Spinning by Raietta dust jacket by Marcia Elena     CATEGORY: Response to the RatB (then Ter/ma) October 1999 Challenge!! Yeehaw! DISCLAIMAMENT: "All right, you pathetic excuse for the first monster in English literature!" Rai-wulf shouts, arms akimbo and booming mightily. "I'm gonna kick your ass!" "Oh yeah? Oh yeah? You and what army, Danish dog?" Grendelcarter howls back, posing up a storm. The two circle one another for a half an hour, growling and hissing, then get bored, shake hands, and go their separate ways. Sometimes truth is more boring than fiction. SPOILERS: Technically speaking, none. FEEDBACK: E-mail me at raietta@yahoo.com, and I'll do anything you want. This includes murder and foot massages. AUTHOR'S PITHY NOTE: I love, love, *love*, love love lovelovelovelove fairy tales! They are my great passion. So much so that I was actually planning on majoring in folklore in college, until I realized that about the only thing you can do with a degree in folklore, once you graduate, is shove it up your ass. Excuse me. That was rather vivid, wasn't it? I'm still kinda bitter about the whole fiasco. Anyway, moving on. This is a take on a classic fairy tale that I'm sure you've all heard or read before. I'm surprised Disney hasn't tried to bowdlerize it yet. Curse the Mouse House! Haven't you done enough, bastardizing Snow White and The Little Mermaid? And to think I once wanted to animate... P.S. This is a looong story. It just grew and grew and grew. You've been warned. The writing style started out historically accurate, with gimlet-eyed apple-squires running around saying "Thee" and "Thou" and "Thine" and "Ye," then promptly gave up and ended up somewhat historically sound. Forgive me my uncertain heart. DEDICATION: This story is for Aris, to help her M/K fix, and for Daisy, in thanks. You guys rock! DEDICATION PART TWO: A thousand Thank-You's and a great, big, sloppy, wet kiss to Marcia Elena, for the marvelous artwork.     I am your dwarf. I am the enemy within. I am the boss of your dreams. No. I am not the law in your mind, the grandfather of watchfulness. I am the law of your members, the kindred of blackness and impulse. See. Your hand shakes. It is not palsy or booze. It is your Doppelganger trying to get out. Beware... Beware... --Anne Sexton, "Transformations" "And the queen said to her daughter, Come, let us go down to the river, let us catch a shining fish for you." --Nancy Springer, "Fair Peril"   After the wasting disease that had washed across the land finally receded, disappeared, leaving behind a crippled kingdom and an ocean of dead, young Kit, William's son, could do no right. He had survived the Plague untouched, while his mother and little sister had fallen under the Black Angel's scythe, breathing blood and blossoming with pus-filled boils, then dying quietly in a pool of red and black. One day they were living, pulling in the wash from the river, the next they were dead, black-lipped, black-tongued, red on their chins. William, always a stern, distant man, now became on the day of their two sad deaths utterly silent, hard-eyed and bitter, hating life and cursing death. He hated sunlight, he hated the moon, he hated laughter, he hated his work, he hated God, and he hated, above all, his only remaining son. Kit had always been a worthless child; thin, scrawny, daydreaming at all times of the day when he should be helping his father with the inn, learning to read when he had no business to learn such things; Latin, some Norman; it was ridiculous. William's son had no earthly use for letters; he was neither a scholar nor a priest, just a silly, moony young creature who had dared to live while his strong, good mother and his sweet, obedient sister had died, and William hated him. Kit had lived. It was an unforgivable sin. Kit would never be able to atone for it, though he never stopped trying. Always a strange child, even when his sister had been alive to keep him fairly well in line, Kit grew even stranger after her death, and his father's rejection of him. The inhabitants of the King's city were greatly amused by him, if at times a little scandalized. He spoke to and played with his dead sister. He spouted out the strangest things at the oddest times. He had odd ideas, and odd insights, and an odd sense of humor. Plus, he was literate. Altogether a sweet little thing, but obviously touched by God. And then. After a while, Kit grew into a young man, and refused to be called Kit anymore. "It's demeaning," he explained in an offended tone to the flock of city dwellers who frequented the inn, which was smoky and smelt of pine cones and old vomit. The group of people, travelers and city friends, sat around the rough trestle table of William's inn, focusing on the innkeeper's son. They listened to his latest diatribe and grinned. "Kit is a swaddling child's name. I'm not a small brat anymore." "Are you so sure of that?" John, the smith, chuckled from behind a mug of William's ale. The others laughed appreciatively, and the affable ribbing would have continued, but Kit went on determinedly. "I'm not," he stated flatly in his strange monotone, "a child. Kit is simply inappropriate for a man of my years." "Oh, aye," Dame Mary sniggered, reaching across the tavern's table and affectionately pinching his chin. "And what a number of years they are! How old are you now, my good man? Two score and ten? Four score? Why, you're practically a graybeard!" Kit smiled a brief, pained smile at the gentle touch of wit, and waited for the ensuing laughter to die down before simply saying, "I need a new name. No man should be forced to go by such a silly appellation." "A what?" George, Henry's son, asked blankly. He was ignored. "My new name is John," Kit announced, with great satisfaction, to the crowd. He scowled at their roars of laughter. "What's wrong with John?" he demanded, annoyed and insulted, and John the cobbler jovially replied, "The day you become a John is the day the earth turns round. You want a new name, well and fine, then. You were a Kit until recently, so now you become a Fox." His announcement was met with cheers from the rest of the crowd. "What?" Kit scowled again. "What sort of a name is Fox?" "Fox it is!" Jacob, son of Gregory, shouted, not hearing Kit's cry of protest, and the shout was quickly taken up with the entire tavern. Everyone thought it was hilarious, and the cleverness of the name change did rather please Kit. For three days, that was. By the time the fourth day rolled around, Kit hated his new name almost as much as he'd hated the old one, but by then it was too late. His name was Fox to the rest of the world, except for his father, who didn't call him anything, and that was that. And then. The strangeness continued, and Kit, who was now Fox, continued to chase things that were not there. He chased his father through the winter of his silences, but there was nothing there to find. He chased ideologies and philosophies across strange, purple seas of language and metaphor, but no true sense ever came of the words staring up from his carefully hoarded vellum pages or marching resolutely across the pages of his own mind. The numbers didn't tally up. He searched for his sister's ghost in apple trees and behind cow byres, but she was never there. She'd never really been there to begin with. He daydreamed. He made up stories. He spun out fantasies great and strange behind his odd hazel eyes, and continued to both amuse and scandalize the King's city. He told laundresses and tapsters the most amazing facts and lies in a perfect, unbroken monotone, and when his disbelieving, credulous audience pounded his back with praise or openly prayed for his soul, his face showed neither sadness nor malice nor impish glee. His face was as blank as his carefully dead voice. His father had taught him well. "The King rides through the city today," William announced dully, not bothering to look up from the plate he was polishing in the empty, sunny tavern, which was starched and ready for the second crowd of the day. Fox looked up from the counter he was wiping. His fingers stilled on the rag he'd been using, and turned instead to trace the soft ridges of the wooden counter top. "It happens," he replied with mild humor, a gentle tease. "This is his city. He's obliged to pass through it every so often if he wishes to get to his castle from the battlefield." "Hmph," William snorted, quietly derisive. He spat on the plate and rubbed in the wetness with a finger. "Parading his wealth to the masses, displaying off his gilded carriage and his shiny horses. And all the while he'll have his eyes peeled wide for any chance to increase his wealth." "Gluttonous," Fox agreed. "But what king isn't?" "At least we'll get some business from the soldiers following in His Majesty's wake." William stood up. "Start the fire, have Maggie ready the stew. They'll be filing in soon enough. And try not to break the ale cask this time, eh? I'd like to make a *little* profit for the inn tonight. Think you can manage once without bungling something up?" "Yes, sir," Fox replied quietly, his face carefully devoid of hurt, and went to his task. Dishes and trenchers were set out, barrels of ale rolled forth, and Maggie, the inn's cook, began the evening's stew. She hummed and sang and fed Fox odd pieces of carrot as he wandered by, patting his head affectionately. Fox tried to smile, but his face seemed frozen. His father's words buzzed insistently in his ears, a terrible echo. It wouldn't let him go. It worried at him, a terrier with a rat, gnawing into him. William had two helpers with the inn, beside Maggie and Fox, and while they stirred to life from the hearth where they'd been drowsing, Fox felt himself drift back into his own little world, back into the safety of the ether. He floated there, awash in his own odd places, dredging up odd historical documents, pieces of the Scripture, old stories he'd read. When the crowds came, he sat with them and fed them his own sort of carrots: wild stories and even wilder truths. "The sun is a nebulous ball of burning gases," he told the disbelieving group. They all laughed and drank and spooned stew from their trenches, and told Fox he wasn't fooling anyone. "The moon is not made of cheese, but of rock," Fox recited from a scientific text, one that had gotten a learned man burnt at the stake. "It is a satellite." "Go on, go on," the crowd guffawed, immensely entertained. "The stars are also suns, only very far away," Fox informed them. "Sure," John, Mortom's son said, "and fire's wet." "Given the proper tools, one can spin straw into gold," Fox told them impishly, trying not to smile. The crowd gasped. "*Really*?" Goodwife Madeline breathed, her face alight. "Of course, of course," Fox replied, looking knowledgeable and wise. His face was perfectly serious. "That's amazing!" the crowd exclaimed, deeply impressed, and Fox sagely replied, "It's all in the alchemy." He then launched into a story about the Fey Folk and their Queen, who'd taken a babe from its basket while its mother was baking bread, and replaced the child with a toad that spoke. The crowd loudly registered its appreciation. If they believed in anything, it was in Faeries. Fox stayed in the smoky, dim, smelly room and regaled them with tale after tale, and the tavern's oil-stained walls shook with laughter, argument, and shouts of disbelief, long into the late hours. Fox was too deeply immersed in his latest sheepskin account of religious expositions to hear his father at first. He only realized that William was standing before him when the sheaf of papers was ripped from his hands and flung across the room and a hard, rough hand slapped him sharply across his crown. "God's ears!" William shouted angrily, glaring down at Fox. Fox sat frozen, staring back up at him. "You must be the most worthless creature in the kingdom! Can't you do anything right? Trevelin has been standing outside the inn forever, waiting for you to come let him in! How could you forget that he was coming? And the meat that Maggie left to you to watch over for a spell is ruined! Can't you do *anything* right at all? Instead of just lolling about the place, reading useless trash and idling away the hours spinning idiot tales when you should be working?" "It-it's not useless trash, f-Father," Fox stammered, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. He felt so stupid, so inconsequential, that way. He stood up and tried to keep his eyes away from the pages scattered haphazardly about the room. Bright sunlight filtered in through the room's single window, lead-paned and ornate. It seemed somehow incongruous, that bright, merry sunshine with this black storm cloud of anger raging before him. "It's... it's..." he searched helplessly for the right words, the words to make his father understand. "It's a waste of time, that's what it is!" William shouted. "Useless! Falsehoods and lies, idiot's idleness! You're worthless, boy. Absolutely worthless. You waste your time dreaming and reading tripe." "It isn't tripe," Fox argued, feeling a passion of anger and hurt and desperation roll through him. He felt sick. "A great deal of the things I read are important, helpful--" "Oh, certainly," William cut in sarcastically, his eyes black acid in his face. "So helpful, your books! Like the one that tells you how to spin straw into gold, right? Is that the helpful account you're talking of?" "No--" "The whole city's shouting about it," William continued, stomping around the room, crushing a delicate page filled with cramped, spidery writing. "About your latest sensation. Fox, William's son, he can spin gold from straw!" Fox opened his mouth, seeking out anything to say, anything at all. "Humiliating, that's what it is," his father continued, his voice hateful and cold. "You're a laughingstock in this city, most of the time, an embarrassment to me. You have half the people believing you really can conjure demons from hearth pits, and the other half thinks you're insane. You're a discredit to me, you are. Always causing some sort of riot, and all of it's lies. These books, these stupid daydreams, what do they do? Do they help put food on the table? Do they help maintain the inn? Do they do *anything* helpful at *all*?" He stopped his voyage around the room and glared at his son. "Well? *Do* they?" "I--" Fox began miserably, and William said, "Of course not. You waste your time with things that make no difference in the world at all. Spin straw into gold. Yes, that would be a nice trick to know. It would certainly make all of the trouble you cause me worth it, if your precious books told you how to accomplish *that* little feat." Fox didn't know he had said it until he heard the words ringing out in the air. "I *can*. I *can* spin straw into gold. I *can*." William stared at him. "Liar," he whispered. "The books aren't useless, they teach alchemy, how to turn crude metal into something precious, how to turn coal into diamonds-- they're not worthless, I'm not a liar, they're true, I can do it, I can--" Why he lied like that, Fox knew perfectly well. To make his father see him as something other than a shiftless failure, to make him see that Fox's papers and books weren't useless, that it wasn't a waste of time. To have him taken seriously, just once, to make someone listen to him. Just once, he'd like to be taken seriously, by his father. How long had William held him in contempt, how long had Fox gone to his stories, his dissertations, his essays for an escape, a gateway out of the terrible, cold, lifeless world his father had put him in? How long? He'd been too long a shadow. How could he change, now, even for his father's approval? Fox knew why he'd lied, and that knowledge stuck in his throat like a ragged-edged bone one week later, stuck in his throat and turned his stomach to fire as he stood before the King, stood before him and his ranks of soldiers to explain just how it was that he could spin straw into gold. Fox stood and trembled before his monarch's cold, blue gaze. The King was old, and battle-scarred, a cruel, hard-worn man who'd fought so many wars that he didn't feel comfortable in his own castle anymore, didn't see people anymore, but pawns to be moved about and sacrificed. Not even his own children were safe; his only son, Geoffrey, had been killed in battle only a fortnight ago. The King's face was deeply lined and furrowed, his hair slate-gray, his eyes a steely blue. He smoked constantly from an odd pipe, and the smoke that rose and curled from the thing smelled like burning pitch. It was disgusting. Fox had never been so terrified in his life. "His Majesty wishes for you to explain!" the King's man, Walter the Skinner, boomed out at him from his place by the King's side. He was a tall, large bear of a man, his pate shiny and clean of hair, his jaw strong and unyielding. The soldiers eyed Fox impassively, and visions of racks and screws and iron maidens and wheels raced behind Fox's eyes. He glanced briefly to the side, where his father stood, but his father just gazed back with a remote, unblinking stare. "Well," he began, turning back to the King, wheels in his own head turning madly, "it's rather complicated, you see... The principle aspects of the process are basically that if there is enough heat, the... the, uh, straw, instead of burning, will be galvanized, and, uh--" The King leaned back in his throne and sucked at his pipe. "Never mind all that," he said in a quiet, dull monotone. It was courtly and unexpected. Fox jumped slightly. "Just tell Us, young man, can you do it?" The King gazed at him with dead eyes. They gleamed the way a snake's did. "Can you spin gold from straw?" "I can," Fox said calmly, willing his heart to continue beating. "Very well, then," the King said, sending out a cloud of smoke into the hall. He glanced at his man, Skinner, who took up the thread. "Fox, son of William the innkeeper," Walter boomed, "you are to be put in a room filled with straw that has been prepared for you. There is also a spinning wheel. You will stay in that room, alone, for the night. You will have until cock's crow the next day to spin all of the straw in the room to gold. If, by daybreak tomorrow, you have not spun all of the straw into gold, you will be killed by drawing and quartering. Do you understand?" "Aye," Fox said faintly, and as he was led away from the hall he glanced once again at his father, to plead, to beg, to do what he didn't know, but it didn't matter, because William didn't look at him once, and then Fox was going down a long corridor, and nothing more could be done. The room was small. It had no windows. An oil lamp hung from the stone ceiling, and Fox thought of that lamp meeting with the straw heaped beneath it, and figured that that was a better way to go than being drawn and quartered. It was hard to move in the room, as two bales of hay filled up all available space. The only other object in the room, aside from the straw, the lamp, and himself, was a spinning wheel. Plain and strong, with a sharp needle. Fox supposed he could kill himself with the needle, perhaps. He could insert it into his ear, all the way in, and kill himself that way. Or somehow slice his throat with it. Or plunge it into his heart. It was a better way to go than death by burning, he supposed, if he could manage it. Suddenly, Fox's knees would no longer support him. There was no chair or table or bed in the room, so he fell into the straw. It was light and scratchy, and Fox just lay there for a long time, his mind so perfectly blank that he might as well be dead. The walls were stone, the floor was stone, the ceiling was stone. There was a guard outside the iron-banded door, which was locked. Fox lay in the straw and thought of nothing, his mind completely empty, a shell housing wind. The thoughts trickled back in slowly, a drip at a time, filling his head. Spin straw into gold. He had told the King that he could spin straw into gold. He was going to die by daybreak tomorrow. He was going to die. This was his last night alive. It seemed impossible, somehow. Death was such a casual thing in this city, in this world. It happened all the time, everywhere. He'd helped Maggie wring the necks of chickens every third day. Friends caught mysterious diseases, died quickly, slowly, at night, asleep, or screaming during the day. Fox thought of the Death that had come and gone, thought of his sister, his mother. If his sister could handle the bizarre act of dying, if she could do it, then so could he. Fox closed his eyes, nestled into the straw. He was very cold. His stomach felt heavy and full of jumping frogs, his skin seemed to be crawling with slugs and snails. Perhaps he *should* tip over the lantern, consume the room with fire. Perhaps he would die before the guard could reach him. At least, this way, he would be warm. He was so cold. Cold. There were water stains on the stone walls. The lamp flickered smokily, tarring up the stone, blackening the ceiling. Fox lay in the straw and stared sightlessly at nothing for a long while. The lamp threw crazy shadows across the room, and when the shadows took on a man's form along the wall, Fox wasn't the least surprised. The man's shadow was all thin, sharp angles, with hair short and wild, with long, pointed ears. The hands formed claws, and a tail seemed to curl out from the man's form, a rat's thin tail. Fox stared blankly at the undulating shadow, mind empty. The shadow crouched, then stood, and then spoke. "Hello, little one." Fox scrambled up out of the straw, arms wildly flailing, and stared with amazement at the demon standing across the room from him. The demon stared coolly back, with calm, amused eyes. It looked human. The lamp sent dark red and yellow light sliding and snarling over it, outlining a lean, long-legged body, a dark face with wide-set eyes, a lovely mouth, short, spiky hair. The ears were not pointed anymore, and the demon's hands were a man's, the claws gone. No tail sprouted from its spine. The demon was dressed in shabby peasant's clothes, similar to Fox's, though Fox, as an innkeeper's son, was a little better dressed. Fox swallowed, his heart seeming to go still with dread and shock. He was a well-read man. He knew the sort of things the arrival of this creature heralded. He could not breathe, he could not speak. He stared, eyes painfully wide, and tried to move, but even that was impossible, now. The demon looked him over silently, its face giving nothing away, then looked Fox in the eye. It smiled slightly, without a hint of malice, face lovely for an instant. "I greet you," it said, as if reciting from an old ritual text, as if it was required to say these words, as if it was performing the steps of a ceremony. The words and the tone had the ring of timelessness, of centuries. The voice itself was low and rough, grating a little, strange. Fox found that he could breathe and move again. He backed slowly into the wall behind him, his eyes never leaving the demon. He found he could also speak. "Away with you, devil," he whispered, his voice dry with fear. "Begone from here. I want no truck with you." The demon did not move. "I am not a demon," it said, voice calm and dispassionate. "Nor am I a devil." "Lie," Fox whispered, beginning to tremble. "That's a lie..." He swallowed again, convulsively. "If you're not a demon, then what are you? How did you get inside this room? There are no windows, no cracks, nothing but this door, and that is locked and banded with iron. How did you get in here?" The demon smiled. "You have need of something," it said. Fox just stared. "What is it that you need?" Fox closed his eyes, held his breath. Then he opened them again. The demon waited. Fox looked around the small room, seeing the heaps of straw, the spinning wheel, the winder half-hidden in the straw beside it, which he had missed earlier, the lantern spilling smoke. The demon stood silently, watching him, a mass of dingy yellow flickering light and sullied red shadows. Fox could hardly make out its eyes. The ugly yellow light flickered over everything, troubling his vision. Fox spoke. "I need to turn this straw into gold." He gestured at the sea of straw surrounding them. "With that spinning wheel. By cock's crow tomorrow." The demon surveyed the straw, the wheel. "Why do you need to spin gold from this straw?" "I'll die if I don't," Fox whispered, pale and sweating, but suddenly cold again. "The King will have me killed if I don't." The demon looked at the room again, silent. Its movements were subtle and small, barely observable. It seemed to come to a decision. "What will you give me if I spin this straw into gold for you?" it asked, looking at Fox. Fox gaped for a moment, then finally found his voice. "I..." he began, wretchedly, "I have nothing to give. I... nothing." He shook his head, feeling miserable. His whole body was screaming from the tension in it. His neck was corded from the strain. The demon considered. "Not a ring?" Fox shook his head. "No." "Not a coin?" "No." "Not a trinket? Not a ribbon? Not a handkerchief?" "No, nothing," Fox said, miserably, "I have nothing." The demon tilted its head. "Then give me your body." Fox grew even more pale than before. "Wh-what?" he gasped, the blood leaving his face. "For tonight, one night, lie down with me," the demon said calmly, a soft almost-smile on its face. "That is my price." Fox could only stare and shake with terror and helplessness. "I-- I-- I can't-- I can't--" He drew in a shaking sob. "It's against God, for two men to lie together. It's blasphemy." The demon waited. "My soul will be damned to eternal Hell if I commit such an act," Fox entreated, his whole being seeming to tear in two. The lamplight spun sickeningly around the room. Fox clutched his arms. The demon waited, unmoving, its eyes hidden. Fox gazed at the stone walls, block against block, as tightly sealed as a drum. He looked at the smoke-stained ceiling, at the iron-banded door. This is my coffin, he thought, horror washing through him. This is what happens to a man who lies, who spins stories when he should be stirring the soup, chopping the wood. What will Father do when I am dead? He looked at the foreboding pile of straw, golden in the murky light. He looked at the wooden wheel, at the sharp iron needle. He realized that he was not ready yet to join his sister, that he didn't have the strength she had had. He looked at the straw at his feet. "I accept your terms," he said to the floor, knowing that it was better to be pulled into pieces by four horses, by an axe, than to give up his soul to eternal fire, but he stood firm. He feared death too much, and demons with bargains not enough, to be true to God. The demon waited until finally Fox lifted his head and looked at it. "Then the bargain is struck. Come here, little one." The demon had an inexplicably calm expression on its face, almost serene. No emotion seemed to show, not avarice, not hatred, not malice, not glee. There was only patience there. Fox moved toward that waiting calm eventually, with the unyielding slowness of a glacier. The fear and dread were wound so tight inside him that Fox thought he might fly apart from the strain. Each step toward the demon masquerading as a man was loaded with iron, heavy, impossible. His throat burned, his thoughts whirled wildly, seeking escape, any escape. They wanted to turn into birds and fly straight through the stone walls, escape into the air far from here. He could not do this. He took another step forward. The demon was still, waiting. He could not do this. Another step, crackling straw under his feet. Red and dirty yellow light ran like blood over the figure, his own shaking hands, the stone walls. He could not do this. At last, an eternity later, he stood trembling before the demon, his spine an iron rod. Silence, except for his own shuddering breath. A pause, so still, as if the whole wide world had stopped its motion for one instant, all the animals and people populating it freezing, waiting. Then the demon moved, and reality shattered back into place. "I will not hurt you," the demon said, with a low, disused voice. It scratched at his ears. The demon lifted a hand, touched Fox's shoulder, then his face. Fox stood as still as stone. The demon softly trailed firm fingers over his cheek, ran an exploration over his lip. The touch was like ice burning along his skin. Fox could not move. He was bound by fear. Hands ran light as down over his eyes, which were wide and hazel, over his nose, which was irregularly shaped, over his chin, his forehead, his jaw, his throat, his dark hair, his shoulders. The demon leaned in, and breathed deeply against Fox's nape, taking in his scent. Taking him in. Exploring him. Fox stared at the wall and did not move. His muscles sang from the tension. A snuffling at his ear. A quick lick there. He shuddered. The demon went still, its entire form pressed against his own, joint to joint, remaining there. A heartbeat, another. Loud in his roaring ears. Then gentle, firm hands at his shoulders, pushing him down. Down, into the straw, the hated straw. He folded downward neatly, knees buckling smoothly. He dropped into the straw, and the demon crouched over him, hands at his collar bones, knees cupping his hips. Hands under his shirt, and they felt just like a real man's hands, but with some odd undercurrent, tingling and strange along his own skin. Fire and ice. He gasped. Lips dipped against his brow, his cheek, his mouth, nuzzled aside the strings of dark hair. His own breath was harsh and ragged in the stone chamber, the coffin. Straw crackled and argued and complained under his body, the demon's body. You are damning yourself, a voice said silently, ringing in his mind. You are damned for this. The demon's form stretched itself entirely over his own, firm thighs against thighs, belly to belly, breast to breast. Breath stirred his hair. Lips pressed against his cold, clammy skin. His hands clutched at hay, convulsively. Hands at his shirt, stripping it off. Hands smoothing along the expanse of his chest, firm, questing. He tore air into his lungs, clenched his fists. Ripples of sensation spread from the demon's palms and splayed fingers, catching him on fire. He was burning, burning, the hands hot brands against him, scratching lightly down his form. Hands at the rest of his clothes, stripping them off smoothly, the boots removed with them. Naked and shivering, he lay under the demon, legs spread to cradle the creature. Hands along his thighs, up to cup hip bones, along his belly, down again, fingers combing through thick curls, back up again, tracing fire and ice up to his shoulders, along his collar bones, the line of his throat, down his arms to his fingers, which gripped straw. Hands at his hair, combing it back from his eyes, his face, leaving him exposed and vulnerable, easily shattered. He broke, stomach clenching, knees jerking up and together. "Please--" he gasped, his voice hoarse, also broken, his whole body twisting away, away. "The bargain has already been struck," the demon replied, voice low and hot, its breath sultry, and the demon's hands left their play along his throat and drifted back to open his legs again, drifted back up to press his shoulders into the straw. "Do you wish to unkiss it now? You will die tomorrow, if you do." "I--" Fox gasped, his eyes hot, wretched. "I-- please--please--" The demon waited. Fox struggled to get out the words, the words to stop this nightmare from happening, the words to make this whole terrible scene go away, to make it so that he had never lied to his father, to the King, never got himself locked in a room with a demon, about to lose his soul. The words did not come. The demon waited, and Fox surrendered, thinking of the dawn, of his own death. Fox opened his legs to hold in the demon, showing his surrender, and the demon bent down again, covered him. Rough cloth against him, teasing, unpleasant, then the cloth gone, and now just skin meeting skin, silk and silk. Straw scraped at his back. Hands along him, then down, down, gripping, sliding, claiming, owning, then fingers against him *there*, and he gasped, terrified, but the terror was so distant that it felt it was happening to another man, that he was just an airy spectator, watching on. Old Latin texts drifted through his wildly grasping mind, he tore through them, searching for anything in his perfect memory to aid him in this, snippets from the Bible, broadsides, treatises, essays, books of spells, books of stories, scientific accounts, religious accounts, all whirled through, rummaged through, but they all slid away one by one in his fervor, and hands on him *there*, rubbing, smoothing, testing, and he watched from a distance, cold with fear. Fingers rubbed gently, but insistently, at the entrance between his thighs, then finally one slid inside him, breaching him. It was a quicksilver pain. He couldn't even cry out at the invasion. Exploration of his inner places, dehumanizing. He wanted to sob, but couldn't. He was locked into silence. Rubbing, deep inside, shifting, kisses on his throat, along his chest, a soft bite on one rosy nub, a sharp bite on his stomach. Enough to bring blood. A tongue licked the red trickle away. And still the movement deep inside him, opening him, breaking him, and then a quicksilver flash of intense pleasure. The demon shifted, ran a tongue along Fox, up from his groin to his nape, hands gripped his hips. Then he was broken open again, entered, entered, long and slow and smooth, filled up, claimed. A moment of stillness. Red and yellow lamplight flickered over stone walls. Pain. Then the demon began to move, drawing out, releasing, then plunging back in again, filling him up. Fox shifted and cried wordlessly, soundlessly. Again, again. A rhythm of the sea. Fox had never seen the sea. He could only just imagine it. Emptied, filled, sensations rolling over him, his insides burning from it, chafing, smothering, filled so tight, then a hand at his own member, drawing it out, clever fingers and palm, smoothing and soothing and strong and insistent, bringing him to life, drawing him out. The demon shifted, drove into him, rutting, and a burst of the purest pleasure wiped over him, dazzled his mind. The hand at his cock tightened, expert, impersonal, pleasure and pleasure and pleasure surging through him, pooling there at the juncture of his thighs. He cried again, soundless, wordless, and the sweetest fire swept over him again, as he was again filled. Then the demon turned hard, his grip and his pace. Fox screamed without sound. So rough against him, felt so good, so good, hand on his cock rubbing and chafing, sweet and stark, pain and delight, sweeping him up, straight out of the chamber, straight up into the sky, sensations, sensations, tumbling him, burning him, turning him inside out, pain and delight, pain and delight, and then the ocean rolled over him entirely and he disappeared from the world, the demon screaming into his ear. Soft lips at his temple, his mouth, the lobe of his ear. Warmth at his side, over his belly, across his breast. Slight pressure, arms tightening gently, then the warmth gone. Fox tried to stir, but couldn't. Too tired, too tired. He drifted to sleep, nestled naked in the straw, drifted off to the low sounds of whirring, straw crackling, a wheel whirling, whir, whir, whir... The stone floor was cold, even though he was dressed again. Fox opened his eyes blearily, sleep distorting his sight. He reached up a hand, grasping, finding nothing, then lowered it again. He sat, and as his head swirled and finally stilled, his vision returned just in time to see a slight shadow slip across the stone wall, then slide away, rat tail curling. Fox's head snapped up, his eyes flew about the room, searching. The chamber was empty of straw. Completely. And also of the demon. No trace seemed to remain of it. Except, of course, for the pile of shining yellow stuff lying next to the silent spinning wheel, all there was in the suddenly large and empty room. Fox stood shakily, scrubbed at his face. Cautiously, disbelievingly approached the shining mass of yellow. He bent, and studied it. It was a heap, a small hill, a mound of spools of sunshine, enough to fill a bushel basket. Fox reached out carefully and picked up a spool. He inspected it, amazement slowly filling his features. He couldn't believe it, and yet it was true. It was a spool of gold. The guards had been properly astonished this morning upon opening the door to his cell, but the King showed no sign of surprise or awe at all in his lined face. Only greed shone there, in his cold eyes. Smoke drifted and curled around his face, obscuring him with gray. He fingered a golden spool. The guards continued to stare. Fox stood very quietly in the great hall, flanked by soldiers sporting broadswords and amazed faces. "Well," said the King, a slight smile at his thin, bloodless lips. "The results of this little test are much better than We had anticipated." His man, Skinner, stood by his side and tried not to look astounded. Fox tried, for his own part, not to swallow too loudly. All the eyes in the room kept on shifting toward him, expressing dismay, hatred, fear, amazement. Even the Skinner looked at him as though he thought Fox was a demon. They all thought he was a demon or devil, even His Majesty, who didn't seem to care, just so long as he had his gold. "We'll need a little time preparing the next chamber," the King said mildly, caressing the spools. "Take him, let him clean himself, let him break his fast. You are dismissed." Fox tried not to let his legs buckle under him as he was led away. He didn't want the guards to have to carry him. It was bad enough as it was. Because he was still a prisoner, they did not bother to feed him with style. A simple roux was all he received, and ale. They let him wash his face and hands, they kept him alone, isolated, in a small corner of the kitchens while he waited for his next prison cell. His thoughts kept flickering back to the demon. To what had transpired between them. Of their unholy bargain. Of what the demon had done. Of what *he* had done. He tried to pray, but all he could feel was an overwhelming hatred of the Lord, for all of the things He had done, taking away his sister, his mother, sending him a demon to tempt him, destroy him. Blasphemous. Fox didn't care. His thoughts kept circling back to the demon; shadowy, obscured, tall and slender, lovely mouth, terrifying, a rat's tail, claws, spin straw into gold, lips against his throat, violated, calm, quiet hands, a husky voice, terrifying. "I will not hurt you," the demon had said. It hurt to sit down. His rump was sore. When they escorted him to his next room, Fox briefly considered fighting, breaking away, trying to flee, but he was firmly flanked, strong hands at his shoulders. He briefly considered telling them that he was a great sorcerer, and that if they didn't let him go, he'd turn them all into frogs. But they'd probably just skewer him with spears or swords, so he kept quiet. The new chamber was larger than the first one. It seemed to have once been a lady's room, a well-loved servant's. No windows, again, but there was a hearth, bright spaces on the stone walls where tapestries had recently hung, and a small table set with food for him. For later, he supposed. The room was now empty of all objects that might once have occupied it, except for the table, the hearth, the mountain of straw, and the spinning wheel. It was a new wheel, slightly more ornate. Fox wondered why they'd provide him with a nicer spinning wheel and food, and yet refused to give him a chair or bed, or even a stool for the spinning wheel. This time, as well, the guard remained in the room, locked firmly inside with Fox. Fox could feel his heart plummet into the cavity where his stomach had been. His stomach was now residing in his shoes. Fear came and camped itself, a small invading army, inside him. He was trapped, again, and the same threat stood. If the straw in this room did not end up gold on the morrow, he would be dead. Drawn and quartered. He took a deep breath and stood by the wheel, his hazel eyes flitting over the stone-faced guard. "Aren't you going to leave?" Fox finally asked, tremors hidden carefully. The guard shook his head and did not budge from his post by the hearth. "Are you going to remain here all night? With me?" Fox asked, belligerent, heart jumping wildly in his throat. The guard nodded. Fox spoke again, "That won't work. I cannot have... witnesses, to see me while I work. I have to have complete privacy, or the procedure will fail." The guard merely looked at him, then finally cracked his thin mouth enough to say, "His Highness commanded a guard to stay with you in the room throughout the night, and that's what's going to happen." "But..." Fox grappled for the right words, "...it won't work if you're here. I won't be able to spin gold from the straw with you here." The guard didn't bother to respond. He just stood and turned his gaze to the wall opposite him, as still as a carved dog. Fox stood by the wheel and mentally wrung his hands. The fear coursed through him, turned his blood to ice. He looked about the room helplessly, despairingly. Would the demon return? There was no reason in the world for Fox to expect it to return, for him to even hope that it would return. It was cruel, this way. The night before, he'd had no hope at all of salvation. Now, the thought tortured him, clawed his insides. Would the demon come back? If it did, what about the guard? Crazed, inspired thoughts roiled through his head, desperate plans, merging disjointedly with old memories. He thought to pray, he thought to tear his own eyes out, he thought to storm the guard, take his sword, and kill either himself or the guard or both. He thought to go to the wheel and actually attempt to spin the straw into gold, his most insane notion yet. He thought of his father, and wondered if William knew about the miracle. If he knew that his worthless son, his disappointment, had come through so marvelously. If he knew that his son had bargained away his soul for another day alive, if he knew just how close to death his son had been. If he knew that his son was just as close, now, trapped in a room with no outlets save a locked door and a chimney, a guard watching his every move. The pain inside him was so deep it didn't even hurt. It was a white numbness, and Fox floated through it. He thought of the demon, and the demon's shadow, and the demon's lovely mouth. And then. He looked up from the wheel he had been studying to find the guard asleep, impossibly. Fox was amazed. His heart knocked loudly in his chest, asking to be let out. "Hello, little one." Fox whirled, and the demon, standing quietly in the corner, smiled slightly, calmly. Serene. Fox's body was made of sand. He was sliding away, inside. He licked his lips, stared. The light, this time, was a bit better, and he could make out the demon's eyes, which were a bright green. He opened his mouth to speak, to say something, anything. "I'm not little," was what came out, and Fox wanted to strangle himself. How utterly stupid. The demon didn't move. Its deep green eyes shone. "Your face is strange," the demon said, head titling slightly. Fox glanced over at the prone guard, who lay as if dead. "You look afraid." "Did you cast a spell on this guard?" Fox asked, trying to look the demon in the eye. It was difficult, but he managed it. He would not act like a coward, even if he felt like one. "I did," the demon replied, which startled Fox. He hadn't been expecting an answer. "Why is there fear on your face?" "How did you send this man to sleep?" Fox countered, almost angrily, if such a thing were possible then. "It's wrong. It's wrong to cast such a spell--to cast spells at all. You shouldn't have done it." He could be very righteous when he wanted to be. "I see," said the demon, calmly. "Do you wish for me to wake him?" "No!" Fox cried, horrified. "No, no, don't do that." "Do you wish for me to leave?" the demon continued. "No!" Fox cried again, feeling repetitive, starting forward, starting back. Terror, hysteria, surged in his throat. Panic, full-blown, formed a lovely shape, bloomed, inside. "No, don't-- don't leave--" He sucked in a deep draft of air. Composed himself. After a moment, he asked, "Why are you here?" "You have need of something. What is it?" The most unnerving aspect, Fox decided, about the demon was that its eyes never left him. He felt strange and small under that heavy gaze. "I need this straw to be spun into gold, again," he fumbled, gesturing weakly. "Like the eve before." The demon looked away from Fox for the first time and glanced at the mountain of straw. The guard lay still by the hearth pit. The demon returned deep green eyes to the man. "Are you certain that that is what you need?" "Yes!" Fox cried. "Yes, that's what I need. I need this straw to be spun into gold. I'll die tomorrow if I don't." The demon considered. "If I were to do this for you, spin gold from this straw, what would you give me in return?" Fox looked away. A furnace raged and banked itself underneath his skin. "I have nothing to give you," he said in a small voice, almost returned to its usual monotone, almost wiped clean of emotion. "Nothing to pay you for your services." "Nothing?" The verdant eyes gleamed. "Not a ring?" "No." "Not a coin?" "No." "Not a fine-worked chain?" "No, no, nothing." The demon considered him. Fox could not look up, could not face those eyes. Please, he silently begged, don't say it. Don't say it. "Then give me yourself, tonight." Fox flinched. "Lie with me, let me enter you, be with you, for just this one night, and I will spin this straw into gold." A small storm of burning snow spun over Fox, blighting him, a plague of locusts descended and ate his flesh. He whirled and slammed his fist into the hard stone wall, savoring the crack of knuckle against stone, the flash of bright pain. The demon did not move. The guard did not move. Fox did not move, just let the bright water of anguish flow through his hand and up his arm and into his breast. You knew this would come, his mind silently told him. You knew it. You cannot do this. What else was there to do? This was as inevitable as the sinking of the sun each night, as inevitable as its return each morning. "Very well," Fox hissed, low, his eyes boring into the wall before him. "I accept your price." "Then come here, *muuldra*, and seal the bargain," the demon replied softly, its voice a sibilant whisper along the currents of air. He came to it. He came, and the demon cupped his face with hands as gentle as clouds, smoothed a thumb across his flesh. "Your eyes are silver fish today," the demon remarked, almost absently, and Fox was jolted to realize that the voice held distant affection in it. Fox couldn't speak, and the demon didn't seem to expect it of him. It laid him gently into the hay, a nest of gold. Its fingers danced slowly across his rough shirt, the red knuckles of his bruised fist. Its lips were firm and kind against his own. His body began to string itself, obedient, as the sure hands and lips and teeth ran over him. He arched into the touch. Unbidden, his own hands rose and of their own accord began to explore the strange body above his, the sharp angles and strong planes, the satiny skin, the black-winged brows and teasing mouth. At times it was hard, and at others water soft. He gasped in amazement. His hands were hovering birds against the demon's flesh, the demon's thick black wilderness of hair, the demon's pretense of peasant clothes. They swooped and dove over plains of skin and lakes of deep celadon, and two fires roamed his own body, set it aflame. The straw would catch, he was certain, and blaze, and they would die here in this room, a funeral pyre, the gate for the phoenix. And then. The clothes left him in a thunderous, whispering rush, straw scratched jealously at his back, his thighs. Lips at his knee, a hand kneading the inner muscles, kisses like coals trailing up and up, across his belly, a pause to suckle at his navel, poke a sharp, pointed tongue there. His own hands ran over an expanse of back, counted the clever knobs of spine, curved over taut buttocks, smoothed over iron thighs. Kisses rained down on him, turned his breath to a race against death, quickened his blood, made it surge through his veins. He mewled softly, arching, ecstatic, mouth open and soft, then a hard grimace. And he was afraid, afraid of the creature above him, pressed against him, teasing his nipples to hardness, ruby points, the teeth like knives, the velvet tongue. It was a deep, black power that rolled and surged in his arms, a power too strong and ancient for him to comprehend, a power strong enough to steal his spirit away through his mouth, plunder the life from his skin. He was terrified of the tamed, gentling wildness, the otherness, that possessed him, claimed him, burnt him to ash. The mouth that claimed his mouth, the hands that possessed his body, the skin that burned his own skin. Fingers at his hips, pressing his legs wide, letting them wrap like ivy around the demon's own sharp bones. One hand, clever and strong, at his rising shaft, stroking and teasing it to fullness. He gasped and tightened the hold of his calves. Straw tickled maddeningly at his ass, poked his ear. Crystal fluid smeared from his own member onto the demon's fingers. Slick fingers at the entrance between his buttocks, pressing inward, then full contact, breached again at his breech, an explosion of sensation, fire, knives and silk and pain and ecstasy. Slick and hot and close and tight, ripping through him, searing him, charring him, and he cried for more. Pressed tight together, coupling, skin seaming to skin, pinwheels of fire bursting, and Fox's mind swirled away, released from its cage of the now, the eternally present. The demon drew his memories out, hands sparking along his sides, pumping his shaft until it was agony, he had to release it, had to let go of the ecstasy, but still the pressure built onward, and Fox remembered the lights of lanterns over the lake, the miller's daughter, the black cat with the brown stripe. Memories like bright flags and banners unfurled in his freed mind, held in gentle hands, caressed, mused over by a mind not his own. All of his doorways were being opened up, his wells sounded, his casks unearthed. His senses were splintering under the white-hot pleasure of it, the demon's tongue blistering his own. His body screamed for the demon's, sweet and agonizing, he hated it, he wanted it, he was lost in a storm of memories, stories he'd read, stories he'd made up, the face of his sister, her ghost, which still followed him, his mother with her rough, gentle hands, his father, looking away, frowning, always frowning. Tears spilled down his cheeks, pooled in his ears. The trails were licked away, the wetness lapped up, murmurings against his nape. Odd words he didn't understand, not Latin, not Norman, not Saxon, not anything he could recall. Sweet and distant and hypnotic, those words, that voice uttering them, sending him off into white-sparked blackness, his body exploding into emptiness with passion. He was being unraveled, he was unraveling, and he hung, suspended, the strings of his body, plucked, singing as angels sing. Great white wings and golden ones and blue and red whirring and pinions drifting and an explosion, lifted away on those wings, explosion, explosion, explosion. Salt and sweat covered him, he pulsed and glowed, chiming, ever more faintly, until the stone room finally faded back into being, the angel song died away. Fox lay as limply as the wash, gulping down air, nerves rattled and sated, both raw and worn. He turned to the warmth nearby, found the demon curled up beside him, watching him with calm jade eyes. One thought came to him, one only, and he voiced it breathlessly. "What are you?" The demon smiled ever so slightly. Faint as a zephyr. "Your dreams are strange," it replied. "There is a man with a hand around your neck; he is squeezing. You call him father. There is a girl who sits beside you. She has a star on her forehead." Fox could not speak, though words crowded eagerly in his mouth. The room was too hot. The straw irritated his skin, sent red weals across it. By the hearth, the forgotten guard lay still. "Now your eyes are oak leaves," the demon said, his own orbs shining strangely. Fox curled in on himself in misery, knees tucked against his chest. He bowed his head, and felt the threat of hot, anguished tears stand beneath his lids. "It hurts so much," he sobbed, his father standing silently, translucently before him. William wore a horrible scowl, reproving, censuring. "That one left you to die, *muuldra*. Used you, blamed you for faults not your own," the demon told him, crouching nearby, naked and feral and strange. "Your life is not your own, it belongs to that one. You owe him a debt of blood, you do." "Go away," the tightly coiled figure of misery whispered, face hidden, arms wrapped around himself. "Go away." "He will send you to your death," the demon said, "it is assured." "Just leave," he said to his tormentor, whether his father or the demon he did not know. The demon left, noiselessly. When Fox finally raised his head, he found that the room was empty of straw, but near the spinning wheel was a mound of golden spools. The guard still slept. Fox stood and began to pull on his clothes. Outside, distantly, somewhere, a cock began to crow. And then. The King considered the gold. He was a thoughtful, precise man. He knew how much gold was worth, how much a man who could spin it from straw was worth. He considered the tired-looking man before him. "One last trial," His Majesty said calmly, mildly. He spoke as a man, not a King. "One last room filled with straw. If it has not been spun into gold by daybreak tomorrow, you will die. If it is spun into gold on the morrow, you shall have my daughter's hand in marriage, and rule after me when I die." The crowd of courtiers and soldiers gaped. Mastiffs growled and slunk, uneasy. Fox couldn't quite bring himself to care. The King's daughter had not been seen in the city for years, had been living in a far-off convent for the better part of her life. She was devoted to God, or her father had decided that she would be. Fox couldn't even summon up her name. Not that he wanted to. Not that it mattered. His eyes were heavy stones rolling in their sockets. He was tired unto death of this, of this constant strain, this constant fear. Wherever he looked there was hay, bright shining straw, and gold spilling down, and a demon lurking. He was trapped. They let him wash his face, his hands, they gave him more food. He thought about eyes as green as moss, as blades of grass. His head was a crushing weight upon his shoulders. He could not think, could not bring himself to think of anything. He was trapped. His thoughts circled, listlessly, pausing briefly at corners, returning always to their source, a black-haired man who was not a man, who could spin gold from straw. His father never came to see him. It was an old pain, and he ignored it. Caught. He was caught, and it was from his lie that this capture resulted, his fault he was trapped. The demon had captured him, somehow, and now he was trapped, bee in a jar, with eyes gleaming jade at him, he would never be able to escape it, it was inevitable, he waited. The demon was his savior and his damnation all at once. He waited silently while the next dungeon was prepared, as cartloads of straw were drawn into the castle grounds. The whole city was on fire with the scandal of it, city dwellers screaming at the gates to be let in, let them touch his hand and they'd be granted extraordinary powers, their diseases would be cured, gold would magically fill their pockets. Priests clamored that he be put to death for consorting with the Devil, friars clamored that he be sainted. All were barred from the castle. Fox never saw any of them, heard nothing of the uproar and furor. He simply sat and waited. He sat and waited, and tried to pin his thoughts down, tried to figure them, dissect them, make them fold up and disappear. Green eyes gleamed at him from corners, and his soul was in a bag with the strings drawn closed. He talked to his little sister, because there was no one else to talk to. He told her his troubles, about how he was not brave enough to do what she had done, to cross the river into the next kingdom, and she just smiled and listened and held his hand. The net had closed on him, the ropes tightened, and he struggled helplessly against their pull. He could not think, he could hardly breathe. Green eyes gleamed at him from the shadows. The good King had let him wait in the kitchens again, a small corner, out of the way, and he sat on a flour sack and tried to think. He had not seen the world outside this castle for days. He had not breathed in fresh air in days. He did not know whether it had rained, or snowed, or had been warm and cloudless. He was ignorant of all the world outside this thrice-damned castle, he was in a permanent state of waiting, neither alive nor dead. The demon, the demon. In his mind's eye he ran down corridors long and winding, trying doors, but none would open, and behind him was a lithe, strange creature with eyes that gleamed green, green flames, and a shadow with a rat's tail, he was running, but the demon was always just behind, always just behind. The soldiers eyed him hatefully, fingered their swords. He could not bring himself to care. One can live in constant fear for only so long before finally shutting down, no longer caring, too exhausted to care, to be afraid. Finally the last chamber was ready, and he was locked inside, this time alone. He'd taken care of the guard problem. "I refuse to work while anyone else is in the room with me," he'd said flatly, his voice at its most monotonous. "Kill me if you want to, but I won't do it in company. Besides, your first guard fell asleep on me. What's the point?" The King glared, but he knew better than to force the issue. It didn't really matter, so long as he had his gold. "Very well, then," the King replied, and Fox went in alone, and listened as the door was shut, listened as the key turned in the lock, scraping and loud, and the bar slid into place, and he was alone with the straw and the spinning wheel. The room this time was extraordinarily large, and filled with straw like a sea. There was so much straw that Fox could barely look at all that shining yellow stuff, had to look away, but there was no place where there was not that damned hay. He gazed at the ceiling instead. It was arched, vaulted, with lovely stonework. He thought of the demon. Blood pounded in his head, cold sweat trickled down his face. Dread swam inside his body, and longing, the most impossible longing. He longed for the demon, longed for sure hands on his flesh, and that odd, gentle smile, those odd, gentle eyes. He longed for it, yearned, his whole being strained for the soft whispering sigh of that creature's presence disturbing the air. He was trapped, there was no way out. His life was never his own. First his father, and now this devil owned it, claimed it. The King would like to own him next, and instead of a white-hot rage, all Fox could summon was cold inertia, the uncaring dispassion of a man exhausted. An hour passed, and still the demon did not come. He became afraid. What if the demon did not come this night? The last night of Purgatory, and the demon would not come, would not strike that same bargain, and Fox, just at the cusp of his freedom, would die the next day. Another hour passed, and his fear, which was crushing, turned to rage. He stormed around the room, pounded at the walls, screamed his hatred at the deaf stones. Anger so startling and deep shrieked through him, anger at his father, at himself, at the King, at the demon. Fury that the demon would not come this last time, fury that the demon had bound him to it so tightly, and would now torture him with absence and betrayal. Betrayal. Betrayal. Fox was going insane. His fist by now was very bloody, and the pain was sweet, it felt good to be feeling something other than dull listlessness again. He cherished it, and knew that if the demon came again tonight, he would kill it with his own bare, bleeding hands. Another hour passed, and the fire died from Fox's eyes. His veins slowed, the anger washed away. He was very, very cold. There was snow in his heart. He sat with his back against the wall and let all of the thoughts bumbling about his head flow away, slide out of his mind, leaving it as empty as that first night. It was an impossible situation. He ached with acceptance. He was a pawn. His lie, his lie. Either the demon would come, or it would not. Either he would die tomorrow, or he would not. It was out of his hands. No. No. Had he always been this pathetically helpless, drawn by the machinations of others? All he knew was that his soul, which had once belonged to his father, now belonged to the demon creature. This creature that owned him by giving him only pleasure and kindness, who saved him day after day. He would not allow it. He would not let the demon touch him again. He would not, or he would be forever the demon's property, he was so close, he couldn't let it happen. Two simple, short nights, and now his soul was in peril. He ached with acceptance. He would not let the demon touch him. He would die tomorrow, and finally, he was brave enough to do that thing, let his soul go to God, as his sister had done before him. There was a soft rustling noise, a sigh, and a shadow lengthened and diminished on the wall. The demon came to him, and there was blood on its hands, just like his. "Greetings, *muuldra*," the demon said. Fox stared. "What did you do?" he asked, his voice nearly breathless. The demon merely stood, hands at its sides, dripping gore. A tidal wave of horror rushed over him. "What did you do?" he asked again, staring, unbelieving, at the red hands. "There is something that you need," the demon merely replied, its husky, low voice emotionless. Blood dripped into the straw, red and gold. "What is it?" The same words, the same game. Fox closed his eyes. The skin of his knuckles spiked with pain. "I need this straw spun into gold," he whispered, painfully. "Are you certain that that is what you need?" the demon inquired. "Yes, I'm certain." "And if I do this thing for you? What will you give me in return?" The voice was very soft, and low. It hurt him to listen to it. "I have nothing to give you," he whispered. "Not a ring, not a chain, not a coin, not my body, not my mind, nothing, I own nothing of value, and I will not give you myself." There was a long silence. Fox finally opened his eyes. The demon gazed at him calmly. The blood shone brightly, a crimson scarf. "Tomorrow, should you have this straw spun to gold," the demon said, "the king will honor his word, and betroth you to his daughter. Soon, you two will marry, and perhaps have a child. In payment for spinning this straw to gold, I want your firstborn child." The world swam alarmingly before his eyes, twisting shape. Then the walls, which had shook from their foundations for a moment, settled back into normalcy. Something inside his head was screaming. His soul fluttered in its cage. He gazed at the two scarlet hands, long-fingered and fine, coated in red, which dripped. "Whose blood is that?" he whispered finally. The whole world held its breath. And then. "It is William the innkeeper's blood," was the soft response. A tiny maelstrom cracked his heart in two, and his soul rose from the shattered pieces, flew away. All the world was a shallow bowl, which had fallen from the table and broken. Fox closed his eyes, and felt the pull of an inevitable tide that could not be turned away. "I accept your terms," he whispered, watching in his mind's eyes the soul-bird flying higher and higher into the sky, into the sun, which was a green flame framed by wicked teeth. It was done. "The bargain is struck," the demon announced, and Fox sat still against the cold stone wall, snow drifting down in his heart, which was in pieces, unable to move, unable to do anything at all. The demon turned to the spinning wheel, which was by now a work of art, carved with all manner of beasts and birds and tiny people and faery folk and flowers and trees and suns and stars and moons. Fox closed his eyes, and heard the spinning wheel turn alive, wheel whirling, pedal thumping, straw crying out. Whir, whir, whir, went the sound in his ears, thump, thump, thump, whir, whir, whir. My father is dead, he thought. The words were strange, and made no sense. My father is dead. The green-eyed man who is not a man killed him, that is his blood on its hands. I am in love with the creature that killed my father, and I am grateful because it did what I could never do. My father is dead. Whir, whir, whir, went the wheel. The straw hissed and spat. My father is dead. After a time, the wheel went silent, and Fox felt a presence arrive, just out of arm's reach. Fox opened his eyes. The demon stood before him, then crouched to its haunches, eyes gleaming, gazing straight into his soul, which had flown away on bloody wings. "Your eyes are brown mushrooms speckled with gray," the demon said. Fox said nothing. What was there to say? He ached to cup the demon's cheek in his palm, but he could not. He could not touch that creature. It was so beautiful, he suddenly realized, truly looking at it for the first time. The eyes were wide and framed with heavy lashes, the cheekbones were lovely and fine-drawn, the mouth was a perfect gentle curve. The demon had never been beautiful, before. Frightening, strong, strange, shimmering with power and magic, mysterious, half-shadowed, but never beautiful. How he longed for this demon. How he ached for it. He locked his longing in a deep cavern and dropped the key down a well. Never, never, never. The demon searched his face for a moment, then finally reached out before Fox could stop it and traced a finger coated with dried blood down one cheek. Fox's throat closed, he couldn't breathe. "Good bye, *muuldra*," the demon said softly. "Remember your bargain." And the demon stood, lithe and easy, and went to the door, which was locked and barred, and opened it, and walked through, and was gone. The door swung shut behind it. After a while, Fox turned away from the door and surveyed the cavernous room. It had held acres of straw, which was all gone, now. In its place was a pile of gold, enough to keep a king's army running for years, enough to finance a new cathedral, shining and bright and new, by the spinning wheel. The gold was streaked with red. Fox could not seem to look away for a long, long time. And then. The old King made good his word. He had as much gold as he could want for now, and understood the concept of economy, and too much of a good thing, so he let Fox be. The King's daughter was sent for, and after several months of travel she arrived at the castle, and Fox met his eventual bride. Her name was Danae, after the mother of Perseus, and she was calm and kind and beautiful. Her eyes were cornflowers, her hair the color of soft flame, her skin a pale alabaster. She was small, and strong, and gentle, with capable hands that soothed Fox's troubled mind whenever she pressed them to his brow. At first, it was very hard. The day he was released from his imprisonment, he left the castle, and walked the streets of the city. Crowds flocked to him, gripping his tunic, clutching at his hands, clamoring for cures, coins, magic, salvation. Breaking from the frothing city folk, he ran to his father's inn, hoping against hope that William would be there, alive, well, scowling as ever. The body was already gone, buried. He'd been ripped apart, the cleric told him, opened up from sternum to small intestines. It was baffling. No one knew how it had happened, what had done it. "Demons," one said, knowingly. People crossed themselves. "Imps," said another. "Monsters," said a third. Fox just stood silent for a long moment, his face blank. The snow drifting down in his cracked heart swelled to a blizzard, then vanished. There was nothing for him, here. He was to marry the King's daughter. He turned and left. His soul, which was a bird that had flown away, flew through a wasteland of white. He paced the castle halls, and then stood still while servants dressed him in ermine and sable and silk, stood still while the Skinner gifted him with an excellent sword, which he never used. He was not a warrior. He was not anything. Once he had been an innkeeper's son, but that was over, now. He raged, and wept, and felt deep, blinding grief, and raged and wept some more. He ate only sparingly, and grew thin and withdrawn. There were no cheerful people to tell wild lies and wilder truths to, now. The servants would have nothing to do with him, for he had spun straw into gold. He searched for Maggie, the old cook at the inn, but she only cried out and pleaded for him not to hurt her when he found her. He could spin gold from straw. He must be evil, or magic, or both, but he was dangerous, whatever he was. Soldiers glared at him from their posts, bards and scops avoided him, or sang songs about him when he wasn't around, children fled from his shadow. It was all a lie, anyway. He deserved it. He ate less and less, and let the servants dress him, and did not care if he lived or died. Green eyes gleamed at him from every mirror, every stone, every shadow, every dark corridor. The demon haunted his dreams, stalked his waking hours, was with him while he ate, while he walked, while he slept. He was still trapped. The ordeal was over, the adventure done with, and still he was trapped. The soul-bird flew on and on. And then. And then one day his betrothed arrived at the castle gates, wrapped in a black cloak against the chill of autumn, and Fox's turbulent thoughts stilled into peacefulness at her first silver smile. They married, and Fox grew to love this woman, this calm, loving woman who prayed each night, attended Vespers each day, read Latin texts, sang softly the words of God. Fox, who did not believe in God any more, smiled to hear her sing, her voice a clear water stream, soothing and soft. So this was real love, real strength, real affection. She was wise and lovely, and played with children, and argued with Fox about scholarly texts, her mind a quick, clean blade, sharp. And so this was patience and forgiveness. This was the fountainhead of true wonder, true beauty, true worth. Danae was soothing when he raged, patient when he sulked, she was his stillness, his anchor, his confidante, his playmate and best companion. And they grew to love one another, and became steadfast partners, and knew each other's hearts and when to be silent and let things alone and when to speak out and not step away. And she was his harbor in the mists, his beacon, his rainbow, and he was her mirth, her buffoon, her quick-witted rapscallion. And their silences were deep together, and strong, and their words bright lights in the darkness. And still, even when her face became a beloved fixture behind his eyes, even when his heart mended itself and grew a tree with full, ripe fruit, still he dreamed of the demon, and knew that his soul still flew on. And even while he laughed with Danae and tugged at her hair, which she would let down for him, still behind each laugh and gentle mischief was a pair of moss-green eyes, jade pools, green flames that burned, burned, burned. And even when he lay at night in the sheltering circle of her arms, his dreams were of a man who was not a man, a demon with the face of an angel, a demon with blood on its hands and a shadow with a rat's tail. And Fox, who was no longer Fox in his own mind, but "muuldra", still found himself staring into silent space at unexpected times and remembering strong, gentle hands. And even while his love for Danae grew as strong and eternal as the mountains that rose in the far horizon, still he yearned for that dark half, that whispering desire, that keeper of dark dreams and deep passions. And then. Danae, who had always longed for children, told Fox one day that she had had the most peculiar dream. She had dreamed that a frog had come to her and told her that she was with child, and soon would bear a babe. Her face shone with joy in the retelling. And Fox, who called himself Muuldra in his mind, did not doubt it. And he was glad for her. Nine months passed, and Danae grew heavy with child, until she was as large as the sea, and would not leave her bed. She tossed and growled and snapped, and Fox felt strongly like snapping back, but did not, and when she was cross he was patient, and when she wept from the strain he comforted her. "I love you," he whispered to her, the first time he ever said those words aloud, holding one small hand in his own. "I know," she replied, smiling softly, love shining in her own deep blue eyes. "I know." And then the child was born, and it was a girl, and they christened her Emily, which was Latin for 'eager.' The old King came back from his campaign just long enough to see the baby, which was tiny and shriveled and loud and lusty and fragile, then left. Back to his battles. The baby was a marvel. This was his child. He gazed at her in wonder. Beside him, Danae glowed. The love in her eyes for this small creature was so strong that it blinded him, and as he watched his wife nurse their child, watched her play with her, put her to bed, sing to her, let tiny fingers wrap around her own, he felt a terrible sadness and dread well up in him. He remembered his bargain. He began to pray. He watched his wife coo soft words to their child, and prayed. He watched her laugh in delight at their child, and prayed. He held his child in his arms and felt that tiny body shift and stretch its brand new limbs and prayed. He prayed to the God he did not believe in any more, and the dread grew and grew. He watched his wife, who sometimes bled from the nose and grew pale and sick, finally come truly alive with their child, and felt the dread wash over him, and prayed. And then. He was sitting alone in the library, reading and dreaming, curled up in a chair, talking to his dead sister, when there was a strange sudden draft in the room, the candles all fluttered, and a shadow on the wall stretched and shrunk, forming a man's outline, with a rat's tail. The demon stepped out of the shadows and into the candlelight. "Hello, *muuldra*," greeted the demon, that had once been an "it" and was now a "he." Fox rose to his feet, and placed the book ever so carefully on the chair, as if it were an all-important activity. His heart screamed inside his breast. Sweat sprang up on his brow. "Deus," he whispered, "Deus." His dead sister fled back to the recesses of his brain. "Now your eyes are the color of stones under rushing water," the demon said. "Please," Fox gasped, panic behind his eyes. His face was tight. He did not know what to say, and felt a terror worse than the terror of death crowd in him. He thought of Danae, whose whole life centered on her daughter. He thought of the shine of her eyes, which held no cruelty in them, no lies. He did not know what to say, and the demon before him was beautiful, soft in the candles' flames. He was afraid. And trapped. "I have come for my payment," the demon told him softly. "Give me what you promised." "Please," Fox said again, rasping, trapped. "Please, not my daughter. Do not take my daughter. I'll give you gold. The ring. The coin. The chain. The handkerchief. All the wealth in the kingdom, if you just let me keep my child." "What need have I for gold, when I can spin it from ordinary straw?" the demon inquired, a hint of humor in his face. "I would rather have some living thing than all the treasures of the world. Gold means absolutely nothing to me, no wealth does." "What can I do?" Fox pleaded, miserable, his past catching up with him. His fault. He should have been stronger. He should have, he should have. "What can I give you in replacement of the child? What do you want? I'll give you anything, anything, just don't take my Emily." The demon was silent. Fox stood and trembled. The green eyes burned into him, seared straight into the marrow of him. After all this time, he still belonged to this demon. "Very well," the demon said. "If in three days you can tell me my name, you may keep your child." "Wh-what?" Fox stared in astonishment. This was a new torment, horrible to imagine. "Guess my name," he replied. "You have three days to guess my name. If you do not, what I want is mine." Fox stared. Despair welled deeply within him. It was an impossible challenge. He would never guess the right name in time. The demon turned to go. "I will return tomorrow evening. Be ready for me." And he was gone. Fox stood frozen at the place where the demon had been, and felt the inner scream build. And then. He studied feverishly, poured over accounts, dredged up all the old manuscripts and stories he could from the murk at the bottom of his brain, all the names he could find. The time of their meeting came, and Fox stood in the gardens and watched the sun begin to set. The demon slid into being beside a still pond. "Greetings, muuldra," he said. Fox jumped, but regained his composure swiftly. "Is it Horace?" Fox began without preamble. The demon smiled. "No. That is not my name." "Is it Percival?" "No. That is not my name." "Is it Charles?" "No. That is not my name." And so on, until there were no more names to supply, and Fox was hoarse, and the sun had long set beneath the horizon. "Until tomorrow," the demon said, and was gone. This time, the second night, the demon came to him in a castle tower. The walls were lined with brilliantly colored tapestries. The demon was beautiful. "Is it John?" "No, that is not my name." "Is it Raynard?" "No, that is not my name." "Is it Melchoir?" "No, that is not my name." And so on, until stars blazed in the deep sky, dancing out constellations, and Fox's stores were exhausted. "Until tomorrow, muuldra," the demon said, softly, and Fox wanted to smash his face. "One more night. One more chance. Then I collect my prize." And then he was gone. He watched Danae stand over their daughter, watched her pale face glow rose with love, flushed and soft. Lord above, how she loved her child. He would do anything, anything, anything to let her keep her daughter. Anything. A deep rage crossed over him. A rage at the demon. He still wanted him, still yearned to bury his face in that dark, soft hair, trace his fingers along those lovely features. His hands longed to caress the demon's flesh, his own limbs longed to wrap themselves around the demon's form. He wanted to be filled, loved, taken far out to sea, taken far beyond the shores of reason, of pain, of monotony. He longed for the passion and the kindness and the bewilderment and the ecstasy. He hated the demon for making him want him so badly, for making him suffer in this way. His anger and fear were a maelstrom inside. He poured through the books, made mental list after mental list of names, more names, more and more and more. His eyes were wide and fixed, he looked as one gone mad. "What's wrong, Fox?" Danae asked, coming to him, putting small hands on his shoulders. He could not look at her. "Fox, Fox, tell me, what's wrong?" She searched his face, alarmed for him. She brushed dark hair from his eyes, ran her fingers soothingly through it, curved her palm to cup his cheek. He went still as he felt her calming fingers comb through his hair, a sleepy gesture, it made him feel safe and happy. "Tell me what's plaguing you, Fox," she said softly, stroking his hair, and still he could not look at her. Tonight, tonight, it would all be over. The demon would win the game, take the child, and Fox's heart would break, and Danae's soul would shatter. Her very world was Emily, and however much she loved Fox, it was the love of companionship, trust, the merging of two souls. Emily was a piece of her, a piece of her God, more than the merging of two souls, more than companionship and trust. Emily was the sum of her parts, and yet separate, and Danae loved her more than she loved anything else in this world. When the child was taken away, it would kill her. Fox could not stand it. He could not stand losing his daughter, his lovely young baby, and then losing his wife. They would both be lost to him, and he loved them both too much to let that happen. Tonight, he would do it. He would take the sword that Walter Skinner had given him, take a dagger, a knife, anything-- "Fox, please tell me," Danae said calmly, with authority, brooking no refusal. " I love you, Danae," he said, looking up at her marvelous face at last, drinking in her features, the red-winged brows, the cornflower eyes. "You are my golden laughter, the language my soul sings to, my marvelous earthen angel." "I love you, Fox," she replied, with a smile quirking the corners of her mouth. "I am not an angel, but I thank you for that. Now, tell me what is wrong." He sighed and pressed his forehead to her hands. Then he pressed the hands to his lips. Tonight, tonight, it would all end. "It's well, Danae, all is well, don't worry so about me." He smiled at her, and a frown deepened along her brow. But she stood, and after one last searching look, pursed her lips and turned away, calling back over her shoulder, "Join us for the evening repast, Fox, we miss you." "I will," he said, and watched her disappear down the hall. And then. Long after the meal was over, still he waited, and watched darkness fall over the city. The city full of people who no longer clamored for his miracles. Soon after Danae came to him, another man in a nearby village was said to be able to turn water into wine, and the hysteria shifted from Fox's shoulders to that poor man's. Fox stood and stared at the city that shouted with life. The dagger was a heavy weight in his hand. It was plain, with no ornament. He stood and stared into nothingness in the great hall, rushes crackling underfoot, dogs snuffling over bones carelessly tossed to the floor. A servant pattered past, hurrying, a tray in her hands. A boy came along and lit the torches. Then the boy left, the dogs slunk from the hall, and the hall was silent and empty, save for him. He stood and waited. The demon appeared from a shadow along the wall, grew and stepped from it, marvelous in the torchlight. Fox stood and faced him. This was the reckoning. He gripped the dagger, gathering his courage. "Greetings, muuldra," the demon said, soft. He was a peasant no longer. His clothes were rich and strange, silk and a bright, deep blue, azure, the span of midnight enclosed, hemmed with crimson. He was barefoot, and wore no sword. A belt was slung around his hips, and from the belt hung a large ring of many keys, which chimed and clanked softly. "Your eyes are two honey- colored moons. Have you guessed my name?" Fox's fists clenched. "You mock me," he hissed, ground out, fire leaping behind his eyes. "You son of a whore, you... you..." He could not think of words terrible enough to call him. The demon's jade eyes sparkled with laughter, something he'd never seen before in him, and it enraged Fox further. "Come on, recite your list, I'm ready," the demon said, suddenly taunting and teasing, and Fox was furious. Never before had the demon teased him, jeered at him, held such bright laughter in his smoky voice. He wanted to hurl his dagger at him, but reigned himself in sharply, ground his teeth for a moment, then began the last list. "Spindle-shanks," he bit out. "That is not my name." The demon smiled. "Cows-ribs," he continued. "That is not my name." "Spider-legs," he spat, and the demon smiled a dazzling smile, vastly amused. "No. That is not my name." Fox hurled out all of the names he could possibly think of, from the most outrageous to the most uncommon, names he'd gleaned from far-off countries. Each time he offered a name, the infuriating smile grew and the demon replied, "No, that's not my name." Finally, Fox was done. There was nothing more to offer. He'd lost the game. He never should have played it to begin with. His shoulders slumped in defeat, his mind frosted over. The dagger hung in his hand, reminding him of what he must do. He didn't think he'd be able to do it, though. The soul-bird, which had long flown over a white wasteland, far away, swept back into the hall, alighted on a rafter. He gazed up at it, wonderingly. The soul-bird looked down at him, small and gossamer white. "Are those all the names you have to offer?" the demon asked, smiling cruelly, "is that the last of your stores?" "Yes, you bastard, yes," Fox returned, glaring, a beast in a snare. "Then you lose." Fox gripped the dagger. "You must not take her. You must not. It will kill my wife. It will steal her life away." Far above, the soul-bird watched with jet-black eyes. "I do not want the child," the demon replied mildly, tilting his head, with hair as black as the bird's eyes, skin as rich as honey. Fox started. "What?" he gasped, staring. The grip loosened on the knife. "The terms were my name, or what I wanted," the demon reminded him. "Those were the rules. If you guess my name, you keep your child. You do not guess my name, what I want is mine. I do not want the child." Fox stared. "What I want is you." The demon smiled, beautiful and terrifying all at once. Fox took one step back, away from the demon, throat undulating, hands shaking. "You are my prize," the demon continued, and Fox took another step back from the scalding apparition, as if the demon's very presence would burn him. Perhaps it would. He was terrified. "You are my price. I choose to take you, in the child's stead." Fox's back hit the tapestried wall. He could go no further. His whole body was shaking, his mind tumbling over and over, making no sense. The knife clattered to the floor, was lost in the rushes. "I-- I--" he gasped. His eyes were so wide they hurt. He could not seem to breathe. The whole wide world was tilting, stretching, cracking into pieces, splintering. Bewilderment speared him, his heart hammered in his breast. "Now your eyes are two silver suns," the demon commented, softly, and Fox turned and ran. He made it two steps before he was knocked into the rushes, hands pinning him down, immeasurably strong, and Fox thrashed against those hands, squirmed to get away, his breath loud and terrified in his ears. His legs were trapped beneath knees, his arms were pulled back and locked together, his cheek ground into the floor. Hot breath at his cheek, hair tickling his face, a sultry voice in his ear, "Don't bother running. I'll only catch you." Then a hot tongue trailing along his jaw, and he thrashed again, terrified at the warmth spreading along his spine, into his joints. He could feel himself giving in, melting, handing himself over to this maddening creature. "Let me go!" he howled, enraged, frightened. "Let me go!" "You're mine," the demon replied, chuckling darkly. "I'm going to keep you." "I'm a person, not a soup tureen; a man, not a vase or tankard. You don't *own* people," Fox spat, twisting against the sinuous form that had haunted his dreams for so long. The demon went still above him. "Then tell me you don't want me. Tell me you don't," he said quietly, shifting slightly away. Fox went still. He could not. It was a lie, and he could not lie any more. He could not. He closed his eyes in defeat. "For ages you have tormented me," he whispered, painfully, going limp on the floor. "Ever since that first night, you have held my soul, held me." "You didn't understand the questions. You wanted the wrong things," the demon replied, running a sure, slim-fingered hand proprietarily along his arm, over his back. Fox's eyes sprang open. He remembered. There is something that you need. What is it? I need this straw spun into gold. Are you certain that that is what you need? Are you certain? --Are you certain? --Are you certain? Fox stared at the demon, twisting his neck to gaze at the calmly smiling creature. He gaped at him. The demon leaned down and kissed his nose. "This-- this--" Fox gasped, "This was all a game to you, a game, from the very beginning--" "You were thinking of the wrong things." "If I had told you I needed to be freed of the dungeon, what would you have done?" "Let you go." "If I had told you I needed the King to die, what would you have done?" "I would have killed the king." "You killed my father," Fox whispered, tears suddenly pricking behind his eyes. "I did. He would have been the death of you." "You played a game with my life. You played a game with my daughter," he accused, angrily. "I did. It was necessary." The demon stood, and pulled Fox up after him, pressed his body along his own. The demon ran one hand along the curve of his derriere, cupped it possessively. "Enough games," the demon said, abruptly, smoothing his other hand along Fox's ribs. A thumb caressed a nipple through thin cloth, bringing it alive, hardening it with pleasure. "What was the purpose of all of this?" Fox demanded, trying to pull away. His body tingled with pleasure. The demon held him effortlessly, and growled a bit in warning. Fox could not give in so easily. Realizing how he had been used, manipulated, a rage burst inside of him, quick and hot and hateful and hurt. "Was all of this for your *amusement*?" Fox railed, jerking against him, trying to yank away. He was in a fury. "Do you realize how very nearly I went insane? *Do you*? How I lived in terror? How I longed for death, to kill myself? You stole my soul! You took my soul, made me love you, made me long for you, then you left! You left, and all the world was afraid of me, and I was utterly alone, and then you came back to take away my love and happiness!" Fox tried to hit him, tried to beat him, but he was held immobile against the lithe, strong frame, and suddenly the demon took him by the waist, lifted him, and sat him on the long hall's banquet table. Fox sat, stunned into silence. The demon glared at him with restrained ferocity. "I am tired of these games, muuldra," he snapped, voice low and rough, a lion's growl. Fox froze in fear at the darkly burning, angry creature. "I saved your life three times, killed the one who would destroy you, gave you up, let you go, let you marry another, let you bed another, have a child, played the game by *your* rules, did what *you* asked of me, denied myself for over a year for you. And now you want to accuse me of doing this for my own amusement?" The eyes were burning with rage, a violence that terrified. "Say it again, little one," he dared, snarling, "accuse me again of playing this game for sport." Fox sucked in a deep breath of air, stared at the gorgeous, fiery demon before him. He was all fluid air, grace, power, fury, wrath. It bewildered him. It melted him. It claimed him. "What are you?" he breathed, enthralled, terrified. The demon stilled, calmed, smiled. The rage slowly left his eyes. They were now loving, indulgent, the brightest, shining celadon. "Come," he said, "it's time to go." "Where are we going?" Fox asked, sliding off of the table after the demon, who was perhaps not a demon, after all. "Home," his lover replied. "What about--" Fox halted, his eyes clouding with pain. "What about Danae? What about Emily?" "Your *skullya* will be fine," the demon assured him, "as well your daughter. They will live long and happily together, and your wife will make a fine queen, once her father is dead." "What does that mean, 'skullya'?" Fox asked, curious. "'Little bird,'" the man replied. He took Fox's hand, and began to lead him to the end of the hall. Firelight flickered over his midnight hair, his shimmering green eyes, his midnight clothes. "What does 'muuldra' mean?" Fox asked, letting himself be led. "'Heart's treasure,'" his lover replied, smiling at him. There was a welling in his own heart, a shifting, a bursting free. Fox looked up, and saw the soul-bird lift off of the high wooden beam, dip down, and dart into his chest. His body burned, for a moment, then cooled. Silver light. Chimes. He was home. He was whole again. "What is your name?" Fox asked, once he could breathe again. The demon stopped at a shadow, stroked it lovingly. "Whatever you want it to be," he replied. Fox smiled. "Let me say good bye to my wife, my child," he said, but his lover shook his head. "No, we leave now," he told him, and Fox felt a heaviness inside him that would never leave, never dissipate, but he nodded anyway, and held in his heart a wise, wonderful woman and a tiny daughter, held them tight to himself, and followed his lover through the shadows, into fulfillment and happiness, hand clasping hand. There was a rippling of shadow, a sharp, breathless laugh, and then silence. They were gone. The End