioned a wonderful writer to tell the story of our kingdom. It’s about a wicked little imp and his devious tricks. He wanted to steal my child!”
“Your child?” Rum tried to understand.
“Oh yes. The child was my idea, to make the narrative more compelling. It also has a beautiful princess, a tower filled with straw, and even a spinning wheel!”
Rum shook his wrinkled head. “You’re a monster.”
“No.” Rosella shoved him away. “I’m a ruler. Father has made our kingdom vast, but I will make it great. You think it was his plan that made you ours, his wiles, his acting? You know better. You know every trick that took you was mine.”
She leaned back in her thick crimson chair and took up her fan. “Fairies in the woods. No one believed it but me.”
“Let me die.” Rum fell onto his aching knees before her. “You’ve got more gold than you could ever spend.”
Rosella fanned herself and patted his shriveled yellow head. There was a hint of kindness in her gesture, a single bone for a starving dog. “One day,” she promised. “If you are very good, and very quiet, and I am in a very good mood.”
Rum crept back into darkness. He knew that was a lie.
About the Author
T. Eric Bakutis is an author and game designer based in Maryland. His debut fantasy novel, Glyphbinder, was a finalist for the 2014 Compton Crook Award, and its sequel, Demonkin, is due out by the end of 2014. His short fiction has appeared in a number of anthologies and short fiction markets wit
h more to come later in the year. He is also a regular attendee of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society Critique Circle. In his spare time Eric writes, plays lots of video games, hikes with his wife, and walks and is walked by his excitable dog. He also spends far too much time posting links to cool music, videos, and virtual reality projects on Twitter www.twitter.com/TEricBakutis. His professional website is www.tebakutis.com, where you can find links to his short stories and novels, video game projects, and other bits of trivia, as well as some stellar artwork based on his books. He always loves hearing from people who’ve enjoyed his work, so if you liked this story, feel free to drop by his website and say hello!
The Ash Maid’s Revenge
A retelling of “Cinderella”
Konstantine Paradias
Once upon a time, there were no fireplaces in the Ash Maid’s life. No grit needing to be shoveled and set up on a pile, or floors needing sanding. There were no oak tables to lacquer or silver in need of polishing.
Once upon a time, Ash Maid had a name spoken by tender, rosy lips as she sucked on an ivory-white breast. There were fingers that ran through her hair, and soft, slow songs that brought sleep.
Once upon a time, Ash Maid didn’t live under the shadow of her step sisters. She wasn’t crushed by Cordelia’s great black weight on the floors as she blocked the sun with her mass, watching over her with magpie eyes. She wasn’t stabbed by the pencil-thin imprint of Dolores on the wall, which spat venom in her ears. She did not have to stare up into the eyes of her stepmother, those dark slits narrowed in her presence, the irises of the eyes ringed with hate for the girl she considered herself to have been plagued with.
For Ash Maid, once a great bearded face had stood in the sky as well, as wonderful and radiant as God himself. His laughter boomed like thunder, his words and breath dispelling the terrors of the night. His hands, which rocked and caressed her, were as big as the world.
But the rosy lips went away before Ash Maid could know the face they had belonged to. And the great God-face grew suddenly old and tired and then fell silent for a while, before disappearing too. She was given to the stepmother with the slitted eyes and the spiteful sisters, whose names and countenances she realized would be forever etched in her memory.
Ash Maid was the name they’d called her ever since she could remember. She understood it was not her name, that she had another one, which was not beautiful or unique, but it helped her keep her sanity so she treasured it above all else. She sang the name as she scrubbed the dishes, and picked the lentils, and cooked meal after meal, only to be fed the scraps.
It was this name that gave her the strength to once steal a glance in the living-room mirror. She found she was beautiful, outshining her loathsome stepsisters.
On her sixteenth winter, as Ash Maid was busy stocking up firewood for her constantly-nagging stepmother, she knew she had had enough. There was no fanfare to the proceedings. No deep, insightful warning or a message brought by some supernatural presence. There was only the gurgling, hissing sound of the well of patience that had been sustaining her for all those years, draining.
When she kicked the door, despite herself, Stepmother croaked at her from beneath her blankets:
“Careful with the door, you oaf! Do you think you’re still living in a barn?”
Ash maid thought, as she glanced at the spiteful, wrinkled face:
You horrible hag, you wretched reptile of a woman. For every spiteful word you’ve spoken to me, for every humiliation you have bestowed on me, I will make you pay tenfold.
As she placed the logs in the fireplace and set fire to the kindling, she felt Cordelia’s bloated heels on her back and she thought:
You fat, disgusting ox. I’ll cut off those heels and I’ll whittle you down till you’re as disgusting and hated as I seem in your eyes.
When the fire was lit and she turned to the kitchen to set up dinner, Dolores stuck out her foot and tripped her. Ash Maid fell, face first, to the floor. As she stumbled on her feet, she thought:
You straw-brained ninny hammer. I’ll strike that laughter from your mouth and take away your venomous brain, until you’re as much of a ragdoll as you take me for.
Perhaps, if the stepsisters and the stepmother had shown Ash Maid a tiny bit of respect, a sliver of kindness, Ash Maid would have grown old and died in their service. Then, they could have lived full lives, perhaps even had a chance to make up for their hateful, spiteful ways, wracked by guilt in their twilight years. It would have been a terrible and loveless life, but at least they would have kept their lives and minds intact.
Ash Maid’s revenge was two whole years in the making. First, she made sure to catch the village apothecary’s eye. It wasn’t a hard task; she could already read the viscous, dark thoughts that surfaced in his mind whenever he’d lay eyes on her. It took very little effort on her part to pry the information she needed to know—the ways of subtle venoms have of clouding the mind and muffling the spirit.
Secondly, the Ash Maid turned to the cobbler’s apprentice and coaxed him into making three articles of clothing for her, to her specifications: a hair pin with a subtly jagged edge; a corset of whalebone tight as a vice; and a pair of shoes, their insides lined with jagged copper. The cobbler’s apprentice did object, of course, at first. Thanks to him, Ash Maid learned the value of her beauty as a weapon.
The third step of her revenge was a boon which proved to Ash Maid her cause was just. As she walked through the market, she overheard the gossip of the palace maids. They spoke of the prince. She followed them closely, picking out every distinct word over the murmur of the crowd, taking note of the prince’s looks, seeing in her mind his white-blond hair, his glacier-blue eyes, his milky white skin. She mingled with them the following week and she found out about his boyish demeanor, his lecherous behavior, his pride. She became friends with the maids. With subtle questioning she found out about the Prince’s love of poetry and the drink, the hunt, and tobacco.
By the end of the third month, Ash Maid had known the prince better than even his own mother. She’d also known of his father’s coming festivities, to seek a mate for his rake of a son a year ahead of everyone else in the kingdom.
Ash Maid knew what had to be done. There was steel in her heart now, iron in her blood, and poison in her mind giving her sustenance. Cordelia’s harshness, Dolores’ bitterness, even her stepmother’s malice became but distant, faded echoes. Ash Maid had found purpose and method to her revenge. She was no longer driven by plain, mindless bitterness.
She visited the cobbler’s apprentice more often now and instilled in him the hope of carnal consummation. Ash Maid delighted at the ease with which she manipulated him, his mind and actions directed by the restless thing between his legs. She got from him her instruments of revenge, his only payment a dozen kisses in the dark.
By the end of the year, she went to see the apothecary and got from him the subtle venoms she needed as well as instructions on how to use them. The payment he received in exchange for his silence was given in the dark rooms behind the shop counter, paid in full in less time than it took for her to hum one of her mother’s lullabies.
It was in the summer that word of the king’s ball came out. The factotum proclaimed the invitation, promising every woman of age in the kingdom the prospect of courtship with the Prince. There was great unrest among the women as they rushed at the cobblers’ stalls, fighting over lengths of silk. It was a time of subtle cruelty and gossip handled with such expertise even the royal spymasters were green with envy, as each woman in the kingdom sought to outdo the other in terms of comeliness, of loveliness, and etiquette.
Ash Maid’s family proved no exception to the rule. Stepmother threw herself hard to work seeking to turn her monstrous daughters into comely things that might win a man’s heart. Ash Maid worked until her fingers bled; she sewed clothes and stitched old stockings and mended shoes. Stepmother was so overwhelmed by her daunting task she never noticed how Ash Maid dripped drops fro
m the porcelain vial she’d got from the apothecary in her morning broth or her dinner stew.
By the end of August, Stepmother’s cruel tongue had become sluggish, but she attributed the cause to the heat. She blamed the headaches on the overbearing light of the sun even as she sipped the venom unknowingly with every spoonful.
On the first day of September Ash Maid was able to perform the second phase of her revenge. She was polishing Cordelia’s bedroom mirror, when she noticed the tears glistening on her fat stepsister’s cheeks.
“What is the matter, sister?” Ash Maid asked, feigning tenderness.
“Mother said the dress will not fit me. She said I had to watch what I ate, to lose some weight so I could put it on in time for the ball, but I know there won’t be time. The prince surely won’t want a woman as loathsomely large as me!” Cordelia wept and Ash Maid felt sickened at the sight of her. She forced a smile and cooed:
“Is that so? Well then, maybe I have just the thing for you, sister!” And with well-rehearsed motions, Ash Maid took out the too-tight corset she’d hidden in her room. She presented it to Cordelia, whose face lit up like a firefly’s belly at the sight.
“A corset? You brought me a corset?”
“Not just any corset, dear sister, but my mother’s own. It was a gift from her father—a whaler of some renown. It was put together by the finest craftsman in the land.”
“Well what are you waiting for? Help me put it on!” she exclaimed with hands outstretched, chin held high.
Ash Maid did just that. She put on the corset and tugged at the strings until the corset stretched round Cordelia’s loose and loathsome flesh, encompassing her belly all the way up to her breasts, until the flaps of the corset met in the end, the whalebone frame creaking. Cordelia let out a soft pained moan, thinking the torment over as she felt her lungs pressing against her ribcage.
“Are you quite done?” she said, gasping for air.
“Just let me tie the straps, sister.” Ash Maid reassured her. She tugged the corset one final time, knotting the strings. The whalebone frame made a horrible creaking sound as it pressed down into Cordelia’s ribs and organs and squeezed them with terrible force. Ash Maid could picture Cordelia’s lungs frantically scrambling up to her neck, her belly descending all the way down to her toes. She watched delightedly as the loose flesh stuck out of the fabric, already swollen and inflamed.
