How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air)

Cardan has seldom navigated the mortal world alone and finds himself fascinated by the strangeness of the landscape. The road stretches out in front of him, sand and slag and crushed stone bound in stinking oil. He passes closed grocery stores, hairdressers, and pharmacies with lights still on. Everything reeks of iron and rot, but in a way, he minds less and less as he grows more accustomed to being here.

He has put on one of Vivi’s hoodies over his clothes, strapped Jude’s sword across his shoulders, and glamoured himself both to hide the sword and to pass for human.

Although he has the map from Bryern, he quickly realizes it has no street signs and assumes a level of familiarity with the area that Cardan doesn’t possess. After a few confused turns, he heads toward a gas station in the hopes of getting better directions.

Inside, a television is on, broadcasting the Weather Channel above a bored-looking, silver-haired clerk. Snacks sit beside electric cables, along with three refrigerators full of cold drinks and frozen dinners. A shelf of local delicacies features bags of saltwater taffy and something called crab boil. A spinner rack full of used paperbacks, mostly thrillers and romances, rests in the middle of the center aisle. Cardan browses with a lazy turn of his hand. One novel, titled The Duke’s Duke, with a photo of a shirtless man on the cover, rests beside sequels: Too Many Dukes and Duke, Duke, Goose. Another book, The Sleepy Detective, features a drawing of a single closed eye.

What Cardan doesn’t see are maps.

“Your pardon,” he says, approaching the man behind the counter, intending to glamour him. Jude isn’t there to be upset by it, and he could ask the man questions that would be highly suspicious otherwise. But with Aslog so much in his thoughts, he can’t ignore his memories of Hollow Hall and the horrors of the ensorcelled servants there. He decides he will rely on humanity’s intrinsic strangeness and hope for the best. “Might you have some means by which I can navigate your land?”

“Ayuh.” The man reaches into a cabinet where cigarettes and various medicines are locked. He takes out a folded paper—a map, three years out of date. “Not many people in the market for these anymore, what with phones. We stopped ordering ’em new, but you’re welcome to take this.”

Cardan smooths it out on the counter and tries to spot where he is and where he’s going, comparing this map with the memory of Bryern’s scrawled and unhelpful document.

The clerk points to paperback books stacked up near the gum and candy. Their covers are purple, with cartoonish dead trees and a title in a dripping-blood font. “If you’re looking for interesting spots in the area, I wrote this myself and am my own publisher, too. A Guide to the Secret Places of Portland, Maine.”

“Very well, sir, I shall have it.” Cardan congratulates himself on his skill at passing for human.

And if it seems as though the man mutters something about flatlanders as he rings up the purchase, well, whatever that is, Cardan is certain it has nothing to do with the Folk.

Of course, he has no human money. But the High King of Elfhame refuses to pay with glamoured leaves, as though he were some common peasant. He hands over glamoured gold instead and walks out with his purchases, feeling smug.

Under the streetlight, he flips through the man’s book. An entire section is given to alien abduction, which he wonders whether Balekin might be responsible for—years passing in what seemed like hours was a common result of the memory-mangling that followed ensorcellment.

He learns about a ghost who haunts a busy street in town, drinking deeply of beer and wine when patrons’ backs are turned. Ladhar, he guesses. He flips past tales of ghost ships and one of a mermaid rumored to sit on the rocks and sing sailors to their doom.

Finally, he comes to the place Aslog has made her lair—William Baxter Woods. Cardan isn’t sure how long she’s been there, but after finding two stories about a witch at its heart, he supposes a few years, at least. Apparently, a trail once ran straight through the center of the woods, but rangers closed it after three joggers went missing.

With a map full of street names, it doesn’t take him long to find his way to the forbidden trail, hopping a fence and skittering down a ravine.

Once inside the woods, the air itself seems hushed. The sounds of car engines and the perpetual electric hum of machines drop away. Cardan removes his glamour, glad to be free of it, drinking in the fragrance of moss and loam. The moonlight shines down, reflecting off leaf and stone. He walks on, his step light. Then he catches a new scent, burning hair.

When he spots Aslog, she is leaning over two stones—her massive body bent as she rotates one above the other in a makeshift mill, from which a fine white powder drifts. Beside it, he spots a worn and dented grill—like something stolen from a pile of rubbish. She has furnished the area with rusted porch chairs and an old sofa from which mushrooms grow. Along the forest floor, Cardan spots discarded clothing.

“Kingling,” says the troll woman. “Here, in the mortal world.”

“I was equally surprised to find you here, Aslog of the West. I wonder what changed that Queen Gliten hunts you so fiercely. Surely it isn’t whatever you’re doing here.” He waves vaguely toward her eerie operation.

“I have added bonemeal to my bread,” Aslog says. “Ground just as fine as any grain. My loaves will be more famed than ever before, though not for the same reason. And if I served Queen Gliten the bones of her own consort, at her own table, what of it? It is no more than she deserves, and unlike her, I do pay my debts.”

He snorts, and she looks at him in surprise.

“Well,” he says, “that’s awful, but a little bit funny, too. I mean, did she have him with butter or jam?”

“You always did laugh when you would have been better served staying silent,” she says with a glower. “I recall that now.”

Cardan doesn’t add that he laughs when he is nervous. “I’ve come here to make you an offer, Aslog. I am not my father. As the High King, I can force Queen Gliten to give you the land you were cheated out of, although that will not save you from the consequences of all you have done since. Still, I can help if you’ll let me.”

“What are a few mortals to you? You never struck me as caring much for humans—until you took one for your bride. You never struck me as caring much for anything.”

“You told me that stories change,” he says. “And boys along with them. We are both different than we were at our last meeting.”

“Once, there was nothing more that I wanted than what you’re offering me. But it’s too late. I am too much changed.” The troll begins to laugh. “What have you got there on your back? Not a weapon, surely. You’re no warrior.”

Cardan regards Jude’s sword with some embarrassment, the truth of Aslog’s words obvious. He gives a long sigh. “I am the High King of Elfhame. I raised an isle from the bottom of the sea. I have strangled a dozen knights in vines. I hardly think I need it, but it does make me look rather more formidable, don’t you agree?”

What he doesn’t say is that he’s brought it to slow Jude, lest she wake early and misread this situation.Content © NôvelDrama.Org 2024.

“Come and sit with me,” Aslog says, gesturing to one of the chairs.

Cardan crosses to it. Three steps and the ground gives way beneath him. He has only seconds to berate himself for foolishness before he hits the floor of the pit trap, metal chair crashing on top of him. All around him is a thin dusting of shining black particles. He inhales, then coughs, feeling as though he’s choking on hot embers.

Iron.

He pushes the chair off, getting to his feet. The metal bits cling to his clothing, touch his skin with tiny ant bites of fire.

Jude wouldn’t have made a mistake like this, he is dead certain. She would have been on guard from the moment she entered the woods.

No, that isn’t right. Jude is on guard every hour of every day of her life.

Not to mention that iron wouldn’t have slowed her in the least.

If he gets himself killed like this, she is never going to let him live it down.

“Even the High King cannot withstand iron,” Aslog says, walking toward the pit, peering down at him. Above her, he can see the trees and the bright, full moon, a shining coin of silver spinning through the sky. The first blush of sunrise on the horizon is still a ways off, and from this angle, Cardan may not even see it.

The troll woman bends and comes back up with a long pole. It looks as though someone has taken a rake and replaced the head with a black spike. She kneels down and uses it to stab at him as though she’s a spearfisher after a marlin.

She misses twice, but the third strike scrapes his shoulder. He drops out of her range, holding the chair between them as a shield.

Aslog laughs. “It steals even your power, kingling.”

Heart beating hard, lying in the dust of the iron filings, he reaches out with his magic. He can feel the land, can still draw something from it. But when he reaches toward the trees with his will, intending to bring their branches toward him, his control slips. The iron dust dulls his abilities.

He reaches the tendrils of his magic out again and sees the branches shiver, feels them dip. Perhaps if he concentrates very hard…

Aslog shoves her makeshift spear at him again. He uses the seat of the chair to block it, making the metal clang like a bell.

“This is silly,” he says to Aslog. “You’ve trapped me. I can’t go anywhere, so there’s no harm in talking.”

He rights the rusty chair and sits, dusting off as many of the iron filings as he can from his person, no matter how they scorch his hands. He crosses his legs, deliberately casual.

“Is there something you wish to say to me before I spear you through?” she asks, but does not strike. “You came to my woods, kingling, and insulted me with your offer of justice. Do you think it is only Queen Gliten whom I wish to punish? Your father might be dead, but that means someone else must inherit what I owe him.”

He takes a deep breath. “Let me tell you a story.”

“You?” she says. “A story?”

“Once upon a time,” he says, looking up. His shoulder is throbbing. He feels like a child again, like the boy in the stables. “There was a boy with a clever tongue.”

“Oh ho!” She laughs. “This is familiar.”

“Perhaps,” he says with a smile that he hopes will disguise his nerves. He thinks about the way Locke told stories, inventing them as he went, spinning them in the direction that might best delight the listener, and hopes desperately he can do the same. “Now, the boy lived on an island where he made a nuisance of himself, finding ways to belittle people that made them hate themselves, but hate him more. He was awful to the village maidens, favoring his wit over kisses. Perhaps he had reasons to be awful, perhaps he was born bad, but no matter. None of it gave him much pleasure, so he went into the woods where a troll woman lived and begged her to turn his heart to stone.”

“That’s an interesting variation,” she says. She looks pleased, though, and drags one of the rusted, creaking chairs to the edge of the pit, settling herself in it amiably.

“He was angry,” Cardan says, this part coming easily. “And a fool. Thereafter, he could feel neither pleasure nor pain, not fear nor hope. At first, it seemed like the blessing he had supposed it would be. With a heart of stone, he had no reason to stay in his village, and so he took up what few possessions he had and set off across the sea to seek his fortune.

“Eventually, he landed at a town and found work doing labor for a tavern—carrying barrels of ale into the earthen root cellar along with carts of onions, wheels of cheese, turnips, and bottles of a thin and sour wine that the tavernkeeper watered down for guests. He was the one sent to break the necks of chickens and toss out drunks who could no longer pay for another round. He was paid little but allowed to sleep on the hard wood next to the dying fire and given as many bowls of greasy soup as he could eat.

“But as he lay there, he overheard two men speaking about an unusual contest. A wealthy warlord sought someone to marry his daughter. All one had to do was pass three nights in her company without showing fear. Neither man was willing to go, but the boy resolved that since his heart was stone, he would, and pass his life in ease.”

“A warlord?” The troll woman looks skeptical.

“That’s right,” he affirms. “Very violent. Possibly making war on so many people was how his daughter wound up under a curse.”

“Do you know why the Folk can tell stories?” she asks, leaning forward and causing rust to fall around her chair. Her huge body makes it look sized for a child. “We who can never tell a lie. How can we do it?”

She speaks as though she supposes he’s never asked himself that same question, but he has. Many times, he has.

Cardan tries not to let his nerves show. “Because stories tell a truth, if not precisely the truth.”

She sits back, mollified. “Be sure yours does, little king, or it will dry up in your mouth, along with my patience.”

He tries not to let that rattle him as he goes on. “That night, he told the tavernkeeper exactly what he thought of him and walked out, making another enemy for no reason at all.

“He took his boat from the dock and made for the warlord’s land. When he arrived, the warlord looked him up and down, then shook his head, already certain of the boy’s fate. Still, he would allow him to try to break his daughter’s curse. ‘If you spend three nights with her, then you will marry and inherit all I possess,’ the warlord told him. Looking around the massive estate, the boy thought that wealth would bring him, if not pleasure, then at least idleness.

“But as evening came on, the boy was aware of the strangeness of feeling nothing at all. He ate food finer than he had ever tasted, but it brought him no enjoyment. He was bathed and dressed in clothing more elegant than he’d ever seen, but he might as well have worn rags for all the satisfaction it gave him. He had begged for the heart of stone, but for the first time, he felt the weight of it in his chest. He wondered if he ought to be afraid of what was to come. He wondered if there was something profoundly wrong with him that he could not.

“As night fell, he was led to a chamber with a curtained bed. He walked around the room and noted the way the plaster of the walls was scarred with claw marks. He pulled back the coverlets, and feathers flew out in a cloud to dust the floor. As he discovered what seemed eerily like a bloodstain on the rug, she entered, a monster covered in fur, her mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. It was only his heart of stone that kept him rooted in place, although he was almost certain he had heard the door being bolted behind him. He knew that if he ran, he was dead.

“They stayed like that for a while, the boy uncertain whether she would attack him if he moved, and the monster seemingly waiting for some sign of fear. Finally, the boy approached her. He touched the light fur of her jaw, and she leaned against his palm, rubbing her head like a cat.” Cardan pauses. The story is almost at an end, and he has to keep Aslog listening a little longer. He wishes he could see the edge of the horizon, wishes he could tell the time by it, but all he has to judge the hour by is fading starlight. “They sat together through the night, the monster curling up on the rug and the boy gazing down at her. For though he had known the magic of the troll woman’s curse, he had never known magic like this. Though his heart was as hard and cold as ever, he wondered what he would feel were it not.

“Finally, the boy fell asleep, and when he woke, the household was in an uproar. None of the other suitors had made it through a single night with the monster. They fussed over him, but when he asked questions about the monstrous bride, no one was particularly forthcoming. And so he set off to walk the estate and discover what he could on his own.

“On the far end of the land, he found a small house with an old woman planting herbs. ‘Come and help me plant,’ she said. But the boy was still awful, and he refused, saying, ‘I wouldn’t help my own mother plant, so why should I help you?’ The old woman looked at him with cloudy eyes and said, ‘It is never too late to learn to be a good son.’ And without any answer for that, he planted her herbs. When they were done, in lieu of thanks, she told him that the girl had been raised to make war like her father, but when she wished to put down her weapons, he would not let her. And when the boy asked if the warlord had cursed his own daughter, the old woman would say no more.

“The second evening went much as the first. The monster roared in his face, but the boy didn’t flee or cry out in terror, and they passed the night amicably.”

“Let me guess,” the troll woman says. “The third night goes swimmingly, too. His curse is broken and so is hers. They marry and live happily ever after, and the meaning of the tale is that love redeems us.”

“You don’t think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love?” Cardan asks her, his own heart kicking up a beat as he notes how few stars are visible. If he can just keep her talking a little longer, they may make it through this enterprise.

“Is this a story about people getting what they deserve?” the troll woman asks.

“Wait and see,” Cardan says. “On the second day, the boy walked the grounds again and once more came upon the old woman’s house. This time she was mending blankets. ‘Come and help me mend,’ she said. But the boy refused, saying, ‘I wouldn’t help my own sister with her mending, so why should I help you?’ The old woman narrowed her eyes as though she saw his stone heart and told him, ‘It is never too late to learn to be a good brother.’ And without any answer for that, he sat down and helped her with her mending. When they were done, in lieu of thanks, she told him that she was a witch and that she was the one who put the curse on the girl, but only because the girl asked to be so powerful that her father could no longer control her. But the warlord had threatened the witch and forced her to alter the spell she’d cast so that if he could find a man to pass three nights with her and not be afraid, then the girl would be forced to obey her father thereafter.”

The troll woman’s brow furrows.

“By the third night, the household was in a state of giddy anticipation. They dressed the boy like a bridegroom and planned for a wedding at dawn. The warlord appeared, praising the boy’s mettle.

“But as he waited for the monster to come on the third night, he thought over what he knew of the girl and of the curse. He considered his stone heart and the clever tongue that had done little but get him into trouble. He knew he had lost the possibility of happiness, but he also knew her suffering would never touch him. He could live in riches and comfort. But it would never give him what he had already lost.

“And when she came through the door, he screamed.”

“He’s a fool,” the troll woman says.

“Ah, but we knew that already,” Cardan agrees. “You see, he realized he didn’t have to feel fear. He only had to show fear. And since his heart was stone, he wasn’t afraid of what would come next. He decided to take a chance.

“You know what happened next. She knocked him into the wall with a single heavy blow. And as he hit, he felt something crack in his chest.”

“His heart,” the troll woman says. “A shame he had to feel the terror, along with the agony of his own death.”

Cardan smiles. “A great swell of fear crashed over him. But along with it was a strange and tender feeling for her, his monster bride.

“‘You have cured me,’ the boy told her, tears wetting his cheeks. ‘Now let me keep your curse from ever being broken.’ And she paused to listen.

“He explained his plan. She would marry him, and he would vow to never pass three nights without being a little afraid. And so the monster girl and the awful boy with the clever tongue marry, and she gets to stay powerful and monstrous and he gets his own heart back. All because he took a chance.”

“So that’s the lesson of the story?” the troll woman asks, rising from her rusty chair.

Cardan stands, too. “Everyone finds different lessons in stories, I suppose, but here’s one. Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.

“Or, here’s another: Stories can justify anything. It doesn’t matter if the boy with the heart of stone is a hero or a villain; it doesn’t matter if he got what he deserved or if he didn’t. No one can reward him or punish him, save the storyteller. And she’s the one who shaded the tale so we’d feel whatever way we feel about him in the first place. You told me once, stories change. Now it’s time to change your story.

“Queen Gliten cheated you, and the High King would not listen to your complaint. You didn’t get what you deserved, but you don’t have to live inside that one story forever. No one’s heart has to remain stone.”

Aslog looks up at the sky and frowns down at him. “You think you’ve made your story long enough for the sun to rise and catch me unawares, but you’re wrong. And it will take only a few moments to kill you, kingling.”

“And you think it was sunrise I was waiting for and not my queen. Do you not hear her footfalls? She has never quite managed the trick of hiding them as well as one of the Folk. Surely you’ve heard of her, Jude Duarte, who defeated the redcap Grima Mog, who brought the Court of Teeth to their knees? She’s forever getting me out of scrapes. Truly, I don’t know what I would do without her.”

Aslog must have heard the tales, because she turns away from the pit, searching the woods with her gaze.

In that moment, Cardan reaches out to the land with his will. Blunted as his powers are by being in the mortal world and by the bits of iron that still cling to him, he is still the High King of Elfhame. The great trees bend their branches low enough for him to grasp one and swing out of the pit.

As soon as his feet touch the ground, he lifts the troll woman’s abandoned chair.

Aslog turns to him in astonishment. He doesn’t hesitate. He slams the rusted legs into her stomach, sending her sprawling backward into the pit.

An agonized howl rises as her skin touches the generous dusting of iron at the bottom.

As she stands, Cardan draws Jude’s sword from his back. He points Nightfell toward the troll woman. “No part of that was a lie, save for the whole,” he says with an apologetic shrug.

Aslog looks around her pit, her fingers scraping the roots and dirt along the sides. She is larger than Cardan, but not so big that she can clamber out unaided. She has set her trap well, crafting it to suit any of Queen Gliten’s knights. “Now what?”

“We wait for the sun together,” he says, his gaze going to the hot blush of the horizon. “And no one dies.”

He sits with her as red turns to gold, as blue edges out black. He sits with her as gray creeps over Aslog’s skin, and he does not look away from the betrayal on her face as she becomes stone.

Cardan lets himself fall back on the grass. He lies there for a long, dizzy moment, until he hears the tinkling of the leaves on Jude’s armor. He looks up to see her running toward him.

“What is wrong with you?” she shouts, falling to her knees by his side. Her hands go to his shirt, pushing it aside to look at the wound on his shoulder. Her fingers are cold against his flushed skin. It’s nice. He hopes she won’t take them away. “You told me not to come alone, and yet here you are—”

“I knew Aslog,” he says. “We were friends. Well, not precisely friends. But something. We were something. And I decided to play the hero. See how it felt. To try.”

“And?” she asks.

“I didn’t like it,” he admits. “Henceforth, I think we should consider our roles as monarchs to be largely decorative. It would be better for the low Courts and the solitary Folk to work things out on their own.”

“I think you have iron poisoning,” she tells him, which could possibly be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.

“If you’re angry with me, it’s only that I executed your mad plan before you got a chance,” he points out.

“That’s absolutely untrue.” Jude helps him stand, propping herself under his good shoulder. “I am not so arrogant as to have begun my fight with a troll in the middle of the night. And I definitely wouldn’t have managed to talk her to death.”

“She’s not dead,” Cardan objects. “Merely imprisoned in stone. In fact, that reminds me. We need to alert our retainers to haul her back to Elfhame before sunset. She’s probably rather heavy.”

“Oh, rather,” Jude agrees.

“You didn’t hear the story I told,” he goes on. “A shame. It featured a handsome boy with a heart of stone and a natural aptitude for villainy. Everything you could like.”

She laughs. “You really are terrible, you know that? I don’t even understand why the things you say make me smile.”

He lets himself lean against her, lets himself hear the warmth in her voice. “There is one thing I did like about playing the hero. The only good bit. And that was not having to be terrified for you.”

“The next time you want to make a point,” Jude says, “I beg you not to make it so dramatically.”

His shoulder hurts, and she may be right about the iron poisoning. He certainly feels as though his head is swimming. But he smiles up at the trees, the looping electrical lines, the streaks of clouds.

“So long as you’re begging,” he says.