Fairly Wicked Tales (26 page)

***

Her garden lay behind the cottage, an unexpectedly enormous stretch of soil. I counted the paces as I limped along the edges, the bright morning sun leeching the remaining chill from the air.

Twenty paces by forty, an imposing stretch of ground to till for a healthy man, let alone one in my current state. I looked at the old woman, who smiled as she dropped a large bucket of water at my feet.

“Be careful, boy, might be a hot day,” she said, before she turned and headed back to the comfort of her cottage.

How right she had been. As the sun rose, the air became thick and humid. Sweat seemingly fell from my skin in sheets, my hair a sticky mess. I stopped periodically to drink from the bucket and splash water over my head.

Back breaking work, my shoulders burning, my leg on fire. Muscles cramped, bones ached, blisters formed on my fingers. My feet were caked in mud and dirt.

The old woman walked up at one point late in the day. She brought a chunk of bread, and I devoured it, although in truth I wasn’t hungry.

“It will be evening soon,” she said. “Anyone can see that you will likely not be done by then.”

I scanned the garden as she spoke. In my fevered effort, I hadn’t realized I’d only finished half the bed of soil, the remaining section rough and unturned.

“I am sorry, lady,” I said. “My wounds must have slowed me more than I knew.”

She nodded. “The debt isn’t paid. You will have to stay another night.”

My eyes widened. My stomach clenched at the thought of tilling hard-packed ground into the next day.

She laughed then, like she knew my thoughts. “Oh no, soldier, I can finish this. But tomorrow, I will need more wood for my stove and fire. I will need you to chop wood, small pieces fit for use in the stove.”

Feeling I had little choice in the matter, I wearily nodded my assent. I would need to rely on her mercy for one more day.

Once back in her cottage, I fell fast asleep at nearly the same time my head touched the floor.

***

Spasms and cramps woke me early the next morning. I could barely close my hands into fists for painful blisters and torn skin. The woman had left a large slice of ham and bread by the floor, which I ate with slow, deliberate relish.

She waited for me outside, standing next to a large woodpile, axe in hand. “All this, soldier, I’ll need cut. You’ve taken shelter, ate my food, please pay this debt.”

“I will, lady,” I said. Tired, sore, but honor intact, I vowed I would fulfill my duty. “Will you bring water?”

“Of course,” she said. She handed the axe to me and walked back towards her cottage.

The wood pile sat underneath a tall oak, several rows long, five or six logs deep in spots. Doubt pricked me like thorns. I eyed the pile with a sense of resignation. Five years ago, maybe. Now? This broken shell wouldn’t last the day.

Still, I struggled against the task set before me, determined to square my debt. I chopped at thick logs, my blisters peeling anew. I hacked the cut wood into still smaller pieces, and threw them in a new pile. My leg groaned, my back threatened to give, but I cut, over and over, counting each repetitive swing.

I eventually stopped to rest my broken body, my chest heaving, the shade of the oak scant protection from the sun’s afternoon heat, the new pile still pitifully small.

“I’ll never finish this,” I murmured.

“No?”

I turned in shock. The old woman stood behind me, the bucket of water at her feet.

“I mean, I need a short rest is all,” I lied. “A hard day’s work, to be certain, for a healthy man.”

She glanced up at the sky, squinting at the sun. “Only a few hours of daylight left.”

I nodded, reaching for the bucket of water. “Yes, but don’t worry, I’ll finish. Just a quick rest.”

She smiled at me, like she knew. I knew, too.

***

I laid back against the wall of her cottage, my leg on fire, my shoulders and arms burnt and all but useless. She poured soup into a bowl from a ladle, handed me the steaming bowl and a wooden spoon.

“I’m sorry, lady,” I said. And that was a lie, too. I wasn’t sorry, not at all. She had used me up, torn my battered body, forced me to stay longer than I wanted with her impossible tasks. I briefly wondered if maybe I should’ve stolen in the night, killed her, and taken the cottage as my own. Sour thoughts.

She nodded slowly, her lips pursed. She looked at me after a moment’s thought, appearing like she reached a decision. “One more night, soldier, and one more task with it.”

“I can take no more, lady, if you mean to have me dig, or chop, or push.” No lie, that.

She shook her head. “No, no, nothing of the sort. A small effort, really.” She paused to take a sip of her soup. “You’ve seen the well in back?” If she saw me nod, she ignored it. “It’s mostly dry now, but I dropped something in there, a light. I need you to fetch it for me, and then you can be on your way with my thanks, and some food for your travels.”

“You have light enough, I think.”

She frowned at me, her arms crossed over her chest. “Your honor, soldier. Does it flee so easily?”

I swore under my breath. Honor had gained me a broken body and little else. I put the spoon to my lips, cringed as the tip burned my tongue. “Very well, lady. One last task.”

***

She lowered me down slowly, her arms surprisingly strong as she ran the rope through her hands. The well was cool and shaded, and I realized too late I should have asked her how deep the pit went. If anything went wrong down here, I might have found a way to starve after all.

I held my hands out as I dropped, outstretched fingers sliding over moss-covered rock, the only light from the narrow opening at the top of the well. I counted the rocks as I descended.

My count stopped when I spotted a faint illumination below, a tinge of blue against the rocks. The source lay against a small mound of damp grass and soil. The light flickered, wavered, but continued to burn brightly. The wet ground seemingly had no effect, and I wondered what sort of flame stayed lit in such dark, sopping conditions.

“I see it!” I yelled. She must have been excited at my words. The basket suddenly plunged the rest of the way down, which luckily meant only a short fall, less than my own height. The basket landed with a splash, and I nearly toppled over it. My leg shrieked, my arms whined, but I held myself steady against the rounded wall.

No apology came, and I frowned as I stepped out of the basket. Looking up, she stared down, her face lit with an excited grin. I shook my head, agitated, and scanned the ground for the source of the blue light.

I trudged my way across wet earth until I stood before the light, my feet soaked. The small flame danced along the wide end of a thin pole, much like a tiny torch.

Expecting heat when I gripped the pole, I picked it up off the ground. I held my hand over the flame, but didn’t feel any warmth, nor see any smoke. Quite the opposite, a cool breeze washed over my hand, like a trickle of cold water on a hot summer day.

A magical flame.

I briefly wondered what the old woman wanted with the light, suspicious thoughts crossing my mind. But I also wanted to be on my way, eager to pay my debt. After a moment’s pause, I stepped back over the lid of the basket, carefully holding the blue flame away from my body.

“Lady, I have it!” I shouted, holding the flame aloft.

With a shrill cry, she immediately set to pulling me up. The basket jerked and creaked with every swing of her arms, and the rope swung wildly with the force she applied to the task. I had to use my free hand to push off from pitted rocks as the basket swung dangerously close to the wall.

As I edged closer, she grew more frantic. I worried that she might lose her hold in her excitement, and I would plummet to the bottom again, dashed against the wall or falling in a broken heap.

Finally I neared the opening. Her eyes widened at the sight of the blue flame. It danced in my hand, caught up in a breeze of its own design, weaving and flashing. Still I felt no heat, only a cool touch, like dipping sweaty fingers in a fresh spring.

The old woman held the rope with a firm grip and reached out for the light with her other hand. “Quickly, boy, give it to me!” she cried.

She meant to kill me. I knew without hesitation, cold certainty, she meant to drop me. She would hold on only until she had the blue light in her possession, and once she had secured her precious flame, she’d let go of the rope. She would leave me to die in her well.

I snatched the light away from her searching fingers. “You’ll have the light, lady, once I have both feet firmly on the ground.”

Her eyes blazed in a flash of anger, her mouth open in a soundless scream. She let go of the rope.

My scream echoed off the rock walls, loud enough to wake the dead.

***

I was surprised to find I still lived. The soft ground at the bottom of the well dampened my fall. I rolled out of the basket, sore and hurting, but no worse than I had been before. The end of the rope fell in a twisted sprawl at my feet. I peered upwards, but the old hag had disappeared.

Alive, but no way out now, no escape from the pit I found myself in. I yelled for help, shouted mad curses as I tried to force my way up the slick walls. I found no purchase. I swore to Gods that no longer existed, to those whose names I remembered with only the barest of knowledge, but in the end my cries only served me a raw throat.

Exhausted beyond measure, my mind in a daze, I sat down heavily and felt a hard poke at my side.

My pipe. I had nearly forgotten I even had the thing, stuffed in a pocket, the smallest trace of tobacco packed inside. A gift, years ago, before the war started. Before the life I wanted had been taken and plundered, tossed aside when Silas discarded my broken body.

I pulled the pipe from my side pocket, and moved to snap the shaft in two. A useless trinket now, a symbol of a past life, gone forever, tossed down a dank well like so much trash. Oh, what mercy had done for me.

Frowning, simmering, my fingers white as I gripped the pipe, I eyed the blue flame, which had fallen into the wet mush near the cracked basket.

“To hell with this, I’m getting a smoke.”

The flame lit the pipe with ease and I puffed, determined to the burning sensation as I inhaled, then exhaled thin clouds with practiced heaves. The tobacco crackled inside the pipe, and soon a ring of pale smoke obscured the walls of the old well.

“Your command, my Lord?”

I was right in the middle of another deep pull from the pipe and nearly coughed up my insides.

A small
thing
stood in front of me. Hard to describe at first, the creature lacked features, details unseen thanks to the covering smoke. Black, with a human shape, but a sense of wrongness emanated from the creature.

Its tiny face twisted, and I watched eyes, as black as its skin, widen. “Your command, my Lord?” the creature asked again, its expression strange and unreadable.

“W-What do you mean?” I managed to stutter in reply.

“I must obey your commands and do your bidding,” the thing said, its tone matter-of-fact.

Felt to me quite the opposite, if I’m honest.

I glanced at the blue light, the creeping suspicion this black manikin and the blue flame were intertwined. The old woman had played me for a fool. I peered up again, towards the well’s opening, but the witch was still nowhere to be seen.

“Very well, manikin,” I said, turning to face the creature. “If you must do my bidding, help me escape from this well.”

“As you command, my Lord. Follow me.” The black doll bowed, took my hand in its own, then pulled me up with surprising strength.

As I stood, the smoke began to clear, rising to the top of the well. The manikin walked to a crevasse that bit into the rock on the other side of the well, a hole that I’d missed. The creature stopped and peered back at me with emotionless dark eyes.

I put out the pipe with hasty fingers, grabbed the blue light and followed the black creature into the depths of the underground well, ducking under the jagged edges of the opening.

The crevasse turned and weaved. I found myself on swollen, aching knees at points, crawling through mud and dirt behind the manikin. Eventually the passage straightened, and the top of the tunnel rose high enough to allow me to walk mostly upright.

The manikin stopped at a junction, the main tunnel carrying on in what I thought a westerly direction, while a second tunnel led north. The doll waited while I caught up in hobbling steps, before turning to continue down the main passage. I stopped the creature before it disappeared into the darkness ahead.

“I need healing,” I said to the black doll, cursing myself a fool for not asking earlier. “My leg, my wounds, I need you to heal them.”

The manikin canted its head again, and stepped towards me. I suddenly felt light-headed, felt the pump and thump of my heart beating hard against my chest. My skin tingled for a moment and then the sensation subsided. I stood straight, flexed the muscles in my leg, which had been stiff and painful just a moment ago. The soreness had disappeared. I felt fresh, powerful, like years of battle, toil and harsh marches had been bled from me.

“It is done.” The black creature bowed.

A new spring in my step and a smile on my face, I turned to follow the manikin and paused mid-step. A flash of light caught in the secondary tunnel, a tiny dot that fell away as my blue flame moved past the junction.

“Wait, manikin. What is in here?”

“You wish to see it?” Again that odd turn of its head, one of seeming curiosity.

“I do. Show me.”

The manikin led me into the northern tunnel, the small shimmers of illumination flickering like stars in the night.

After perhaps another twenty yards, the tunnel opened up into a chamber. Shadows jumped in the darkness, but I caught the glint of metal. I held up the blue light, my eyes straining as I scanned the room.

Gold and silver. Piles of gleaming metal. An entire section of the cavern, covered with plates, bowls, tiny statues of gold. Silver necklaces, spoons, and chests overflowing with coins. Enough to end my struggles, make my own way, King be damned.