The night was already late, but Inara would not be still, much less sleep. Nicklaus was on duty, having leaned hard on Juniper for child care while he worked. His apprentices were improving enough to handle day-to-day business, but Nick still needed to stop in regularly at the brewery for lessons and troubleshooting. Mentoring might not be a full-time job, but it was intense work at times. Parenting, by contrast, was thirty hours a day of low-grade worry.
For example, wondering what was fretting a certain infant daughter. She was fed, burped, changed, warm, and waited upon. Nick had tried stillness, rocking, walking, even a bit of fly-the-baby. Each change quieted her for a moment, but she soon tired of each and every activity.
Nicklaus settled her into her carved bassinet, rocking it with the foot-pedal while he thought. If everything was upsetting her, he might as well be comfortable.
He looked around the room, and his eyes lit on the wall bookshelf, home to a growing collection of volumes he himself would have killed... well, badly beaten someone... to own as a child. Inara had no use for them, of course, not even understanding the spoken words yet, but the new parents had been told that reading helped hasten that development.
Nicklaus stood and walked to the shelf, running his finger along the row of spines. A hungry mouse... a hungry caterpillar... some kind of dogs with spoiled food... these books involved a lot of animals eating. He didn’t recognize any of the stories, even with his improving grasp of Rhydin’s common writing.
One old volume was in a tongue of Man he recognized, the Germans. Grimm... a good name for writers of tales about the meetings of Man and other races. Those interactions usually were grim.
Nicklaus leafed through the book while Inara sniffled, working herself toward a serious cry. He was surprised to see a name he recognized among the story titles. Turning to the indicated page, he read a bit... then snorted.
“That’s not how I heard it at all. No surprise, since they have the most important part spelled wrong.”
He addressed his remarks to Inara, who could not reply, but she seemed interested at the tone and cadence of his words.
Encouraged, Nicklaus continued: “It’s pronounced Rumpelstilzchen. It’s a dvergr name, after all... he was a dverg. A real one. I was told this story as a child, also, but in its original form.”
He walked to the bassinet, where a pair of ice-blue eyes stared up, entranced.
You want to hear it, minn ljos? Well, then, I don’t need this.” Nicklaus closed the book and set it aside. “I will tell you the story how I heard it. The true story.”
Once, there was once a young woman of Midgard, the daughter of a miner, whose wife had died. The daughter was quite beautiful, which drew all kinds of unwanted attention. To protect his child, the miner brought her down with him into the tunnels, where she would be safer.
This choice upset the young men of the town, because they could not court her. They harassed the miner, saying he did not trust them, or perhaps he thought his daughter was too good for them.
The miner became afraid of their anger and made up a lie to appease them: he claimed that his daughter could sing gold up from the ground. She helped him so much, he said, that he could not afford to go to work without her.
This strange story spread, and soon it reached the ears of the king in that land. The king wished to see this wonder and sent for the miner and his daughter. They could not refuse a royal summons. The miner should have admitted his error and accepted blame, but he could not; he was still too afraid.
The king asked for a demonstration of this amazing power, and the miner made all kinds of excuses why his daughter couldn’t just perform on demand.
He said, “It must be done deep underground, or else the earth will grow angry.”
The king answered, “I have a deep mine. We will go there.”
He said, “The song will not work if anyone is listening.”
The king asked, “How is that, if you are with her?”
The miner said, “Well, I plug my ears.”
The king said, “Then I, too, will plug my ears.”
The miner said, “Oh, but you cannot watch her, anyway. Anyone standing too close will scare away the gold. I, myself, have to go hide in a side tunnel until my daughter is finished singing.”
The king, understandably, was quite skeptical by then. He might have forgiven the miner, if the man had admitted that he was lying right away. After so many evasions, the king was angry and wanted to punish the miner.
He said, “Fine. All your conditions will be met, but I must see this for myself. Your daughter must prove your claims... or else you will be proven a liar and executed for deceiving me.”
On the king’s orders, warriors seized the miner and his daughter. The miner was thrown in a cell and the daughter brought to the deepest tunnel of the king’s own mines. The king told her that he would return the next morning. If she showed him the gold she had collected, she and her father would be released with his apologies. If not, her father would die.
The king and the guards left the poor woman only a lantern, a water-skin and a pallet of straw. Otherwise, all around her was stone and darkness. When they were gone, so far away that she could not even hear their footsteps, the woman was terrified. She knew she could not fulfill her father’s foolish promises. He would die. Perhaps the king would even leave her below. That might be better; she would be tormented forever in the town if she returned alone.
She began to weep, quietly at first, but louder as her despair grew. She did not hear small footsteps approaching. She did not see the dverg, for in dark tunnels, they are nearly invisible. When the dwarf touched her sleeve, she screamed, which amused him.
The dwarf asked what she was doing so deep beneath the ground, crying so loudly, disturbing his peace. The woman told him her sad tale, which the dverg heard with fading patience.
His only interest was when she mentioned the human king above, the enemy who intruded upon his lands below. The dverg’s irritation made him grow, until he was as large as the human woman. He bid her stop talking and cast his runes, seeing in them the pattern of Wyrd to come. He smiled with wicked brilliance.
He said, “I will help you, and in helping you, improve both our fortunes. You will escape, you and your father. You will become famous. Your fame will bring you a good husband. In return for all these gifts, made possible by my help, I ask only one thing in return: the fostering of your first-born child. I am lonely and want someone to care for.”
Really, he only wanted someone to care for him, a slave to shovel his stone and cook his meals.
The woman, having no other hope, agreed to this evil bargain. No sooner was the oath made than the dwarf set about his work. He gathered up the straw from the floor and wove a basket, wide and thick. Then, he led the woman to a stream that flowed deep in the tunnels. Dipping the basket into the water and gravel, he spun it about, sometimes rotating like a top, sometimes swirling in great circles, again and again. The water flowed between the gaps in the straw, but flecks of gold stuck to the stalks. He repeated this trick several times, then handed the woman the basket and told her to do the same.
When the morning came, the woman was exhausted, but happy. She had gathered a sizable pile of gold. The dverg had vanished long before, of course. She brought the gold back up, so that none would suspect how she got it.
When the king returned to find her, he was amazed to see the gold. He apologized, over and over, and brought her back above. He insisted that she have a bath and a new dress to replace the one ruined in the dirty tunnels. When she was cleaned and dressed and perfumed, she was even more beautiful; her father hardly knew her when they met again and embraced.
In fact, she was so beautiful that she caught the eye of the King’s son, the prince of the realm. When he learned that she was so pure of soul that gold would come to her voice, he insisted that he be allowed to court her. Though she was not the wonder her father claimed, she was otherwise a good woman, and quickly won the prince’s heart.
In a few months’ time, the happy couple were wed, and shortly after that, a child was on its way. The miner’s daughter, now a princess, remembered the dverg, but hoped he would not collect his price. How would he even know, when he was so far below, and she so high above? Perhaps he would forget. Even if he did somehow find her again, she could offer him great riches instead, more than enough to repay his help.
Nine months later, two years after that meeting in the deep darkness, a boy, a princely heir, was born to the royal couple. No sooner were the mother and babe left alone in the dark, than there came a tugging at her sleeve.
The dverg had known the day and time of the child’s birth. He knew where to find her. He could slip unseen through the tunnels and the castle, to corner her in secret.
He demanded his payment: the child, as promised. A princeling was even more valuable than a mere slave-boy, after all. He would be a hostage... the king and his son would never bother the dverg again. The dwarf would gain great prestige among his own kind for holding such a noble child in thrall. Once the man was grown, he would be even more useful: a source of royal blood for magic, a warrior to throw against enemies...
Oh, there was nothing the dverg would accept instead, not money, not land, not the princess herself. He replied with growing impatience to each of her offers. As she grew more upset, the child began to cry. The dverg clapped his hands to his ears, in pain. In his fury, he grew larger and larger, until his head brushed the ceiling.
Finally, he agreed to a new bargain.
“I will return in two years, when the brat is more manageable. By my runes, the old king will be dead by then, and his son will reign. You will be queen. When I return, you must give me not only the princeling, but also all of the earth beneath your kingdom!”
The miner’s daughter, the princess, was shrewd, and demanded a better deal.
“For such a great demand,” she said, “I need a surety, a way to know the Gods approve of my oath.”
The dverg spat and fumed. Wanting to be gone, he agreed, “Fine then. If you can discover my name... my true name, every syllable of it... that will release you. I will return home and never bother you again. If you cannot, you will give me everything you owe... your child, the land, and every jewel you own. Take it or leave it. I can always just take the brat, instead.”
The princess accepted, again clinging to her only thin hope. The dverg calmed himself as she quieted the baby and slipped from the room just before the prince returned to check on his wife and child.
The princess tried to go on as before. She even regained some hope that the terrible dwarf would not return, but when the old king died just as the dverg had predicted, she grew afraid once more.
Now the queen and the mother of a growing child, the miner’s daughter sought some way to find the dwarf’s name. In private, hidden from her husband, she consulted sages and priests, skalds and explorers, but none knew the name of the dverg she sought. She collected the names of other dwarves, just in case her tormentor was similarly named -- Dwalr and Svard, Bimbombam and Ori -- but she had no reassurance that any of the names would be right.
Finally, the last few days fell away until the princeling’s second birthday. The queen was frantic. She still did not have the dverg’s name. In desperation, she turned to a source she had avoided: a sedhkona, a seeress.
It was said that such a seer could travel all about the World-Tree, to the gods and the weavers of Wyrd, to find an answer to any question... but in doing so, the questioner would draw the attention of those beings and become bound in their schemes. The price would be whatever the answering being chose to charge and might be quite high: a year of service, an eye, or a shameful act in public, for examples.
By then, the queen was willing to take any risk and pay any price to keep her son. She went to the sedhkona, who listened to her tale with a smile. The seeress then sat in her chair, holding her staff, and grasped her cord, while assistants hooded her head and lit incense to send her spirit traveling. The queen sat nearby, wringing her hands, as the seeress sat silent.
After an age, the sedhkona looked up. She spoke with a voice the queen recognized: not a god or a fell spirit, but the dverg himself!
The seeress and the dwarf sang a song:
Merrily, a feast I make
Today, I brew
Tomorrow, I bake.
Merrily, I dance and sing
The next day will
A princeling bring.
Because she’ll never know my name
I’ll take the child
From a miner queen.
Never will she ever ken
A name like
Rumpelstilzchen!
The sedkona soon came out of her trance and looked at the queen curiously. When the queen asked what the service cost, the seeress said, “Ask Rumpelstilzchen, for he answered your question himself. I suspect, though, that for a truth, you will yet owe a truth.”
Overjoyed, the queen thanked the sedhkona and returned home.
The next night, the dverg crept into the prince’s room, ready to snatch up the baby and flee... but the queen was there waiting for him.
He laughed, asking, “Have you yet guessed my name?”
The queen made a great show of begging his mercy, but the dwarf was pitiless. Then, she guessed some of the names her searchers had found: “Bili? Narfin, Dapple-grey?” With each wrong guess, the dverg laughed nastily and told her she was wrong.
Finally, the queen said, “Well then, your name must be... Rumpelstilzchen!”
The dwarf knew that he had been cheated of his prize, but he was bound by his oath. Still, nothing prevented him from crushing the woman and her stupid baby. He screamed and stomped about, and with each stomp, he grew bigger and bigger. Soon, he was gigantic, rattling the stones of the castle. The queen snatched up her son and ran for her life.
The dverg grew so large that the floor could no longer bear his weight... and it collapsed, along with the wall and part of the ceiling. An entire section of the castle crumbled, crushing and burying Rumpelstilzchen.
When the castle’s warriors came running to see what had happened, they found the queen and the prince, safe but covered in mortar-dust, near a great hole with a dead dwarf at its bottom.
Then, the king arrived and asked what had happened.
The queen had no choice but to tell him the truth... the entire truth.
Nicklaus finished the story and held still and silent. Inara had closed her eyes while listening to the seeress’ rhyme. They remained closed. Her tiny breaths came slow and regular.
He fought the urge to chuckle aloud but did laugh in his mind. No wonder that the old tales settled her down. To the men who wrote such things, these were fancies, the hazy memories of past wonders. To Inara, stories of alfar and dvergr, trolls and giants, those were her history and heritage. Nicklaus wouldn’t be surprised if she found the sugar-coated revisions tedious and preferred the iron-bound, horrible reality instead.
He stood and slid the book back onto the shelf with a burglar’s care. Then, Nick padded from the room, praying he could get to the couch for a quick nap.
Going to the bedroom was asking too much. Besides the added distance and risk of a noisy step, he was still nervous about leaving Inara alone. That last intruder from Myrkheim had come too close.
Nicklaus was conscious of the irony of telling a story about a child-thief to a child who had nearly been snatched herself. Given the choice between sickly-sweet “fairy tales” and the actual worlds they were based upon... Nicklaus might prefer the rainbows and unicorns, himself.