A friend of mine over at Consumating would like to do a nice thing for me. If you would like to help her, or feel like also doing a nice thing, head on over there. Don’t fret if you don’t have the scratch, or don’t want to. I won’t be mad.

Also, Consumating was nice enough to link to me this week. Hello and thank you.

Lastly, I know it was kind of a slow week this week. Sometimes those will happen. I promise that this is the only time I’ll apologize since, if you’re like me, you’d prefer to find stories in an update, not excuses.

In the far away island kingdoms, in the lands of three kings and eleven princes, there lived a woman with a beautiful voice. Though nobles would reputedly offer up fortunes in gold and jewels for her services, she would never accept more than a humble sum, and she could never be lured from her small home on its small street in the large city where she lived with her husband. She would train men and women to sing, she would put on her small performances, and for her own pleasure she kept birds who sang songs of her own composition. Many a time friends or clients and nobles would comment to her, “That’s great, miss Moly,” (her name was Moly, you see) until such a time as it simply became common practice to call her great miss Moly.

Now miss Moly had a kind heart and so, among other things, she always saw to it that a bowl of milk and a dish of scraps were left out for the many stray cats of the city. As they would all crowd around the back door of her small flat, she would set down the milk and scraps and say, “My thanks to you, cats, for keeping our streets safe and clean, and guarding the shadows where no one else will go.”

One evening, as she was returning to collect the empty bowl and dish, she found a great, gray tomcat still standing by the door, as if waiting for her. She bid him good even, and expressed her wish that he had enjoyed the repast. The cat seemed well pleased with this, and allowed itself to be petted behind the ears before leaving, as its fellows had. Well, this continued for some time, the gray cat waiting for his due every evening, and eventually great miss Moly started letting the cat into her home for a few minutes or a few hours of warmth by her stove, and would feed him an extra sweetmeat or two. The cat accepted this, as well, as if it were only what he was due, and thus miss Moly’s evenings passed in this way for some weeks.

All seemed well until an evening when one of her caged birds trilled its song, as she was feeding the gray tomcat. The cat was upon the wrought iron cage in a flash, and before miss Moly could draw a breath, he had taken the cage from its hook, struck open the door, and crushed the life out of the poor bird in his jaws. “Oh, you wicked cat!” said miss Moly. “I have fed you and sheltered you for many weeks, and in a thrice you have killed my bird for no reason at all. Why would you do such a thing?”

The cat, now cleaning his paws, seemed as if he would ignore miss Moly, as is the province of cats, but after a moment more he spoke. “My good lady, you have fed me, and you have sheltered me, and every evening you feed and praise my subjects for the good we do this city. You have no small measure of my favor and some of my gratitude, and so I will offer you this: If you think a caged bird ever sings to the kindness and praise of its captor, you are mistaken. But I see you are upset, and I will take my leave. Know only that you still have the favor of all cats and their ruler, and I may help you in your hour of need.”

With that, the gray cat leapt up and out of a window which miss Moly was sure she had locked.

Now, the reputation of the great miss Moly had spread well and far, including tales of her amazing talent in training even the birds to sing more beautifully than nature’s endowments. These praises came to the attention of a wicked prince, who heard the singing of one of miss Moly’s trained birds, and determined he would not be refused where others had been. Thus the prince sent his soldiers to the home of miss Moly, and because they were the soldiers of a prince, she had no other choice but to go with them.

She was brought before the prince, who said to her, “I have heard much of how you sing and train the birds, but I do not think the birds need to know how to sing any better than they already do. So I will judge for myself. My aviary has a thousand birds. If you can teach them songs more pleasing to the ear than what they now play, you shall be rewarded in gold. But fail, and I shall have your tongue cut out and your throat scalded.” And with that, miss Moly was taken from the throne room to the aviary, where the doors were barred and where countless birds flew about her, making their beautiful cacaphony. The prince was sure miss Moly would be unable to complete his task. Her life forfeit, she would be his thereafter.

Miss Moly slipped to the floor and wept with her head on her knees. Even the training of a single bird was a work of weeks or months. She had nearly abandoned hope when she heard the faintest of noises and looked up. Through her tears she saw the gray tomcat, calmly watching her, as if waiting for her to be done with her tears. “My good lady,” said the cat, “I see your hour of need is upon you.”

Thus miss Moly was not without all hope, but she wondered what a cat might to do help. The cat explained to miss Moly how all cats knew all the songs of birds, and how they caught their prey with such enticing melodies as that the birds could not resist. “Come, I will teach you these songs, and with all my subjects the birds will sing as one by morning.” With this pronouncement, hundreds of thousands of cats began streaming into the aviary, though miss Moly could not fathom from whence they came, as all windows and doors were well shut.

Through the night, after the cats rounded up every bird in the aviary, they stood amongst the birds and sung the secret songs of the cats, over and over again until the birds had no other thoughts in their heads, and returned the call of the cats perfectly. At first light, the cats took their leave, the ruler of cats accepting the praise and pets from miss Moly as no more than his due. When the sun reached its zenith, the door was unbarred and the wicked prince came into the aviary.

He looked about and listened and his countenance was well pleased. “You have done well, miss Moly, so let us return to my throne room and there you may claim your reward.” The prince led miss Moly out of the aviary, and in the throne room she found a chest of gold and jewels to the left, and a gilded chair to the right. “You are a marvel, miss Moly,” spoke the prince. “Even more than the tales were told. So I offer you this: you may have a reward of gold, or instead a place by my side in the palace, where your voice will be enshrined. Which would you?”

Now, miss Moly was tempted by the throne, but she remembered the words of the gray cat about caged birds, and thus she said, “I must humbly accept your gold and jewels, my prince, for to take a throne of my own would be most prideful and selfish, for I wish only to share my music.”

The prince grew furious, so certain had be been she would take the throne. “What is this? Do you dare to say that a mere trifling of gold and jewels is the equal of the whole palace? Do you dare to suggest that a paltry sum should be of greater value than my lineage? This insult to the three kingdoms and my family shall not stand. Guards, my sword. I shall put her to death by my own hand!”

The prince took up his sword and would have struck down miss Moly on the spot, but as he moved to do so, the gray cat leapt upon his head and tore out the wicked prince’s throat with a single swipe. And hundreds of cats followed, and the bore the prince down  to the ground, tearing his body to pieces and stripping from his bones all his flesh.

The cats carried the great miss Moly back to her home, bringing with them the treasures she had been promised, and none stood in their way. Miss Moly set free all her birds, and though she still taught men and women to sing, and still left milk and scraps for the cats of the city, she never again kept a songbird in a cage.

During the second age of machines, in the island nations far across the East Ocean, there lived a young poet. As a boy, he would sit at his desk while the teacher spoke at length of dead men and dead languages, his head down, writing furiously. His lesson books were not filled up with notes, for every page was a poem, and he left no room for aught else. Every day, in every class, he wrote a poem, and week by week he told stories. Some of these he shared with his classmates, and some of his classmates wrote their own poems and stories in turn.

The poet grew from a boy to a young man in this way. He dutifully answered all the questions from all the tests in every class. He did all that was asked of him, and when he came of age he left the school to go out into the world. But in the second age of machines, there was no call for poets. All throughout the city there were machines, and all of these machines demanded the hands of men to keep them running. The poet’s words fell from his pages onto deaf ears and blind eyes.

So the poet closed his notebooks and put away his pens and went to work for the machines. They would leave their traces of black soot about his eyes, and black grease on his hands, but every evening he would sit by the light of a single candle and write again. Sometimes he still saw the men who had read his poems when they were all young students, but none of these men were poets anymore. Like all men, they had turned to the machines, and the skies became black with smoke.

It took no small amount of time before the poet became disgusted with his work for the machines, and soon he was convinced there was not only no place in the world for a poet, but there was simply no room left for poetry. Perhaps he was right. A great war had begun amongst the island nations, fracturing them down the middle. The grand machines men had made were set to the purpose of assembly-line death. They turned the earth to mud, they turned the air sickly and yellow, and they spit death across ruined farmlands.

Every day, the poet would find news of the great war, and sometimes he would even catch the scent of death and decay on the air. It carried for miles and none of the island nations could escape it. The burden of those men lost in the mud and rain fell heavily on the shoulders of everyone during the time of the great war, and the poet felt himself growing so stooped he could no longer bear to turn his face to the sky.

One lonely night he stared at the grease on his hands and the soot on his face for many hours. He did not clean these marks of the machines from his body, as was his usual habit, but went straight to his shelf, where he kept volume upon volume of poetry he wrote for himself, and which the world seemed not to need. He lit a candle, took the first volume down from the shelf, and page by page he fed it into the fire. As each of his poems burned, he felt the weight lessen. The poet burned away the whole night, and when the morning touched the sky, every last poem was gone. He stood straight again, and left his job to join the army. All he brought with him was a bottle of ink and a brush.

The poet became a soldier, and was given a rifle. They sent him into the long trenches to die with hundreds of other young men. Death lived in the earth and sky there, on those contested lines. It fell from above, it seeped in through the water, and he watched other men die through the fogged lens of a gas mask. The young soldier had come to the great war to end his life, to feed himself directly into the gaping maw of a world which ate the hearts of men. But now that he stood on its cusp, it seemed to him all the machines of death wished to do was toy with him, to eat his fear, and leave him stripped but still living.

The soldier determined that, though he was willing to surrender his life, he would surrender nothing else. Thus the soldier became a poet once again. “Every bullet,” he said to no one, “bears the name of a man. There are twice and half again as many bullets as men in this world, enough that there is a bullet for all living things.” With this declaration he dug out a bullet from his satchel, and from his pockets he took his brush and pen. Carefully, while machineguns spat raw metal overhead, he wrote his name and his story on the bullet. He put the bullet into his jacket pocket, and so he knew where his death resided - with him, always.

The poet, afterwards, had no fear. No bullets could bear his name. Death could not touch him and he tamed the trenches with words. When the sun went down over the battlefield, he would sit by candlelight as he had long ago in his room, unafraid of snipers, and write poems on all his bullets. Every poem, he said, was somebody’s name, and somebody’s story. Every poem was a life, and when he spent each round, the poems were gone forever. He did not know if the bullets ever found the lives writ upon them. The poet did not care, for those that missed their mark were lives that would be spared, and those that struck down another soldier would be poems completed. His place in this war was not to hold the strings of fate, only to tell the story.

One day, the great war was over. The poet returned to the city where he had been born, been a child, and become a man. He carried the bullet with his name on it, and a bag of stories that clinked as he walked. The war left a scar in the earth and in the hearts of men. When the poet opened the door to his empty home, a curious feeling came over him, almost as if he had the same weight all his poems once left on his shoulders, but they no longer made him stooped and downcast. He lined up each bullet on the windowsill and looked out over a city, still gray with the ash of machines, but different in its aspect. It was a city holding its breath. It was a world that needed poetry again.

He fell to writing, giving his words over to a world that, after endlessly feeding its children into the machines, was left with a hunger for poems. For every bullet he fired in battle, a new poet took up the pen. Those lives inscribed in poetry and spent in battle found themselves forever entwined with the life of the poet.

For each bullet on his windowsill the poet wrote a story, until all the bullets were gone save his own. This one he kept, and if he has not lost it, he is still alive to this day.

Once upon a time, in a small village to the south of the new city, there lived a girl. As happens in such villages, there were many girls. And as the new city was still very new indeed, it was the custom for girls coming of age to celebrate by attending a ball in the city. All the girls coming of age would, at the end of spring, travel by carriage to the new city, dressed in their finest formal gowns, each one accompanied by one of the boys from their village, or another one of the villages which were not so far away.

Now, as it happened, spring was approaching, and all the girls of the village had found a boy to take them to the great ball in the new city save one. As is the province of children, all the other boys and girls teased the young woman mercilessly over her solitude. They would drive her, crying, from the fields where they played and invent mocking rhymes which were passed throughout the village.

Truthfully, the girl had no interest in the great ball. Her only wish was to see the new city, and the first taunts over her lack of an attending boy left her more confounded than injured in any way. But time had worked its wounds and, even if she wished to show them all up, there was no boy for miles around that would be seen with her. Still, she vowed she would make them all regret their harsh words. She wrapped her cloak about herself and set off into the dark woods.

She walked for some hours, listening to all the animals around her, following no path, but veering always away from the sound of life, until she was soon surrounded only by silence. It was from this silence that a large, gray wolf emerged. It bared its teeth and it raised its hackles, and it readied itself to spring upon the girl and make a meal of her. Before it could do so, she struck it a harsh blow across the muzzle, and looked directly into its eyes. The wolf saw she was not prey and was not scared, and so it was cowed and had no other choice but to follow her bidding.

The girl and the wolf made their way back to her home, and she bade the wolf lie down in the stables. She lit three candles and fell to sewing. All night long she labored, for the great ball was the next day. As dawn blossomed in the sky, she called the wolf from the stables into the house. She ordered it to stand up on two legs, and dressed it in the guise of a man, and clothed it in a fine suit. The wolf admired his new guise and said, “This is all lovely and clever, good lady, but I do not know to what end, nor even your name.”

“My name is not your business,” said the girl, “You may call me lady Catherine, if you like.” The name appealed to her. “As for what you shall do, you will accompany me to the great ball in the new city. You will lay eyes on no other woman but me, and you will dance with no other woman but me. To me alone you will show kindness, but to all others you may indulge your lupine instincts and savage them with what words you will.”

The girl took the wolf’s arm in her own, and together they went to the ball. All the other girls looked at her with the venom of jealousy in their eyes. She had chosen well, for though she could disguise his form, there was no hiding the nature of the wolf. Thus the night passed, and each girl in turn endeavored to distract the wolf from his lady Catherine. And, in turn, he savaged each one with his own brutal and cunning wits, tearing out their throats with words so they could say no more, the blood draining from their faces in much the same way as he would have it drain from their bodies, but for the will of the girl.

As for the other boys, none dared approach him. The bravest met his eyes for moments only, then turned away. There were no other wolves among these children.

The great ball was regarded as a rousing success, but only by one person. And when all the other children left at the end of the night to return to the small village, the girl remained behind. “Small villages breed small minds,” she declared. “I have no more interest in such frivolous girls and silly boys. I will make this city my own.” Dismissing the folly of boys, she stripped off the wolf’s suit and its guise of a man, and made it walk on all fours again. “Come wolf, I have no need of a boy, but a wolf may yet prove its worth.”

In this way, the lady Catherine set out into the city. She made the city her home as if she had lived there forever, and lived her life twice over again on its streets. But though she never ceased to tire of the city, it seemed she had erred in one capacity. The women of the city were no less frivolous than the girls of the village, and its men were no less silly than the village’s boys. Though something of the aura of the city found its way into their speech and mannerisms, she soon discovered these traces were gilded surfaces hiding the dull bronze beneath.

She pondered this one evening, sitting beneath the light of a kerosene lantern, in the small house which she had acquired over her few months of living in the new city. At last she took up her tools of sewing and mending once again, and worked for three full days, with three lanterns lighting her stitches. On the fourth day she summoned the wolf once more, and made it stand on its hind legs again. Now she dressed it in the guise of a woman (for, being a wolf, its true nature was as mutable as the girl wished it to be), and dressed this lupine mannequin in finery.

“My wolf, you have been faithful for longer than fair sense demanded, and never is your conversation silly or frivolous. I am tired of searching for an equal in this city, for I fear the only equal to be found is the city herself. Thus I will ask of you, rather than order, if you will live with me as an equal. I will give you a name, and you will be as I am, and in turn I will tell you my own name as well.”

In truth the wolf had hoped for such an offer since she was stripped of her humanity at the ball. She readily agreed, and the wolf and the lady lived together as equals from that day on.

Long ago, when the stars were still new in the cloak of the lady Night, the Winter King and Jack the Frost were still fast friends. The Winter King lived far in the north lands, sharing the burden of the winter chill with Jack the Frost. But the Winter King was covetous, and a splinter of greed was lodged deep within his heart. Every night he would look up at the stars of the lady Night and feel a pang of jealousy jabbing at his heart.

At last he could bear it no longer. The Winter King disguised himself as a tailor and journeyed to the tallest mountain in the world, where the lady Night cast her cloak over all the lands. “Lady Night,” called the Winter King, “I have come to see you about your cloak. I have long admired it from afar, but as you can see I am a tailor by trade, and it saddens me to tell you that the stitching on your diamonds will not hold. Please, let me sew them on tightly and they will never fall from your cloak, I beg of you.”

The lady Night was moved by false tailor’s plea, for though she was older than all her brothers and sisters, she had not long had the stars in her cloak and even the world was still very young. She allowed the Winter King to climb to the stars and sew them tightly into the sky. Though the Winter King felt the tug of desire, the sliver of greed was not so deep in his heart as it would come to be. He was true to his word, and went throughout the whole night sky, sewing the lady Night’s diamonds firmly in place, all of them save one. When he was over the northern lands, far from the eyes of the lady Night, he tugged loose the threads holding a single star in her cloak, and it fell into the northern lands, near where he made his home.

Before she could turn her eyes upon him again, the Winter King shed his disguise and leapt down from the sky. However, in his rush, he lost sight of the diamond for just an instant, and when he looked back to the icy winter plains he could not find the diamond in all the glittering ice. The Winter King was filled with rage and tore apart the northern lands, raising mountains and opening chasms, but nowhere could he find the lady Night’s diamond.

Many years would pass, and the icy cold of the lady Night’s diamond would seep into the northern lands. The Winter King’s heart would grow colder and harder as he held more and more of the icy chill inside himself, and the sliver of greed would sink deeper into him, until his heart turned to stone. The friendship between the Winter King and Jack the Frost would splinter and fall to pieces, and the lady Night would ever after bring the darkness for months on end to the northern lands, searching for her lost diamond.

In the passing of so many years the diamond of the lady Night was emptied of its chill, and mortal men came to live in the cruel northern lands, though they were filled with the chill of winter and the Night. One morning, long after the Winter King and Jack the Frost had parted ways, a tundra swan found the diamond of the lady Night. The swan carried the diamond back to her nest and placed it amongst her eggs. After the eggs had hatched and the swan’s chicks had outgrown their down, a hunter happened upon the nest. Seeing that the swan had children, the hunter left her in peace. In return, the tundra swan gave the diamond to the hunter.

“You are a hunter, but I can see you have no greed or jealousy in your heart. I have no use for this diamond, thus I will pass it to you. But know that though I have been its custodian, I am not its owner, and nor shall you be. It belongs to the most beautiful woman in the world. When you find her, you must return it to her. She will recognize it as hers, and forever after she will bring you fortune.”

The hunter thanked the tundra swan and he promised neither he, nor any of his sons after him, would hunt any swan as long as they should live. Soon enough the hunter met a woman and fell in love with her. To him she was the most beautiful woman in the world, but she did not recognize the diamond when he gave it to her. Still, he was in love, and he passed the diamond on to her. “It will bring us good luck, and we will pass it on to our youngest son, so that he may give it to the most beautiful woman in the world as well.”

In this way the diamond was passed down from one generation to the next, until it came into the hands of a youth named Jeremy. “You will know to whom you must give this diamond, young Jeremy,” his father sternly lectured, “for your heart will lead you to her, and no other woman will match the diamond for its beauty.”

Time walked on at his measured pace, but never in the small village did Jeremy find a woman quite so beautiful as the diamond. To be sure, there were many pretty girls, and they made enviable wives for some men. But the diamond sparkled from within, like a tiny sun, and no young woman of the village glowed with the same inner light. That was, until the day a woman traveling far from a distant land came to spend a night at the village inn. He did not know of her arrival, for she had no heralds, but when he glimpsed her coming through the door, it seemed as if a light filled up the room. He watched her for hours, unable to catch his breath.

At last he was determined to speak to her, to see beyond any doubts if she was the one to whom he must give the diamond. He walked to her table, but as he stepped forward to ask her name, she stood, and her wine glass spilled between them. He became flustered and apologized. He caught her eyes sparkling, and his fingers brushed against hers and, though he did not yet know her name, he knew there could be no other woman as beautiful as the diamond. That night he returned to his home, determined to see her again the next morning, and as he prepared for sleep he found a small wine stain on his shirt, exactly over his heart.

The next morning he returned to the inn even as the lady Night’s cloak was still spread across the land, and he waited for hours. When the woman appeared in the common room, he addressed her. “Please, good lady, I have seen no other woman who sparkles with such a glow as yours. My father and my father’s father have promised me that I would know the most beautiful woman in the world by this diamond, and now I can see that even its beauty pales in comparison. But I beg of you, stay one more night, even a few hours, and I will trade these few moments of your beauty for the diamond’s own.” And so saying this, he offered the diamond to the woman.

The woman bit her lip and he saw her move as if to take the diamond and then stop herself. “Good sir,” she said, “I hardly know you, and yet I know to whom this diamond truly belongs. I would stay as many hours as there are in a lifetime if you asked, but I cannot trade it for the diamond, for it is not mine to take. But if you would, I would welcome you to journey with me, that I may have longer to look into your eyes and hear your voice, and together we shall return the diamond to its owner.”

“I would journey with you to the ends of the earth,” said Jeremy.

“Well,” said the woman, “it will be a long ways, but not so far as that.” With this, Jeremy gave the diamond over into her care, along with his name. Her name, given in return, was Wendy.

The lady Wendy and Jeremy, who ever stood near to her heart, journeyed together from the winter lands, leaving behind the flourishing tundra swans and the jealous chill of the Winter King. She showed him the paths through the darkest forest, which she had walked finding him, and led him through the same treacherous mountain slopes she had climbed many months ago. And if the journey was a long and hard one for them to meet, it was not nearly so hard when they traveled together.

At last they came to the highest mountain peak, where the lady Night stood, looking out over the world with her eye the moon. Together they called up to her, and she noticed them in an instant. With her gaze upon the lady Wendy and Jeremy she no longer stood over the world, but looked them eye to eye and gave them greetings. “Lady Night,” said Wendy, “We have something of yours, which you lost long ago. We do not know how or why, but we have the diamond you lost far in the north, and we have come to return it, by your pardon.”

Jeremy found his voice, at last understanding for whom the diamond was meant, and spoke, “Please, Lady Night, the jewel has been passed down from my father, my father’s father, and as far back before him as any of us can remember. We did not know it belonged to another, but by the purity of this woman I have learned of its true owner. Had I known, I would not have kept it from you.”

The lady Night took the diamond from Wendy and Jeremy, and she placed it back in the northern sky. She considered the man and the woman before her, but at last they saw the pardon in her features, a moment before it appeared on her lips. “I thank you for returning it, though I think you have found another diamond more brilliant than my own. And if you think it was I to whom this diamond led, well, perhaps that is only a part of the truth. You have a new legacy to pass on, and I think you will find she will bless your children and your children’s children as much as any star from my cloak. Go, and I will watch over you both.”

Jeremy and Wendy journeyed back to the middle lands, from whence Wendy had come. And though at times the roads they traveled were rough, they were easier for being traveled together.

Far in the lands to the south, long before the first age of machines, the desert was speckled with the tiny villages of men. Between the sun and the unforgiving face of the desert, these men would somehow find a tiny handhold of life, and here they would cling for many generations, thanking the desert for her rare moments of generosity, and ever respectful of the great furnace of the gods as it made its way overhead.

In one such village as this there lived a boy named Twigby, and everyone thought him to be a simpleton. He would never harm any living creatures, and when he found one of the desert’s denizens within his small home - be it a mouse, a snake, or an spider - he would always carefully transport it outside and gently chastise it. He seemed not to care how often the creatures would follow him directly back inside, and perhaps it was this patience that others mistook for a simple mind.

Whatever else might be thought of the boy, the townsfolk had grudgingly to confess that his small garden was rarely (if ever) beset by pests, and the little subsistence he eked out of his small plot of land was generous for the desert. They might have been jealous of Twigby, but he was as generous with his desert boon as the harsh earth was to him, and so others never wanted for the sake of his own comfort.

Now, he never concerned himself with what manner of creature he might remove from his home, and so Twigby was used to carrying out and about all the poisoned hunters the desert had to offer. He would pick up rattlesnakes, black widows, and wasps with the same phlegmatic serenity and never did any of them spill so much as a drop of venom on his skin. For this reason, he was not mindful of the large black scorpion he found upon his wall one blazing afternoon. As he had done on many other occasions, he cupped one hand before the scorpion, placed the other behind it, and it scuttled onto his palm, where he cradled it carefully between both hands.

Twigby placed the scorpion on the earth and chastised it, “Go now, and sin no more. Men’s dwellings are not safe for you, and you are not safe for them.” Then he went back inside. Moments later he found the scorpion climbing his walls again, and so Twigby once more caught it between his hands, and gently placed it outside, chastising it. However, when he went back inside for a second time, the scorpion was climbing his walls yet again. Twigby was used to this behavior, and was no less patient carrying the scorpion out of doors for a third time.

Thus a third time he placed the scorpion on the sand, but he did not chastise it for, before he could speak, the scorpion grew to twice the size of a man. Though it had the body of a scorpion, and a scorpion’s terrible stinger, where its claws and head should have been was the body of a beautiful woman.

“Twigby,” she said, “yours is the gentlest soul to walk these harsh sands. You bring no harm to my subjects and you do not fear their stings or bites. My spiders have eaten the insects that would plague your small garden, and spoken highly of your gentle fingers. My snakes catch the vermin which would despoil the roots of your garden and have praised your careful hands. Thus I, the scorpion queen, have come to see what manner of man you are. You are a good man, Twigby, and know this: In your most desperate hours you may call for to me, and all the venomous creatures that slither and crawl will give you whatever aid they are able.”

The scorpion queen bowed to Twigby and with a toss of her hair she was a scorpion again, which scuttled away into his garden. Twigby accepted this as he accepted all things, for though in those days animals rarely spoke with men, it was still known that they could, and there were many tales of shamans who spoke with birds. He did not dwell on her words overmuch, and went on with his life as it had been for as many years as he had lived.

As it happened, a witch also lived in the desert. Her adobe house had the leg of a giant eagle and the wings of a vulture, and it would hop into the air, flying from one small village to another. The witch was a vain and spiteful woman, and she took the youngest and most beautiful men and women from every town and flensed the beauty from their bodies. She drank it down and left them old and withered, and in this way she had lived for hundreds of years, and remained as youthful as ever.

The people of Twigby’s village learned that the witch was soon to visit, and the desert was filled with their moans. No one wanted to be carried off by the witch and left as a husk, but they had nowhere they could go, and so they had no choice but to wait for the witch and for each man, woman, and child to hope they might be spared.

Twigby treated this as he did any other pest, and thus he alone was not filled with terror as the witch’s home flapped overhead and landed in the town, sending black feathers all across the sands. The witch stuck her head out of her window and sniffed the air. “Come out, come out, my beauty, there’s no use shuttering yourself away. My nose can smell a drop of innocence in the ocean and my eyes can see where all souls hide. Hop, house, hop, I smell beauty and I won’t be delayed.”

Her house hopped around town on its eagle’s foot and it was not long before she stood at Twigby’s doorstep. “Ahh,” said Twigby to himself. “Well, I suppose she means to carry me off. Then there is nothing for it but to ask the scorpion queen for her aid.” As the witch knocked on his door Twigby said, “Scorpion queen, this witch would flense my life from my bones and leave me a dried up husk. I beg of you to help me if you can.”

Quick as a flash, a spider hopped up on Twigby’s shoulder and said, “Swallow me, and she won’t have the life out of you.” And so Twigby swallowed the spider. Then a snake slithered up and said, “Put me around your waist and she won’t have a hope of flensing you.” And so Twigby picked up the snake and wrapped it around his waist like a belt. Finally a scorpion appeared and said, “Set me on your shoulder and I will send her far away.” And so Twigby picked up the scorpion and set it on his shoulder.

The witch was in quite a fury now, pounding at Twigby’s door. “Let me in, little one, I can smell your fear. The sooner I’m done the sooner I’m gone and you can all scratch back to your miserable lives.” At this, Twigby opened the door, and the witch immediately snatched him up by the collar and pulled him into her house.

“First things first,” said the witch, “and let’s get that skin off you, for I’ll wear it better than you would!” She took her flensing knife and tried to flense the skin from Twigby. But no matter how she tried, all she got was snakeskins, dried and wrinkled and worn. She cast them aside, one after the other until her flensing knife was dull and, in frustration, she dashed it into a million pieces.

“Very well, so your skin will stay on, that’s fine,” said the witch, “I’d not want that worn out husk anyway. The soul’s all that matters and I’ll have that straightaway!” She took him by the collar and placed her lips on his and tried furiously to suck out his soul. But no matter how she tried, it wouldn’t come free, for while she’d been busily flensing, the spider had woven a web all inside of Twigby and his soul was caught fast inside his body. Still, she tried and she tried and before she knew it, she had sucked the spider out of Twigby. Right away it built a web in her throat so she couldn’t eat anymore souls.

The witch coughed and sputtered and tried to curse Twigby’s name a hundred times over, but all her curses were caught in the spider’s web, and stuck fast inside her. All she spit out was the spider itself, which Twigby caught and carefully set on his shoulder. “Well if I can’t have you, I’ll have someone else,” said the witch, and a third time she grabbed Twigby by the collar to hurl him from her house. But at that moment the scorpion leapt off Twigby’s shoulders and grew to twice the size of a man, with a woman’s body in place of her head and claws.

“Leave my lands,” said the scorpion queen. “Never trouble them again.” And with these words she took the witch’s head in her hands, and kissed the witch’s forehead with her poison lips until all the youth faded from her body and she aged a hundred years. The scorpion queen set Twigby outside the witch’s house as gently as he ever set any of her subjects. The witch, reduced to a hag, spat and choked on more curses, her body twisted and warped by the hundred and more caught inside her throat. But there was nothing she could do. The scorpion queen hopped from the witch’s house with its eagle’s leg and vulture’s wings and give it such a sting that it leapt into the air and didn’t come down for a hundred years.

The scorpion queen turned back into a scorpion and scuttled away, and the spider hopped off Twigby’s shoulders and the snake slithered from Twigby’s waist. Twigby thanked the scorpion queen for her help, even though she had scuttled away, and he returned to his home. There he lived out a long life, and was always as generous to others as the desert was to him.

When she was but a little girl, a Turkish child’s grandmother told her all the stories of the dark things which dwelt under the water. “We live near the ocean, my child, and so you must know of these stories. The dark things may come for you, and you must even be prepared for this.” Thus her grandmother taught the young girl all the games she knew. The Turkish girl learned to play chess, go, and the game of carved bones.

Time passed, as it is wont to do, and the old woman died (as old women will do), and the Turkish girl grew up. Despite or perhaps because of her grandmother’s stories, she always lived near the ocean. And one night when the moon was new and the stars were clouded, one of the dark things came up from the depths.

It came in through the windows, for the dark things are unhindered by any fluids (even such as glass itself). Dark things move without a sound, and so it would have crept up on the Turkish girl, but she had never ceased her habit of stringing the windows with silver chimes.

She awoke to their gentle notes and heard the sound of breathing that also sounded like a river flowing, and she knew the dark things had come. Quick as a glint in an eye, she was out of the bed and, barefoot, she set the game board before her bed. The Turkish girl listened for the tread of heavy limbs on the stairs, but did not let it distract her from the task at hand, as she arranged the pieces of carved bones.

She sat crosslegged on the bed, the game board between her and the door to her bedroom, as the latch clicked and the door swung inwards. The dark thing stood in silhouette, its features shrouded, its outline jagged and malformed.

The Turkish girl did not flinch, but merely presented the carved bones to the dark thing with a gesture of her hand. It stood there for many minutes before, with that same sound of a running river, it shambled to the board and sat.

They played for hours, the Turkish girl and the dark thing. Her hands were pale. It had either too many fingers, or too few, or claws that faced backwards - she could never say for sure. But she matched its every move, never once letting it win, yet never finishing the game herself. Then dawn’s veil began to gray the sky, and the dark thing made a noise of distress.

“Ahh, dark thing, our game is not finished. Come, wait out the day in my closet, and we will finish it tonight.” Thus the dark thing hid itself away in the Turkish girl’s closet.

For three more nights they played the game of carved bones. For three days and nights, Turkish delight did not sleep, and did not lose. At last, just before dawn on the third night, she brought the game to a close.

The dark thing was weak and frail now, and its strange sound of running water seemed to cough and spit. Still, it spoke, and its voice was strong. “Our game is over, but I see I have become too weak to steal you away. Please, shelter me for one more night. I will trouble you no more, and I will grant you a favor for each night’s prior boon.”

Now, the Turkish girl had been told how the dark things would bargain, and though she wished to ask for many things, she heeded her grandmother’s advice. “Very well, dark thing. You may have another night’s sanctuary here, and these are the favors I ask of you. You will protect from harm this house, and all who dwell within it. You will watch over and guard my children, and their children, and their children’s children. And you will never again drag men to the depths of the ocean, for the last favor you do me is the most important of all: from this day on you shall do only good.”

The dark thing shuddered, but dawn’s rosy gaze already graced the sky. It had no choice but to agree.

And so from that day forth, the dark thing lived in the house of the Turkish girl, guarding her and her family, and when they were no more, it went into the world of men and did good forever after.

The Winter King lived in the the northernmost lands, where no men or women could live. His heart was made of stone and his skin was as hard and cracked and frozen as the icy ground in the north lands. His hair was wild as a haystack and each strand was like the grass in the morning frost. The eyes of the Winter King were each made of ice, and anyone who looked into them could see clear through to his frozen, stony heart.

Now, the icy chill of the Winter King was great. His breath could freeze the hottest fires of passion and his touch could cool the warmest friendship. So bitter was the cold of the Winter King, that it would have plunged the entire world into ice for eternity, but for Jack the Frost, who could hold the harsh breath of winter inside himself. For most of the year ’round Jack the Frost would hold the winter inside himself, and thus the world would know the Winter King’s touch for just a few months. All save the lands of the north, where even Jack the Frost was not able to contain the winter. Here the Winter King ruled year round, respected and feared by his few subjects.

Jack the Frost had a daughter. Her mother was the spring, and her hair was brown. Her mother and her father loved her very much, but when she was old enough to venture into the world on her own, she told them she wanted to move to an island far in the north. Jack the Frost and Spring tried to dissuade her, but the brown-haired girl would have none of it. She packed up her possessions and moved to a wind-swept island far in the north. And because she was Jack the Frost’s daughter, this island was not so cold as the other northern lands, and the Winter King’s frigid breath was not so harsh. Because she was the spring’s daughter, her island was fertile, and her garden thrived. For these reasons, other men and women came to live on her island, and soon built homes and farms there.

The Winter King saw the island, and how it prospered, and was filled with a jealousy as bitter as the cold stone of his heart. Was it not enough, he wondered, that Jack the Frost held the world from him, but now his daughter was here in the Winter Lands, trying to wrest even these from his dominion? He decided he would take back his lands from her, and take her from Jack the Frost and Spring.

Thus the Winter King went to his dungeons where he kept the four winds. First he spoke to the South Wind and said, “Go to the island where the brown-haired girl makes a mockery of the winter. Raise the ocean against her and let her drown in her tears.” With this command the Winter King released the South Wind.

The South Wind carried with him all the water he could lift, and his eyes were milky and clouded, so he was surrounded always by haze and fog. He left the dungeon of the Winter King with a terrible moan and struck out across the waters towards the island, raising a great bank of fog and a wave as high as the highest mountain in all the lands.

The brown-haired girl saw the great wave rising up in the ocean, and the fog rolling in, and so she went about her island and spoke to all the trees and all the plants. “You must drink up the ocean, my children, and grow as tall as you can, or the South Wind will carry me off to the Winter King and you shall all perish in his bitter jealousy.” All the plants of the island listened to her plea, and they drew up the ocean into their roots. The great wave of the South Wind fell into the empty ocean’s bed. The plants all grew to great heights, and in this fashion they caught the South Wind’s fog and pushed it back into the sky. With no fog around him, and no water to carry him, the South Wind sank into the ocean and drowned.

The Winter King was furious. He gnashed his teeth and raged, and storms of ice and snow lashed the Winter Lands. He threw open the dungeon of the East Wind and said, “Go to the island where the brown-haired girl makes a mockery of my winter! Dash her to pieces and rip all the plants from the earth. Bury her under the rubble of her own house!” With this command the Winter King released the East Wind.

The East Wind was the most swift and violent of all the winds. He leapt across the ocean in a single bound and wrenched up the trees and houses of the island where the brown-haired girl lived, spinning them about himself and flinging men and women into the ocean. The brown-haired girl saw the East Wind hurling her plants and home into the air, and so she caught the wind by the hands and danced with him all around the island, high into the air, until even the furious East Wind was dizzy and exhausted. She let him go and the East Wind fell into the ocean and drowned.

The Winter King was even more furious. He pulled his haystack hair from his head and struck the walls of his palace, and the earth quaked and avalanches of snow buried cities on the other side of the world. He struck to pieces the dungeon of the North Wind and said, “Go to the island where the brown-haired girl defies the winter! Cut her to pieces and carry her limbs to the furthest corners of the land. Make the ocean turn red with her blood and let her screams circle the world on your wings!” With this command the Winter King released the North Wind.

The North Wind was the cruelest of all the winds, and he had claws which could slice through anything. He glided across the ocean, and the brown-haired girl saw the water turn red as he cut to pieces all the fish who crossed his path. Thus she went to all the men and women of the island and told them to set all their largest pots to boiling, or the North Wind would make the land run red with blood. Soon the whole island was shrouded in fog so thick no one could see their eyes in front of their face. The brown-haired girl made a veil from the fog and threw it over the North Wind’s eyes, so that he could not see a thing. Soon she had him tightly bound he could not move a single wicked claw.

Well the Winter King spat in disgust, for the only wind left was the West Wind, who was gentle and kind, and had not a cruel breath in him. Still, there was nothing else for it, and he opened the dungeon of the West Wind. “Go to the island where the brown-haired girl lives and bring her before me. I will deal with her myself.” With this command the Winter King released the West Wind.

The West Wind was sweet and warm, and rolled gently over the ocean to the island where the brown-haired girl waited. He came politely before the brown-haired girl, bowing to her and kissing her fingertips. “Good lady of the northern island, my master the Winter King wishes you to come before his presence. I am but his servant, and so I must convey the message, but I fear he means to do you harm. I beg of you not to return with me.”

The brown-haired girl thanked him and bid him to rise. “I know he has no love for me, but I will appear before him nonetheless, for I must return his servant to him, and he would treat you no better should you return alone.” So speaking, she took the West Wind’s hand, and collected the North Wind, and together they traveled across the ocean to the palace of the Winter King.

The Winter King cackled with delight as the brown-haired girl was brought before him. “You have come into my realm and tried to take it from me, young woman, and you must be chastised for this impetuousness. Your heart will become like ice and your body will be shattered and spread to the furthest corners of the land. The men and women on your island will learn better than to trifle with Winter.”

He prepared to grasp the brown-haired girl’s heart with his icy hands, but at that moment she whipped the veil from the North Wind’s face, and pushed him at the Winter King with all her might. The North Wind howled and the Winter King threw up his hands, but the North Wind’s claws pierced the Winter King’s eyes and shattered his stone heart. The Wind and the Winter shrieked and raged, and the palace was filled with ice. There was nothing else for it; the Winter King was dead and the North Wind was frozen solid.

The brown-haired girl returned to her island with the gentle West Wind, and thereafter they lived out the rest of their days. The northern island was never quite so harshly touched by winter’s chill, and was always guarded by the gentle winds of the west.

There came a time when the moon was set in the sky and mankind lit fires in all their homes, so that when the lady Night spread her cloak across the land, it no longer banished the light entirely. A young lady named Rebecca lived in a small forest cove, keeping a campfire lit every night so the dark things would not approach. Outside the cove grew a field of flowers with long and slender stalks. At times, Rebecca would walk amongst these flowers and run her hand along their tiny blossoms. “What do you do with the light of the sun, little flowers?” she would ask. “Is there sunlight stored up inside your stalks, or is it in your pretty colors?”

Many times she asked them, and it seemed to her that in the rustling of the stalks they whispered an answer, “The sun is inside of us, the sun is a part of us.” The flowers waved and winked their petals at Rebecca, and told her how flowers eat the light of the sun, and how to skim the sunlight from their stalks. When she had well learned what she must do, she borrowed a sickle and sharpened it until it could split a hair. She cut down a portion of the field. She plucked and scattered the flowers to the earth, and took the stalks into her cove.

In amongst the trees she dug a shallow trench, and this trench she lined with broad green leaves. When this was done, she melted the sunlight from the plants into the trench. The pool of sunlight glowed, warm and yellow. It lit her cove long into the night, as she stripped the stalks into fine strings, and when morning came she began to dip each string into the pool of sunlight, one after the other. She spun them about as she dipped them, and in this way the very first candles were made.

Thus Rebecca no longer needed to build a fire each night. She would light a candle, and it would burn through the hours of darkness, its tiny flickering flame the same light as the sun, driving away the dark things which ventured near her forest cove. It did not take long for word of Rebecca’s candles to spread, and in no short order she was making candles for all the men and women who came to her. The tiny points of glittering sunlight came to spread throughout the land, and with every passing day the lady Night watched them grow in number.

At last, to satisfy her curiosity, she sent her handmaiden Shadow to speak with Rebecca. Shadow found the candle-maker sleeping peacefully in the warm, flickering glow, and thus woke her gently. Rebecca knew Shadow by the way she swayed in the candlelight, and greeted her with all deference due to the lady Night’s handmaiden. For her part, Shadow thanked Rebecca and said, “My Lady wishes to speak with you, for each night she sees tiny glitters of sunlight growing in number. It would please her if you come with me to her presence, and I believe it would please her still more if you bring this glimmer of sunlight with her to see for herself.”

Rebecca was all too happy to agree. She gathered several candles into a scarf and took Shadow’s hand. With a flickering and dancing step, Shadow carried Rebecca far from the forest cove, to the highest mountain in the world, where the lady Night watched the world with her eye the moon. When the handmaiden Shadow and Rebecca stood at the lady Night’s feet, Night looked down and in the instant of her gaze faced eye to eye with Rebecca. “Thank you, Shadow, and my thanks to you as well lady Rebecca for traveling to speak with me.”

“You are welcome, my Lady,” said Rebecca. “I have brought what you asked: my candles which are made from of sunlight. The plants eat the sun, and they have told me how to make the sun shine from them in turn.” So saying, Rebecca lit the candles, and the tiny warm fragments of sunlight gleamed in the lady Night’s eyes, and glowed against the moon. “They are lovely, Rebecca,” said Night, “and I thank you for showing them to me, yet I cannot touch the light of the sun. Is there no way I could have a candle of my own?”

Rebecca tilted her head first one way and then the next. “My Lady, if you cannot touch the sunlight, perhaps you can touch the light when it leaves the sun behind.” And, with these words, she caught the liquid which would run down the sides of the candles, pooling and hardening, on the tips of her fingers. She handed this tiny dab of pale white light to the lady Night, and the Night was very pleased.

“They are more lovely than your candles, good lady Rebecca. Please, if I may have more of these jewels I would be grateful.” Rebecca was tired, but the lady Night was polite, and she watched over all men at night with her eye the moon. Thus Rebecca collected drop after drop of pale, white, sunless light, handing each one in turn to the lady Night. Each droplet the lady Night took in her hands became a diamond, and each of these diamonds she sewed into her cloak. As dawn drew close, and the lady Night began to gather her cloak to her, so Rebecca’s candles had burnt all the way down, and been scattered in countless diamond drops throughout Night’s cloak.

The lady Night thanked Rebecca profusely, and the candle-maker was carried back to her cove by Shadow, where she slept for a day and a night through. Now, during the night, the mountains looked up and saw the diamonds glittering in Night’s cloak. They asked her where she had found them, for their own rocks were very plain, while her diamonds were beautiful. The lady Night told them of Rebecca’s candles, and the mountains sent their prince to her cove in the forest.

Rebecca was quite startled to see the mountain prince, but she treated him courteously as was his due. He told her how plain the rocks of the mountain were, praised the beauty of the diamonds in Night’s cloak, and begged her to make still more jewels for the mountains. Rebecca was moved by the pleas of the prince and she set about gathering many plants, from violets to roses to pine trees and daffodils. From each plant in turn she melted the sun, and for days and days she made candles. Some were red, and some were blue, while some were even green or yellow. For many days yet more she burned her candles, catching the droplets on her fingers and handing them to the mountain prince. Soon she had burned all her candles, and the mountain prince had as many jewels as he could carry in more colors than he could name.

He thanked her as profusely as the lady Night, and so the mountains were festooned with jewels. To this day, if you look carefully, you can still see the light of the sun in all the jewels of the world.

When Anelieika was a very young girl, she found a baby praying mantis trapped in a spider’s web. She carefully untangled each strand from the praying mantis and set it free in her garden, chastising it to be more cautious in the future. Over the summers, she would often sit in the garden behind her house, or wander barefoot through the tangled roses, watching the young praying mantises grow up to become hunters. She learned patience, and how to be still, for the only way to watch the praying mantis hunt was to be as careful and motionless as it was. In this way, she also learned to move in less time than the blink of an eye, and to know the perfect moment to strike.

Of course, she did what anyone else would do with such knowledge: she became an assassin. Her reputation spread through many lands. She commanded a steep fee and a single stipulation: she would kill in her own time, and not a moment before she was ready. It was for this reason that the king of the North Lands summoned her when he wished to kill a god. She did not ask why he might wish such a thing, only for the name of the god she might kill.

“Orchid,” said the king.

Anelieika shrugged her shoulders and named her price. The king of the North Lands accepted this, and presented her with a lock of his hair (as was customary when concluding a deal with any assassin). No money was exchanged; such business was conducted by the seconds of assassin and employer, and Anelieika could not have carried that sum unaided beside all that.

Anelieika thought on the prospect of killing the god Orchid. She drew her conclusion in seven breaths and thence traveled far to the south. As she traveled, she collected the seeds of orchids in bloom. She journeyed next throughout the tropical lands, collecting all the seeds of all the rarest orchids. When she had filled five sacks with the seeds of orchids, she found a fertile place beside the longest river of all the world and began sowing one seed every day.

The season for planting seeds passed, and the first orchids were eager to bloom in the tropical heat. Anelieika took her sharpest knife and cut the blooms off, letting them fall into the mud. Each day, a new orchid flower would bloom, and Anelieika would calmly walk through the acres of plants, and cut the flowers, and let them fall to the mud. On the fifth day, the god Orchid came to her and said, “Will you not cease murdering my children?”

Anelieika said, “No.” And, looking Orchid in the eyes, she cut off the blooms of that morning, letting them fall to the mud.

“Very well,” said Orchid, and vanished. Thus it continued, every day for another five days. The Orchid would ask Anelieika to cease her slaughter of the blooms, and she would have the same laconic reply. On the sixth day, she noted how Orchid trembled when he asked. On the seventh day, as she cut a bloom from another plant, the god Orchid, snatched it before it could strike the ground.

As his hands touched the petals, Anelieika stabbed him through the heart with her knife. Gods do not die easily, but if one touches the mortal world, it becomes mortal for the blinking of an eye. Finding the right instant, she passed her blade through the Orchid’s body, and so killed him.

The Orchid lay in the mud, with his life seeping into the wet earth. “I see you have killed me. Though I cannot fathom why, I beg a last request. Care for my orchids. You may take my seat among the gods if you wish. Only see to it that they prosper.” Leaving nothing else in the world buy his bargain, the Orchid died.

Anelieika observed the corpse with disinterest, but at last bent and cut a lock of his hair. Thus to this day she is both the Orchid and the assassin, and ever after orchids, like assassins, have only bloomed in the perfect moment.