Shingles Stream Prize: Fool's Errand
Fool’s Errand
By Drew Hayes
My kind do not eat babies. The others will be cross at me for spilling such a secret, but it is my right through virtue of my job to speak the truth. I’ve always found the concept to be laughable, anyway. We are corruptors by our nature, your ilk is well abreast of this fact, yet you think we would dine on the innocent? Ludicrous. Demons eat souls that are flavored with sin, the seven spices that stroke our palettes. The soul of an innocent is no more appealing to me than a pile of horse-shit to humans, and it is as toxic as the bite of a cobra. No, demons can only claim the souls of the wicked, such has been the law since the first angels were cast out. I state all of that in order to say this: I never wanted the silly woman’s baby. The baby was merely a token, a pawn in a game she didn’t realize we were playing.
As an imp, I do not possess the more formative qualities of many other demons. I am not particularly strong or fast, and a good sword can easily slice me in twain. Granted, the damage is momentary, but it is still an altogether unpleasant experience. I have my magic, of course, we demons would be ill-equipped without it. And, most important of all, I have my wit. This is not a trait inherent to all imps, in fact, most of us are too dull to be useful as anything more than runners or messengers. No, my unusually quick mind is a singular occurrence, a twist of fortune that fell in my favor. It afforded me the wherewithal to leave the pit and make my own way in the human world. Mind you, I must still be careful, which is part of why I found myself a steady stream of income.
I was a Fool, and yes I will take offense if you don’t capitalize it. The Fool is a proud tradition in the greater kingdoms, a skilled entertainer and gleefully serpent-tongued observer of human nature. I served King Lyland as I had served his father before him. Royalty were ripe for sinning, often I would become aware of the opportunity for temptation, only to realize they’d acted on it before I could influence them. It was a cushy job, I was kept well fed and even afforded such luxuries as my own quarters. But such excellent employment came with certain… duties.
One evening I sat in my quarters, reading a book to keep my mind sharp, when the door opened and King Lyland entered.
“Majesty,” I said, rising immediately. The bells on my outfit tinkled softly with my every motion. For many of the royalty, that festive sound would be their death knell.
“Fool,” he greeted me, for my title was a thing I took as much pride in as he his royalty.
“How may I serve you?”
“There is a girl in the town,” he told me. His large hands shuddered as he spoke, a sure sign that his lust was almost overflowing. The insatiable look in his wide eyes confirmed what I already knew. “A miller’s daughter. Golden hair, cream-colored skin...”
“Legs for miles and breasts like mounds of cream. I get the idea.” The king shot me a sour look, but ended his attempts at description.
“I want her.” The naked desire in his words nearly produced an audible growl from my stomach. King Lyland had been ripe for so long, but I was hesitant to indulge my hunger just yet. There was not yet an heir to the kingdom, which meant his death would cause chaos. I liked my job, and I understood an upheaval in regimes might threaten future employment. Besides, King Lyland knew my secret, and that made him easier to work with.
“And you shall have her, my king,” I assured him. He nodded, his round face flopping up and down. Each fold of flesh shone with gluttony, and I felt my own hunger flex against the prison of willpower I caged it in. Soon, but not yet. “May I have leave of the court tomorrow? I shall investigate this woman, and then form a plan.”
“Of course,” he told me. “Make it so, Fool. Bring her to me.”
“Anything my king desires,” I told him, as I had when he was a child and I was the Fool singing and dancing to keep him entertained. It was the same words I’d told his father, until the day when the time was right and I gorged myself on his lifetime of sins. The former king had been a terse, warring man. Pride and wrath had different flavors than gluttony and lust, variations I looked forward to savoring. “Anything you wish, I shall endeavor to make so.”
The king nodded again, then left me to my devices. When he exited, I picked my book back up and resumed reading. It seemed the next few days might be interesting.
* * *
I wore the form of a sparrow to see the girl, a small bit of illusion and transmutation not unlike what I did to resemble a human in the king’s court. I left at dawn, flying through the land of Lyland’s small empire, a mere token compared to what his father had amassed, and landing on a tree near the miller’s home. It was the sort of cared-for-ramshackle all the lower classes put up, trying to thatch the roof with love in place of adequate supplies. I stayed in the tree all day, watching the miller leave and the girl go about her daily tasks.
Lyland had been right, the girl was beautiful, for a human. More than just a well-crafted body and angelic face, she shone with the sort of radiant energy that would have made her appealing even if she’d been homely. Unfortunately, she was also pure as the sunshine that she toiled in. Humble, kind, dutiful, and pious, the girl practically stank of decency. This meant she couldn’t be lured to the king’s bed with common means, and Lyland was too soft-hearted to take the girl with threats or force.
Many demons would have seen the situation and given it up for a loss, gone back to the castle and tried to assuage an angry king. I, however, did not survive outside the pit because I lack the ability to think my way through problems. Kernels of an idea floated through my mind, bouncing off one-another without finding traction. It was only when her father came home that a true plan began to convalesce. His daughter might be beyond my reach, but a lifetime in poverty had cultivated a healthy amount of greed in the old man. He’d also found a reputation as a teller of tall-tales, pride worming its way in by giving him a way to steal attention.
Had I been wearing a mouth instead of a beak, I would have smiled. Instead, I took wing and made my way back to the castle.
* * *
“Marriage?” King Lyland asked, staring at me uncertainly. We were again in my quarters, what we were discussing had no place in his throne room.
“The only way,” I repeated. “The girl is too moral, too devoted to her idea of goodness. She will not come under you willingly unless you have won her hand and her heart.” This was true, even only a day of watching the girl had given away that much. Demons often speak the truth, we simply don’t speak all of it.
“I can shower her with gifts,” King Lyland suggested. I pushed away the condescending grin that danced on my lips. Snideful mockery would get me nowhere, today.
“She has no desire for them,” I explained. “For one like her, a classic method is often the best.”
“Classic?”
“You must save her great peril,” I told him.
“What peril shall I save her from?”
At last, I allowed the grin to break onto my face, a small bit of my true countenance shining through the human facade.
“Me.”
* * *
The plan took little time to enact, as I’d intended. Within the week her father had spun some malarkey story about his daughter weaving straw into gold. It was a bit more ridiculous than I’d hoped for, but I had King Lyland go ahead anyway. The girl was taken, ostensibly to give a chance to prove her father’s lies to be truths, and shut away in a tower with nothing but a spinning wheel and straw.
Well, almost nothing.
I emerged after watching her cry for a few hours, innocence in turmoil being one of my favorite forms of entertainment. The invisibility I’d worn fell away, and she gasped at my new appearance. Gone was my fine Fool’s outfit, in its’ place were simple brown rags, which were still a far sight better than looking than my body. Hunched body, misshapen face, and a nose that managed to be flat and too large at the same time, I was certainly hideous by her human standards.
If you think this is bad, you should see my real form.
“Good evening, dear lass,” I greeted. “What causes you such tearful fits?”
For a moment, she held back, and I feared my whole plan might come undone. Then, with a wavering voice, she spoke.
“Who are you?”
“I’m one of the forest folk,” I told her. Being a peasant, she’d no doubt heard tales of the fey that lived in the forest. There actually were a few, but they were an unimaginably tiresome lot to deal with. Nothing but chatter about seeds and harvesting seasons. “I was passing by when I heard your wailing.”
“How do I know you’re one of the folk?” Smart enough to ask, I had to give her that.
“We’re in a sealed tower,” I pointed out. “But if you wish to see more, I can oblige.” I plucked a piece of straw from the ground and ran it between my fingers. It shifted beneath my touch, turning silver and stiff. Within seconds I held a long piece of straw that appeared to have been forged from steel.
“A-Amazing,” she said, staring at the pseudo straw in my hand. Just like that, her hesitance came tumbling down. She told me everything, her father’s foolish claim, the king’s demand she prove herself, how they’d both be put to death in the morning. She wove a tale of helpless desperation, one I was intimately familiar with. Only when she was done did I speak, and it is a testament to my self-control that I kept the smug satisfaction out of my voice.
“I believe,” I told her softly, “I believe we can make a bargain.”
* * *
Demons cannot turn straw into gold, or at least those of my caliber cannot. What we can do is cast illusions designed to deceive every sense a human has, so when she saw and felt the piles of gold that had once been straw, she believed it whole-heartedly.
For this mountain of worthless illusion, I demanded only a lock of her hair, which I threw away as soon as I left. It stunk of goodness and I had no desire to have such scents lingering about. I then told the king it was done. He hurried down to her, ostensibly to examine her work but really to stare at her and imagine his hands upon her flesh. He wanted to claim her that very morning, it had demanded all my wiles to convince him that it would take more than a single night of peril to send her to him.
The girl needed to be desperate, she needed to believe that a king was her only hope. Three should do it, there was power in that number. Three nights, three bargains, three moments of compromise. The last would be the hardest, thankfully that job fell on me. I had confidence in myself. I was a Fool, I knew how to play on an audience’s feelings. She was my audience, for now, a single viewer to the one-man show I produced.
That night we had an encore performance. She was scared, but this time her fear was diluted with hope. I waited to appear, just long enough that true terror began to set in. When I stepped forward from the shadows, she engulfed me in a wide-armed hug that nearly made me gag from all the purity she exuded. I made a show of haggling a bit this time; per my instructions, Lyland had doubled the size of the room and the amount of straw for me to spin. I warned her that my magic was limited, and that such things came with a price. She begged and pleaded, honey-colored eyes ringed red from tears. At last I conceded, accepting as payment a small brooch her mother had left her.
In the morning, I took my leave, abandoning her to Lyland’s lustful eyes. Unlike the hair, I kept the brooch. Such emotionally bound items can be useful, from time to time. In the afternoon, Lyland came to me, telling me he was tired of waiting and wanted the girl now. He meant to go propose that very moment. While I loved his infantile tantrums in general, I had no patience when they were directed at me.
“You will wait,” I informed him, no frivolity or humor in my voice. Even my ever-jingling bells were silent. “You have asked me to deliver this to you, and I shall, but it all will be for naught if you act too soon.”
“I’ll decide what’s too soon,” he yelled at me.
“I am the king’s demon,” I told him, my voice soft and a touch of hellfire lighting up my eyes. “I am sworn to serve the king unfailingly. I will tolerate no mortal halting me from fulfilling the orders of my king.”
“But I am the-”
“No. Mortal.” My teeth grew long and my claws grew sharp. The fire in my eyes danced freely, and for a moment I feared Lyland would actually shit his expensive breeches right there on my floor. “Once I have agreed to a task, I never fail.”
“Right… right you are, Fool.” King Lyland said, stammering as he tried to wrest back control of the situation. Mortals, they go to all the trouble of consorting with demons, then get flustered when we act to our nature. For the moment it severed me better to be a lapdog, so I bowed deep. By the time I came back up, I was the court jester once more.
“One more night, sire. One more night, and she’ll be desperate for you.”
* * *
It was a hard sale, I’ll admit.
“My child!” She looked at me, face aghast at such a suggestion. “Why would I give you my child?”
“Magic has a cost,” I told her. Tonight, my forest fey persona appeared weary and haggard. The mountains of straw surrounding us were four times that which had been present on the previous night. “What you ask me to do will drain me considerably. What I ask of you in return is fair recompense, given that my actions will save two lives and I demand only one.”
The angry retort on her tongue died away at the mention of her father. He was integral to this process, had it been only her life on the line she likely would have taken death. The noble are difficult to tempt, that doesn’t mean they are hard to manipulate.
“You have no child yet,” I reminded her. “I am not asking for a thing you already love.”
“It makes no difference,” she muttered. “My child… I cannot make such a bargain.”
Outwardly I looked concerned, while inwardly I celebrated. I’d been counting on this.
“The price must be paid,” I told her. “However, I am not a heartless beast. I will offer you an addendum to our bargain. If, before your baby’s first cries, you can guess my name, then I’ll relinquish all claims on the child.”
She stared at me uncertainly, chewing on her lower-lip with a feverish pace. I already knew what she was thinking. She was remembering the king’s leering stares, imagining the resources he would have at his disposal. The girl wasn’t overly smart, however, she was bright enough to connect the dots I’d set out before her. Though the king had forged no place of love in her heart, there was a way to save her father and her child, if she were willing to acquiesce to the king’s desires. Noble people, those pure of heart, they are so damnably easy to predicte.
“I… I will agree to your bargain,” she said, eyes cast to the ground in shame at what she had done. This choice made her shine all the brighter, she had selected the path of self-sacrifice in hopes of preserving those she loved. That was alright with me, the girl had a role to play in my future and it wasn’t as a dinner. A clever hunter uses all his resources, not just the ones that fill his belly.
“Then a deal is struck,” I announced, turned my attention to the straw.
* * *
In the morning, when King Lyland proposed to her, the miller’s daughter accepted and within a year she was the queen. I danced for her often, the Fool that sang songs of frivolity and filled the courtroom with laughter, along with the jingling of his bells. Lyland told her nothing of my true nature, for even his idiocy had boundaries, and she held no suspicion that the forest fey who’d saved her was now doing a humorous jig to make her laugh.
Soon, aided by fertility potions I procured from a witch and slipped into their food, the royal couple announced they would become a royal family. The queen was expecting. As soon as the announcement was made, a small company of knights was sent into the forest of nearby lands, ordered to find the identity of a small man matching my illusion’s description.
Lyland wanted to save the money and give her an easy victory, but I knew better. Easy victories are suspicious victories. For her to be saved, it must come at the last moment. On the first moon, in the fifth month of her pregnancy, I appeared before her as the forest man, hunched and ugly and ready to hear her guesses at my name. Credit to her, the queen spoke until her throat bled and her voice faded completely, before giving up. I told her I would return on the first night every new moon until the child’s birth, so she could guess my name. My next appearance yielded no better results, nor did the following one. By the time the final time drew near, she was almost in a frenzy, sending every person the castle could spare, and some they couldn’t, out to bring her new names.
Only then did I appear as the forest man in front of one of the searching knights. I celebrated by leaping around a fire, and in the course of that celebration made sure to yell the name Rumpelstiltskin no less than five times. If he’d been thinking a little more, perhaps he’d have wondered why a fey would dance around a fire, singing and yelling the very name he was hoping no one would discover. Nearly nine months on the road had whittled away whatever piece of his brain might have asked such questions, and he promptly raced back to the castle with his newly uncovered information.
My grand finale was quite a spectacle, the queen playing dumb, offering up name after name, before playing the winning card she’d so thankfully acquired. I whaled and moaned and gnashed my teeth, swearing vengeance upon her, her house, and everyone in the castle, before finally vanishing in a puff of smoke. It was poetic, inspiring, and a performance I will die still proud of. The queen bought it, hook, line, and sinker.
If you’re wondering, Rumpelstiltskin is a word from the pit. It’s a term for headless animals that bleed from their stumps yet still manage to defecate all over the place. There was no particularly deep connection to it, I just felt like it had the right sound for a child-stealing fey’s moniker. My true name remained my secret, as any smart demon’s should be.
* * *
Two years later, I still perform for King Lyland and his queen, but now I also perform and tend to Princess Wyla. I dance with her freely, twirling her about the courtroom while the royals and hangers-on laugh in derision at my antics. I care not, my success is measured in Wyla’s squeals in delight. I am the Fool of this court, the maker of merry who says silly things in funny ways, slipping out of mind as soon as the sound of my bells has faded. King and queen cackle at me, though the king does so with a touch of hesitance in his heart. Perhaps he has realized that, with an heir, he is no longer quite as necessary to me as he once was. Perhaps, being a married man and father, he has finally begun to take stock of his life and realized all the sins he has committed. All those sins, and then he keeps a demon in his home.
I’m not worried, Lyland is too cowardly and stupid to make a move against his demon, his nanny, his pet monster. Wyla will not be the same, she inherited her mother’s strength, that much is already clear. It makes little difference to me, there are plenty of sinners in the court to sake my hunger, and even if the queen and princess don’t know of my usefulness, they’re not likely to turn me out. Not so long as I keep dancing, and singing, and jingling.
After all, everyone loves a Fool.