"...did you arrange this yourself?"
"A dear, straightforward gentleman like me?"
"Who else knew about the heartsafe charm?"
"How unfortunate for Aroon Kama that he judges others by himself. He assumed that two heartsafe charms meant you had divided your heart in two to protect yourself. It never occurred to him that you hid the children's hearts in your own bosom to keep the children safe."
"My Male...." Pimchan bit back the words of chastisement that would have dishonored her.
The All-Father spoke them himself: "I miscalculated. The Fahr-angs think the heartsafe charm is superstitious nonsense. That yellow-hair only intended to use your belief in it to force you to do what he wanted. He wouldn't have tried to disturb your spirit by frightening the child, and he wouldn't have thought he could harm you by killing the boy. Aroon Kama was a danger I failed to foresee." He inclined his body a noticeable degree—an unheard-of abasement, and one neither of them would ever mention to anyone.
The clop and rattle of oxcarts stopped outside the compound. An official fist thumped at the screen, making the bells fixed to it jump and jingle.
"Ah," said the All-Father. "My conveyance back to the capital, I think. We'll drop off your unwanted visitors somewhere along the way. Let my bodyguards in, my Warrior."
"Of course, All-Father." Pimchan kow-towed but rose with an impudent smile. "A poor weak noble dare not go anywhere without them these days."
The Fairest of Them All
by Melissa Mead
Marion used to reject stories submitted to Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine for being "re-written fairy tales." Personally, I like taking a fairy tale and playing with it. I'm not the only one; Mercedes Lackey has written several novels that used a fairy tale as a jumping-off point—in fact, she has two series that do this: the Elemental Mages series and the Godmother series. One can, however, have too much of a good thing. The first version of this story was twice as long and had every fairy tale reference possible. I sent it back for a rewrite, and this is the result.
Melissa Mead published her first short story at The First Line in 1999. That got her hooked on writing, but it wasn't until she attended her first convention (Albacon 2002) and joined the Carpe Libris writing group that things really took off. Her first novel, Between Worlds, is available as an e-book from Double Dragon Publishing. To find the book, links to more stories, and updates on what Melissa and the other writers of Carpe Libris are up to, go to http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/melissa-mead.
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"Snow White?" That was just an alias. Good queens don't name their daughters for "skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony wood." My mother didn't, anyhow. Everyone called her Constance the Fair. I try to be fair, too.
She died trying to negotiate with a sheep-stealing dragon. She'd heard the villagers' story (which would've ended, in their version, with the dragon's severed head adorning the village hall) and felt the dragon should have its say. Unfortunately, the Dragon words for "emissary" and "hors d'oeuvre" are identical.
I missed her terribly. Father did too, but he claimed Mother'd gotten killed because she insisted on dealing with the dragon herself.
"Talking to monsters. In my day we whacked their heads off. My sainted mother, Lady Aletheia... she never tried talking to dragons! Proper lady, she was. Embroidered, dressed well... none of this "justice and diplomacy" nonsense. My poor Constance. Crisped by a dragon. Such a lovely woman, too."
He gave me a regretful look. I wished I wasn't wearing my oldest dress, pitted with holes from experimenting with my Little Enchantress alchemy set.
"You need proper feminine role models, child."
"What about Jayel, Abby, Irene, Tracy, Christina, Jackie... " I reeled off the names of the maidservants.
"A gentlewoman, child! Someone refined. With that certain Jeanie Sayquoy."
"Je ne sais quoi," I corrected, unheard.
* * * *
Lady Sable arrived within a month. I'd barely changed my muddy clothes before Father summoned me to meet her. He wore a disturbing expression—equal parts awe, glee, confusion and terror. The newcomer ran to me and caught my chin in her hand.
"Such perfect bone structure!" she gasped. "Those cheekbones, that glorious black hair, that snow-white complexion... which face powder do you use, child?"
She turned my face back and forth, scrutinizing me from under eyelids painted like storm clouds. I felt like a bug pinned inside a collector's box.
"None, Ma'am," I said when she released my bruised chin.
"What?" Her eyes narrowed. Her scarlet mouth thinned. That carefully-painted face looked about to crack.
"Lady Sable, this is my daughter..." Father began.
"It's natural? No powder, no rouge?"
"Bethanie takes after her mother," said my father. "Quite the fair young lady."
Lady Sable glared at me. "Indeed."
* * * *
Lady Sable's squadron of servants included a dancing-master, a lady's maid, Cherie, and teachers in elocution and deportment. To my horror, I learned that these last were for my benefit.
"Your education's been lopsided," my father said. "Sable will set you right. Quite the beauty, Sable. Knows all that feminine fol-de-rol. Answer to a prayer." The besotted look faded for a moment. "Not that she's Constance. But as Constance herself used to say, 'For the greater good,' hey?"
The besotted look returned. Lady Sable's army descended with tapes and shears, and strapped me into a whalebone restraint called a "fashionable corset." They wrapped me in gilded crimson velvet, and braided my hair into a Medusa's tangle. Then Sable painted me with white lead and crushed beetles. My cheeks swelled. My eyes watered. I scrubbed the stuff off while Lady Sable cackled.
"It really is natural. Pray it lasts, young lady. Once age sinks its claws into you you'll be a mummified crone, with no way to lessen the blow."
"Lady Sable," I wheezed.
"You look like you've been stung by a wasp..."
"Lady Sable..."
"Like someone's blacked your eyes..."
"Lady Sable, I can't breathe!" I staggered against the cosmetics box, spattering everyone with eyeliner and clots of rouge. Powder billowed in choking clouds. The hairdresser cut the corset strings just before I blacked out. Lady Sable threw a tirade and banished me to my room until after the wedding. Looking back, I wonder if she arranged the whole fiasco so I couldn't disrupt the ceremony.
She dragged me out to show off her favorite wedding present—a full-length mirror, the frame beautifully carved with leaves and vines. While Sable preened before it, I examined the back.
"It's by the WNDFTFT!" I exclaimed.
"The what?" said Queen Sable.
"The Homunculi Brothers. WNDFTFT stands for "We're Not Dwarves, for the Fortieth Time!" I explained. "People call them the Eight Dwarves. They make the best enchanted products."
"My mirror's enchanted? Make it work!"
She shook the mirror. I flipped the switch on the back.
A starburst of light radiated from the glass. I blinked away the pink afterimage, and a worried spectral face peered from the frame.
"Too melodramatic? Sorry, I'll tone it down. Ahem. I am Fred, the Servant in the Mirror, bound in this vitreous state to serve the owner of this mirror... "
"Fred?" I said. "Just Fred?"
"Just Fred, fair maiden."
"I'm your owner, slave!" Queen Sable interrupted. "Address me as Your Majesty."
The spirit's face fell. "Well, technically you own the mirror, not me."
"I also own a large, heavy scepter."
The glass was sweating now. "Yes, Ma'am. Your Majesty. Um, I'm required to state that the owner of this mirror shall agree to hold the crafters blameless in the event of malfunction, breakage..."
"Enough! What are you enchanted to do?"
"Er, talk," said the mirror-spirit. Sable frowned.
"That is, I can praise Your Majesty's charms in fulsom
e and extravagant terms..."
She leaned forward. "Go on."
I left poor Fred stammering odes to Sable's every feature from earlobes to toenails. I wanted to find my father. No one had seen him since the ceremony.
He was in bed, feverish. I ran back to the hall. Poor Fred looked relieved to be interrupted. Queen Sable, furious, banished me from the hall. I set to work with my alchemy set.
I developed a floor wax, six varieties of hot sauce, and a lotion that de-warted toads, but no fever cures. Father got steadily worse. Lady Sable discovered my experiments, and confiscated the set.
* * * *
After Father died, Queen Sable kept me running after ingredients for new beauty potions. When I objected, she threatened me with a loaded blush-brush. Fortunately, she never noticed my substitutions: well water for dragon tears, or crushed eggshells for powdered unicorn horn.
I was pondering a plausible substitute for fairy gold when Fred hailed me from his mirror.
"Fred? You look glassy-eyed."
"I'm inside a mirror! I always look glassy eyed!" he shouted. "Sorry... Princess, I tried to object, but the sadist has a glass-cutter—"
"Object to what?"
The tapping of Queen Sable's six-inch stilettos echoed through the marble hallways. "Find the Speaking Oak," Fred whispered.
Lady Sable spotted me and beamed. "Ah, there you are! I've splendid news. I've discovered the Elixir of Youth! It just needs the heart's blood of a fair maiden."
I started to protest that I wouldn't murder some poor girl just so she could make wrinkle cream. When she summoned our Master Huntsman, I realized she meant me.
Wulfgar had faced charging boars, but he would've preferred rabid wolverines to Queen Sable. If he'd had a tail, it would've been tucked between his legs.
"Remove her heart, Huntsman," said Queen Sable. "But not over the carpet! Outside."
"Woooods..." Fred moaned. "Harness the power of the Woooods!"
With no idea what Fred was doing, I played along. "Not the Enchanted Forest!"
Queen Sable's face lit up. "Perfect! That infuses the elixir with Arcane Mystical Forces. Wonderful exfoliant. Do it there."
Poor Wolfie looked nauseated. I acted like he was forcing me out the door. Once we'd crossed the bridge, he cried, "I won't kill you, Princess! Even if that witch has me tortured. Which she'd enjoy."
I could've hugged him. "Trick her. I do it all the time. Just point me toward the Speaking Oak, please."
Wolfie obliged, looking savagely gleeful about hunting something edible instead. I ran the other way.
The Speaking Oak dominated its clearing. When I approached, the limbs waved as though storm-tossed. Verdant eyes opened below the crown. A mouthlike crack split the bark.
"Yoohoo, boys!" the tree bellowed. "Company!"
Wizened faces peered from behind trunks. I'd never seen anyone like those people—stick-thin, their skin patterned like wood grain. The tallest was barely my height, yet they weren't children. They glanced toward the tree, green eyes wide.
"Don't be bashful! She's that nice princess Fred talks about. Come say hello."
"You know Fred?" Compared to talking trees and silent tree-men, the disembodied mirror-spirit seemed comfortingly familiar.
"Honey, they MADE Fred!" the Speaking Oak boomed. "I'm Donna. These are my boys: Orrery, Astrolabe, Ratchet, Kerf, Mortise, Bevel, and Chris. The best crafters in the Enchanted Forest."
"Chris?"
The smallest crafter blushed, looking polished.
Recognition dawned. "You're the WNDFTFT! Aren't there eight of you?"
Mortise looked at his feet. "Tenon said he wanted to put down roots. So he did. Deep ones. We can't dig him up."
My head spun. "Donna? The Homunculi Brothers are your children?"
Donna nodded her crown. "The Forest respects them, because they never cut living wood. You'll be safe with them."
The little men led me deeper into the woods. No one spoke but Chris, who talked enough for all seven.
"You're the meat people's princess? Shouldn't you be Queen? You know we're not dwarves, right? Dwarves are meat people. We're not. Why does the Queen want you chopped down? Because Fred says you're pretty? Fred says you know Alchemy. Do you know LaVerre's Transformation? I think..."
"Chris, stuff a knot in it," said Orrery, and the smallest Crafter fell silent.
* * * *
We reached a clearing. Orrery stumped over to a nearby thicket to argue with a sapling.
"Tenon says she's to stay in the workshop," he reported. "And Fred's so upset he's about to crack."
"Fred? Fred's in the castle!" I said.
"I thought you knew alchemy!" Chris chided. "Fred's a mirror-spirit, not a mirror. C'mon." He wrapped twiggy fingers around my hand and pulled me through the thicket into an open space. Towering trees formed a living fence around us, branches twining overhead. The dirt floor had been planed smooth. I turned in slow circles, awed. The place melded an alchemist's laboratory, woodworker's shop, forge, and greenhouse. The forge had its own stone-shielded corner. Workbenches lined one wall. Plants sprouted from tabletops. Flasks and beakers dangled from branches growing through walls. A spring bubbled through a hole in the floor, and streamed out between the tree trunks. There was only one true door in the workshop, flanked by pines.
"Flesh people aren't supposed to see this," said Chris. "But Tenon says you'll need a roof and a fire, and the forge is the only fire we allow near the living trees. You won't tell, will you, Princess?"
"Of course not."
"Tenon, we've got a crisis here!" shouted a familiar voice from behind the door.
"Fred!"
Chris nodded. On the other side of the door was a gatehouse, lit with alchemical lamps that switched on and off like Fred's mirror.
"Tenon?" said Fred's voice from behind a curtain on the opposite wall.
"Don't crack yourself. We're here," said Chris.
The curtain hid a mirror, plainer than Sable's, with Fred's anxious face peering from it. If color could've rushed back to his face when he saw me, it would've. I'd considered him a sort of two-dimensional court jester. He wasn't joking now.
"Princess! Thank goodness. Wolfie brought back this dripping... anyway, you're alive!"
"Did Queen Paintbox really eat something's heart?" said Chris, with nauseated glee.
"Yes, you twisted little rootstock. Raw. She couldn't bully anyone into cooking it."
"Ewww!"
"Enough of that," said Orrery from behind us. "Fred, what's up?"
"Everyone's mourning the princess. Sable's bought a black mink cloak for the occasion, and created a new Blush Tax to pay for it." Fred flickered nervously. "And Wolfie wants out. I don't blame him. Anyway, he wants you to perform LaVerre's Transformation on him."
Orrery frowned. "I'll consider it."
"I think we should Transform YOU, Fred!" Chris piped up.
"Chris," said the mirror-spirit, "Shut up. Go find the nice lady some food. Like fruit and nuts. No dirt. And something soft to sleep on."
"Flesh people are so delicate!" Chris scampered off, shedding leaves.
"It's so good to see you, Princess!" Fred was beaming, but I was too bewildered to be polite.
"Start explaining or I'll soap you."
"Er, yes. I suppose I should introduce myself properly: Alfred Glass, Homunculi Brothers Prints and Images Division, mirror-spirit, and W+DFTFP agent. At your service, Princess."
"WNDFTFT agent?"
He smiled and spelled it out properly. "Wild and Domestic Faerie-Tale Forest Protectors," he explained. "Although the mixed-up version's wonderful for our cover."
"Cover? You're a spy?"
He shook his head. "A counselor to the Royal Family. I was with your lady mother when she faced the dragon. Reflected in her shield. But the smoke dulled the polish... there was nothing to hold. I failed her. I'm sorry, Princess."
I swallowed. "Why serve Sable, then?"
He winced. "I wa
tch Sable. We need eyes in the castle, and I can go places Wolfie can't. A mirror, a basin of water, polished silver—all windows, to me."
"Peeping Tom."
"Princess! I swear by my silver backing, I'm a gentleman. And mirrors don't lie."
I believed him. I realized that he could've been spying for Queen Sable, but I doubted it. Sable was too unpredictable to win the loyalty of someone she could shatter in a fit of temper.
"Anyway, what's this LaVerre's Transformation that Wolfie wants? Why does Chris think you should do it too?"
He grimaced. "A shapechanging spell. Excruciatingly painful, but effective. Wolfie wants the Brothers to change him into a real wolf, so Sable can't find him."
"Why does Chris want you to transform?"
"The little troublemaker thinks it would be funny to turn me into a human man," said Fred shortly. "Never mind that it would hurt worse than cracking one of my mirrors would. Ah—the Royal Face-Powder Keg is calling me to tell her she's the "fairest of all" again. Fortunately, since 'fair' can mean 'light-complexioned' and she's wearing inch-thick white talc, I'm safe. Pardon me..."
He vanished. I grew accustomed to that, living in the gatehouse.
The brothers were uncomfortable having me around until I started helping with experiments. Fred's latest news gave me an incentive to learn: Sable, with the help of my old alchemy kit, was fast becoming a competent alchemisorceress.
So was I. Turning lead into gold was easy (and purified the local drinking water). Wolfie's Transformation was hard both to assist with and to watch. By the end the poor wolf was panting and exhausted, hoarse from howling. I could see why Fred didn't want to put himself through such an ordeal.
Within a year I was "Snow White," a full-fledged sorceress and W+DFTFP agent. The kingdom was in chaos. Queen Sable passed sumptuary laws banning cosmetics for commoners. Her Vanity Police flogged anyone wearing so much as lipstick.
"We have to distract Sable." I told the W+DFTFP. We'd all crowded into the gatehouse for Fred's latest report. "Get her attention off the people long enough for them to rebel."
"And onto what?" said Ratchet.
I grinned. "Snow White."
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIII Page 13