. . .
Look at that duck.
Look at it hanging there. It was quacking vigorously and it was fluttering and it was a very angry whisking duck indeed and maybe it seemed while it was quacking that all things would be well; but now he has whisked it too furiously and it is dead and now its spirit can never rest.
It glowers there.
Hans seizes up its spirit. He weaves it together with other things. He uses it as a portion of the chain to bind the nithrid; to bind it down, to lid it and seal it in its nithrid-hole, somewhere deep beneath the earth.
For that!
For that, he would whisk a duck!
. . .
The duck-ghost hungers. The duck-ghost glowers. The duck-ghost struggles. It enchains.
It endures its whisked existence, as it has no option but to do.
It un-lives out its painful centuries on Hans’ farm, beneath the earth.
– 2 –
Before Hans, there were heroes and heroines in their shining mail and great beasts with a thousand fangs.
There was a magic for each of us, a hope for every one of us, an answer ready to hand for each of us, before Hans bound down the world to sense.
There was Edmund’s princess — look! You can see her. And over there, there’s Sally’s prince.
She’d have both her eyes left, you know, if he’d been there for her.
And she wouldn’t be trapped in that crevasse!
. . .
If you’ll look to your left, there’s a crow that could have saved Linus Evans. It’s a talking crow. More importantly, it’s a crow that loves people like Linus Evans and knows the secrets of the world.
It could have saved him from his awful fate; would have saved him, had they met.
There was even somebody for Emily, back then, although — well, I mean, she’d hardly need that, what with having Navvy Jim.
They were there, though, anyway, all the host of them.
In the days before Hans’ dominion they shone glorious and bright.
. . .
Some of their stories yet remain, on the scroll of evil prophecy. They are written there in gold.
There were heroes and fairy-tale villains then;
But the world grew cold.
Serpent-kings cast up their empires. Magic carpets flew.
— But the world grew cold.
“We shall die,” said the princes, and the princesses with their golden hair.
“We shall die,” said the beasts that spoke, and the witches, and the frogs.
“We shall die,” they said. “The world grows cold.”
. . .
Hans it was who dreamt of such an ending: Hans, who stomped the flat world round. Hans who climbed the sacred mountain; who spoke forbidden words upon it; who brought dread winter down upon the world.
There had been unicorns, and chimera, but there are not now.
There had been dragons, too, and the gods of trees.
The winter came. It stormed out, and to Hans’ will. It brought an end to the age of fairy-tale things.
. . .
Some endured beneath the Earth or on distant worlds. Some hid in the shadows, some in the deeps, or found some hidden corner of the globe.
But only some.
The winter froze the rest of them. It buried them, it sealed them deep, and then Hans locked the winter itself away.
. . .
The age of fairy-tale things ended, and they passed away with it; though, to be precise, they did not die.
Not really.
Not quite.
They are out there still, if you know where to look for them.
They are buried, under the ice.
– 3 –
Saul is a kid. He’s a smith-dwarf kid, a svart-elf kid. He grows up in the fields and the lich-rows. He plays among the eoliths and the cobblestones that are deep under the surfaces of things.
He milks the blood-draugr. He collects the lung-eggs. He hauls hay into Barnface.
It is a lot of work.
“I wish I could skip my chores,” he says, miserably, one evening.
“I’m sorry, honey,” says Aubrid, who is his mom. She musses his hair. “It’s just, if you’re bad, Hans will prison you away.”
“I know,” Saul sighs.
Goodness/Badness Report: SAUL
Good
He doesn’t complain after that. Not for years and years.
He just grows up.
. . .
One day Saul finds a puppy. It’s a naturally formed puppy — it’s growing out of an eolith, and its body hasn’t decided whether it wants to be one wolf or three wolves yet. It has three heads and it is drooling acid. It is struggling to break itself loose from the rock. It looks very hungry, as puppies often do while they are being born.
Saul walks closer. The puppy yaps at him.
“Oh, come on,” says Saul.
The puppy glints its eyes at him. It snaps at the air.
Goodness/Badness Report: PUPPY
Bad
The puppy is evil.
. . .
Saul pulls a steak out of his svart-bag. It is wrapped in paper. He unwraps it. He holds it out to the puppy. Originally the steak was for the river-men but they can go hungry for a day. What is the worst that can possibly happen?
. . .
The puppy whimpers, then it hangs its head.
It lets Saul approach.
It snaps up the steak. It chews on it between two of its heads and it lets Saul pet the runt.
Saul has a hammer now. He has palmed it when the puppy wasn’t looking. He hammers the puppy free of the stone.
It falls to the ground with a clunk.
“There now,” Saul says. He ruffles its heads. It finishes the steak. It looks at him.
It loves him, utterly and totally, from that moment on.
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