Kedrigern in Wanderland

by John Morressy

  “Rumpie enjoys hearing my little stories,” Zorilon said, smiling fondly on the dog. “He always acts this way when I tell them.”

  “Rumpie is an unusual name for a dog, isn’t it?” the wizard observed, covering a yawn.

  “It’s short for Rumpelstiltskin.”

  “That’s an even more unusual name,” said Princess.

  Zorilon looked at them in surprise. “It is? It’s not an unusual name in my family. Not at all. I have an older brother with that name. And an Uncle Rumpelstiltskin on my mother’s side.”

  “Interesting,” Kedrigern murmured sleepily.

  “Maybe if I read another fairy tale or two you can get a better idea of my style. I’ve got one right here,” said Zorilon, leafing through the folder. He jerked up his head

  at a sudden metallic ringing in the air, and saw that Panstygia had become a staff. Princess and Kedrigern gazed on her enviously as Zorilon held up a sheet of parchment, then smoothed it out on the folder and began to read it aloud:

  ROSEBUD AND THE JEALOUS QUEEN

  Some years back, a king and queen had a daughter named Rosebud, whom everyone in the kingdom loved because she was so beautiful and sweet-tempered. When the queen died, the king married a very lovely woman who possessed a magic mirror. Every day the new queen would look in the mirror and ask:

  “Mirror, mirror, in my hand,

  Who is fairest in the land?”

  and every day the mirror would reply:

  “You, my dear—you’re looking grand.”

  But one day, when Rosebud had just turned sixteen, the queen asked her question and the mirror answered:

  “Please, dear queen, don’t be distressed, But you’ll slipped to second best:

  Rosebud’s fairer than the rest,”

  and the queen became very, very angry and wanted to do something that would get Rosebud out of the way and win back her standing as fairest in the land.

  While she was thinking it over, a handsome young king from a distant kingdom came to the castle on a state visit. When he and Rosebud saw each other, it was love at first sight. The queen noticed, and urged her husband to arrange a match between them, and he did, and Rosebud married the handsome young king and moved halfway across the world to live in his faraway kingdom, and they were very happy. And the queen was once again the fairest in the land, so she was happy, too. Rosebud’s father missed her now and then, but on the whole, he was happy enough.

  “Is that the end?” Princess asked. Zorilon nodded, and she said, “Ah. I see.” Kedrigern remained silent, his eyes glassy.

  “Maybe if I read one more, then we could discuss them really do a good critique . . . no holds barred,” said

  Zorilon eagerly. They responded to his suggestion with faint apathetic murmurs that served only to make his eagerness the keener. “Here’s a good one. It’s my own version of the stock theme of the miller’s beautiful daughter marrying well, but I think it has a rather ingenious twist to it. I’ll just read you this one, and then we can discuss all three,” Zorilon said, much animated.

  Princess smiled a wan smile. Kedrigern fidgeted and tried his best to conceal a yawn, but the set of his jaw and his flared nostrils gave him away. Zorilon paid no heed. He cleared his throat, took up his parchment, and began to read.

  THE MILLER’S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER AND THE LITTLE MAN

  Years and years ago, a poor miller had a very beautiful daughter. The king heard of her beauty and decided to marry her, but he insisted on a generous dowry, for he was a proud and greedy king. The miller could provide no dowry, so in desperation he told the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. The king had her brought to the castle at once and put in a room full of straw. “Spin this straw into gold and you shall be my queen. But if you fail, it’s off with your head, and your father’s as well,” he said, and locked her in the room.

  Now the girl could no more spin straw into gold than you and I can, so she began to weep bitterly and wish that her father had kept his mouth shut. In the midst of her weeping, a little man appeared before her and asked why she was carrying on so. When she explained, he said, “If it’s straw spun into gold that you want, I’m your man. But I must have my price.” “And what’s your price?” she asked. “I must have your firstborn child,” said the little man. The miller’s beautiful daughter wept even more bitterly and wailed, “Is there no way out?” and the little man said, “If you can guess my true name, you may keep the baby. That’s fair, isn’t it?” She agreed, and the little man went to work.

  When the king unlocked the door in the morning and found the room full of gold, he married the girl at once. Within a year, they had a beautiful baby girl, and the very day after the child was born, the little man came to claim it. “If I can guess your true name, I get to keep her,” the miller’s daughter reminded him. “All right, guess,” he said. She thought for a moment, then said, “Your name’s Larry.” “Someone told you!” he cried angrily, but she swore that it was just a lucky guess. So the little man went away, and the miller’s beautiful daughter kept the baby, and that was that. They lived long lives, but nothing much happened to them after that.

  Zorilon leaned back in his chair, spread his arms in an expansive gesture, and smiled proudly and expectantly.

  “Nice,” said Kedrigern.

  “Interesting,” Princess said. “Really quite . . . interesting.”

  “Yes. And nice,” the wizard agreed.

  Zorilon leaned forward and looked at them with a pleased, but earnest expression. “I’m glad you liked them. But is there anything you think might be improved? Perhaps a word here or there that I might change for the better?”

  His guests exchanged a glance. Princess frowned, bit her lip, and said, “Well, I thought . . .“

  “Yes? Please go on, my lady. I really want to hear your frank opinion. Do be blunt with me.”

  “There’s no conflict,” she blurted.

  “Conflict?”

  “That’s right, conflict. Struggle. Opposition. Insurmount

  able obstacles to be overcome. Insoluble problems to be solved. Don’t you agree, Keddie?”

  “What? Oh, yes, my dear, conflict. That’s the thing.”

  Zorilon’s face fell. “But there’s so much conflict in the world already. . . . I want my characters to be happy, not to be struggling and overcoming obstacles. Happy tales are what people want these days. Success stories, not a lot of gloom and suffering. Are you sure you understood what I was trying to do? Maybe if you heard them again—”

  “No! We understood!” the two of them cried with one desperate voice, and Princess added, “We liked them very much, too. But we think that if you introduce the element of conflict they’ll be ever so much better. More true to life.”

  “Couldn’t I just add some details of magic? You could advise me.”

  Princess shook her head. “Conflict,” she said firmly.

  Zorilon, crestfallen, nodded absently and gazed into the fire. At last he said, “Could you be more specific? Could you point out places where I might put in conflict? Maybe suggest the kind of conflict to put in?”

  “Well, you ought to make things tougher for little Rosebud, for a start,” Princess said. “Have the queen try to poison her, or hire a huntsman to take her into the woods and cut her throat. Something along those lines.”

  Zorilon looked horrified. “Do queens ever do things like that?”

  “More often than you think,” Kedrigern assured him somberly.

  “I suppose . . . as long as nothing really happened to her, and everything worked out for the best. . .“

  Kedrigern, warming to the subject, said, “The lovesick prince in your first story has it much too easy, too. The mean princess ought to demand outrageous things of him. He should be in tenor of his life, yet driven by his burning love.”

  “What sort of demands could she make? I thought a princess would like a nice ring, and a silver chain, and a lovely green ribbon.”

  “Most
princesses have such things,” Princess pointed out.

  “And this one is a mean princess. You said so yourself. So she’d ask for . . . oh, for an eagle’s feather from a nest on the very top of the highest mountain in the world,” the wizard suggested.

  “And a black pearl from an oyster at the bottom of the deepest ocean!” Princess added, clapping her hands gleefully.

  “And a ring from the nose of a man-eating ogre,” Kedrigern said, “Or a scale from the chin of a fire-breathing dragon. Do you get the idea?”

  Zorilon shook his head confusedly. “You seem to want me to make life difficult for my characters. But aren’t people in fairy tales supposed to live happily ever after?”

  “Only the good ones. And they only get to do it after a lot of misery. It makes them appreciate getting through the nasty spots,” Princess said. “It’s a lot like real life, only in real life there aren’t as many happy endings.”

  “Yes.. . I think I see

  ‘And they shouldn’t be too happy, either. I mean, ‘happily ever after’ is saying quite a lot. No married couple is happy all the time.”

  Kedrigern turned to her with a look of pained surprise. “My dear, I always thought that we . . . it seemed .

  aren’t you . . . ?“

  Princess reached out to give his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Of course we’re hippy, but we’re an unusual couple. I was speaking of all those other people. They have problems even after they’ve married their handsome prince or beautiful princess or whatever. Just think of some of your clients. Even the great kings and queens don’t just sit around being happy all the time.”

  “Too true, my dear. ln fact, they probably spend less time at it than anyone would believe.”

  Enlightenment came over Zorilon’s features, and he

  cried, “They could live happily for a while, and then wham! I’d fix them! The beautiful princess would get these terrible headaches, and the handsome prince’s leg would start acting up from an old wound that never healed properly, and their oldest son would turn. out bad, and a dragon would carry off their daughter, and . . . and a plague would threaten the kingdom! Oh, a plague would really shake them up!”

  Princess nodded. “You’ve got the idea. Just don’t overdo it.’’

  Leaning forward and raising a preceptorial forefinger, Kedrigern said, “My wife is absolutely right about kings and queens, my boy. They’re an unhappy lot, on the whole. Take your story about the miller’s daughter: you should make the king a lot greedier. He could force the miller’s daughter to spin gold a second and third time—”

  “And lots more of it! A barnful!” Princess added.

  “And instead of having her promise her firstborn child right away, you could lead up to it.”

  “Build the suspense! Create unbearable tension!”

  Caught up in the excitement, Zorilon said, “She could give him a bracelet the first time . . . and then . . . then a ring, and then, when she’s desperate, only then would she tearfully and reluctantly promise her firstborn! Of course!”

  “And she mustn’t get his name on the very first guess,” said Princess. “That will never do.”

  “And that name has to go. I mean, after all, ‘Larry.’ Quite a few little men are named Larry, you know.”

  “They are?”

  “Oh, dozens of them,” Kedrigern assured him.

  “I don’t know any little men. They’re not easy to meet. I was just guessing at a suitable name. What can I call him?” Zorilon asked, picking up his dog and scratching him under the chin.

  “How about ‘Rumpelstiltskin’? It may be a common name in your family, but it’s very infrequent among little men.”

  Rising and thrusting the dog into the wizard’s hands,

  Zorilon took up pen and parchment and cleared a space at the table, saying to his guests, “You’ve been very helpful. I’d like to copy down your suggestions while they’re still fresh in my mind.”

  “Good idea. We’ll toddle off to bed and leave you to your work,” said Kedrigern, putting down the dog and taking Princess’s hand.

  ln the morning, Zorilon greeted them red-eyed and yawning but in good spirits. He had sat up much of the night rereading his fairy tales and making notes, and was bursting to talk of his planned revisions. Only the repeated admonitions of Princess and Kedrigern not to talk away all his good ideas but to start working on them at once kept him from submitting his entire oeuvre to their scrutiny then and there.

  Zorilon followed them to the stable, all the while protesting that his hospitality was but feeble recompense for their literary insight and counsel, and lamenting that he could not hope to repay them properly. He kept up his apologies as Kedrigern saddled the horses and packed their gear, and then, abruptly, the wizard rounded on him with a smile.

  “Zorilon, I’ve thought of a way you can repay us,” he said, laying his hands on the young man’s shoulders. “You’ve traveled far and wide in the course of your research. Have you ever heard reference to the Kingdom of the Singing Forest?”

  Zorilon pondered the question, frowned, and said, “No.” As Kedrigern turned away with a fatalistic sigh, Princess asked, “Perhaps you heard a tale of a wicked sorcerer? A nasty man who turned a royal family into a sword, a shield, and a crown?”

  “Oh, that one. Yes. ‘The Vengeance of Vorvas the Vindictive,’ they called it,” said Zorilon matter-of-factly. “I only heard it once. It wasn’t nearly as popular as the ones about someone’s beautiful daughter marrying a handsome prince, or someone tricking a little man out of a pot of gold.”

  “Did the story-teller say where it took place?” the wizard asked.

  “Long ago, in a kingdom in the west.”

  “Was there any mention of landmarks?” Kedrigern asked in growing frustration.

  “Let me think. . . . There was something about a river. Yes, you must cross the Moaning River, that’s what it was. And there was a warning. ‘Beware the Green Something-or-Other,’ the man said.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, Zorilon. You’ve been helpful,” said Princess. “We’ll head west and listen for a moaning river. What could be simpler?”

  “Getting a ring from the nose of a man-eating ogre. Or a scale from the chin of a fire-breathing dragon,” Kedrigern said under his breath.

  Princess looked at him sharply. He shrugged his shoulders and gave her his most innocent smile. She fluttered gracefully up to the saddle, Kedrigern mounted his black beast, and they started on their way. They had proceeded only a few paces when Princess snapped her fingers sharply, reined in her diaphanous steed, and turned to Zorilon.

  “One more observation, Zorilon: Your openings need more life,” she said.

  “More life, my lady?”

  “They’re flat. They don’t create that immediate feeling of involvement and curiosity and wonder that every storyteller strives for. I mean, ‘Quite some time ago . . .‘ or ‘Some years back . . .‘just won’t grab an audience.”

  “She’s right, Zorilon. They certainly didn’t grab me,” Kedrigern said. “How about, ‘Once, a long time ago. . .‘?“

  “Yes, something like that. ‘Once, years and years ago...’”

  “Or maybe, ‘Once upon a time ...‘“ Kedrigern suggested.

  Zorilon’s face lit up. “That’s it! That’s a perfect opening! I love it! Oh, thank you both so very much!”

  “I’d work on the ending, too. People don’t like their stories to trail off. They want a punch line . . . something to tie it all together,” Kedrigern said.

  “Keddie’s right. Your endings need work.” Princess pressed a hand to her brow and closed her eyes in thought, then said, “You used a phrase last night when we were discussing the need for conflict. You wanted your characters to live happily . . . oh, what was that phrase?” All were silent, expectantly, and then Princess cried, “ ‘And they lived happily ever after!’ That’s it, Zorilon. I think it would make a lovel
y closing line for a fairy tale.”

  “But, my lady, last night you spoke so persuasively on the other side!”

  “I did?”

  “You did, my dear,” Kedrigern said.

  “You persuaded me that except for yourself and Master Kedrigern, people don’t live happily ever after. They can’t. Maybe they shouldn’t even try. In any case, they don’t.”

  Princess looked thoughtfully into the distance for a time, then said, “Oh, let’s give them a break, Zorilon. What are fairy tales for?”

  “But, my lady, what about all those disasters? The suffering? The plagues and dragons and misfortunes and ogres and all that?”

  Princess leaned down to pat him softly on the cheek. “Give it a try, Zorilon. Let them live happily ever after. Do it for me.”

  He took her hand and kissed it reverently. “For you, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Zorilon. And remember: if you really want to fix them good, you can always write a sequel.”

  Six

  o cursed spite

  THE STOP at Zorilon’s cottage had been a pleasant interlude. The young man’s information, though sketchy, had been helpful. But as Kedrigern proceeded westward, his old doubts returned. Autumn was in full glory all around him; and if autumn came, could winter be far behind? Surely not. All too soon there would be ice and snow and bitter cold and impassable roads and wolves and frostbite; desperate searching for shelter; meager food; wretchedness and misery; and worst of all, an ever-lengthening absence from the warmth and comfort of their home on Silent Thunder Mountain.