Chapter 3—The Black Dwarf
III
"The great wizard don Koldun Boy Yar Soldat," the black dwarf fashioned for himself, and sang.
The black dwarf danced around a yellow fire within a cavernous chasm. It couldn't stop laughing; for once in his life, joy and excitement were his to be had. It flared its garments in the air, twirling around like a ballerina or spinning top. It sang, raising its staff in the air in a flair of arcane cloak and dagger.
First things first,
I heal my
Legs. Goes burst
The pain.
Make right as
Rain. Next my
Face, collapse
The shame.
The creature's curse had lifted—its injury fixed, its pox repaired, its confidence soared—the pain in the dwarf's feet subsided, it's face was cured of blemishes. It removed its hood, and happy red eyes looked out, still an abomination to all thing beauty. Its skin dusty with coal, beard frayed, ears pointed, fangs protruded. Its hunched back hobbled over to a scum-covered puddle, and it rejoiced, "Oh happy days, oh happy days, the face of Koldun has been returned."
It spoke to itself through habit, "Now it's perhaps time to return to my cave—nicer than this chasm—filled with gold mines. With working legs and fixed hands I can pick for gold—when did I get to be so bold."
It sang again.
"Oh look at me,
A sight to see;
One full of mystery.
Who's back is sore,
But never bored.
S'been shorted luck for
All his life. I
'm finally bye
Not ready to die
A hunched crook:
A staff I took—
With its magic I now I look
Like a royal prince.
From now, girls hence
Will never wince."
The dwarf Koldun knelt over with a spring in his gait and created a new stack of wood from the sticks he had gathered outside, and arranged them to be kindled. He used his newfound power, granted to him by the staff he stole, and conjured a fire with just a moment of thought.
The yellow flamed danced before his blacken eyes. The power he now possessed. The repercussions for all those who had ever laughed at and bullied him.
Suddenly, a woman entered from the mouth of the cave, dark-haired, beautiful; a buxom lass, polished, brushed—dress pressed—in white, walked with grace over to the ugly dwarf.
"Hobman—" she began, but was stopped.
"You may address me, wench, as the all powerful wizard don Koldun Boy Yar Soldat, or feel the wrath of my magic and staff."
The woman's detached, emotionless expression fixated on the wooden staff, sensing its awesome power. The dwarf stuck it in his mouth, his bovine tongue still tasting the blood and brains from where it had cracked the old wizard's head wide open.
"Dwarf," she added with scorn.
Her eyes casted a long malice-filled glare at the deformed creature in front of her; her aura filling the room, causing the knees of the hunchback to tremble and shake with fright. His mouth salivated curses and wards of conjured fear. Trying to ward the woman away with several shakes of its staff.
It launched a ball of fire at her, which the woman deflected with a flick of her wrist.
"Don't come near me, wench, you witch!"
Its mind ran frantic, its ugly mind's eye delving deeper into the realm of divine knowledge for a spell that would work; the creature screamed, spasming on the floor, writhing in pain. Cyrielle jumped back as the horrid creature began to convolt, its mouth opening to the suggestions of demons and monsters. The woman brought her arms up and casted a spell for her own protection. Frogs, worms, and birds began to peel off the creatures skin, flying towards the woman, but only to burst apart as they touched the woman's magic shield. The creature got up and stumbled, its eyes dripping with tears and mucus; it make a clawed gestures of harnessing evil, and the woman's shoulder flared with pain. She screamed and fell to her knees; she tore her hands over the pain, saw blood, saw a triplicate of vertical cuts that had torn her shoulder apart.
The creature had broken her barrier so easily, she thought; within a single day it had already mastered so much. The creature jerked its bulbous hands towards the woman, and the woman was hit by a torrent of pain. She screamed as though her body was being torn into two, as though every fiber of her being were being atomized and dipped in acid. She brought her hands up to the dwarf and launched a telekinetic assault, trying to remove the creature's tight grasp from the staff, but her effort was easily thwarted by the creature.
It sang.
"A genie in a bottle,
I think I'll make you be.
With your magic,
Grant me—
Something tragic.
A genie in a bottle
Now, you'll be mine to cottle."
The woman felt a tug on her chest, and couldn't resist. In a flash of blinding light of its own creation, the creature Koldun fell to the floor in agony. Its eyes had teared up in equal measure from the shaft of brilliant illuminance and from the pain it had felt after delving too deep into the arcanum of knowledge the staff had granted. And the creature now knew that it was no ordinary magic staff.
It wasn't of this world, this existence. It has been as much as the wizard's as it was his. Whomever so much as touched the staff was consumed by it, and could think of nothing else, until every fiber of their being—their emotion, their past, their memories—ceased to exist, and they were reduced to a mindless, babbling corpse or, as was the case of the wizard, a mindless being with supernatural power, unable to fathom the simplicity of life, forgetting how to look inward, how to look forward, only seeing the larger picture of grand things.
It shivered at the thought, and dropped the staff into the cavernous floor. His entire body trembled with savage fear—animalistic instinct told him to run, to run, to get as far away from the staff as possible—and he sat near the fire, keeping his back to the horrid, wooden thing. And he took from his coat into his blackened hands a phial. Inside, with the removal of cork, would be the fairy he had captured. He couldn't have done it without the staff—the staff, the staff, the staff.
"No, I'm a powerful being. I don't need a dumb stick of wood to rely on. It was my power that captured the fairy, my power," it repeated as though the phrase comforted him.
Koldun thought, how did I know the woman was a fairy. In truth, they looked so much like the elfs and humans that it was nearly impossible to tell the difference, but he knew he was sure about it. He knew it was a fairy he had smited, snuffed out her essence into a crystalline phial with cork. It was the staff, he thought, that had imparted the knowledge. And he knew that she was no ordinary fairy—no, no ordinary fairy—but that of fairy royalty.
She was his slave, he thought wondrously to himself: a wondrous marvel, a marvelous wonder, indeed. He couldn't resist. He chanted a spell.
"Oh my Genie
My pretty thing
I've spoken the key
Come at the ring."
It rapped its black nail against the crystal surface—the sound of a copper bell—and the cork popped off with a wisp of smoke. And through vapor came Cyrielle enchained by the will of her master. She stood with eyes glaring complete and utter hatred at the disfigured creature don Koldun Boy Yar Soldat.
It laughed in glee, and said, "Oh my fairy, my genie, tell me how complete I bested you."
The woman cocked her head with bright blue eyes and glared, unable to fight it, unable to ignore, "Completely," she uttered through clenched teeth, then said, "That staff is too powerful to be wielded by the likes of you. I suggest you leave and get as far away from it as possible before it is too late."
The ugly dwarf mused, are genies meant to give advice he already followed? He didn't want to look behind him where the staff would be.
"Tell me," he asked, "Do I have access to all your knowledge."
"Yes."
The creature cheered, a gross sound of pleasure, "And your magic spells?"
"Yes," her eyes looked hostile, she now belonged to him—if he wanted, he could make her look more pleased, more happier to be in his presence.
"Goodie good good, there is much to do, and a certain Rusalka to woo."
The creature returned the cork to the phials and pranced out of the cave in his ruined black clothes. His hunched back made it hard to walk, but easier now that he had remembered to grab his cane.
