Peter & Max

by Bill Willingham

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Beast said, opening the door and stepping halfway into the room, “but I asked Frau Totenkinder to join us this afternoon. She’s coming now.” He was tall and heavily built, the sort of fellow who would have been called beefy in another day. And he was leading-man handsome in the same way that most Fable women tend to be “the fairest in all the land,” which loses much of its cachet when you have hundreds of such beauties crowded into such a small neighborhood. “I’ve gotten used to taking The Witch’s counsel in these sorts of matters,” Beast added.

  There are plenty of witches living in Fabletown of course, most of whom reside on the Woodland’s thirteenth floor, which is reserved for those of a practitioner’s nature. But when one speaks of The Witch, there’s only one possible Fable he could mean — Frau Totenkinder, the Black Forest Witch. Beast stood half in and half out of his office, holding the door open, waiting to usher The Witch inside. Peter heard her before he saw her, from the dim tap-tapping of her cane as she approached down the hall, moving at little-old-lady speed. When she finally appeared in the doorway, Peter got up from his seat to move one chair over, so that she wouldn’t have to maneuver around him in the confined space.

  When he’d originally sat in the first client chair it was a spitting image of the second — a simple wooden chair with a slat-supported back piece that curved around into both armrests. But now, as he rose from his seat, it had somehow transformed itself into a sturdy old high-backed rocking chair. Peter was stiffly formal as he shifted one seat over, and he cast a suspicious glance at the old woman who entered the room.

  “Thank you for moving for me, young man,” Frau Totenkinder said, with a sly half smile. She looked small and frail, but Peter knew she wasn’t, even though this was the first time to his knowledge that they’d actually met. All Fables, whether at the Farm or here in Fabletown, have access to the Woodland’s vast library — millions of old books spirited out of the Homelands. Peter had taken full advantage of that access over the centuries, always having one bundle of books after another sent up to the Farm on one of the supply trucks, which ran almost daily between the Farm and the city. Peter and Bo, alone out in their remote cottage, were avid readers, and Frau Totenkinder, although never mentioned by name, had appeared prominently in many of the Fable histories they’d read.

  Totenkinder had gray hair and wore a print dress — lavender Pale Laurels on a tan field. She carried a wicker knitting basket that contained assorted yarns and needles. “I always prefer my comfy rocker,” she said.

  Peter remained standing, still formal and on guard, until Totenkinder had fully seated herself into her rocker. Then he sat down in the second client chair, which was now, one supposed, the only one. He placed the flute case back into his lap.

  “You really aren’t supposed to have that,” Beast said, nodding towards the plastic and metal case as he moved around to take his own seat behind his desk.

  “Excuse me?” Peter said.

  “The flute. What is it you call it? Frost? It’s magical, right?” Beast took his seat, which squeaked loudly as he leaned back in it. “By the terms of the Fabletown Compact, all magical things spirited out of the Homelands were supposed to be turned over to us, so we can safely store them down here in the business office, where they can be held in trust for the benefit of the entire community. Technically I should confiscate it.”

  “But Frost doesn’t belong to Fabletown. It belongs to me.”

  Totenkinder didn’t join in the conversation, or seem to take any particular note of it. She simply set her basket in her lap and took up her knitting, gently rocking back and forth in her chair, and humming a quiet, tuneless tune to herself.

  “Well, see, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Beast said. “If every individual Fable had the same attitude — if they were allowed to keep all of the enchanted things they brought with them to the mundy world, the things would be scattered all over the place, unprotected and uncatalogued. How long then would it be before a mundy got hold of something he shouldn’t? There goes the big secret. Our magical nature would be exposed to the world at large. Or worse yet, it would be easier for one of the Adversary’s agents to steal something valuable and powerful that he could use against us, rather than we use against him.”

  “Does he have many agents here in the mundy world?” Peter said. There’d been a few incidents in the recent past, involving the incursion of the Adversary’s forces into Fabletown. Once even a full-scale battle between Fabletown and a company of the Empire’s elite troops. But Peter hadn’t taken part in it, and had assumed, like many others, that the so-called Battle of Fabletown had decisively taken care of any Empire interlopers.

  “Officially, I’m not at liberty to say,” Beast said. “But strictly between you, me, and the lamppost, what do you think? We’d be foolish not to assume the Empire has clandestine assets in this world, keeping an eye on us, just as we’d be foolish not to have our agents in place, keeping an eye on them.”

  “Which we do, I suppose?” Peter said. “Strictly between you, me, and the lamppost?”

  “No comment.” Beast said. “But to get back to the matter of your flute, in addition to keeping bad things away from the mundys, storing everything in the business office insures that magic items of military significance don’t fall into enemy hands.”

  “I think the argument could be made,” Peter said, “that putting everything into one place is exactly the kind of policy that made us vulnerable to enemy attack. Wasn’t the fact that we had all our eggs in one basket the very reason the Empire thought they could capture them in a single direct attack? Did I misread the reports on the Battle of Fabletown — the ones for public consumption anyway? They described how close the Emperor’s forces came to succeeding. Were they wrong?”

  “Perhaps that argument could be made,” Beast said, carefully, “but I didn’t write the laws. I do, however, have an obligation to enforce them.” Beast’s calm exterior and quiet eyes betrayed no hint of the dangerous creature that lurked within, and which could be summoned at need.

  “That’s all beside the point, anyway,” Peter said. “Frost is barely magical anymore and has no military value. Its power was spent long ago. Neither the Adversary, nor his tame warlocks, nor any mundy could make use of it, even if they recognized it as anything but mundane and normal. But letting it out of my control could cause some harm to me, and therefore one could argue to the rest of Fabletown by extension. In addition to its long depleted positive benefits, Frost has a nasty side. If I give it away, or allow it to fall into the hands of anyone not of my blood, then I’m cursed, along with all of my descendants, until the end of time. So you can see how I’m reluctant to turn it over, despite the letter of the law.”

  “Let the boy keep his flute,” Totenkinder said, surprising Peter with her interruption. She hadn’t seemed to be paying any attention to the conversation before now. “It’s of no value to us and can only harm him if we insist on taking it. I can sense that there is indeed a curse on the thing. He wasn’t lying about that.”

  “Fine,” Beast said. “I’ll defer to Frau Totenkinder for now, but I promise you, Peter, we’ll take this matter up again when you return.”

  “So you’re letting me go after Max?”

  “Bigby made a compelling argument, backed up by his assurance that he wouldn’t be able to leave for at least a week. I gather that’s something the two of you cooked up?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Bigby couldn’t stop Max anyway.”

  “And you can?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “That’s a private matter.”

  “Not between us,” Beast said. “If you want me to authorize this stunt, or at least not prevent it, I have to know what your strategy is.”

  “Perhaps, but you’ll have to content yourself with the understanding that I do have a strategy and leave it at that. Max has a way of finding out about things, which may
be due to some magical artifice or may mean he’s got his spies in Fabletown, just as you suspect the Empire has. Whatever the case, I didn’t tell anyone my plans, not even my wife, and I don’t intend to. This time, if Max learns of it, it will only be because he can read my mind, in which case my plan is doomed already.”

  Beast sat silent for a moment and then pulled open his middle desk drawer. He brought out two fat envelopes and placed them on the desk top, midway between Peter and himself.

  “These are your travel documents,” Beast said, “money and false ID’s. We call them Legends in the spook parlance. One set is for outbound travel and the other is for your return, assuming that some of the things you might have to do while away will make it difficult to travel under the same name twice. Considering the short notice, we didn’t have time to construct full, unbreakable Legends for you, but these should pass muster. Buy your tickets and everything else with cash, and don’t do it anywhere near Fabletown. Do you know where you’ll be looking for him yet?”

  “I have an idea or two.”

  “Then you can be on your way, while we hope that Bigby doesn’t have to follow you in a week’s time.”

  Peter didn’t stand up immediately, though it was clear the sheriff had dismissed him.

  “The young man doesn’t want to leave just yet,” Totenkinder interrupted again, not even bothering to look up from her knitting. “He wants to have a private talk with me, but he’s too polite to ask you to step out of your own office.”

  Peter had no idea how she knew any of that, but it was true.

  “Perhaps you can find a pot of tea?” she said to Beast. “I’m certain our chat won’t take long.”

  With a glower he attempted, but failed, to disguise, Beast stood up from behind his desk and left the office, quietly closing the door behind him. After living for centuries having to keep his beastly persona under rigid control, he’d learned long ago not to be a door-slamming sort of fellow.

  “Now, what would you like to ask me, Peter?” Totenkinder said, once Beast had left. She looked up from her work long enough to face him this time.

  “You’re her, aren’t you? You’re The Witch?”

  “That’s what they often call me when they think I can’t overhear.”

  “Yes, but that’s not — what I mean to say is, you’re the specific witch, the one who lived in the Black Forest back when my brother and I were lost there so long ago. You were the one who armed Max. You gave him the other magic flute — the more powerful one — which caused all of our problems. I’ve read all the books available and studied the matter extensively, for as long as I’ve been a member of the community, and I’m certain I’ve narrowed down the possibilities to one candidate. You.”

  “Straight to the point, aren’t you, Peter? I’m not used to being spoken to with such unsoftened candor.” She paused for a time and they looked at each other. His expression showed expectation, worry and under that a contained anger. Hers revealed nothing. Then she said, “Yes, I’m that same woman, but those were pre-amnesty deeds, and you’re not supposed to speak of them.”

  “How could I not? You nearly destroyed us with what you did, not just me and my family, but all of Fabletown back during the Great War. Bigby only killed indiscriminately, but you — how could you do such a thing?”

  “If you imagine you deserve an answer, strictly by virtue of the way in which you’ve suffered, then you’re mistaken. I’ve never been answerable to anyone in my long life, and it will ever be so. Be careful, young man, whose toes you tread on.”

  “However,” she continued, “though I judge myself obliged to say nothing, I am at rare times willing to explain a thing or two to those who come to me showing proper humility and deference, and who ask their questions politely. Why don’t we assume, just this once, and only for the sake of expedience, that you conducted yourself in just that manner, hmm? That will save a bit of time, won’t it?”

  She returned to her knitting for a few moments, gathering her thoughts. And then she said, “Like so many of us, I wasn’t always the same woman I am now. Once I too was ruled by my passions, and I made mistakes — some that I’ve lived to regret. In your brother’s case I made two mistakes. I misjudged the level of depravity to which he’d sunk, and I underestimated the powers of the object I gave him. I used him to work a revenge against some people who’d done me wrong, giving him the magic flute as his weapon with which to accomplish it. But the flute wasn’t something I created. It came into my possession, following several misadventures involving its previous owners. Many of the more powerful things find their way to me over time. It’s one of the byproducts of the way in which I work my craft. I hadn’t sufficiently studied Max’s flute before I turned it over to him, thinking I had the power to call it back to me at will. Who could know how strong his will had become by then?”

  “Then what do we do?” Peter asked. How do I beat it — its power?”

  “I don’t imagine you can. I tried once and I couldn’t. Max and his flute have grown strong together over the ages, the power of one intertwining with the other, until they’ve become so much more than the sum of their parts. He’s woven such shields and wardings of protection around himself that nothing mundane can harm him and, so far as I’ve tried, nothing much magical either. But I fear that he can play a spell now that will make anyone dance to his tune.”

  “That’s as I thought,” Peter said.

  “And yet you still have a plan to win against him?”

  “No, I have a plan to finally let myself be defeated by him, once and for all. I’ve had my fill of hiding from him. So, instead I plan to embrace his terrible magic and let it do its will with me. Perhaps, after all that’s been done, I still owe him that much.”

  Peter left before the tea arrived.

  In which the families

  escape from the army

  and a terrible thing

  happens in the woods.

  THE WOODS WERE HAUNTED WITH EVERY SORT of malign creature. It was an evil place fit only for ghosts, bogeys and fell spirits. Of this Max was becoming more certain by the minute.

  A few hours after nightfall on the previous evening, the Pipers, the Peeps and all of their servants and hired hands slipped into the woods. Not one of them elected to stay behind and take a chance with the invaders. They’d divided into three smaller groups in order to better negotiate the woods which were too thick and tangled to permit the passage of a larger company. The Pipers joined with the Peep family to form one group. The household staff formed another, and the field hands and other outside workers formed the third. Each person carried a similar bundle containing only the essentials to survive the forest: some food, salvaged from the estate’s larders, warm clothes or a blanket to endure the cold of night, a weapon if they had one, and a small bag of shiny gold marks, divided equally from Squire Peep’s entire cache of ready money, which had been hidden well enough that the invaders never discovered it. Peep had decided that each individual should carry his own purse, so that even if they became separated, everyone who survived the forest to eventually win through to Hamelin had an equal chance not to have to live from there on as a penniless beggar.

  Throughout the remainder of the previous day, after Peep had outlined his plan, household servants plied the few soldiers left behind with wine and beer and strong spirits, which they still had in plenty, since the officers loudly refused to allow any of it to be confiscated with the other goods. It seemed they wouldn’t risk an army of drunken soldiers when marching on a town to take it by force of arms.

  Even after the guards had consumed their fill, grateful to be refreshed against the hot day, the house maids urged more on them, saying, “This is the season when dire infirmities are staved off only by stiff drink and plenty of it.” Knowing no better in a strange land, the soldiers drank more and then more again. True to their scheme, all of the guards fell asleep even as the night fell, and the escape was under way.

  The first group had set off
with Squire Peep in the lead. They’d moved slowly, more slowly than the other two groups, who quickly outdistanced them to become lost from sight, because the woods were thick, and Mr. Peep was fat and old and couldn’t do better. Plus the entire gaggle of Peep daughters seemed intent on tripping and stumbling or becoming entangled in one thorny stand of undergrowth after another. They cried and complained so often that Max nearly forgot how pretty they were, even in their rough, durable work clothes, and how, in the previous afternoon, three or four of them had already played a part in his private imaginings of how this escape might turn out. In each case he’d bravely rescued one of them from some fierce creature of the deep woods, killing the beast, or driving it off with his sword. Then the girl in question had shown her gratitude, flinging herself into his arms and madly covering him with unending kisses, as well as rewarding him in other ways that Max couldn’t quite conjure in his mind, but knew were among the secret doings of grown men and women.

  Max had his sword now, a real one this time, and not just some flimsy object mounted for display. Mr. Peep had given it to him on the very edge of the woods, just before they ventured inside. “You’re one of the three men in this group,” Peep whispered to him, “so we’ll need you armed, like your father and me.”

  I’m one of the men, Max thought. That’s what fat old Mr. Peep called me and it was true. He’d experienced a heady sense of elation then, which was only improved when he saw that they hadn’t armed Peter in a similar fashion. I’m one of the men now and Peter isn’t. Max belted the sheathed blade around his hips and decided — no, it was more of a solemn vow than a simple decision — that his true life had only begun with their entrance into the woods.

  He hadn’t had an opportunity at the time to take the blade out and examine it. The woods were too dark and thick. And since then his joy at having it was dimmed when the sword in its sheath seemed determined to catch on every high root or low branch. For what must have been many miles, the sword, like the heavy pack on his back, became nothing more than another burden to be wrestled through the forest. The group walked single file, and Max had been assigned to guard its rear. “Squire Peep and I will watch for dangers ahead,” his father had said, “and you must look for those that might try to sneak up on us from behind. I hope you realize what a great trust we’ve placed in you, son.” Max did. He knew his father trusted him enough to risk his life guarding a line of screeching, squabbling girls, but not enough to reward him with Frost, which was his birthright.