The door to the windowless room in the King’s castle where
Dama was being held in ‘house arrest’ was opened and
two of Hoariman’s armored security men stepped
through. “The king will see you now,”
one of them announced coldly as both placed a hand on the hilt of their sheathed
swords.
“Will he now?” the once and – if she had anything to say
about it – future Fairy Godmother of Far Far Away
said as she arose from an armchair and laid aside the copy of Chicken Soup for the Deposed Megalomaniac’s
Soul that she had been reading. The
maneuver was slightly awkward due to the locked sheath that bound her wings
together to rob her of flight. “I’m
rather used to having royal invitations delivered with a bit more cordiality.”
The men just stood there, showing no reaction
whatsoever. Although Dama
couldn’t see their faces for their visors, Dama
suspected those faces where as expressionless as the metal that hid them.
“Does this have something to do with my son?” she asked
with more seriousness – trying to hide her concern.
The men said nothing for a moment, and then the one who
didn’t speak before said, “The king wishes to see you now.”
“Very well,” she sighed.
“I didn’t realize that Hoariman had recruited Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. Let’s
get this over with.”
The guards led her out the room and down a hallway. As she passed a window she glanced down and
saw a long line of people, mostly paupers judging from the raggedy clothes they
wore, waiting impatiently to be allowed into the castle. Dama shook her
head. The first stages of
Rumpelstiltskin’s scheme seemed to be progressing quite nicely.
Eventually the guards led her into a high-ceilinged throne
room. Several witches, dressed in their
regular dark attire, stood leisurely around the king’s throne, and upon the
grand seat itself sat Rumpelstiltskin. He
was wearing a royal purple velveteen robe with a furry white leopard-spotted
collar. The robe was some three sizes
too large for his diminutive frame and completely covered his torso. His feet, still sporting pointy-toed shoes
but now of a higher quality, stuck out about two-thirds of the way down the
robe, and he swung them freely as they failed to reach the floor by quite a
bit. Instead of a crown, he wore that over-sized
powdered wig again. His attention was on
another of Dama’s wands, which he seemed to be
studying as he turned it about in his hands, a curious little smile on his
lips.
“I told you that those only work for me,” Dama said smugly.
Everyone’s attention quickly shifted to Dama, whom the guards marched to within ten feet of the
throne toward Rumpel’s right, and then halted her. “The Fairy Godmother, as you commanded,
Sire,” one of the guards announced.
“Ah, welcome, my honored guest!” Rumpel said, smiling
broadly, and pointed the wand at her.
“Are you sure I can’t use
this? I did disarm you, after all.”
“Oh, please,” Dama said, rolling
her eyes. “Isomorphic control is one
thing. That ‘disarming’ tripe is just
silliness.” Then a little smirk appeared
on her face as she recalled the surprised, blackened face of Rumpel from when
the last wand exploded. “Although I’d
love to see you try.”
Rumpel returned the smirk.
“Oh, well, whatever,” he said a moment later, waving the wand dismissively. “Anyway, that’s not why I summoned you. Let’s get this over with, shall we? I hear I have lots of customers – I mean,
subjects – to attend to!”
“Yes, I saw,” Dama said. “The first stage of your
‘Rumpel Deal’ plan to enslave the population and hoard all of the kingdom’s
wealth to yourself.”
“Yes, good summary exposition!” he said.
“It won’t work, you know,” Dama
said.
“How’s that?”
“Once people realize that you tricked them, they won’t sit
by like docile animals,” she explained.
“They’ll rise up against you. That’s
human nature, and you apparently underestimate it.”
“Oh, hardly,” Rumpel scoffed. “In my line of business, I’ve had to
understand it quite well, particularly its less noble
aspects, and how it can be manipulated.
Not unlike yourself, I might add. Anyway, I’ve taken that into account, and
that’s why I’ve arranged for a different…shall we say, scapegoat to sacrifice
to their frustration? And I have you to thank for the inspiration!”
“What?” Dama said irritably. “What are you talking about?”
“Ogres!” Rumpel said. “Big, smelly, ugly ogres! Huge brutes that the citizens don’t
understand but, being different and outsiders, they fear and distrust at a
visceral level. Heck, they’re already
the boogey-men of half the campfire stories around here. And it doesn’t help them that many ogres seem
to enjoy scaring the fools that trespass
on their land. Might I also speculate
that it was this distaste for ogres that somehow inspired Fiona’s nocturnal
transmogrifications to begin with?”
Dama stared hard at Rumpel and said
nothing for a long while. Then, ignoring
Rumpel’s question, she said, “Your idea’s absurd. Exactly how
do you plan to do that? And if you think
people are stupid enough to overlook your blatant grab for wealth and power and
instead blame some fringe group for their economic problems—”
Rumpel again waved the wand dismissively. “It’s been done before, it’ll be done
again. Hey, I’ve been living with a
bunch of witches, we know all about unfair persecution. ‘What, did the crops fail, or did the well
run dry? Then it must be because of a
witch! Fire the stakes!’”
The witches in the room all nodded and bitterly mumbled
their agreement.
“Witch hunts, my dear Fairy Godmother, be they literal or
figurative, are nothing new,” Rumpel continued.
“As to the ‘how’? Well, you just need to know how to manipulate
peoples’ fears and prejudices in just the right way. That will be handled by me and my propa—, um, news outlet.
But enough didacticism. You needn’t worry your glittered little head
about the details. I would think your
more immediate concern would be for your son.”
“My son?” Dama
said, all other thoughts suddenly washed away. “Charming?
Is he here?”
“Oh, yes,” Rumpel said.
“He arrived a short while ago. Unfortunately, he’s headless.”
A cold chill ran down Dama’s
back. “W-what?” she croaked.
“He was instructed to arrive with Princess Fiona’s head,
and he rode in without it,” Rumpel explained.
Dama at first felt relief for her son,
and then glared hotly at the imp as his lips curled in an evil little
grin. Dama tried
to calm herself, screwed up what dignity and composure she could, and said,
“Where is he? I demand to see him!”
Rumpel chuckled.
“Old habits die hard, don’t they, my dear? However, since his presence is in my own
interests as well…”
Rumpel snapped his fingers. A moment later a door at the opposite side of
the room burst open and two other guards entered with Prince Charming between
them. He was still in his armor but his
helmet was gone and his blond hair was now mussed. The guards, each grasping an arm, led him roughly
forward as Charming protested indignantly, “Unhand me, you blaggards!”
“Junior!” Dama
cried, her relief overcoming her attempt to maintain her composure.
Charming at last noticed his mother. “Mummy!” he cried, and tried unsuccessfully
to pull free of the guards’ grasp and run to her. They halted a few feet in front of Rumpel’s
throne toward the imp’s left, leaving Rumpel, Dama,
and Charming in a triangle, with about twenty feet separating the mother from her
son.
“Awwww, now isn’t this a moving
sight?” Rumpel said mockingly. Then he
turned toward Charming and added, with growing bitterness in his voice as he
leaned forward in this throne, “And it would all have ended so much more
happily if you had just done as you were instructed!”
Charming glared defiantly at Rumpel for a few seconds,
then said, “I refuse to be treated
like this, you cur!” and again began struggling against the strong hands that
held him.
Rumpel waved his hand, “All right, Prince, if you can stand there and face me as a man, I’ll have them release you.”
Charming stopped struggling, stared at Rumpel for a
moment, and then stood straight and nodded.
Rumpel in turn nodded to the guards, who unhanded Charming…but
stood alertly to either side of him.
Rumpel regained his own composure, then leaned back in the
throne and toyed with the wand as he said, “So, Prince, would you care to
explain why you failed your
commission?”
“I did not fail,”
Charming spat back. “Fiona is dead.
That I swear.”
Rumpel, whose beady eyes had been studying Charming
intensely even though his demeanor appeared relaxed, said, “Then why did you
not return with her head as ordered?”
“Princess Fiona was of royal blood,” Charming
replied. “I could not desecrate her
corpse to satisfy the morbid bloodlust of a lowly creature such as yourself. Her body
burned in the lava, with dignity more in keeping with her position, and is
beyond your grubby reach. I brought back
her blood and her hair. That should be
sufficient proof of my fulfillment of your bloody orders, and is more than you
deserve, you rodent-faced little demon.”
“How dare you!” the witch Baba said, and strode forward
with her hand raised to slap the prince.
“Baba, stop!” Rumpel ordered before the witch
could strike. Baba turned, hand still raised, to face her master.
“That is just too cliché,” he
said.
Baba lowered her hand reluctantly and nodded obediently to
Rumpel. She then turned back to
Charming, sniffed in distaste, then turned again and retreated back to rejoin
the other witches.
“Besides,” Rumpel said, his eyes, which had been studying
Charming carefully during the prince’s explanation, narrowing, “he seems to be telling the truth. Still, there’s something not quite…well, we
can test his evidence at least.” The imp
put down the wand momentarily and clapped his hands. “Gristle!”
he shouted.
Suddenly the door through which Charming had been led
opened again and a four-foot long cart came wheeling in, being pushed by a stout
witch who, unlike her fellows, wore a wrinkled white lab coat with various
stains on it. She wore no hat but
instead some sort of pair of goggles was strapped across her scraggly gray-streaked
black hair, the eyepieces sitting on her forehead.
She stopped the cart in front of Rumpel. The cart was covered by an old white
tablecloth, which also bore a variety of stains and even some burn marks. Upon the tablecloth sat a variety of flasks
and beakers that contained various colors of liquids and powders. In addition, a miniature black cauldron sat
upon a small fire in the exact center of the cart.
“Fairy Godmother, Charming,” Rumpel said, “This is Jill
Gristle of the Crone Spells Inquest division.
She will verify that the blood and hair that Charming supplied did
indeed come from the supposedly deceased princess. Gristle, you may proceed.”
“Yes, sir…Sire,
sir,” the witch said. Then she fumbled
in one lab coat pocket and pulled out a small clump of red hair that was bound
together with a small bow. “This was
found in Princess Fiona’s room, pressed in a scrapbook, and is reportedly a
lock of her hair from when she was a small child.” She laid that down on the table, reached into
another pocket, and pulled out a section of a red ponytail. “This is the hair that the prince returned
with. And this…” the witch reached into
another pocket and carefully drew out a dagger covered in dried blood. “…is the instrument that the prince
purportedly used to dispatch said princess.
I will now verify all three came from the same individual.”
The witch lowered the goggles so that the eyepieces were
over her eyes, which made them appear comically huge, and then set to work
quickly mixing the potions and powders with strands of plucked hair and
scrapings from the dagger. As she worked
the room was filled with some pounding techno-rhythm music that had everyone
looking about and trying to identify its source. After a few minutes and a final poof of white
smoke from the cauldron the music abruptly stopped and the witch raised her
goggles, turned to Rumpel, and said, “Finished, Sire. I can positively verify that all of the hair
and blood came from the same person, to a degree of ninety-nine point nine
certitude, the point one allowing for possible fluctuations due to…”
“Thank you, Gristle, that will be all,” Rumpel said.
“Oh. Uh, yes, sir. Sire.
Thank you, Sire,” she said, then wheeled her cart back out the same door
through which she had entered. As she
did so, Rumpel sat hunched on his throne, tapping the wand in the palm of one
hand while staring contemplatively at Charming.
“Are you satisfied now, Stiltskin?”
Dama demanded distastefully, feeling a surprising
tinge of guilt over Fiona’s fate. “You
got what you wanted.”
“And if that doesn’t satisfy you,” Charming said, “you may
also have the dragon and its wealth.”
Both Dama’s and Rumpel’s eyes
widened, and each said simultaneously, “What?”
“The dragon has been fought and rendered helpless,” the
prince said. “It is lying pinned beneath
a pile of rubble in its keep. You may
now feel free to raid it of its treasure and do with the beast itself as you
will.”
“Junior, how could you?” Dama
said. “You know you didn’t need to do
that, you just had to let it scent you and then…”
“I know, Mother, but it turned out all right,” Charming
said to Dama, then turned to Rumpel. “I thought offering it might sweeten the
deal, and provide more inspiration for this villain to keep his part of the
bargain.”
“You fought and
defeated the dragon?” Rumpel asked, still sounding skeptical.
“Who else?” Charming said, defiantly thrusting
out his chin.
“Indeed,” Rumpel said, pursing his lips thoughtfully.
“Then I command you to release us, fiend!” Charming said.
“Not so fast!” Rumpel said, hopping off the throne. He strode over to Charming and, gesturing up
at him with the wand, said, “You forget that you are not the one in position to be giving commands here, young
pr—”
With one lightning-fast move, Charming snatched the wand
out of Rumpel’s hand and tossed it to his mother, calling “Mummy!”
Dama caught the wand and with the same
swift follow-through motion pointed its tip toward her back and then, with a
flash, the sheath around her wings vanished.
She quickly fluttered her wings and shot upward some twenty feet just
before the guards could seize her arms.
She turned in the air as all four guards drew their swords. Spinning in a 360 degree turn, she struck
each sword with a blast from her wand, and each blade turned to rubber and
wilted toward the floor. One of the
witches tossed up a clattering metallic skull trap. Dama flicked her
wand and the skull disappeared, the chain that had held it dropping uselessly
to the floor. Another witch tossed
another skull trap, and Dama easily repeated the
maneuver. Then a broad wave of the wand
and suddenly there was a full cooler of Gatorade above each witch’s head.
“Careful, ladies,” Dama
warned. “Studies show that it’s even
more effective than water for dousing a witch.
One false move and it will be on you.”
With the witches now frozen in terror and staring fixedly
up at the coolers, Dama turned to Rumpel. “And now, as for you...” she began, pointing her wand at him.
“No! Please! Don’t!
I’ll do anything you say!” Rumpel begged, hands
clenched before him, sudden fear in his voice and on his face.
Dama smiled at the little creature’s
discomfort. She and Charming shared a
smirk of triumph as Rumpel cowered.
“Now,” Dama said to Rumpel, “since you’ve so
crudely negated a proper line of succession, we’ll have no choice but to claim
the kingdom by the right of conquest.”
“B-but what about our deal?” Rumpel whined. “If I accept that Charming has fulfilled his
part of the bargain in dispatching Princess Fiona…and I hereby accept that he
has…then I agree that you can have your boy back. It’s in the contract!”
“That hardly matters now,” Dama scoffed. “Besides, don’t be silly. I never signed any of your contracts. I’m not that stupid.”
“No,” Rumpel agreed.
Then he stopped cowering, straightened up, smiled, nodded toward
Charming, and said, “But he is.”
Dama’s jaw dropped, and she looked over
at her son, who appeared suddenly chagrined.
“Junior!” she gasped. “Please
tell me you didn’t—”
“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said. “They told me they’d kill you if I didn’t
sign it. They told me—” A look of terror suddenly filled Charming’s face.
“Mummy!” he said. “Something’s
happening!”
As Dama watched in horror,
Charming started to shrink. And as he
shrank, he appeared to be getting younger.
“Mummy!” he cried again, now in a small boy’s voice. “Mum-meeee!”
“No!” Dama cried, and quickly flicked her wand at her son as she
cast a negation spell. He was briefly
encased in a flash of sparkly lights, but Dama’s
spell had no other effect as her son continued to shrink. Dama tried again,
but it was equally futile.
“Tut-tut-tut,” Rumpel said,
waving an index finger. “Don’t you know
that it’s bad manners to interfere with another magic user’s spell? Besides, you can’t counteract it; the contract is legally and magically binding!”
Charming’s diminishing frame sank out of
sight within his collapsing armor.
A moment later, as a dumbstruck Dama
watched, Rumpel reached down and carefully moved the armor out of the way. There, lying on his scarlet cape as if it
were a blanket, was a little baby boy.
He looked up at Dama and gurgled happily.
“There,” Rumpel said, smiling evilly up at Dama. “As promised
in the contract, you’ve got your boy back!”
Dama, mouth still agape, stared down
at the baby for several seconds. Then
her gaze shifted to the imp, who was still grinning triumphantly. “You…you little impudent monster!” she spat. “You deceitful scoundrel!”
“At your service,” Rumpel said, taking a mock bow. “But look at the bright side; now you can
experience all of the challenges and joys of raising a child all over
again! Hey, how many mothers of sons
like Charming wouldn’t want a second
chance? Honestly?”
Dama felt her rage build. The tip of her wand turned bright white and
began crackling. Rumpel’s triumphant
demeanor began to crack. “Now…wait a
minute, Fairy Godmother,” he said, raising his hands toward her. “Okay, I can see you’re upset. Maybe we can make another deal…I’ll draw up a
new contract and—”
“Stiltskin!” Dama wailed. “You’ve messed with the wrong Fairy
Godmother!” She then threw her wand hand
forward. A bolt of glistening white
lightning leapt from the wand’s star tip and arched toward Rumpel. As it did so, Rumpel’s face once more assumed
its triumphant expression as with both hands he pulled open his purple robe…to
expose a shiny metal breastplate beneath.
The bolt struck the breastplate, knocking Rumpel tumbling backward. But the bolt also rebounded off of the
breastplate and sped back toward Dama. Dama had no time to
do anything but gasp in surprise before the bolt hit her, sending her tumbling
backward through the air for several feet.
Dama, feeling a strange tingling across her
body, briefly examined herself, but did not see any wounds. She looked back down to see Rumpel rising
from the floor, wigless, steam rising from the scorched breastplate but
otherwise unharmed. That obnoxious grin
was still on his face. Dama’s eyes narrowed as she aimed at that face, drew her
wand hand back, and—
She exploded into a cloud of bubbles.
Dama’s wand and glasses clattered to the
floor as the coolers of Gatorade winked out of existence. A moment later a laughing Rumpel was joined
by a cadre of his witches who helped pull the scorched breastplate off of
him. “Well, a little soreness and a
couple of bruises, but that was more than worth it,” he said as one of the witches
plopped his wig back atop his head. “Foreknowledge is a wonderfully useful
thing! Or in this case, would that be
hindsight? Oh, well. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.” As he brushed himself off the witches all
applauded.
Off to the side the baby began crying. Rumpel looked down at him for a moment, and
then called, “Baba!”
“G’aah!” Baba said, snapping to
attention.
Rumpel gestured toward the child. “Take that to my uncle. You can probably find him at the Poisoned
Apple. He always wanted a baby prince to
raise. Tell him
he can have that one, and give him my compliments. He gets so few of his own.”
As Baba wrapped up the young prince in his
cape-turned-blanket and carried him away, Rumple poked playfully at one of the
many bubbles that were descending and popping harmlessly on the floor. “Sorry to burst your bubbles, Fairy
Godmother,” he said, and laughed at his own joke. Then his grin turned demoniacal as he said,
“Now with the Godmother and Fiona gone, and Shrek
destined to arrive as a hated fugitive who people would only think mad if he
shared his story, and with no way for him to enact his escape clause, there’s
no one that can stop me!” He raised his
arms, shook his little fists and shouted with glee up at the ceiling, “No one!”
He laughed maniacally for a few moments, and as he calmed down he mused,
“Ah, it’s times like this that I wish I had a mustache
to twirl!”