He wove threads of gold, threads thinner than gossamer webs, bright as burning suns, with his dark clawed, scaled hands.
Beside his loom was a great block of black stone carved with runes in a forgotten tongue. A round depression, like a bowl, had been carved or worn into the top of the stone. A harsh, red glow came from within it. As he worked, he would reach into the stone, pulling out fire. In his fingers, the flames were liquid and thick. The writhed and twisted in his hands, like swamp leeches pulled from a murky feast, struggling to break free and return. Instead, he wove them into his sunlight threads. Caught in that golden web, they calmed, unfurling. Some were like feathers. Some were like soft petals of fire.
The castle had many gardens, divided by walls and hedges. The kitchen gardens were right up against the lower back of the castle. Bae had claimed these for his own. They had been overgrown and choked with weeds when they first came here. When his father –
(or the creature his father had become – or the creature that had killed his father and now claimed to be him as some kind of joke)
- had brought them here, an ogre had lived in the castle. The king, so Bae had been told, once lived here. Before the ogres killed him and seized the castle and all the lands roundabout as their own.
His father still laughed over how cleverly he had killed them.
Bae told himself that, whatever the monster who had taken his father's place was, he shouldn't feel his insides tie up in cold knots at that laugh. He knew what the ogres here had done, how they had killed the peasants living on their lands – men and women and children – many children – folk just like Bae's friends and neighbors back home.
And the ogres had done it without even caring, whenever the mood – or the hunger – struck them.
His father, at least, had buried the bones and the . . . other things . . . Bae had found in the one of the kitchens – there were several – and its midden. After Bae had come running to him, his exploration of cut horribly short, his father had even looked grave for a moment (even if he wasn't his father, even if he laughed while he killed men like so many flies, he was better than the things that had left what Bae found. He had to be). He made Bae wait in the great hall while he went and searched – and cleaned – the castle from top to bottom.
His father had buried the bones and the rest of the remains he found.
He had laughed and made jokes the whole time but, at least, he had buried them.
He'd also burnt the kitchen where Bae found them and filled the space with stone.
This garden was outside what his father called the peasants' hall, a part of the castle the ogres hadn't bothered with. Or so his father said. The ogres, meat eaters all, had certainly had no need of its vegetable garden.
Bae, working hard, long hours, had replanted it.
The work gave him something to do.
It also kept him out of the castle and away from the guests – some of them as disturbing as ogres – who had already learned where to find this new Dark One and strike deals with him.
And it kept him away from his father.
Rumpelstiltskin found his son weeding a row of rampion. He shook his head, wondering at the boy's obsessions. In their old life, Bae had loved the rare feast day meals when they could enjoy a few scraps of tough, stringy meat with their bread. Now, when he could eat like a king morning, noon, and night, it was all Rumpelstiltskin could do to get Bae to eat something other than roots and herbs.
He shouldn't have let him see the ogres' leavings, of course – and he would have stopped Bae from exploring if he'd even thought about what might be waiting for him instead of just relying on his magic when it assured him there were no dangers left lurking for the lad.
But, he hadn't thought. And Bae had seen it.
Smelled it, too.
Rumpelstiltskin sighed, reminding himself that children were sensitive. Things like that bothered them.
But, it was tiresome.
The way his son treated him, the fear Rumpelstiltskin saw all too often lurking in the boy's eyes, that was tiresome, too.
As if Bae thought he was a monster, too.
As if he half-expected him to turn into an ogre and eat his own son.
Though it was horribly funny, too.
Not that he didn't try not to laugh at his own son.
Or be irritated.
Although Bae didn't know it, his father had done his own part to help with the gardens. Hard as the lad worked, he wouldn't have cleared such a large area so quickly without a little help, a few discreet spells to help the work along. Mostly, though, Rumpelstiltskin focused his efforts on the other gardens, away from this area Bae had staked out as his own.
Ogres, apparently, had no taste for flower gardens, picturesque trees, orchards, or medicinal herbs – and the hedge maze had nearly been beyond saving.
Now, roses bloomed again in great, thorny walls. The maze had exceeded anything its original planners dreamed, expanding and shifting at need. The fruit trees, of course, had to be nurtured, if only to give Bae something besides turnips to eat.
He was still making up his mind about the picturesque trees. Depending on his whim, what started out in the morning as a row of shade trees by the lily pond might transform into an impenetrable forest by the afternoon, or back again.
Any uninvited guests – assuming any ever showed up and he let them get that far – might find themselves in for a very interesting time.
Invited guests, too, he supposed, if any of them became too . . . tiresome.
All of it -, every living thing, every pebble, every speck of dust – had orders laid into them with every spell Rumpelstiltskin now knew not to harm Bae. His son could wander in the maze as long as he wished and, the moment he wanted to head for home, the hedges and trees would scatter out of his way. The roses, with their steel edged thorns that could hold off a dragon, would not so much as prick his finger. The poisons growing in Rumpelstiltskin's herb garden would run and hide if the boy so much as tried to touch them.
Of course, Bae spent most of his time in the vegetable garden, ignoring the wonders of the castle or the rare treasures his father had found and given him.
And Rumpelstiltskin was getting tired of it.
But, this time, he thought he had found the right gift.
If not (the thought made him grind his teeth), he didn't know what he was going to do.
Bae was tying some vines to a wicker frame when he felt the tingling on his neck that told him someone was watching him.
And who.
He spun around and saw his father (was it his father? Or was the Dark One just a more subtle kind of ogre that ate his victims memories before playing with their bones?).
He was standing in the archway leading down from the tower, not the doorway leading from the kitchens. The kitchens (despite his assurances to Bae that these kitchens had never been . . . used . . . the way those others had, he'd taken one look at Bae's face and simply torn down what had been there, cleaned it out, and rebuilt it from scratch) he left to Bae. He never entered them or Bae's gardens without first asking permission.
The act itself was very like his father – the kind, patient man Bae remembered.
The mad, laughing gleam in his eye as he waited for Bae's permission was like a hungry wolf's trying not to panic the sheep as it closed in.
"Mind if I look around, son?"
"N-no," Bae said, wondering what would ever happen if he ever refused. "Please, c-come in."
The green scaled face broke into a broad grin, showing sharp, discolored teeth. "I'm coming out, but you ask me to come in. Now, which, I wonder, do you really want?" He laughed, the high pitched, mad giggle Bae was trying to get used to.
The creature walked between the vegetable rows, not really looking around before nodding his approval. "You've done wonders with this place, Bae. Well done. Though I suppose the ground lay fallow long enough, and who knows what the last owner left here to nourish it? All the same, well done. Come here and see what your old man has made for you."
Bae was reminded of the old beggar his father had helped (a beggar this creature had cheerfully told him he'd killed). He had called Bae a brave boy once.
Bae had been hopeful – even eager – in those days to fight monsters.
Now, living with one, it was all he could do to drag himself to the creature's side.
The creature's smile widened, showing too many teeth. He – It – reached behind its back. Out of nowhere, it produced a cloak, a cloak like nothing Bae had ever seen before. It was covered with feathers of gold and fire, threads of light moving through them. They shifted and moved, one moment like a riot of flames dancing in a furnace, the next like the slow moving of weeds in the tide.
Bae had been ready to hide his awe or (more likely) horror at whatever was offered him, the same way he had kept his face still when the monster offered him a sword – a magic sword, so it said – still covered with blood and gore.
He had not been prepared to have his breath taken away.
"What is it?" Bae whispered.
"Put it on and see," the creature said, throwing it over Bae's shoulders.
Bae stiffened, expecting to burn. But the cloak settled like cool water. He felt calm and strong. The feeling settled deep into him and spread. A great weight seemed to fall from him. The knots of fear in his stomach dissolved. He spread his arms, feeling light and buoyant. He threw his head back, wanting to laugh.
Instead, a new sound broke out of him, like a ringing of crystal bells mixed with flutes.
It should have frightened him. The last, fading flicker of fear told him it should terrify him. But it was impossible to be afraid, impossible to imagine he had ever felt anything besides light and free.
As his outstretched arms caught the breeze, he realized he was flying.
He had changed. Instead of arms, he had wings – wings of fire and gold. He skimmed through the sky like a swimmer across the sea, like a skipping stone across the lake. He swooped up towards the sun, wondering if he could rise high enough to touch its face with his wings.
Far away, he heard laughter, gentle, loving laughter, like the laughter his father used to have when he was still his father – and nothing more.
He heard a voice with nothing of madness or lurking cruelty in it. "That's enough, son. Come home."
Home.
For once, the word didn't sound like a cruel lie.
Slowly, Bae drifted back to earth. As he landed, the cloak pulled away from his shoulders, settling along his back. He touched the ground with human feet.
He ran his hand along the cool, burning flames. "Thank you," he said, meaning it. "Thank you."
The creature looked at him, its – his – inhuman face settling in familiar lines, content and happy. "I'm glad you like it." His expression turned harder – not cruel, only strict. "But, before you get carried away, this gift has rules. I've put all the protections I can into that cloak. You're to keep it on when you're away from the estate – "
"Away? I can leave?"
The feral sharpness flickered for a moment in the creature's eyes. "Conditionally. You can explore the world, if you want. But, you will come when I call. And, you will tell me where you are going and what you will be doing. If I decide you will be safer here, then you will return – and you will not leave without my permission. Above all else, you will keep the cloak on when you are away from the estate.
"Well? Do we have a deal?"
Later, Rumpelstiltskin watched the firebird soar across the horizon.
The boy had been quick to agree. It should have hurt, he thought, how much it meant to Bae to be away from him.
But . . . he remembered the look on Bae's face, a look he hadn't seen in so long.
His son feared him. He knew that. He even knew, if he was being honest (a maudlin emotion but one he could entertain for a few moments), his son had cause.
Never mind. He had seen something he was afraid was gone forever in Bae's eyes again. Even if it wasn't for him, even if it was only for a gift he had given him, it didn't matter.
His son could still feel happiness, feel joy.
Who knew? Perhaps this was a beginning. Perhaps, someday, he might see happiness in his son's face for no other reason except that his father was with him again.
In the meantime, he could watch him fly.