All That Glitters

Melchoir sat in the corner of the room, picking at his elbow. He hadn’t said anything against us leaving the city. I wondered if he even realized what was going on. I needn’t have worried. When the time came, he actually helped Rapunzel lower the rope out the window. “Don’t forget! You need to be back before the three days are up.” He called as Wolf carefully climbed down the braid of hair. “We will!” I called back. Once we’d landed on firm ground, I began to wonder why we had to go back at all. “Why did I promise that? We’re free! Couldn’t we just run off now? The witch probably hasn’t even thought to look for us back on land.” Just then, four armed guards stepped out from hiding. “Apparently you’re wrong about that, Fae.” “How do we catch them?” One guard whispered to the others. The points of their swords hovered inches from Wolf’s face. “Do you have a net?” The small one in the back suggested. I sighed and sat down in my bubble. “This is absurd.” The lead guard gasped. “It talks!” “Of course we talk you buffoon,” Wolf growled in response. The sword tips disappeared. “Well then.” They looked a little disappointed. “The Queen requests an audience with you.” “An audience? Don’t you mean our heads on a platter?” The lead man shifted uncomfortably. “Despite the warrant Queen White has placed for your arrest, our Queen would merely like to see you. She’s curious about the two escapees that are so ardently sought after. Although I must say, you’re hardly the ‘dangerous’ creatures I imagined.” Wolf growled to show just how fearsome he could be. The tips of the swords shook ever so slightly. “Which Queen are you referring to?” I asked. “Queen Kanchana,” the guards spoke in unison. “Wife of King Anabar.” I sat up straighter. “Has something actually gone as planned for once?” But the guards were no longer listening. With a quick click of their heels they jumped into formation, two in front and one in back. Wolf resumed his duty as bubble carrier. “How many Queens, Kings, and Kingdoms are there in this place?” I asked as we entered the castle gates. Anabar’s Kingdom was not far from where we landed and much too close to the neighboring kingdom of Queen White. Too close for my comfort anyway. Once inside the gates I was surprised to realize how small Anabar’s kingdom was compared to all the others I had seen. There was barely ten feet between the main structure and the surrounding wall. It wasn’t difficult to see why the city was so tiny though. All of Anabar’s money had gone into plating everything in gold. There were gold fountains, gold fruit stands, gold sidewalks and even gold chickens. “A bit overkill, don’t you think?” Wolf said after placing me on the ground. I motioned toward a tacky gold statue of a man counting coins. “I might have said ‘no’ until I saw that.” The front guard cocked his head to listen in. “That’s a model of the King himself,” he said. Wolf grunted his disapproval. The inside of the castle blinded us for a moment. Everything from the ceiling to the floor was gold or gold colored. “This way,” a guard motioned. We stumbled in the direction we thought he had pointed. The room we entered next was shockingly bare in contrast to the rest of the castle. Nothing in it was gold, save for the crown on the head of the woman sitting in it. “Come in!” She called out gaily. Wolf and I moved forward hesitantly. “You are the two that eluded the Queen of White Castle?” Wolf nodded. “How marvelous!” She clapped her hands together and rose from the chair with a flourish. “It’s so rare that we get any juicy gossip around here, especially when it deals with the neighboring Kingdom. They’re so close lipped about what goes on over there.” I resisted the urge to cower from her cheerfulness. Kanchana walked around us in circles for a moment before pointing at my bubble and then Wolf’s gold collar. “Let me guess, the work of Queen White? She says she doesn’t believe in using magic, but we all know she does. There was a mishap involving a wooden boy awhile ago. His father tried to prosecute, but there aren’t any laws against that sort of thing. I mean, he didn’t exactly classify as a normal living being. Listen to me ramble. I haven’t asked if you want anything to eat or drink! We have ham.” “No thank you,” I replied. My head was somewhere far behind, trying in vain to catch up. “What exactly do they do?” She asked, pointing toward our confinement devices. “Mine keeps me from performing spells outside of this ball. His reacts if I do.” “Hmm.” Kanchana bit at her mouth for a second. “Can I see?” “Can you see what?” Wolf asked warily . “Can I see how they work?” I flinched. There was only one way to demonstrate the devices and I knew Wolf would not be happy to oblige. “Only if you answer us something first.” I said quickly. Kanchana sat down on the floor and leaned in as if we were two children sharing secrets. “You first,” she giggled. “Oh no, if I’m going to be zapped I want some incentive first.” Wolf backed up toward the door. The Queen smiled. “Fair enough.” I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “We need to know the real name of the Manikin ‘R’. We were told that you would know it.” Kanchana’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Oh! Well that’s a tale I haven’t told in awhile.” And so she began. You already know the beginning of her story. I’ll skip ahead to the part that matters. “…At first I tried all the Manikin names I could remember,” Kanchana recalled. “Kaspar. Melchoir. Belshazzar. But none of them were correct. So I hired four messengers to scour the land for people who might know of this foul beast’s name. Three of the messengers came back with suggestions. Sheepshank. Spindlesoot. Microsoft. None of them were right. On the third day I ran out of hope. There wasn’t a name we could think of that we hadn’t already tried. Then, my final messenger returned. He told me of a tiny house in the woods. He’d come across it on his way back to the castle. In front of the house he’d seen a manikin, my manikin, hopping around a fire and singing. ‘Today I brew. Today I bake. And then the child away I’ll take. For little deems my royal dame…” The Queen suddenly leapt up from the ground and shouted, “For RUMPLESTILTSKIN is my name!” The glass bubble around me split in two, throwing me unceremoniously to the side as the halves flopped over like bowls. I knelt on the floor for a moment before realizing what had happened. "Rumplestiltskin" had been the password! “I’m free?” I whispered, flexing my wings. “I’m free!” My wings opened with a flourish and before anyone could say anything, I was shooting off the ground in a halo of sparks.