by Unknown
Something else drew her attention. The slow, shambling gait of the skeleton had become even more clumsy, if no less determined—as if the thing were somehow looser than before. A few seconds’ study revealed that the thing was more poorly framed than before. It had, in fact, decreased in size by about a third. Whether the makeup of the spell had changed or it had consumed power in sending her away, it was less than it had been.
Let it transport her twice and use itself up? No, no time. The skeleton would be at Mellie’s door before—
The skeleton. Mellie had recognized it as “hamlet’s father’s ghost.” She had seen it before. Therefore it had been here already, and the makt simply used the skeleton so that it could stay together and move about. A framework. That meant—
Mika took off at a run. Speed was the critical factor here. If she could get in and out before it noticed her...
She jumped. Not directly at its back, but alongside it. As she passed it, her jaws closed on a rib and she wrenched it loose. She hit the ground and darted off to the side.
If you can’t turn it around, take it apart.
She spat out the rib. Not bone at all—wood! What she would give right now for a bit of fire from that boiler room... Alas, leaping that far would exhaust her, let alone leaping back, and she dared not expend the energy. Nor did she know any fire-from-heaven spells. Eh, well. Keep doing what works. The ribs came off most easily, although she knew that sooner or later she—wait. Try it now. She circled around, came back zigging and zagging toward its left rear, chose her target, jumped, pulled, and...there. Let’s see it throw me without a hand. The other followed soon after.
She pulled another rib off and flung it away, laughing to herself. Normally they throw the sticks and I chase them. Something turns around after all.
Her jaws closed on the thing’s right ankle and she twisted. The foot didn’t come off, but with a now-useless ankle it folded under the leg, and the skeleton crashed to the ground.
And disappeared.
That she didn’t expect. Its task was to take and send away, and Mika expected it to continue working toward that end even if it had to pull itself along with what was left of its arms and legs. Like the Furies of old, a makt didn’t give up.
Mika gathered her wits, did some serious if momentary reflecting, and leapt.
#
She found it in a garden. More specifically, in a maze.
Six-foot-high hedges outlined the paths of a labyrinth. Mika had no idea how large it was but presumed that one would not construct such a place without a suitably intricate puzzle to be solved. All she could see was a path that continued straight for some distance before and behind, turning behind the wall at each end, with other paths branching off at intervals.
At the end of the straight path before her was the makt, lying face down on the grass. It had taken her several leaps to find it, but find it she did. So the wards around the College would have kept you out but not in. That suits me well. You just didn’t think I could follow.
Mika lay on the grassy path for a moment. Those leaps had nearly exhausted her, but she was undeterred. If a makt could pursue its prey like a Fury, so could she—and better. It had failed to secure its prey. She had not.
The makt was half its former size. For all she knew, it might disappear again. Let it. She would follow, after she recovered some of her strength. Slowly she got to her feet and began walking toward it.
The skeleton-thing took note of her arrival. As she approached, the skull lifted from the path, and the eyes that were not eyes regarded her. The ends of the arms moved in a peculiar dance, and something about them made Mika stop and back away.
The skull sank back upon the earth, and the makt’s dim purple glow suddenly turned a bright red-orange. Mika heard a hum like an angry hornet, then two, then four, then eight, growing to fill the air around her. The brilliant glow swelled outward from the makt in all directions, a dome that burned like an expanding sun.
Mika backed away, but not far enough. With a clap of thunder the fiery dome exploded.
#
Nothing moved in the labyrinth for about a half-hour. Then, with agonizing slowness, Mika—singed but alive—again struggled to her feet. She glanced toward where the makt had been, nothing remaining but a scattering of ashes and two great charred gaps in the hedge walls. Not that they would be of much help to Mika as she trotted down the path in the other direction, seeking the exit the old-fashioned way.
She remembered that strange movement that preceded the blast. The power remaining in the makt was clearly considerable, explaining both the event and its effects; but it seemed doubtful that spell-casting would be needed to trigger it, especially since the skeleton lacked fingers to weave the spell.
No, she decided, sometimes a gesture was just a gesture. Mika suspected that had the makt still possessed hand- and finger-bones, the gesture would not have been polite.
#
“...and the ashes we recovered in the labyrinth match the wood pieces littering your courtyard. I think it likely, therefore, that Melisande’s story is true, and this opinion will be reflected in my report.” Corporal Juliana of the City Guard stood at something resembling parade rest before Magistrix Judith’s desk. The hearing was only semi-formal, but one would not catch Juliana neglecting the forms. The Chancellor of the University turned her gaze to Officer Conrad of Campus Security, who echoed the City Guardsman’s conclusions.
“Very well, then,” she said. “Lord Llewellyn will have to submit the bill for his landscaping to someone else. In cases of of enemy action, which evidently this is, we are not liable.” She turned to Melisande, seated in one of several chairs that lined the wall. Beside Melisande sat Mika, somewhat the worse for wear but upright, clear-eyed, and tail wagging. Behind Mika stood Stephen, his hand on his wife’s shoulder. On her other side stood Edward.
On the wall above them someone had painted, in skillful calligraphy, a fragment of a psalm: “My soul waits for the Lord, more than they that watch look for the morning.” It was a favorite passage of the Chancellor’s, particularly when she found herself hip-deep in the proverbial alligators and needed a reminder of the objective to drain the swamp. Today’s investigation, with alligators aplenty, had taken until well past midnight; doubtless everyone, not just the Campus Security sentries, was looking eagerly for the morning.
“I thank you for your patience, Melisande and Stephen...yes, and Mika,” said Magistrix Judith. “We’re almost at the end here, and I believe we can get you home to bed well before the morning arrives.” To Stephen she said, “Finally, Professor, please tell Lord Logas and the officers here about your seminar at midday.”
“Yes, my Lady,” said Stephen. “Nothing negative occurred for most of the period—indeed, we were all conducting a delightfully energetic discussion on the question “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?”—until shortly before noon, when, with no apparent precursor events, one of the students suffered a violent death.”
The Chancellor nodded. “The nature of that death?”
“Clearly magic-based, my Lady. The student was ignited from within, seemingly spontaneously, and almost before we knew it the combustion was complete. All that remained was the charred skeleton. And a blackened chair.”
Again Magistrix Judith nodded. “Your opinion, my Lord High Wizard?”
Logas pursed his lips. “The report Senior Thaumaturge Melisande has given us, based on the rapport she enjoyed with Mika”—at whom he glanced; she looked him square in the eye—”is that Mika believes the event at Lord Llewellyn’s estate to be the self-termination of a makt, a motile spell-construct existing apart from, but not utterly independent of, the wizard who casts it. Since it existed as an extension of the wizard’s will, its destruction rebounded on its maker. Hence the event during the seminar, which we may term a ‘magical backlash.’”
“And yet you say this was not entirely consistent with the run-of-the-mill makt, if such a thing could be said to be.”
> “Correct, my Lady Chancellor. It would seem that the wizard invested this makt with some degree of intellect, so that it could secure a suitable framework for its existence without supervision. This would follow if the wizard were a student with a stringent schedule. As an unforeseen result, the makt abandoned its task when faced with the improbability of success rather than, as we would put it, ‘die trying.’ I am considering the hypothesis that with any degree of intellect comes an instinct for self-preservation.”
Magistrix Judith frowned. “Yet followed in this case by suicide. Why? And what about its behavior before destruction?”
Logas’s expression didn’t change, but Melisande saw his eye twinkle. “Spite.”
The Chancellor harrumphed, then addressed the group as a whole. “You see the problem before us, ladies and gentlemen. This wizard was an exchange student from beyond the Colonies, which to us is terra incognita. And yet she held not only knowledge of our own people, procedures, and lore, but an agenda that included kidnapping—initially Lord Edward, or more likely the Sceptre of which he is Guardian, but redirected at the child of Melisande and Stephen, who will be a Guardian when she is of age. I consider the trans-Mississippi region a very credible threat, and recommend that we each give its study the benefit of our particular talents. I do not doubt that much remains to be discovered, and we will benefit from the forewarning.
“This hearing stands adjourned.”
After the Guardsmen and Edward had left, Stephen and Melisande made their way out, with Mika behind them. Before she was out the door, Logas called, “Michaela!”
The dog stopped and turned to face him.
“Lady Sarras sends her greetings. She looks forward to seeing you again when she returns to campus next week.”
Mika woofed brightly.
#
“You should have seen it,” Stephen said enthusiastically to Melisande. Edward had joined them for supper, and now they were seated in the living room of the cottage. “Right there in the middle of the discussion she turned into a souped-up jack-o-lantern. Flames shooting out of the eyes and mouth and everything. Of course the skull was empty, burnt completely out.”
Melisande decided no, thanks, she needn’t have seen it. To her relief, Edward changed the subject. “If she had kidnapped me, what would that have accomplished?”
“Can’t say for sure, of course, but we can imagine what the bad guys could do with the Sceptre. Not that they’d need it themselves, but consider what would happen if they planted it in the King’s palace. Or the Chinese Emperor’s, or the Caliph’s.”
“And then there’s your daughter. Who I gather has a name, eh?”
“Well,” said Stephen, “Mika seems to think so.” He laughed. “Who am I to second-guess the family dog? Who, as it happens, rescued her and her mother from kidnapping, possible brainwashing, subversion...and the Paten with her.”
Melisande chose this point to break her silence and rise to her feet, cutting off the discussion. “You two can stay up all night theorizing horrors if you want. I’m going to bed before I have nightmares for the next three months.”
#
“Whatever Mika is, she’s not an ordinary dog.” Stephen held Melisande close—or as close as he could. “She’s more like a guardian angel.”
“Or a Guardian,” Melisande murmured, already half-asleep.
She was dreaming again, the kind of dream that she now recognized and welcomed. Tonight Mika’s thoughts were unusually clear: Who guards the Guardians? The reply was simple.
I do.
Straw-Spun
by Leah Cypess
This is definitely the most unusual take on the story of Rumpelstiltskin that I have ever encountered, and I love new twists on old stories.
Leah Cypess lives near Boston, MA, and used to live in New York City, where she briefly worked as a lawyer. This is her second sale to SWORD & SORCERESS. Her first, in SWORD & SORCERESS 23, was a retelling of The Lady of Shalott; she freely admits that twists on familiar tales and tropes are her favorite type of story. Her two published young adult fantasy novels, MISTWOOD and NIGHTSPELL, apply this method to shapeshifters and ghosts, respectively. You can find out more about her and her writing at www.leahcypess.com.
****
Alina unfolded the letter slowly and with great care: it was very old, and felt thin and fragile under her steady fingertips. Her heart was pounding in a way unfamiliar to her, and not just because of the whispers she had heard on the way to the throne room: gold to straw from two passing courtiers, the end of the peace from a duke to a lady, Rumpelstiltskin—she hadn’t turned fast enough to see who’d said that.
She had come to the sitting room to ask her father about the whispers, but before she could say a word, he had handed her the letter. She smoothed out the last fold and focused on the ornate, flowing script so similar to her own.
The king was watching her. She composed her face and read.
#
I have four days until your third birthday, and it isn’t enough time. They say if you discover a goblin’s true name, it gives you power over him. For the past month I have been living in the library, searching through the forbidden books, trying to figure out which one he is and if anyone knows his name. It is a fruitless, endless task. I will not lie: it is also boring. Even the fear of death doesn’t change that.
Four days. I have an entire bookshelf left. Even if his name is there, which I doubt.
What will he do with you?
You need to understand: when I signed you away to him, you were nothing. Not a sigh in the wind, not a speck on the fabric of the world. You were nothing, not even a possibility of something, for though I had spoken to your father once or twice, I had never even touched his hand.
Yet you were real enough, to him, to be worth my life. My life and a roomful of gold. How could something that didn’t even exist be worth that much?
If I hadn’t done it, you would never have existed at all. So I told myself. I was buying not just my own life, but yours: three years of life for you. Children are happy creatures, and I swore you would be the happiest of them all, you-who-were-nothing. Three years of joy. Who wouldn’t trade for that?
It seemed so easy, so simple, when you were not real.
It was lack of experience, you see, that brought me to this. I didn’t know that parents love their children. Mine didn’t.
The king doesn’t like what I am doing. Nobody does. Whispers rise around me, suspicious and fearful. Does that make me seem like a better mother, that I am willing to risk my life for yours? Even if it’s too late? How could I know, back then, what I was willing to do for a life that didn’t exist?
Ah, but I lie. I always knew the whispers would come. That at first I would be their marvel, the girl who spun straw into gold, the commoner who married a king. For as long as the harvests were good and the borders at peace. But that when times turned bad, they would speak of witchcraft, and unholy bargains, and the devil.
Times are still good. But my days were always numbered. As yours were.
No, it’s no good drawing similarities between us. No good rambling on when I should be straining my eyes at yet another book. Cursed sorcerers and their cursedly small writing.
I just wanted to tell you… somehow… that I failed. I love you after all, despite all I did to avoid it. Your wide dark eyes when you were drawn from my body, your tiny red fists and feet. When I realized, suddenly, that you were something. The most important thing in the world. And that I had realized it too late.
I know it is inadequate—even silly. But I am writing this letter to say that I love you. And that I’m sorry.
#
Alina refolded the letter slowly, until it was so small she could hide it in her palm. She looked at her father.
“Why,” she said, “did you show me this?”
The king folded his hands together. They were old, crooked hands; the days when they had wielded a sword were long over. The ruby signet ring seemed too
heavy for his fingers.
“Because,” he said, “we were wrong about what happened. Your mother never found his name.”
“Then why am I alive?” Alina asked.
She asked it calmly and precisely, the same way she asked about the progress of the negotiations with Aimar, and saw a flicker of approval in her father’s eyes. The king was a very calm, measured person. He found excessive emotion distasteful, and his definition of “excessive” was stricter than that of most people.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I suspect, now, that your mother managed a trade.”
Alina rose from her seat and walked to the back of the sitting room. The portrait of her mother hung between two tall windows, overshadowed by their heavy sills, nearly invisible when the sun shone through. There was no good reason to display it more prominently, for there was nothing remarkable about it. Alina’s mother had not been particularly beautiful, or regal, or striking. She looked like what she was, a village girl wrapped in yellow silk.
Until a few moments ago, Alina had never been told there might be anything about her to admire.
She didn’t know why that made her angry, but it did; and she knew she had better not let her father see that anger. So she kept her eyes on the painting, and her back to the king, while she spoke.
“What would a goblin take for a life?” she asked—but as soon as she asked, she knew. Suddenly she was afraid as well as angry. She took several deep, steady breaths, trying to hold her shoulders still, so her father wouldn’t guess.
“I don’t know,” her father lied to her. “The sorcerers have been working on figuring it out ever since it… happened. We know a bit about the goblin who is commonly known as Rumpelstiltskin—not his true name, of course, but it’s what the commonfolk call him. He has appeared sporadically in the Western Woods for several centuries. He is evil, and loves to cause trouble for humankind. But there are no stories of his making bargains with any of us, before....”
His voice trailed off. Alina thought of the story she had been told: how her mother had discovered the goblin’s true name, how in his rage he had pulled the ceiling down upon their heads and killed them both. Her father would not want to repeat the story now. Not when he was about to tell her the truth.