The Woodcutter (7 page)

As he looked, his eyes fell upon the daughter of the village baker.

She was neither plain nor pretty, but next to her, the whole world faded to nothing. In the flutter of three beats of his heart, the King, whom had withstood the battlefields and brutalities of war, was conquered.

So he met his red-blooded Queen.

Such discoveries of true love occurred across the Land, in every Kingdom. Unwittingly, a bridge of harmony and peace was built between the two worlds. True love conquered the draw of wild magic. Human hearts ceased their greed. It cemented each Kingdom’s place in the treaty because two rulers, united in love, longed for nothing more than to spend the rest of their days content in one another’s company.

But, the day came when the Faerie King Stephan and his Queen gave birth to a son. His tiny, mortal body, an unnatural vessel for the power of the fae, sang out with wild magic as strongly as if he had stolen it from his faerie cousins. The King and the Queen watched in horror as he grew, biding their time, knowing that they would one day have to make that terrible decision to end their child’s life for the sake of the world.

The child grew to be a young man, and though the wild magic still surrounded him with intoxicating glamour, his parents could not bring themselves to kill him, for his heart was kind and his intentions pure.

On the eve of his sixteen birthday, the King and Queen held a ball for their son. Standing on the dance floor, a young woman bowed before the Prince. The stories said that time stood still as the two gazed upon one another and that the heavens smiled as their lips touched. The power of true love’s first kiss transformed the wild magic in the Prince’s veins to the ordered elemental magic of the purest of fae. The treaty’s requirement for a blue blooded faerie upon the throne was fulfilled and the Prince ruled with wisdom and grace till the end of his days.

But, over the years, heirs began to marry for strategic might and not love. The blue blood thinned to red as the memory of the treaty faded into legend. The fae were seen once more as mere animals with powers that should be owned and controlled. The day came that the humans of the six Kingdoms united to claim that which they thought could be taken.

Driven back, mankind was reminded by the faerie that all legends are based in truth.

From this second terrible battle came the first Woodcutter, whose memory was as old as the trees. The borders were redrawn so that all Twelve Kingdoms intersected in the Woodcutter’s Woods. The Woodcutter was to be an ambassador between the mortal and immortal worlds. He pledged to remember the treaty, pledged to remind the Twelve Kingdoms of their obligations. He was to be a protector that ensured never more than half the Kingdoms thirsted for power, for if that balance ever tipped and seven Kingdoms turned to the dark hunger, there was nothing he, nor any Woodcutter, could do to stave the massacre.

In the Vanishing House, the Woodcutter had counted six Princes. Six Princes of six Kingdoms. There had been so much dust, more than anything that would come freely given. The blood of the Gentleman had run blue, but with enough magic, any human could turn for awhile.

A cold chill crept up the Woodcutter’s back as Snow White’s words came back to him about the pixies being harvested in a moving castle.

Pixies touching the ground…

There are things human ears should never have to hear.

There was an urgency to his footfalls as he continued on his way.

Chapter 22

A slender lad, all elbows and knees, sat on a stump by the road. His blue doublet was worn and faded. His short curly mop of hair was hidden beneath a floppy hat. His face was swollen and red as he hastily wiped the tears from his cheeks, pretending that he belonged all alone in the middle of the Woods.

The Woodcutter stopped before the boy. The lad seemed the rough and tumble sort, just on the edge of adulthood when immortality seemed certain and the whole world was at his feet.

The Woodcutter asked, “Why do you cry, boy?”

The boy’s voice had not quite kept pace with the rest of his body and he replied in a voice just a few notes too high, “I’m lost.”

He spoke with a thick peasant’s accent, but his face too youthful for the life a peasant would have led. In fact, his face was too interesting for any pure blooded human.

“Where did you come from?” asked the Woodcutter, his senses prickling.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “I was in one place and now I’m here.”

The Woodcutter took off his pack and rubbed his sore shoulders, “My back is not as it once was. You seem young and strong. If you carry my pack, you may travel with me.”

The boy wiped his nose warily, but did not move towards the Woodcutter.

The Woodcutter had been cautious and had obeyed the faerie rules of allowing true blue bloods to find their way. He had obeyed the rules and the child dressed in a red cape was dead. He would not be haunted by another corpse. He looked up at the darkening sky, “There are things that walk in the night that you should not face alone.”

The boy’s face drained of color. A stick fell noisily from a nearby tree and the boy spun as if a ghost was at his back. The Woodcutter shook his head at the tree and the tree shifted apologetically for the dramatics. The Woodcutter held out his pack and the boy grudgingly took it, falling in step behind the Woodcutter as they continued deeper into the Woods.

The wind tasted of rain.

The Woodcutter raised his nose to the air and inhaled the scent of the trees as they opened themselves for a cool evening drink.

The forest in this part of the Wood was different than elsewhere. Moss and ferns grew abundantly. The pulp of the trees was rust colored and the trees grew so tall they almost disappeared in the clouds.

The wind scolded him like a wizened mother, pushing at the Woodcutter’s back and telling him that he should find shelter.

The Woodcutter’s eyes fell upon a hollow in one of the trees. Struck by lightning, the inside had burned away, but had left the exterior intact and alive. There was just enough room for two.

The Woodcutter crawled in and the boy followed just as the first drops began to fall.

The Woodcutter took a blanket his wife had rolled in his pack and handed it to the boy. Then he tucked up the collar of his coat and settled in for the night.

The boy just sniffled.

Chapter 23

The Woodcutter was awake in an instant.

The rain had stopped.

The boy was fast asleep, his head tilted back at an awkward angle.

But something was wrong.

The Woodcutter could feel it in his bones, even before the trees began to whisper,
Quiet…quiet…

He crawled to the entrance and tried to see out into the night.

He could hear the snuffing grunts of an animal, a large creature tracking something through the brush.

The Woodcutter looked at the boy sleeping behind him. He placed his hand upon his final Ax. He waited as the footsteps grew closer.

A creature of silver stepped into the clearing. His ears were pricked and his mastiff-like snout tasted the air. He muscles rippled like mercury. Walking on four legs, his shoulders stood as tall as a man’s chest. A halo of blue radiated from him. His eyes were mirrors, lacking pupils, and shone gray in the night.

Odin’s rogue hellhound.

The Beast.

The Woodcutter felt the boy behind him wake with a start.

He reached back and grabbed the boy’s ankle, hoping he would understand to stay silent.

The hellhound’s head jerked in their direction. The Beast lowered his nose to the ground and began creeping their way.

The Woodcutter placed his hands upon the opening of the tree and closed his eyes. He whispered a wish to the tree and the spell took hold.

The Beast leapt, attracted by the movement, but when he reached the base of the redwood, all he found was wood and bark.

The Woodcutter still stood at the opening, mere inches from the Beast, but the spell had created a mirage that the hollow tree was solid. The spells he used were elemental, not the wild magic of the dark knives or unclaimed hearts that seemed to call the Beast.

The Beast snuffed and dug at the tree, but the spell did not give up its secret. The Beast let out a sneeze before padding away. As the last of the hellhound’s blue aura disappeared deep into the Woods, the Woodcutter relaxed.

“What was that?” the boy asked.

“A hellhound,” said the Woodcutter.

The boy shifted uncomfortably, “Can you kill it?”

“I shall try sometime when I am by myself.” The Woodcutter looked back at the boy, “I would hate to leave you alone with it.”

The Woodcutter released the spell and settled back against the inside of the tree, “Now, could you tell me why this Beast has picked you as his prey?”

The boy seemed to size up the Woodcutter, as if weighing his character, “My name is Rapunzel.”

He took off his hat and the Woodcutter saw it was a she, not a he, who sat beside him. She ran her fingers through her short, curly hair and then held out her hand.

Rapunzel.

A sense filled the Woodcutter’s being, a sense that there was something terribly wrong as he stared at her hair closely shorn.

He took her hand delicately in his rough and calloused own.

“Woodcutter,” he replied.

They stood for a moment more.

“Perhaps now you remember how you came to the crossroad?” he suggested.

“There is a witch…” Rapunzel stopped and then began again, “My parents weren’t supposed to have a baby, but my father stole some watercress from a witch’s garden. The witch said she would take me as payment for the greens.” She looked at the Woodcutter proudly, “We’ve been gypsies since before the day I was born. I look like a boy to fool the witch.”

“Where are your parents now?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged as she scratched her leg, but a small tremor in her voice gave away her worry, “I went to bed the night before last and woke at the crossroad where you found me.”

The girl with glass slippers…

The princes in the Vanishing House…

Rapunzel shivered, but not from the chill in the air, “Why was he tracking me?”

Even in the darkness of the tree, she seemed to shine.

“Because you are special, Young One.”

Rapunzel laughed, “You’re mistaken.”

But he was not. There had been something unusual about the watercress her mother had eaten while pregnant with this child, he was sure of it.

“Have you ever nicked your finger?” asked the Woodcutter.

“Sure,” she replied.

“What color was your blood?”

“Blue. Like everybody’s.”

“Not like everybody’s.”
Rapunzel pointed at the veins in her arm, “Everyone has blue.”

The Woodcutter shook his head, “That is not how these things work.”

“You’re saying my blood is a strange color and so that creature wants to eat me?”

The Woodcutter wanted to deny it, but he could not.

So he said nothing.

She became quiet, “You’re serious.” She stood, their hideaway in the tree suddenly becoming too small, “So what do we do? Run for eternity?”

“We could,” said the Woodcutter.

“I just want to go home.”

“You would not be safe. You were brought to the Woods once. Whoever brought you here would most likely bring you once again.”

“I was brought to the Woods to be food for some hellhound.” She swayed and gripped her sides with her arms as she became desperate, “You have to help me. You have to find a way to keep me safe.”

Son…

His father’s voice…

It seemed like only yesterday they had stood in the Woods together.

Son…

He pushed it back.

Son, there will be a day that you will need refuge…

He pushed away the memory of what happened next.

“There is a tower…” the Woodcutter said.

She looked at him incredulously, “A tower?”

“You will be safe until I find the Crone.”

“The Crone?”

“I have been told she knows how to defeat a hellhound.”

“You would leave me alone while you wander off to seek out some Crone?” Rapunzel’s voice hit a strained pitch.

The Woodcutter calmly said, “Or we could walk for eternity and hope we never cross paths with the Beast.”

Rapunzel’s mouth opened. And then closed again.

The Woodcutter looked towards where the Beast last walked, “We would best put some distance between us and this place.”

The Woodcutter crawled out of the tree and patted the rough bark, “Thank you, my friend. Know that my ax has never been tainted by unwilling sap and so it shall always be.”