Lies of Golden Straw

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  I desperately wished we could take flight, take to the skies and explore the expansive world that made our village so small. No matter how powerful a mage he would become, I was fairly certain he would never leave me behind. But I didn’t have the time to debate the risks and merits of returning home or flying away just yet.

  I stood in middle of the room, just near the centrally placed spindle, and couldn’t help but wince as the door was pulled shut and locked behind me. I glanced over the bales and bales of straw, but didn’t bother trying to count them. Even if the little man would reappear, it seemed unlikely the night would be long enough for him to spin all of it into gold. For that reason alone, tears trickled down my cheeks. Otherwise, I was beyond caring about anything I might have had left to mourn.

  “Mistress Miller, why do you cry?”

  The too-familiar voice washed over me, but this time, it wasn’t the sound of my deliverance. I turned to see the old-but-young little man perched on the seat of the spindle, a self-assured expression on his face. Of its own accord, my body took a step back and I hurried to hide it by lifting my skirts and taking exaggerated steps in place to prove I was simply untangling my feet. The extent someone will go to make sure someone else believes what he needs him to.

  The little man looked about the room and let out a low whistle. “Uh-uh, quite a lot of straw,” he commented unhelpfully.

  “Too much?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  “Seems His Majesty skipped a few numbers in the progression,” the man mused, ignoring my question.

  “Can you spin it all tonight?” I asked him straight.

  The little man gave me an impish smile. “That depends on what you have to give.”

  “I have nothing left,” I replied, thinking of Yarrow’s tale and wondering why the little man needed anything at all from me. “Why do you keep insisting I give you something?”

  “Because I do not work for free,” the man reminded me.

  “Yet you receive very little for your work,” I insisted.

  The man waved his hand dismissively. “That is not for you to calculate, dearie.”

  “Well, you’ve already taken everything of value I had,” I replied. “I have nothing to offer.”

  The little man tilted his head and studied me from his perch on the spindle. “Well, that’s not quite true,” he countered.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “You offered me what you have now, but I am ready to accept what you will one day have,” the man replied.

  “How can you know?” I wanted to know.

  The little man shrugged and continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “After you marry the king, I will come for your firstborn child.”

  The suggestion struck me into momentary dumbness. Why on earth would this little man ever assume that the king would marry me? What could have put such a preposterous notion into his fuzzy little head?

  The man cackled at my expression. “Oh, it’ll happen,” he assured me.

  “Are you a prophet now?” I sputtered, somehow finding my voice and shoving it out before I could get it under control.

  “Uh-uh,” the little man cautioned, “have I been wrong before? The king will have to reward you handsomely after this test, and there can be no handsomer reward than his self.” The little man looked about the room again. “From the look of things, it appears he’s ready.”

  I let out an exasperated sound and paced the room in frustration. What was this little man going on about? Didn’t he have enough work to do without spinning me the sort of lies only Father could tell? Well, my father and, most recently, me.

  Abruptly, I reminded myself to consider a few obvious facts before refusing to bargain with the little man.

  Firstly, there was no way, not in this reality, that the king would ever marry me.

  Also, because of that, my imaginary child with him would forever be safe from any deal I made with the evil little magical.

  Additionally, I was supposed to be receiving at least two magical visitors that night, who would surely dispatch this conniving little imp.

  Lastly, because of that, I needn’t fear ever having to fulfill my end of any bargain struck that night.

  All considerations duly noted, I finally nodded in agreement. I couldn’t know at the time how important that wordless gesture would be.

  In the meantime, the little man’s delighted giggle mixed with Heaven’s noiseless laugh.

  He righted himself on the spindle’s seat and pumped the treadles, turning the drive wheel into a beige blur of speed. I jumped into action, shoving, flinging, tossing handful after handful of straw at the little man and the whirring, green-sparking machine. Despite the piles of straw, I didn’t stop until there wasn’t a stalk left. Sweat trickled from my hair, my neck, my back much like the waterfall I had visited with the king earlier that day. Every part of me ached, inside and out.

  The little man also worked straight, humming and muttering to himself, his face oddly serious and lacking any of his previous mischief. He may have been the only man who could actually spin straw into gold, but it didn’t come easy. I debated if that was anything to reassure me. Maybe it would wear down his supply of magic and lead to an easy defeat.

  Row after row of bobbins glittering with gold thread gradually replaced the bales and bales of straw. I willed myself not to stop and count them, not to caress each one marking the nearness of the end as I continued to rush back and forth in feeding the ravenous spindle. It was only when I’d attacked the last of the bales that I first became attuned to a fluttering outside the window. Unlike the rest of the luminous palace, the rooms I’d been locked in had only a single, high, barred window cut into the wall.

  I paused and waited for my long-awaited rescuers to appear, but when not even a beak crested the sill, I assumed I’d imagined the sound in my desperation to hear it. When I heard it again, I shook my head at myself, trying to shake the desperate imaginings out of my head.

  When the last straw was spun, when the last bobbin was tied, the little man sat back with a self-satisfied air and grinned at the work he’d done. He wasn’t sweating, he didn’t look tired, but his face seemed a little older, as if something had been taken from him to have defied nature so much and for so long.

  “Now then—”

  But he didn’t get to finish. All at once, a dull vibration overtook the room, and I would have thought my mind was playing tricks on me had I not actually seen it. From wall to wall, thin lines of rippling purple streaks emerged, pulsating with a steady hum, a rhythm to match the heartbeat of the earth itself. The lines sizzled and crackled softly, and no matter where they went, they all began within the white hot metal of a magnificent sword, valiantly held aloft and with great effort by Merlin’s mage master.

  I shrank back and tried to press myself against the wall, not just because I didn’t want to be shredded in a battle between magicals, but also because in that moment, Yarrow looked inhuman, like a punishing angel from above.

  His purple eyes flamed with a light that blocked out much of his other facial features. His body glowed unnaturally, the ends of his hair flicking back from the power of whatever spell he was casting. He hovered just above the dusty floor, as if merely touching the stones would cause the whole palace to shake and crumble, unable to contain the mighty force he wielded.

  I couldn’t bear to watch, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away. I frantically sought out the little man, who was sitting frozen, dumbfounded on the seat of the spindle. His eyes were focused on Yarrow, and the veins in his head throbbed against his skin, threatening to burst from the effort of fighting whatever the mage was casting over him.

  For a moment, everything was still, the only sound the thrumming of those purple lines as they wove their way around the room, encircling the little man, growing tighter and tighter around him. In that moment, I allowed myself to believe that perhaps this really would be the end of all this. I didn’t have time to think of what I would do if the king demande
d I spin another room of straw into gold, but it was irrelevant then. Surely, helping Yarrow capture and destroy such a great threat would earn me reprieve for the rest of my life.

  Hope can be so misguided.

  As I watched, praying the little man’s veins would finally pop, thin, dim green lines began to smoke up from his body. I would have thought this sign enough of his destruction, but then the mage grunted and the green lines grew thicker.

  To my horror, the green lines widened even more, slowly enveloping and swallowing the purple ones holding the little man down. Then, they reached higher, snaking upward to swivel around the streaks of purple, riding them to the glowing sword still raised high in Yarrow’s hand.

  With a yelp, a new set of hands shot forward, adding heat to the sword whose light was marbling, then slowly tinting green. That was when I first noticed that Merlin was in the room. The three men struggled for what felt like ages but was probably only a few minutes.

  With a sharp upward thrust, the little man raised his hands toward Yarrow, his power shattering the light from the sword, and sending Merlin and his master hurtling back into the thick stone walls. The dulled sword skittered harmlessly into a darkened corner. Yarrow raised his glowing arms as a shield against the incoming shocks of green magic, and succeeded long enough to pull himself back to his feet.

  What happened next was a flurry of magical shocks, both men sending waves of gleaming magical energy in quick bursts, loud explosions, and bright flashes. At that point, I still believed Yarrow, mage master that he was, would succeed against the evil little imp.

  But he was fighting against the only man with magic enough to spin straw into gold. A man wielding the stolen magic of an untold number of mages. Who could have the power to defeat that, no matter how many master mages he channeled?

  The next shock Yarrow sent the little man wasn’t deflected. Rather, he absorbed it with a wicked cackle. His whole body shook as he accepted the impact of the mage’s magic and it seemed he might finally be felled. His body stilled and no one dared breathe.

  Then, with a sudden crack, the little man thrust the magic out of his body, having perverted Yarrow’s magic and turning it into his own green and stolen kind. The full force of whatever he sent the mage’s way slammed the other man against the stone wall, again and again, with power enough to make the wall chip on impact. By now, I was frantic, wondering where the guards were, why there were no thundering steps, or the abrupt slam of a door flung open.

  I glanced at the little man and understood then that he must have done something to seal off the room each night. A war was being fought in this tiny space, and the palace was none the wiser. We could all perish and no one would ever know how or why.

  With one final burst, the little man slammed Yarrow with a twisting bolt of magic, snapping his head back, and brutally ending his life. Merlin screamed and shot toward the evil imp, who hurtled Merlin sideways into the wall with a dismissive wave of his hand. Merlin’s body hit the wall with a sickening crack of breaking bones.

  In the silence that followed, the little man collected himself with quiet heaves of air. Near the wall that assisted in his death, Yarrow slowly began to dissolve, his body disappearing into thin grains of purple light which rose and glowed as they weaved toward Merlin before veering off, heading straight for the little man. The man stood patiently as they melded into him. He grew younger, he grew older with every drop that entered his pores. And as he did, his smile grew wider, a terrifying twist of lips that resembled a bottomless chasm of blackness.

  I shuddered despite myself.

  I desperately wanted to run to Merlin, to throw my body over his to protect him from any further harm, however vain the attempt would be. But I couldn’t move. Not only was I in shock from what I had just witnessed, but I was also genuinely afraid of the man before me, a man so little the top of his head barely reached my waist.

  The magical turned to me, his mismatched eyes slowly dimming as he reined his magic back in. “Nice of them to stop by,” he said mildly.

  I couldn’t even squeak a reply.

  The impish man fixed his loathsome gaze upon me, then pointed a finger my way, sending forth a thin green beam of light. I couldn’t help myself, I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see what it would do to me.

  That I could hear the little man’s chuckle shocked me into opening my eyes. I was still in the same room. I patted myself down and confirmed everything was still in place. What had he done to me?

  The little man pointed the same finger at himself and a bolt of green lightning shot out and struck him in the chest. At the same instant, I felt something squeeze my heart, and I doubled over from the pain. It took a number of large breaths and very harshly gritted teeth to force my body to stand upright again.

  “Insurance for our delightful little bargain,” the magical stated. “The bond will remain between us until your end is fulfilled.”

  I shut my eyes and opened them again, but he was still there, as was the new weight dragging on my heart. There was no chance this was a dream.

  “Do not try to cheat me,” the little man said, his warning more terrifying for the calm in his voice, “do not try to trick me. When the day will come that you will have my payment, and you refuse to give it to me, that weight you feel will squeeze tighter and tighter until your heart explodes. And then I will take what I am owed.”

  I nodded silently because there was nothing else to do, nothing but pray he would finally leave us alone. Powerful or not, he was truly deranged, especially considering the terms of his new bargain.

  The little man finished with a short bow. “As always, it’s been a pleasure, dearie,” he said with ceremony. “I’ll see you again in a year or two.”

  He vanished even before he’d straightened back up.

  The second he was gone, I flew to Merlin’s side. I was relieved to find that his head was intact, but he was unconscious and his arm lay limply and unnaturally beside him. I gingerly pulled his head into my lap and desperately stroked his tousled hair.

  “Merlin, Merlin,” I repeated over and over. “Please don’t die. Come back to me.”

  It was a decidedly foolish thing to say considering he was most certainly not dead and he had in fact come back to me. However, after what I’d just witnessed, irrational rambling was understandable. I ceased my mumblings at some point, and sat the rest of the night with Merlin’s head in my lap, my heart leaping each time he took a deep breath or stirred.

  Sometime near dawn, his eyes opened, his unfocused gazed tried to read my face.

  “Are you all right?” he finally asked.

  I nodded, then shook my head.

  “What happened?”

  This time, I only shook my head.

  “Is the man gone?”

  I nodded. “As is your master.”

  Merlin slowly released a deep breath. “And his magic?”

  “He’s grown more powerful,” I said simply.

  Merlin sank further into the stone, pressing himself toward the ground as if the weight of the truth wouldn’t ever let him stand straight anymore.

  “It backfired,” he said simply, and I nodded. “Excalibur?”

  “What?”

  “The sword,” he explained.

  “Oh.” Without standing, I searched about the room, vaguely remembering seeing it fall during the battle. I found the hilt before the blade. “That corner.” I motioned with a weak gesture.

  Merlin raised his hand, and struggled to summon the sword to him. When it finally slid over, he lifted it with a silent command from his hand. The sword hovered in the air before us.

  “It should have worked,” he said. “There was so much magic in it. My master and the others were so sure.”

  He waved his hand over the sword and it disappeared into some unseen, magical space. Merlin closed his eyes and was quiet a while. When he opened them again, his eyes were more focused, though watery. He slowly raised his good arm toward my face and caressed
my cheek with just the tips of his fingers.

  “Millie?” he whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so tired.”

  I offered a sad smile. “Rest,” I told him. “Rest, and I’ll wake you before they come.”

  Merlin nodded and settled back. I wondered if he really would sleep that night, if the exhausting pace of the past few days was enough to let him in the wake of all that had occurred. His good hand fumbled upward until it found one of mine. He pulled it toward him and held it tightly in his grasp. He held it still as his breathing slowed and he mercifully drifted off to sleep.

  Changing Course

  Despite my exhaustion, I became instantly alert at the faint echoing of footsteps in the passageway. Carefully, I shook Merlin awake, pointed to my ear, then gestured toward the door. Merlin’s eyes widened in immediate understanding, and within seconds, he was a beautiful purple-backed starling. A purple-backed starling with a broken wing.

  I cradled him gently in my hands, dropping them behind my drawn up knees, shielding him in my lap from the incoming guards.

  The captain poked his head in first and, though I would think he could no longer be surprised, the sheer number of bobbins lining the floor of the room widened his eyes in disbelief. He halted the guard coming in behind him and grunted an indecipherable command. The guard ducked back out and the captain remained in the room staring at the parade of golden thread for what felt like a very long time.

  What must have been just minutes later, Kirkin returned with about a handful of other guards, each pushing a long wheelbarrow. There were five in total and even then, the bobbins were stacked high to fit. I watched them silently, all the while focusing on the weak, but steady beat of Merlin’s bird heart.

  Kirkin stacked his barrow then came to crouch beside me with a concerned look. “Everything all right, Miss Millie?”

  I barely managed a nod. “It was a long night,” I replied, knowing he’d interpret the answer simply.