Page 19 of How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

Aslog shoves her makeshift spear at him again. He uses the seat of the chair to block it, making the metal clang like a bell.

“This is silly,” he says to Aslog. “You’ve trapped me. I can’t go anywhere, so there’s no harm in talking.”

He rights the rusty chair and sits, dusting off as many of the iron filings as he can from his person, no matter how they scorch his hands. He crosses his legs, deliberately casual.

“Is there something you wish to say to me before I spear you through?” she asks, but does not strike. “You came to my woods, kingling, and insulted me with your offer of justice. Do you think it is only Queen Gliten whom I wish to punish? Your father might be dead, but that means someone else must inherit what I owe him.”

He takes a deep breath. “Let me tell you a story.”

“You?” she says. “A story?”

“Once upon a time,” he says, looking up. His shoulder is throbbing. He feels like a child again, like the boy in the stables. “There was a boy with a clever tongue.”

“Oh ho!” She laughs. “This is familiar.”

“Perhaps,” he says with a smile that he hopes will disguise his nerves. He thinks about the way Locke told stories, inventing them as he went, spinning them in the direction that might best delight the listener, and hopes desperately he can do the same. “Now, the boy lived on an island where he made a nuisance of himself, finding ways to belittle people that made them hate themselves, but hate him more. He was awful to the village maidens, favoring his wit over kisses. Perhaps he had reasons to be awful, perhaps he was born bad, but no matter. None of it gave him much pleasure, so he went into the woods where a troll woman lived and begged her to turn his heart to stone.”

“That’s an interesting variation,” she says. She looks pleased, though, and drags one of the rusted, creaking chairs to the edge of the pit, settling herself in it amiably.

“He was angry,” Cardan says, this part coming easily. “And a fool. Thereafter, he could feel neither pleasure nor pain, not fear nor hope. At first, it seemed like the blessing he had supposed it would be. With a heart of stone, he had no reason to stay in his village, and so he took up what few possessions he had and set off across the sea to seek his fortune.

“Eventually, he landed at a town and found work doing labor for a tavern—carrying barrels of ale into the earthen root cellar along with carts of onions, wheels of cheese, turnips, and bottles of a thin and sour wine that the tavernkeeper watered down for guests. He was the one sent to break the necks of chickens and toss out drunks who could no longer pay for another round. He was paid little but allowed to sleep on the hard wood next to the dying fire and given as many bowls of greasy soup as he could eat.

“But as he lay there, he overheard two men speaking about an unusual contest. A wealthy warlord sought someone to marry his daughter. All one had to do was pass three nights in her company without showing fear. Neither man was willing to go, but the boy resolved that since his heart was stone, he would, and pass his life in ease.”

“A warlord?” The troll woman looks skeptical.

“That’s right,” he affirms. “Very violent. Possibly making war on so many people was how his daughter wound up under a curse.”

“Do you know why the Folk can tell stories?” she asks, leaning forward and causing rust to fall around her chair. Her huge body makes it look sized for a child. “We who can never tell a lie. How can we do it?”

She speaks as though she supposes he’s never asked himself that same question, but he has. Many times, he has.

Cardan tries not to let his nerves show. “Because stories tellatruth, if not preciselythetruth.”

She sits back, mollified. “Be sure yours does, little king, or it will dry up in your mouth, along with my patience.”

He tries not to let that rattle him as he goes on. “That night, he told the tavernkeeper exactly what he thought of him and walked out, making another enemy for no reason at all.

“He took his boat from the dock and made for the warlord’s land. When he arrived, the warlord looked him up and down, then shook his head, already certain of the boy’s fate. Still, he would allow him to try to break his daughter’s curse. ‘If you spend three nights with her, then you will marry and inherit all I possess,’ the warlord told him. Looking around the massive estate, the boy thought that wealth would bring him, if not pleasure, then at least idleness.

“But as evening came on, the boy was aware of the strangeness of feeling nothing at all. He ate food finer than he had ever tasted, but it brought him no enjoyment. He was bathed and dressed in clothing more elegant than he’d ever seen, but he might as well have worn rags for all the satisfaction it gave him. He had begged for the heart of stone, but for the first time, he felt the weight of it in his chest. He wondered if heoughtto be afraid of what was to come. He wondered if there was something profoundly wrong with him that he could not.

“As night fell, he was led to a chamber with a curtained bed. He walked around the room and noted the way the plaster of the walls was scarred with claw marks. He pulled back the coverlets, and feathers flew out in a cloud to dust the floor. As he discovered what seemed eerily like a bloodstain on the rug, she entered, a monster covered in fur, her mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. It was only his heart of stone that kept him rooted in place, although he was almost certain he had heard the door being bolted behind him. He knew that if he ran, he was dead.

“They stayed like that for a while, the boy uncertain whether she would attack him if he moved, and the monster seemingly waiting for some sign of fear. Finally, the boy approached her. He touched the light fur of her jaw, and she leaned against his palm, rubbing her head like a cat.” Cardan pauses. The story is almost at an end, and he has to keep Aslog listening a little longer. He wishes he could see the edge of the horizon, wishes he could tell the time by it, but all he has to judge the hour by is fading starlight. “They sat together through the night, the monster curling up on the rug and the boy gazing down at her. For though he had known the magic of the troll woman’s curse, he had never known magic like this. Though his heart was as hard and cold as ever, he wondered what he would feel were it not.

“Finally, the boy fell asleep, and when he woke, the household was in an uproar. None of the other suitors had made it through a single night with the monster. They fussed over him, but when he asked questions about the monstrous bride, no one was particularly forthcoming. And so he set off to walk the estate and discover what he could on his own.

“On the far end of the land, he found a small house with an old woman planting herbs. ‘Come and help me plant,’ she said. But the boy was still awful, and he refused, saying, ‘I wouldn’t help my own mother plant, so why should I help you?’ The old woman looked at him with cloudy eyes and said, ‘It is never too late to learn to be a good son.’ And without any answer for that, he planted her herbs. When they were done, in lieu of thanks, she told him that the girl had been raised to make war like her father, but when she wished to put down her weapons, he would not let her. And when the boy asked if the warlord had cursed his own daughter, the old woman would say no more.

“The second evening went much as the first. The monster roared in his face, but the boy didn’t flee or cry out in terror, and they passed the night amicably.”

“Let me guess,” the troll woman says. “The third night goes swimmingly, too. His curse is broken and so is hers. They marry and live happily ever after, and the meaning of the tale is that love redeems us.”

“You don’t think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love?” Cardan asks her, his own heart kicking up a beat as he notes how few stars are visible. If he can just keep her talking a little longer, they may make it through this enterprise.

“Is this a story about people getting what they deserve?” the troll woman asks.

---