Arabesque

by Hayden Thorne

  Previous victims had never seen through its conflicting purpose and nature. Ignorance and fear had kept them bewildered and easy targets for the cottage’s unnatural appetite for power over the weak—or at least what it perceived to be weak. Whether by coincidence or destiny or the interference of an unknown power that couldn’t be deciphered, let alone measure, Alarick had crossed the threshold and offered the cottage something different, something deliciously tempting, and now it was slowly realizing what a mistake it had been to keep the prince captive for longer than the usual allotted time.

  Greed had weakened it. Desire, so long subverted and redirected down other roads and redefined in ways that had nothing to do with pleasures of the flesh, had eaten away at the wooden man, and the rotting core from two centuries of pest infestations was slowly being laid bare.

  Alarick continued to pleasure himself, his fist a near blur as he crested, and he exploded in a series of helpless gasps that faded into ragged sighs. The sight of his milky release coating his stomach and fingers drew more groans from the wooden man, who’d now sunk to the floor, where he clawed away with shredded fingers at the weathered wood as he fought a stupid, vain battle against his prison to get to the sated prince.

  Alarick listened to his blood rushing in his ears, his heart thundering in his chest, as he gradually drifted back to earth with Roald’s name in his lips. He stared at the ceiling with eyes that threatened to spill tears, for his earlier defiance had completely drained him, his fury now abated, and he was once again faced with the fact that there was nowhere else to go other than death.

  He pinched his eyes shut, and tears did flow. “I love you, Roald,” he whispered. “The gods bless you, wherever you are. I hope you know that I never gave in even till the end.” It was all he could do, appending a silent prayer that the next person to cross the cottage’s threshold would be the last. He never saw the wooden hands that vainly reached out to him from the floor, clawing and scrabbling, drawing out more sounds from a cracking foundation.

  * * *

  With resignation came a numbed sort of calm. The cottage, incensed by Alarick’s furious provocation, moved more furniture around, causing him to trip and fall, hit something, cut himself, burn himself, all meant to punish the damned slut for his mocking challenge. Bruised and bleeding, hobbling about in pain, Alarick nevertheless took to the abuse without a word, satisfying himself with a contemptuous smirk.

  Let the monster tire itself out, he told himself even as he was on the verge of lashing out in another violent fit. And sure enough, the cottage grew tired of its bullying when it saw that their victim showed no response.

  “You’re no fun, Your Highness,” it said with a heavy sigh. “Very well, then. Have it your way. Your bath awaits you.”

  The familiar tin tub broke into Alarick’s line of vision, and without a word, he shed his clothes and climbed in. The warm, clean water was escape enough for him, and there he let lost himself, forcing his mind back to happier days in the past. He drifted from one family member to another, from one friend and acquaintance to another, in a quietly systematic farewell, ending his thoughts on Roald. If Alarick were to die in that cottage, he wanted to make sure that his final breath would be a prayer for his lover.

  By the time he’d finished, he felt both clean and drained, and he headed straight for bed.

  * * *

  Eventually Alarick had to eat from the garishly patterned and colored bowl, and it was truly all he could do to simply wait for time by observing the table setting. The bowl’s design was nothing but a confusing mass of lines and curves that intersected and ran parallel to each other. Adding to the visual puzzle was the infinite collection of colors that filled every inch of space available. In several places the colors melded into each other, creating even more hues with which to boggle the prince’s mind. And yet—in spite of the discordance—there was an unusual brand of beauty that could be found and that Alarick, regardless of the pain that stung his eyes, was drawn more and more into what he saw.

  “What lesson will you teach me now?” he asked, feeling nothing more than dullness, which was steadily defining his daily existence. “What story will I be in? Will it turn out just as happily as the stories my nurse used to tell me?” He gingerly poked at his food with his fork, chuckling without humor.

  The wooden man read the prince’s rapidly dwindling strength of will to be a much-anticipated sign. The boy was finally surrendering himself—mind, body, soul. The wretch had put up a good fight, and with no help forthcoming, Alarick had finally, finally, given up. Took him long enough.

  The cottage didn’t respond. It didn’t need to. The battle had been won, and it was only a matter of time before the prince would be claimed completely. A thick silence, which emphasized Alarick’s isolation and helplessness, would be the death blow, and it wouldn’t be long.

  Not that Alarick cared one way or the other, of course. The shapes and the colors in his bowl were simply too exquisite to ignore, and he sank into a mesmerized state. Things seemed to move before him—lines and shades shifted into and against each other, and he was barely aware of going to the similarly patterned bed that evening. He moved mechanically as though in a perpetual dream state while he undressed and prepared for bed. His eyes were wide open yet dulled, and he had to feel his way around as though blinded. The shapes on his bed beckoned to him, and the colors controlled him. He obeyed willingly enough.

  * * *

  Ulrike stood before the cursed forest’s initial line of trees. Her gaze swept over the silent sentinels, her eyes narrowing as she listened to shadows whispering, stirring something awake in her.

  From somewhere in the deepest, darkest corners of her soul, she felt her ancient bloodline and the power that had long consumed her stir. “I suppose it has its purpose,” she murmured grimly. Her eyes fluttered shut against the looming threat before her, and she whispered old, familiar chants, feeling a warmth swell in her belly, slowly and gently rippling outward to flow over her limbs and her hands and feet, the most burning heat settling in her heart and feeding her mind with a confidence she hadn’t felt in so many years, further fueled by a mother’s vengeance and a lover’s final wish for vindication.

  Feeling her veins pulsing with a heat that staved off the chill of the night, the queen stepped forward, vanishing in the shadows of the guardian trees.

  The forest felt her too well, and it offered its own resistance. Ulrike would merely turn to look at a creeping shadow, her eyes glowing while she murmured a spell, and the shadow would shrink, shudder, and be rent apart with an unearthly wail, the black tatters of its former self flying everywhere, to be swallowed up by the surrounding darkness. Other shadows would attempt to fight off the advancing witch-queen, only to be served the same way, till the cursed forest rang with echoes of its slain watchers.

  “I’m not afraid of you!” she cried out as she moved to step on a fleeing snake-shaped shadow, destroying it with her satin shoes. She laughed, feeling almost drunk from her power’s restoration and seeing how well she’d been able to defend herself against a cursed forest that had been around for as long as her own bloodline of sorcery existed.

  And the last sorceress-queen would never go down without a fight.

  The apple held in one hand, she raised the other with another murmured spell, and her hand disappeared under a ball of light. It pulsed softly for a moment before intensifying till it surrounded her with a brilliant glow that made the trees pull their branches away from her and curl up their roots, their trunks shrinking away from the piercing brightness. Other shadows cringed and crept back to safer places, and they peered out from behind trees, shrubberies, and rocks, watching and hating the presumptuous bitch as she forced her presence onto the forest, challenging its authority with her own.

  “Where is he?” she demanded, only to be answered by distant laughter that echoed and faded. “Very well. I can find him, myself.”

  She walked on, spotting the path that Alarick had taken t
o the cottage but stepping outside it and plunging deeper into the forest in another direction. She stopped along the way, raising her head and sniffing the air, her eyes nothing more than a pair of glowing white sockets. She continued to sniff, turning left and right, sometimes bending low at the waist as she caught a scent that hovered like thick, sluggish mist just a few feet above the forest floor.

  Her lips curled into a grim smile. “Ah, there you are,” she said, and she hurried forward, this time taking another direction that forced her to walk through thickets and dead trees with low-hanging and interlocking branches. She’d lost her wig to one of those web-like formations, and her cape had been pulled back and tugged at, her dress torn in places. Indeed, if the forest couldn’t stop her, surely the trees could at least claw away at her and work at her defenses.

  But a will driven by vengeance couldn’t be weathered, and the reassuring effects of sorcery in the blood only strengthened its determination. Ulrike barely felt the indignities she suffered, and at length she stood before an old mound of earth in a small clearing that was barely touched by the moonlight.

  “Well, hello, Your Majesty,” she said, the light pulsing around her growing brighter as she called on her powers. “So the legends are true, after all. The great sorcerer-king of Paradies, buried without ceremony and prayer, condemned to an eternity of unrest.”

  She curled her lip in disgust as she walked a slow circle around the unconsecrated grave, keenly taking in marks of a damned soul as exhibited to her by the unremarkable-looking mound. With the use of her powers, of course, she could see these telltale signs of a curse set on one who himself had placed a curse on the people who’d surrounded or served him two hundred years ago. Here and there, she caught sight of faint wisps of his soul, torn into ribbons and perpetually hovering above the grave, rising in graceful, invisible columns like the remnants of smoke of a doused fire.

  Ulrike stopped at length, drawing herself up and feeling her powers surge through her, radiating outward through her outstretched arms. “But don’t be afraid. Consider me your savior, Your Majesty. I’m sure you’re tired of being chained to this forest and warping it to your image. I know that the people in this land feel this way. Sire, I do believe it’s time for you to retire at last.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The watcher in the wood smiled with cold satisfaction as he stood guard over his protégé. Alarick was now indulging in the burgundy-colored bowl with the delicate fruit design, and he’d understood its purpose. He ate his meal without his utensils and even his hands. He bowed into his food and moved his tongue to lap at his soup. Vegetables and meat got to be picked up with his lips and teeth.

  “Like wine,” the prince murmured almost rapturously at one point, his eyes fluttering shut as he slowly swiped his tongue across his lips before diving back into his bowl. “Wine and soup together—it’s wonderful.”

  “Taste should always be savored,” the watcher observed, and the prince nodded faintly. He could hear the watcher’s voice in his head, which was a final sign of his surrender. It wouldn’t be long before he was the cottage’s completely, though the wooden man regretted the final state in which he was now about to claim his prize. “See, had you not resisted the way you did, you’d have been released a long time ago, Your Highness, with your humanity intact.”

  Alarick, though more like a doll than anything, still had that small corner of his mind to himself, fiercely protected as a hopelessly overpowered army would stand up to its victorious attackers, with their backs against the wall. And as such, he mentally rolled his eyes and laughed bitterly, angered more by the fact that death hadn’t come quickly enough, and he was forced to defend his tiny patch of sanity and free will every minute since he awoke from one more night of twisted dreams.

  My humanity’s a great deal more intact than you think, you brainless coward, he thought, though his eyes remained dull and unseeing, his movements listless and wholly dependent on the cottage’s smug directions.

  He licked the bowl clean, unmindful of the mess he’d just created both on himself and around him. His mentor nodded his approbation before indulging in his own repast from wood grain bowls. The prince at length finished and glanced up, his eyes instantly fixing themselves on the wooden man as though he’d just spotted him easily from where he sat.

  “The bowl tastes like wine and fruit,” Alarick said. “Will my bed be the same?”

  “Of course, Your Highness. Surely you don’t expect anything less,” the cottage replied.

  Alarick offered a vacant smile before shuffling off to sit before the hearth. He moved like a puppet now—led around by invisible strings that the wooden man himself controlled. He obeyed it, was impressively pliant.

  The wooden man followed him to his room and ensured that he repaired to the right bed. His eyes narrowed as his lips curved into a lazy smile of accomplishment. A hand once again pulled away from the wall, reaching out to the slumbering youth and failing, and once more resorted to pretending to stroke tousled raven hair. In Alarick’s dreams—those that came after his violent tantrum—Roald was nowhere to be found, for the cottage had already taken over them, though it still failed to claim that last small corner of reality that Alarick kept hidden from it. In those same dreams, Alarick finally played by the rules, following one adventure to the next, rescuing princesses without a problem, without a single disaster happening. In those same dreams, he smiled at the pretty young ladies he’d valiantly saved from spells or imprisonment, taking their hands in his as he dropped to his knees and declared true, undying love to them before proposing marriage.

  His brides welcomed his attentions happily, gifting him with the brightest, loveliest smiles and prettiest tokens of love, and each dream ended with him riding off into the sunset with his new beloved, with whom he was to remain steadfastly attached, through the years, through several children and even grandchildren, till death parted them, only to be reunited in blissful eternity ever after.

  The wooden man absorbed those dreams, Alarick’s final surrender to his lessons. In the cover of night, he watched the prince sleep, delighting in the tears that trickled down the sides of Alarick’s face, judging them to be tears of joy at being finally set on the right path.

  Every once in a while, the watcher would spot a strange shape forming around the prince when he slept. It only appeared in faint lines that softly glowed for a second or two before disappearing entirely, and it was always difficult to catch them. But after several glimpses of those odd lines, he was convinced that they existed, but he didn’t know what they were or how they were formed.

  Whenever he caught sight of them, he mentally connected those lines and came up with the picture of an oblong box surrounding the sleeping prince—like a coffin, one might say. Those lines appeared to him for two nights in a row, and each time they flickered into sight, they seemed more defined than they were before. Was this oblong box an effect of Alarick’s dreams? Even a cursed creature such as the watcher couldn’t fully delve into the young man’s mind to know for sure, but the vision was quite stunning, and the efforts at solving this new puzzle proved to be rather fun to someone who never slept.

  “What a beautiful sight you’d make, Your Highness,” the wooden man once said with a leer, “lying in state in a glass coffin, exposed to the world and yet protected from it.”

  * * *

  There’s a man in the wall, Alarick thought. This man moved around as he did, following him around the cottage. He’d pull away from the wood—as far as he could, at least—and move toward his protégé every so often, reaching out to touch the prince, a wooden hand against his cheek or his body whenever Alarick stood close enough to the wall. Sometimes wooden fingers idly combed through the tousled mess of raven hair that framed Alarick’s face.

  The man in the wall at times would bend over from the wood paneling to loom over him after his head sank in the pillows, telling him stories, filling him with tales of love and punishment, how one could never exist with
out the other. A good part of Alarick would accept what he heard readily enough. What greater truths he currently knew and understood were those that the cottage and the forest had long whispered in his ear—and what his dreams had now impressed in his mind.

  Dreams…

  He now believed that he lived in one. He could hardly tell the difference between his waking and his sleeping hours, though every once in a while, a flicker of light would shine from one corner of his mind—the one he continued to protect from the cottage’s influence, even if his efforts had become no more than instinctual at this point. Nothing more than a basic act of survival, perhaps?

  In his deepest state of unconsciousness, his senses were heightened to levels that left him trembling from want, contemptuous of anything that fell short of pure sensual pleasure. In his most conscious state, he felt the cottage and the forest—felt the world around him. He heard the tales being whispered between tree and bird, the lamentations of the evening breeze, the guttural murmurs among the rocks. He saw shadows creep about, and he chased after them, only to have them melt into the distant night. He felt soft velvet against his skin as though it were fingers that caressed him endlessly. He smelled every flower, every rotten tree, every blade of grass. He tasted the rain, the wind, and the sun.

  The watcher in the wood—the man in the wall—his guardian and master—lover and enemy—quietly exulted as he carefully groomed the boy by devouring what was left of his humanity. Insubordination could never be tolerated, and for the prince to tempt the watcher into all kinds of unnatural fantasies? Ah, that would never be allowed to go unpunished.