Stiltskin, page 12
“What you doin’ ere ya lil blanderskite?” said a particularly offensive orange and purple fern.
Rumpelstiltskin had heard of the garden and understood the best thing to do was ignore the plants altogether.
“Wargen you baraganth mankdweller?” intruded a group of tulips who were a sharp shade of grey.
“You,” began a giant pink-leaved grassy sort of bush, “are intruding on private property. I suggest you leave.”
Rumpelstiltskin waved a dismissive hand toward the grassy bush and walked on.
The grass whipped out a long tendril and wrapped itself around the Dwarf’s wrist.
“It’s very rude not to answer when you’re being spoken to,” said the bush.
“Kigan landagger dagga doo,” said the tulips.
“Feed him to the bandersnooter!” shouted the fern.
“Get off me, you damned plants!” said Rumpelstiltskin.
“Ahh, so you can talk,” said the bush.
“Bandersnooter!” shouted the fern again.
“Easy, my orange friend. Let’s hear what he’s doing here. Maybe he’s simply come to converse with us.”
“No one ever talks with us, yer manky little shrub!” shouted the fern.
“Do you see what I have to deal with?” said the bush to the Dwarf. “Any company is good company when you’re rooted to the spot but they’re all such Neanderthals that a fresh conversation is always welcome. So how about it? Care to stay a while?” The bush nonchalantly wrapped a few more tendrils around Rumpelstiltskin’s mid-section.
The hatchet he’d stolen from the settlement hung at his side under his cloak.
“Well, I suppose if you’d care to loosen your grip, I could stay for a little while,” smiled the Dwarf.
“Splendid! Fetch our guest a seat.”
A large ornamental boulder sprouted spider-like legs and half walked, half scrambled its way over to where the Dwarf stood. The bush released him and he sat down on the rock as the legs disappeared beneath it.
He made himself comfortable, adjusted his weight, and slipped his hand under the cloak, gripped the handle of the hatchet, and waited.
“So…” said the bush. It was as far as he got. The Dwarf hurled himself toward the bush, swinging the hatchet directly at its roots.
“Eekk!” screamed the bush.
“Ee’s got a blade ee has! Kill him! Kill him!” screamed the fern, helplessly swaying from side to side.
“Cardoosh!” shouted the tulips.
The garden seemed to lean in toward the action as the Dwarf hacked mercilessly at the bush, which was lashing out with every strand of grass at its disposal. A long length of climbing ivy with a crazed look in its chlorophyll joined the fight, wrapping itself firmly around Rumpelstiltskin’s head, blinding him. Anything that could move, or at the very least lean, closed in on the struggling Dwarf and began to attack him by any means possible until he was completely lost from view. All that could be seen was a violently shaking group of psychotically coloured plants and shrubs accompanied by the rustling of foliage.
A few moments later, the garden was quiet once more.
Robert left Gnick by the scene of the fight and went to look for Lily and the General. Gnick was happily sharpening his knives with a small piece of stone. The other two had been gone for only a few minutes but something about the way the conversation abruptly ended and that the pair felt the need to move away out of earshot wasn’t sitting comfortably with Robert. He didn’t like to intrude but he had to assume they weren’t talking about Gnick, which left only one subject of conversation.
The brush became denser away from the path, and Robert crouched low and moved as quietly as possible until he could make out Lily and General Gnarly’s voices not far away. He stopped and listened intently. The voices had a distinct sense of urgency about them.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” accused Gnarly.
“As a member of the Agency―”
“Ahh, don’t feed me the Agency line. I’m too old to care. You told me he came from Othaside but there’s something very strange about him and I think you know more than you’re telling. First the fire at the halfway house and then the cat he may or may not have seen and just now―”
“All right, all right!”
“He was talking to himself, wasn’t he?”
“Well, not exactly.”
It sounded like General Gnarly was pacing. “I know you think I don’t know much of the goings-on of the world outside of my mountains.”
“That’s not true, General.”
“But we receive reports from everywhere.”
“Well, I’m sure―”
“Reports about you, for example,” stated the Gnome with the obvious maximum effect, as there followed an uncomfortable pause. “If what I’ve heard is correct, and what I saw today leads me to believe that I am, then you may as well come clean and tell all of us the truth before it’s too late.”
“It’s not easy to talk about,” growled Lily.
“Aye, but I’ll wager that the Historian has a loose tongue.”
“As far as Robert is concerned,” said Lily changing the subject, “he was born here in Thiside but his mother was an Othasider.”
General Gnarly sighed. “The man I assume is his father was well-known, wasn’t he?”
Robert guessed that Lily must have nodded as Gnarly continued, “I encountered him around forty years ago. We were hunting food through the Southern edge of the Dark Forest and all of a sudden, he was there. Standing as if he was expecting us. He’s a strange character and I can only assume by his long life that he’s not human?”
“It’s hard to explain, and even I don’t fully understand it. He’s a sort of human but something to do with the way his mind works causes a discontinuity in his life cycle.”
“You’re right, that doesn’t make much sense.”
“It does to him, and that’s all that matters, I suppose.”
“So Robert is his son. And very much his father’s boy, from what I saw today.”
“We’ve watched him for some time. He’s survived in Othaside for all this time even through all the strange events that come naturally to him.”
“Why watch him? He’s not the first kid to be born here and grow up in Othaside.”
“You know where his father currently resides. There was always the concern that he would go the same way, but his personality turned out to be quite boring. All the weirdness surrounded him and affected people and the environment around him but never actually touched him.”
“Until he came here,” said General Gnarly.
“Wow, this is interesting stuff, isn’t it!” shouted the voice in Robert’s head.
Robert made a sound of surprise, something of a bwehar kind of sound, jumped to his feet, tripped over a tree root, and fell backward.
“Robert!” said Lily and stared sternly.
Robert struggled to his feet. “What the hell is going on?”
“Don’t get hysterical, Darkly,” said General Gnarly.
“Hysterical? Why would I be hysterical? Because you know something about me that I don’t know? That there’s something weird about you too? And you, well, you’re a Gnome, aren’t you? ‘Nuff said about that. And don’t mention your short stature, although it’s plainly obvious.” Robert was breathing heavily.
“Robert,” said Lily, “you’re hyperventilating. Try and calm down.”
Robert sat himself down and tried to control his breathing.
General Gnarly shook his head and headed back to where they had left Gnick. “We should be going soon; don’t take too long.”
Lily crouched down next to Robert and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Why can’t you tell me about my father?” asked Robert.
“I’ve been ordered not to. And to be honest, it’s not important as far as our current mission is concerned.”
“And what about your secret?”
“Even less important. Come on, we need to get to the Archives and speak to the Historian, otherwise Rumpelstiltskin’s trail will be too cold to follow.”
And with that, she stood and walked away, leaving Robert sitting on the forest floor more confused than he felt he had any right to be.
A little-known fact about Dwarves is that they’re short. And not just short in the terms of stature but they are also short-tempered, short on patience, and constantly short of deodorant, thus coining the well-known phrase, “It smells like a Dwarf in here.” Dwarves didn’t believe in body odour and chose to ignore any such way of remedying that which they didn’t believe in and had no reason to acknowledge. Another little-known fact about Dwarves is that they have a tremendous lung capacity, which makes them amazing miners. They require very little oxygen to function as almost everything about them is anatomically smaller than that of a human.
They could survive in deep tunnels where the oxygen is thin for hours upon end where a human would simply pass out and die, wishing that he had been born a Dwarf and probably contemplating why he had even considered entering such a deep tunnel in the first place.
It was this increased lung capacity that had allowed Rumpelstiltskin to lay as if dead, unmoving beneath the ground, surrounded by angry plants, for the better part of an hour. The plants had begun to drift off to sleep and slowly moved apart, back to their original rooted spots. Rumpelstiltskin took the opportunity to thrust forth his hatchet and break the ground above him before scrambling out. He’d taken some good swipes at the over-articulated bush before he was overcome and dragged into the earth. His face was bleeding in several places where he’d been slashed with vines and he was almost certain that a particularly strong lavender bush had succeeded in dislocating his right shoulder.
He was also covered in leaves, dirt and matted blood, and looked a lot like a man from Liverpool after he’s had a good solid night out on the town. Or, in Thiside, a man from the Three Fairy Islands who’d just visited the Dockside district of the City of Oz. Rumpelstiltskin walked to the edge of the garden and leaned against the wall. It was at times like this he wished he had control over his own magic. But all the wishing in the world would do him no good, at least not while he was the one doing the wishing.
The evil Dwarf headed along the edge of the garden, being careful to stay away from the slumbering plants. He pushed open a door set into the emerald wall at the back of the garden and found himself in a long courtyard crisscrossed with lines of laundry; wizard’s hats and robes and colourful pairs of underwear hung everywhere. Wizards believed in colourful underwear the same way that water believed it was wet. It was just natural.
Rumpelstiltskin looked toward the Eastern tower where he believed he would find the wizard he was looking for. Niggle was a member of the Wizards’ Council who suffered from a nervous disposition that made him stutter uncontrollably. He’d also had the misfortune of having his life saved by Rumpelstiltskin not long before the Dwarf was incarcerated in the Tower.
It was by the Dwarf’s own hand that the then-apprentice wizard Niggle found himself in peril. Rumpelstiltskin had been looking for an apprentice wizard whom he could manipulate and control, and Niggle had turned out to be the perfect victim. Rumpelstiltskin set up an elaborate trap by which he could save the wizard and have him in his debt. At his request, the wizard had then performed a spell for Rumpelstiltskin that allowed him to continue with his plan. Not long after the spell casting, the Dwarf was apprehended and escorted to the Tower by the Agency. That was the last time Niggle had seen him. Until today.
The wizard Niggle was not a particularly good wizard, although that was not to say he didn’t have the skill. It was more that he had a very comprehensive fear of everything, including his own powers. As a result, he spent a lot of time locked in his chambers trying to avoid the practice of magic. He held the opinion that the fact wizards spent all their time practicing magic was a clear indication that they shouldn’t be using it at all. As soon as Niggle passed his final exams and was admitted into the Wizards’ Council, he resolved to attend council meetings only when absolutely necessary and remained locked in his apartment chamber passing the hours by reading books and trying different types of tea. He was called upon to work magic only once, a few years ago, to magically reinforce a cell of particular importance in the basement of the Tower prison. Since then, most people seemed satisfied just to leave him be and keep their distance.
Something that the Wizards’ Council did know that Niggle didn’t was that he was actually one of the most powerful wizards in all of Thiside or Othaside. Thankfully, he was too scared of his own power ever to test it out. It was for this reason that the Wizards’ Council let him remain on the council despite his lack of involvement. They never knew when such power might come in handy, especially if it was on their side.
Niggle was happily boiling water for the latest batch of tea he’d received from some far-off place and was scanning one of his many bookshelves for something to read. Along with his nervous stutter came an equally nervous twitch that caused his right eye, neck, and left shoulder to spasm in unison every thirty seconds or so. He’d grown to live with it, but the rest of the world found it very unsettling. Accompanied by the stutter, his unique appearance made most people find it difficult to hold a conversation with him.
There was a distinct knock at the wizard’s chamber door that made Niggle jump. It was Wednesday; no one ever visited him on a Wednesday. Incidentally, Thiside only had five days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday, and Snarfday. To make matters worse, the days occurred in different and random order every week, as laid out by the Thiside yearly calendar. This made keeping track of appointments very difficult but made the embarrassment of forgetting someone’s birthday or anniversary much more understandable. Every Snarfday, an apprentice wizard would stop by to drop off the council news, but other than that, Niggle never had to interact with anyone. A surprise visit from an unknown someone made him nervous, which wasn’t really a stretch of the imagination when everything made him nervous anyway. On a scale of one to ten, where one is a little bit nervous and ten is an extravagant sort of nervous, with a paling of the skin and hot sweats, this was around a seven.
The someone at the door knocked again, this time with clear impatience. Niggle realized he’d been staring at the door hoping they’d go away but their persistence was apparent as there came a third knock. Niggle made his way over to the door and cracked it open and peered through with his left eye, the one that didn’t twitch. Niggle stood almost six feet tall, and was happy to see that no one was there. His mistake was quickly realized when a voice from below the five-foot mark said, “Hello, Niggle, nice to see you after all this time.”
Through a face covered in dried blood, leaves, and, dirt Rumpelstiltskin grinned up at him from beneath a wizard’s hat that was obviously too big for him and, knowing the Dwarf, more than likely stolen.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” asked the Dwarf.
Rumpelstiltskin didn’t wait for an invite and pushed his way through the door into the chamber. He noted that almost everything was covered in dust and the whole place smelled like must, tea, and self-indulgence, much like the smell of Ukrainian cooking.
Niggle stood with the door open, mouth agape.
“You can close the door, Niggle. And your mouth.”
“J-j-j-j-yes,” said Niggle and closed the door. And then slowly closed his mouth. “Y-y-you were in p-p-p-pr-pr―in the Tower.”
The Dwarf pulled the kettle away from the fire, as it was starting to boil over. “I know you’re probably surprised to see me but as you can plainly see, I’m no longer in the Tower so we can stop stating the obvious.”
“How d-d-d-did you g-get out?”
Rumpelstiltskin waved a dismissive hand. “Not important. The important part is that I’m here now and could really use your help.”
Niggle twitched uncontrollably. It looked a lot like someone had dropped an ice cube down his shirt. “W-w-what happened to your f-face?”
“I had a run-in with the Castle gardens. Evil bloody plants. Actually,” said the Dwarf with an evil glint in his eye, “let’s start there. How about you wish me healthy again? I think this shoulder is dislocated.”
“C-c-c-an’t d-do that, you know that, w-w-w―”
“Oh right, wizards can’t make wishes, yada, yada, yada. How about you magic me up some first aid then?”
“W-w-w―”
“Oh, come now, my friend, let’s not forget who saved you those many years ago. By the way, you haven’t aged well.”
“Th-th-th―”
“No need to thank me again. It was just lucky I was outside your parents’ cottage when that seven-headed poisonous snake was thrown―uh―jumped at your head. The least I could do.”
“B-but I p-paid that d-d-debt.”
“That is true, yes. But what I’m asking this time, aside from a quick fix-me-up, is for you to perform the exact same thing you did for me before I was sent to the Tower.”
Rumpelstiltskin leaned back in the chair and winced a little at the discomfort of his shoulder.
The wizard Niggle was sweating profusely and his twitch was now occurring every twenty seconds.
“B-b-b…”
Rumpelstiltskin used his good arm to loosen the hatchet from his belt loop and idly examined the sharpness of the blade.
Niggle observed that the loudest and most threatening words in the room were those that were not being spoken.
“O-o-o-of course,” said the terrified wizard.
“I’m glad you see it my way.”
Niggle twitched and hastily wiped the sweat from his forehead and rolled up the sleeves of his robe. Rumpelstiltskin watched as the wizard silently called into the room the magical essence of nothingness and moulded it into somethingness. He moved his hands in a circular gesture and the room around him began to glow blue. Niggle moved closer to the Dwarf and with his eyes still closed, he pointed a steady finger at Rumpelstiltskin and pushed it to his forehead.
