Fairy Tale

An Airdan Fairy Tale Inspired by reading a bunch of Susanna Clarke and listening to my younger sisters bicker. Also Paradox. Catastrophe loomed dangerously over the airborne city. Thunderheads hung heavy, bulging purple gray, concealing the tops of taller buildings and promising doom. Disquieted by they knew not what, babies whimpered in their cradles and the local wildlife slithered or fluttered or slunk into whatever hideaways they had. The young princes were bored. Draco repeatedly poking him between the shoulder blades, Tommy walked ever-soboldly into his father’s office. “Dad.” He braced his fists on his hips, braced his heel on the nearest chair, and glared boldly up at his venerable father and monarch. “Tell us a story.” Heartbeats passed. Once. Twice. Thrice. "No.” Tommy found himself smiling politely and ran back into the hallway. Not because he was intimidated or anything. He simply had somewhere to be. Quickly. “That didn’t work.” “Aw.” Draco’s lips, like his brother’s, were stained a deep scarlet. Not from lunch, but from a full bag of cherry lollies the boys had liberated from a pantry that afternoon. Draco had concealed an extra few up his sleeve while Tommy was proving he could fit three in his mouth at once, and consequently was marginally more sugar charged than his little brother. “…Will you tell me a story?” Tommy quickly thought through the best stories he knew. “Um… So there’s an island. Somewhere. And it’s full of snakes. And the snakes have this poison that makes your flesh melt off your bones and your blood explode if they bite you. And they jump down at you from windows while you’re asleep.” Draco twitched a little, due only in part to the megadose of glucose shooting through his tiny veins. “That’s not a good story.” “Your face isn’t a good story!” He’d been just about to get to the part with the insane asylum, which may or may not have been part of the same story. It had a guy who chewed his fingers off and a fire, though, so it was definitely gold. “Hmph. Pearls before swine.” “Age before beauty.”

“Stupid before awesome!” “Huh?” Tommy wasn’t sure either. “Come on. Let’s go find a story in a book, if mine aren’t good enough.” It took them a while to find their way to the library, as Tommy insisted on charging around dragging Draco by the collar instead of paying attention to where he was going, but they made it eventually. Logic dictated that all the really good books would be out of reach. With Tommy on Draco’s shoulders (on account of Draco was a fatso who ate way more candy than he was supposed to and also ugly), they managed to extract a thick volume bound in dark, cracked leather. After wiping the dust on a sofa where no one seemed likely to notice the smudge, the princes settled in under a table. “Concerning the Seen and Unseen,” Draco read. “Is this a story book?” Tommy looked up again at the high shelf. Everything else there was. “Yup. Let’s see… wanna read, um, Phantasmagoria?” “Kay.” Tommy leaned back against the table leg and let Draco begin, forgetting entirely it was he who’d wanted a story in the first place. “Cold it was and the air cruel and sharp, and the silence deep and unbreakable. The whistle of the wind in the trees could not cut through the quiet but floated above. It was no night fit for man nor beast, when the Great White Hunter went a’riding.” “Is this whole thing gonna be all old fashioned?” Tommy had no patience for thee-andthou and rhymed couplets. Draco had all the patience in the world. “I hope so. Now don’t interrupt me.” “But it’s dumb already. It’s got trees. It’s probably about dirt people and their worms that they eat and stuff.” Draco spoke a little more loudly. “Now abroad in those woods every wise man knew better than to tread on nights the moon shone full in an open sky and the wind called the names of the dead and regretted. The howls of those vanished in the Hunter’s Hands mingled with the cries of the ghostly wind on such nights… I don’t wanna read anymore.” “Don’t be a baby!” Dead stuff! Maybe it would be good after all! Draco sighed, threw a balled-up handkerchief at Tommy, and resumed. “There were always the foolish among men, and many were the dread mornings when footprints would be found to vanish in midstep. Upon the next full moon, ropes braided from the hair of the vanished one would be mounted above the doors of the family, hung through with fingerbones, and all the

village would enter mourning. Now, it happened that on one such Hunter’s Night…” Draco stopped, looking confused. Shivering with pleasant heebie-jeebies, Tommy was now quite taken with the story. “Hey! Keep reading.” “…Okay. Um, it happened that on one such Hunter’s night that Tommy Allhope went out that winter’s night, when the moon was-” “Ha!” Tommy jumped up, hit his head on the table and didn’t care. “I’m the hero! I win!” “It’s an old story. I bet lots of people are named Tommy.” “I bet lots of people are named Draco Whiny Face, but he’s not in the story.” “Well, it’s some dirt person.” That shut Tommy up. “When the moon was full. For he was pining for his sweetheart, departed many moons since for marriage to a rival chieftan’s son. In his sorrow, he did not regard the moon and the wind and even the cries of the lost fell upon unhearing ears.” Draco started to smile again, slipping happily into the rhythm of the tale. “In sorrow he walked paths to which his feet were accustomed, and in sorrow he did not hear the pounding of hooves. He did not smell the horse’s sweat and children’s tears and ghost’s memories on the air. He did not see the garrote that slipped round his throat, silent as a virgin’s whisper, cold as the grave, spun of spider’s silk and lucid dreams.” Tommy was glaring a little and Draco looked up to giggle. “You’re not the hero. You’re a dumb captive!” “Am not! I bet I escape and beat up the Hunter and save everyone and then beat them up anyway. Cus I’m awesome.” “Tommy’s just a captive! Tommy’s just a captive!” He ran out from under the table giggling and Tommy had to chase him until an old general looking for obscure maps managed to shush them. Still looking smug, Draco picked the book back up. Tommy pouted as he listened, determined to win the story anyway. “The house of Allhope put on their mourning, for when dawn came his footprints in the snow stopped dead, and it was known to all that Tommy Allhope would walk among them no more. And alas, tragedy deepened the next day, when Tommy’s lost sweetheart returned, husband dead in a tavern brawl, home to hearth, family, and Tommy’s embrace. Dake Fairweather rode again to town.” “Who’s he?” Tommy leaned over. He’d zoned out a bit during the funerary talk. “She, I think.” Draco helpfully proffered the sketchy illustration for Tommy’s approval. The boys examined the long-haired, dreamy figure on the pretty horse and nodded in tandem. “Besides, has to be a girl. That’s your sweetheart!” Draco poked Tommy with a smirk.

“No she’s not. She’s yours.” Tommy realized that didn’t make any sense at all. “So? What happens to me and Stupidname?” "First Tommy shuts his mouth and listens, and goes back to being dead. Um... Greeted by the clan left behind and news laden with misery, Dake put on mourning black as would a bride, heedless of scandal. Wandering the wastes where Tommy had disappeared, walking alone day after day, neglecting family and duty, the lover returned would not acknowledge the loss. The village despaired, fearing they might lose one to The White Hunter and one to melancholy. “But it was not the madness of loss that drove Dake's steps through the white woods, but a vow. To forsake Tommy would be to forsake honor and forsake the heart itself, and Dake was entirely too stubborn a soul and too devoted. Dake walked the wastes in search of a path few ever found and fewer would live to speak of, for it was the road that led to the Old Woman of the Wood.” “Is that supposed to be scary!” Tommy had been holding his tongue for a while, but now he was annoyed. “All that stuff about wastes and dying and it’s some old woman?” “Maybe she pinches your cheeks and makes you eat old people candy.” Draco shrugged. “Shut up and let me read, fathead. Where was I… Oh. On the seventh night of searching, the road revealed itself. Though snow drifted all around, the path was clear and looked to be all black ice. Beneath the path twisted limbs and frozen faces craned toward the air, never breaking the smooth surface. Creatures with flesh of ice flitted across the path and in the woods beyond dark shapes loomed and whispered. Dake walked the path, one foot before the other, never looking left or right, until the Old Woman’s house came into view.” Draco wrinkled his nose. “Gross.” “Stop sucking and keep reading.” “Okay, okay. Two black birds stood before the door, wicked beaks a’gleaming, Their task was to tear flesh from bone from any who came to the house with impure intent. Dake strode past them also, heart pure, and the birds sang like starlings when the door opened. Dake fell to the ground in prostration. “Old Woman of the Wood, my love has been taken from me by the Great White Hunter. Though the laws of this world and his be bent against it, I will have him back. I beg your aid.” And the Old Woman of the Wood said to him, “Do I look old to you? Really. You kids today. Someone’s over thirty and they think life is over. It’s absurd. Call me Eila and promise to mind your manners, and maybe I’ll let you come inside.” And lo was Dake mightily confused but inclined to be cooperative, and entered the house. “What must I do?” the hero asked the Still Young and Extremely Attractive Woman of the Wood, “To reclaim my beloved?”

“You’ve been long in coming,” said she. “It is the nature of the Great White Hunter to be undying and indestructible until someone believed he might be otherwise. Be warned, he cannot harm you—” “Oh, then this should be pretty simple, right?” “He cannot harm you,” said Eila of the Wood, whacking Dake’s head with a ladle, “Until nightfall, for he is a creature of dusk and shadow and has no power by the light of day. His servants will try to thwart you and delay your journey, for you may enter only at sunrise, and if you are not free of his citadel by sundown, you will be beyond my help.” “And… can his servants harm me?” asked Dake in some little trepidation. “Oh, quite freely. Most of them are bound against their will, remnants of the stolen. Find a way to free them and you will have allies. I can give you only tokens with which to pave your way.” She set before Dake a golden ball, a bone file, a vial of virgin’s blood (and Dake was suddenly found to be missing a bit, for such comes to those who deal with the Youthful but Exceedingly Clever Woman of the Wood), an amber key, and a brass mirror. “Take these, and continue down the ice road. When the sun rises, you will be at a crossroads. The right path will lead you home to a warm fire and perhaps a new love. The left will lead you to near certain death upon the claws of the Great White Hunter. Etymology’s a bitch.” “Left it is then,” said Dake, and gathered up Eila’s tokens. “You are hopelessly predictable, you fruitcake. Well, then, once you’ve entered the lands of the Great White Hunter, stay on the path. Do not be diverted. Do not be pushed aside. In particular, do not follow sparkling little lights to parts unknown. Unless you’d like very much to be dead.” And Dake set out from the house of Eila of the Wood and walked along the ice road, footsore and heavy of heart, longing for the warming rays of the sun, for all they could only bring more hardship. At the end of that road lay Tommy.” Draco coughed and rested the book on his lap. “My throat’s all dry.” “Well, I bet a lollipop would make it feel better. Wait, someone ate them all.” Tommy had mixed feelings about continuing. He didn’t want to just sit there and wait to be rescued the whole story, but it was getting good. They were clearly looking at monsters and probably some pretty good gore. “You read for a while!” Draco dropped the book in Tommy’s lap. Tommy was eager enough to know what happened next that he didn’t retaliate but to flick the end of Draco’s nose. Finding his place, he read on. “When the gray dawn came, bony fingers wrapping around the ice road, so came the crossroads. Tommy saw the village in the distance on the right, while the left path sunk into a

foggy mire that shimmered with arcane malevolence. As Tommy’s steps turned down that road, cold hands from beneath the road broke through the ice to snatch at hem and heel. The bleached and forgotten bones of many a stolen soul rattled and clicked under Dake’s feet. A sign overgrown with dripping thorns and topped with a child’s skull read DANGER, but it was fairly redundant at that point. As the fog thickened and churned, Dake was left blind. In the pack with Eila’s other gifts, a sudden tug nearly knocked the traveler to the ground. Dake looked down to make out the fuzzy outline of a deep chasm in the road. Inside the pack, the golden ball rolled and jerked about, dragging its bearer too and fro, past all the worst gaps and hazards hidden in the fog. When the fog lightened, the road widened, and Dake was gazing across a frosty swamp where the most solid earth bubbled and the water and slush and mud were all one and the same. A smell of rot and misery mingled with dirty snowflakes and the harsh cries of tattered, ghostly birds echoed off the trees. Dake could only guess at what forgotten victims’ bones must lie moldering under the sludge. The tugging of the golden ball led Dake to and fro over the tricky, meandering path that led to the most solid ground. There were many close calls and soggy mishaps, but altogether the domain of the Great White Hunter did not seem so fearsome nor so nightmarish as one might expect. Until the shadows began to strike. The first time, Dake thought it only a falling scrap of bark, bouncing against the bag as it veered under the control of the golden ball. The second seemed an accident as the small, swift shape struck Dake’s shoulder. Then began the onslaught, black, dark fragments of being, something sharp and fierce. Blood welled up where they struck and the air was full of them, the ball unable to pull away. Dake was knocked over, landing in mud and beginning to sink immediately as they continued to reign down. As Dake gasped and clawed at the air, the bag from the Respectably Middle Aged and Dignified Woman of the Wood burst open and the vial of virgin’s blood broke upon a jutting stone. This was in no way Freudian. Before a crimson drop could sink into the mire, the shadowy blade beasts amassed upon the spilled fluid. Thicker and thicker they descended, until they were a solid mass, and still it grew. Dake would only watch, struggling against the muck, as the darting, jagged creatures of shadow became a single, elegant being, a mass of blue coils bursting with power, a beautiful horned dragon. When the fragments of shadow ceased to whirl, the beast grasped Dake by the collar and gently deposited the adventurer on a dry path out of the swamp. Dake went on, grateful but without a moment to spare, slowed by the tumble from the path and the attack of the dragon torn apart. Dake walked on through dark, deep woods, gray pines that loomed beside the road and cut the sky to pieces above. Gibbering, long-limbs forms leapt back and forth above the road, but Dake did not look up, nor glance at the glimmering lights off between the trees. Around a bend, the footsteps began. Sometimes to the left, sometimes the right, ahead or behind, once seemingly right beneath Dake’s feet, the pounding, echoing feet kept perfect pace.

Yet not a shadow was to be seen, and Dake’s heart pounded faster and faster and breath came shorter. There was no guidance from the golden ball, for the threat was all around. From amidst the trees burst a beast with the body of a man and the head of a goat, whipping its beastly head back and forth, hurling itself at Dake. It wore around its neck an iron chain that swung and knocked young trees aside. Dake’s hand darted into the pack and returned bearing the bone file. What use the flimsy thing would be against such a beast was hard to imagine, but Dake did not falter. Rather, Dake tripped on a root and the file arced through the air and struck the iron chain, splitting it asunder. Where the beast had stood was now a man, horned as the monster had been, but fair and calm now. The man sent Dake a rakish wink and turned down the road to the swamp. The road dipped and sank and led thereafter underground, into a cold, dripping tunnel crawling with vermin. Dake’s way was dark as pitch and were it not for the golden ball, there’d have been no way at all. The darkness was deep and it pressed. At first it tried only the mind and senses, but soon Dake felt ensnared, every step heavy, the way laborious, breath harder and harder to draw. It was the darkness itself. Dake knew not whence the conclusion came, but it was as sure as the lead of the golden ball. Of Eila of the Woods’ gifts there remained only two, and Dake drew out the bronze mirror. There was nary a glimmer of light to be had in that tunnel, the shine of a single glowworm, but the mirror found it, and it grew. That light found a multifaceted crystal and grew once more. The flat of Dake’s sword, a patch of water, the slick side of a stalactite—every surface that could give back light shone and returned to the mirror, where it burst forth and shredded the darkness. All but for a single patch shaped like a skinny boy, a patch that resolved into a handsome young brunette with eyes of deep, quiet garnet, unmistakably the face of Draco Allhope, lost to the Great White Hunter low these many years.” Tommy stopped and looked up at his brother, expecting triumph that he’d have to argue with. Instead, Draco looked scared. “Um… maybe we should stop reading this book…” “Why? We’re in it.” “We’re not in it in a good way! I’m a shadow monster and you’re all kidnapped and the stupid girl who’s supposed to rescue you is operating on… spunk and dumb luck.” “Well, yeah…” That was pretty annoying. But also kind of cute. Not that cute had any bearing. Tommy didn’t like cute things, only things that exploded and had a lot of blood. “But if we don’t finish it, then maybe bad stuff will happen to us! Because we didn’t heed a warning! And because books know everything!” He shoved it onto Draco’s lap. Either intimidated or confused, Draco resumed reading.

“With a bow and a smile, Draco left the cave and Dake behind. It was bright as day now, and Dake followed the slippery stone path all the way to the castle gates. The sun was low in the sky and put wings to Dake’s heels. The gates were open and inviting, no doubt an ill omen. Dake was expected. That captives would be found in the dungeons was simple, and that dungeons were deep intuitive, but Dake wasn’t prepared for how deep. Descending abandoned stairs accompanied only by echoes, the earth itself seemed to close overhead. In the deepest and darkest pit of the dungeon, illuminated by the bronze mirror and prompted by the golden ball, Dake Fairweather found Tommy Allhope confined. The amber key fit the lock, and melted away within. Not a word but only a kiss passed between the two as they sped toward the surface, knowing the day would soon end and the Great White Hunter would be upon them. Dake cried out in dismay when they reached the open air, for time had been distended in that tomb underground, and the stars were out in force. Though Dake found the stars delightful and mysterious, and Tommy found them delectable and romantic, tonight they seemed thousands upon thousands of eyes, all seeking them out. The baying of unearthly hounds carried across the land, and the rattle of bones above even that. Palming the golden ball, Dake let it lead where it would, for there were no more favors, no more clues and lucky accidents, merely the sound of the Great White Hunter calling upon his allies, of the whole of that world rising against the fleeing lovers. They had stayed beyond the sun, and even The Wise and Mature but Youthful at Heart Woman of the Wood could not aid them now. Tommy looked back to see a shape rising from the darkness, tall as any tree, inexplicably bovine, and bursting with furious malevolence. Its voice made the air crackle like a thunderstorm and froze the ground beneath their feet, sending both Dake and Tommy sprawling. “Very amusing. I always liked the taste of blueberry.” The two clutched one another in an embrace they knew would be their last when another shadow appeared, the shadow of a magnificent blue winged serpent, the horned man and Draco Allhope astride. The beast dipped to the ground. Draco caught his brother, and the horned man Dake, depositing them squarely on the dragon’s back. Through the sky they sped, The Hunter and his minions left beside, his world crumbling in his defeat. And such did Aiki the Wild and Samsol the Wise, the brothers Allhope, and Dake Faithweather of the Golden Ball end the reign of the Great White Hunter in that land, and thus did they precipitate their joint weddings and great adventures, but those are tales for another sitting, young princes.” Tommy and Dake stared at the book for a moment and, by mutual agreement, rose and went to throw rocks at the garbage bins.