Shiny Bits of Life

This short story is a guest post by my brother Bill, for your hol­i­day read­ing plea­sure. (Thanks Bill!)

It’s a lit­tle dark in the con­text of your opti­mistic beginning-of-a-new-year moods, but I still think it’s entertaining.

Once there was a cruel and clever king. He lived in a large cas­tle on a high hill­top, over­look­ing a beau­ti­ful green val­ley and a lake. In those days, a dragon took up res­i­dence in the king­dom. The dragon let it be known that he would destroy all the vil­lages one by one unless he was given a beau­ti­ful vir­gin to eat. When the King heard this, he grew angry and turned red in the face. He bel­lowed, “We do not nego­ti­ate with ter­ror­ists!” (The King liked to refer to him­self using the royal “We.”) He refused to meet the dragon’s demands.

To show his con­tempt for the dragon and dis­dain for the serfs, the King made his courtiers put on a comedic play where a dragon ate a whole vil­lage. The role of the dragon was played by the largest and fat­test noble. Each time he “ate” a vil­lager, he let out a loud, con­vinc­ing belch. Sit­ting next to the King, his only child, the lovely (and vir­ginal) Ses­beth, did not laugh. She was as kind as her father was cruel. Ses­beth loved the peo­ple of the king­dom, and they loved her. Despite all of that, her father trea­sured Ses­beth more than all else in the world. In his cold, cruel heart, he had a soft spot for his daughter.

Not hav­ing received his trib­ute of a lovely vir­gin, one bright morn­ing the dragon flew over the vil­lage of Moss­felk, breath­ing flames and burn­ing every­thing to the ground. Upon hear­ing this, the King stub­bornly refused to change his stance. “No nego­ti­at­ing!” he shouted again, although per­haps with a bit less con­vic­tion. Over the next few days the dragon destroyed two more vil­lages, Humpert and Rosehearth.

Now the King began to worry. If all his vil­lages were destroyed, where would he get his annual trib­ute of gold? Who would har­vest the food that spread across his din­ner table? He sum­moned his court wiz­ard, the ancient and wise Albrey. The King told Albrey of a plan he had devised, and required him to fash­ion a dop­pel­ganger for Ses­beth. The faux Ses­beth would be exactly like her in every way except one. She would be ensor­celled with a pow­er­ful spell that would instantly destroy her killer.

Albrey imme­di­ately set about research­ing the task, search­ing through his spell­books. He also qui­etly gath­ered bits and pieces of from the life of Princess Ses­beth, such as one of her neglected child­hood dolls, a scarf she no longer wore, and bits of her hair from a used hair­brush. Finally he began cre­at­ing the dop­pel­ganger, work­ing through the night. Just to have a name for his project, he decided to call her Tesh. Peo­ple in the cas­tle didn’t know what was going on, but they saw mys­te­ri­ous flashes of light and heard rum­bling noises, and they wondered.

Finally Albrey was fin­ished. He secretly brought Tesh to the King’s quar­ters. The King walked slowly around Albrey’s cre­ation, whistling as he admired the result. “She’ll do,” he said. Albrey explained that Tesh could only exist for ten days, at which point she would dis­ap­pear in a puff of smoke. The King called for his Cap­tain of the Guard. He ordered that the most trust­wor­thy and brave guard be brought to him. Moments later, a sturdy guard named Morrt stepped into the King’s cham­bers. He appeared some­what ner­vous, but also res­olute in his pos­ture as he awaited the King’s orders. The Cap­tain was dis­missed, and the King told Morrt what he wanted. Refer­ring to Tesh, he started with “She looks like the Princess, but it’s not her.” Morrt was to take Tesh away under a cloak and hide her in a remote cham­ber within the cas­tle until she could be taken to the dragon’s den.

Ses­beth awoke the next morn­ing feel­ing appre­hen­sive. Some­thing was wrong. She couldn’t say what was wrong, but she felt strangely com­pelled to go to the tallest tower in the cas­tle, and the tower cham­ber where pris­on­ers were some­times kept. There, she met Morrt. She com­pelled him to tell her what was going on. At first he resisted, but even­tu­ally the Princess’ beauty and gen­tle nature defeated his fear of the Cap­tain and King, and her told her what he knew.

Not know­ing any­thing about the mag­i­cal aspects of Tesh’s cre­ation or her hid­den nature, Ses­beth was hor­ri­fied that this looka­like girl would be sac­ri­ficed in her place. She quickly decided what she must do.

That after­noon, Morrt rode out. On the horse beside him rode a cloaked fig­ure. The King watched from his win­dow high above the court­yard and gate, finally turn­ing away when they left his view.

Two days passed, includ­ing the expected time of the dragon’s next vil­lage attack, but no attack came. Indeed, the King’s scouts reported that it appeared the dragon had left the king­dom! Receiv­ing the news, the King rushed through the cas­tle until he found his daugh­ter, eager to cel­e­brate her sur­vival and the suc­cess of his scheme.

As he approached Ses­beth, how­ever, he noticed her expres­sion, an odd sort of grim, wide smile. Then she threw her head back and laughed, a loud, gut­tural cackle. The King imme­di­ately knew some­thing was wrong. An instant later, he real­ized what had hap­pened — the girl who stood before him was not Ses­beth, but rather the wizard’s cre­ation, Tesh. His com­pas­sion­ate daugh­ter must have fig­ured out what was hap­pen­ing, and sac­ri­ficed her­self instead. In his rage and grief, the King drew the jewel encrusted dag­ger he always wore from the sheath at his belt, and fiercely plunged it deep into Tesh’s chest. Only then did he remem­ber the ter­ri­ble spell, and his mighty cry was quickly silenced as the he and Tesh each dis­in­te­grated into twin piles of ashes.