Author: Cornelia Funke
Date: 2013-08-30 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Fantasy
Description: The MirrorWorld Anthology is a collection of 13 illustrated stories that expand on the fantasy world of author Cornelia Funke's Reckless and Fearless novels—the first two installments in her MirrorWorld series.
Publisher: Mirada Digital Publications

Introduction

When writing a book series as expansive and fantastical as MirrorWorld, the full extent of characters and contextual details born in the process can seldom be contained within the books themselves. Entire volumes worth of observations and stories do not make it into the original publications, but rather remain suspended in the creative ether, without form or voice. Some don’t even make it into the author’s conscious mind, as they are held by the characters alone....

... Unless the author decides to go looking for them....

This anthology contains the rewards of such an exploration: Cornelia Funke has revisited her novels Reckless and Fearless, the first two in her MirrorWorld series, to bring you further enchanted tales and treasures from the characters whom she knew had so much more to tell us. The resulting works are divided into two parts: short stories first, followed by an appendix of additional archival materials from MirrorWorld.

These backstories and insights have been conceived and published in a remarkably unrestrained and undiluted fashion – straight from the author’s heart, deep in the forest. We hope you enjoy the discovery.

The MirrorWorld Anthology

Stories:

Chapter 1:

The Mirror

Chapter 2:

The Treasure Hunter

Chapter 3:

The Beginning

Chapter 4:

Hopes & Dreams

Chapter 5:

The Spell of a Fairy

Chapter 6:

How the Tailor Came to the Hungry Forest

Chapter 7:

The Yearning

Chapter 8:

One for the Other

Chapter 9:

A Bad Substitute Father

Appendix

Child Eating Witch Recipes
The original folios from which these recipes have been translated and transcribed were discovered inside an abandoned gingerbread house in the Hungry Forest.

Mischievous & Miraculous Plants of Austry & Lotheraine
A botanical guide, by F.G. Ozwalt, highlighting some of MirrorWorld’s most fiendish, but unassuming residents.

Journal of Ogres
The tragically unfinished field journal of MirrorWorld naturalist Heinrich Eichholz.

The Silent Sabre

The definitive manual on self-defense and gentlemanly conflict, by MirrorWorld’s greatest swordsman and chivalry practitioner, Sir Willard Wallace III.

A map showing the regions traveled by Jacob Reckless and Albert Chanute.

The Mirror

Semmelweis. John Reckless had often wondered whether he would have noticed Rosamund if she’d had a different surname. He always gave himself the same answer: not likely. Rosamund did not possess the kind of beauty he liked to adorn himself with. When it came to his own character, John had no illusions: he was aware of his self-centeredness, his vanity and his craving for fame and success, despite knowing that he wasn’t half as talented as he made others believe…

No.

He wouldn’t have noticed her.

Rosamund was almost painfully shy, and she despised everything he found entertaining – parties, travel... she didn’t even like New York, despite the fact that one of the city’s buildings was named after her family.

The Semmelweis Building was better known for its bizarre stone sculptures than for its architecture. Though Rosamund’s family still owned two of the apartments in the building, they were no longer as rich as when her great-great-grandfather had built the giant brick block. Ignaaz Theodor Semmelweis had been a chemist – and a millionaire, who had gained his fortune under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

Rosamund had been unveiling a plaque commemorating her family’s efforts in promoting science and technology at the university where John was a mediocre engineering student. She’d worn a dress that didn’t suit her and had barely managed to utter a word.

But the name.

Rosamund Louise Semmelweis. It had gilded her ash blond hair and made her shy gracefulness as precious as her address.

What had he hoped for? That wealth would get over his disappointment that he was nowhere near the genius he so wanted to be?

Rosamund’s parents of course warned her of the ambitious nobody. But she’d been so in love that their admonitions only made him more exciting. And he had loved what she saw in him. For a while her love actually convinced him that he was the wonderful and endlessly talented man she believed in.

John still felt that way when their first son was born. Jacob looked so much like him that John felt as if he were looking at a mirror made of flesh and blood. And Jacob didn’t just resemble him in appearance. John soon noticed the same restlessness, the same hunger for more and still more. The fearlessness, however, was all Rosamund’s. John had soon discovered that beneath all her shyness she was much stronger and smarter than he, and knew much better who she was.

Still, Jacob followed his father around, not his mother. And John explained to him the workings of steam locomotives, car engines and revolvers, relishing the unquestioning admiration in the boy’s eyes, which were as grey as his own. Rosamund’s adoration, on the other hand, was soon replaced by the same doubts John had always had about himself, until he found nothing but disappointment and helpless love in her gaze. But his son kept seeing the man his father so longed to be. John loved him for that so fiercely it sometimes scared him.

They spent hours painting model airplanes in his study, or disassembling the old pistols he had started collecting after Rosamund had given him two dueling pistols that had supposedly once defended her great-great-grandmother’s honor. They loved riding the elevator together, all the way down to the basement, pretending they were breaking into a king’s tomb, to steal his golden death mask, or the sword that had made him invincible. It sounded so much better than the truth: gaining his wealth in his wife’s bed.

They lost themselves in the dusty trunks and antique chests, looking for magic treasure and laughing about the heirlooms of Rosamund’s illustrious family, until John nearly managed to convince himself that he’d liberated her from all that. It’s very easy to feel noble and fearless by the side of an eight-year-old.

Of course it was Jacob who found the Mirror. It was wrapped in a heavy blanket, and when John untied the cord that held it, a swarm of moths fluttered out of the dusty wool. They made Jacob jump back in fright, but when he saw the Mirror he was back at John’s side. The faces they saw in the dark glass were at once strange and familiar. As if their twins were staring back at them from another world.

Jacob reverently touched the silver blossoms on the Mirror’s frame.

“What do you think?” John asked. “Does this mirror deserve to be stuck in a basement gathering dust?”

Jacob ran his fingers over the glass as though stroking the delicate feathers of a bird. Then he shook his head. No, it didn’t.

It took the strength of three men to move the Mirror. The old elevator groaned ominously, but it carried all that silver and glass up to the seventh floor. The three men groaned even more, for they had to take the stairs. Jacob skipped ahead of them like an excited puppy. He was always moving. As though he was afraid that if he stopped his limbs would turn to stone.

John had wanted to hang the Mirror in the bedroom, but Rosamund didn’t like the distorted face it showed her. Not even the opulence of the silver frame could make up for that. So John had it brought into his study. Maybe things would have been different, if....

... If what exactly? If Rosamund hadn’t left him alone with the Mirror? If she had continued to see the man he would never be? How often he’d later try to assign her at least some of the blame.

He found the piece of paper a few weeks later. It was tucked inside one of the old chemistry books that had been in Rosamund’s family for generations. Maybe it had belonged to her famous ancestor. John never found out for sure. Rosamund had asked him to move the books into his study to make space for books that were more entertaining. The slip of paper dropped out as if it had been waiting for ages to escape the yellowed pages. The handwriting was of an era long bygone. Chemical formulas. A drawing of a sun, two moons, a peacock.... John couldn’t make any sense of it.

He turned the paper over, and read:

The Mirror will open only
for he who cannot see himself.

“Jacob…”

The boy was standing in front of the Mirror, as he had done so often over the past weeks, scrutinizing his distorted face.

“Go and see whether you can help Mum with anything. I have to work.”

The boy didn’t want to leave. But he did. Reluctantly, as always when John sent him away.

The Mirror will open only
for he who cannot see himself.

John locked the door and approached the dark glass. He stared at his reflection.

... for he who cannot see himself.

He always saw just himself. His own desires. His own shortcomings. As though the whole world was nothing but his mirror. Even in his son’s eyes he found only his own image.

He pressed his hand over the reflection of his face, tired of seeing the weariness in his eyes, those first tired lines around his mouth, traces of an age that had come upon him without the years ever yielding to him what he had hoped for.

A single gesture that changed his life… John stared in disbelief at the grey stone walls he saw in the Mirror. The carpet beneath his feet was gone, as was his desk. He stood on dusty floorboards, and when he turned around a raven returned his glance through fixed beady eyes. The bird was perched on a weathered window ledge. When John approached, it let out a hoarse caw and fluttered off.

He stood at the window and looked down at wooded hills under a pale blue sky, with white clouds drifting across like pollen. He would carry these first images with him forever: the outlines of the church towers in the distance, the red-roofed houses, like patches of clay scattered amidst the green. And the scorched walls beneath the window.

Impossible.

His mind could only find this one helpless word to describe what he was seeing. Nothing he’d ever learned could explain it. All he knew was that this was everything he wished for:

Another world where he could forget the man he’d seen in the Mirror. A place where he might reinvent that man.

The Treasure Hunter

How to find work when you’re only twelve and don’t speak more than a few words of Austrian?

In truth, no one cared that Jacob barely found his way through a complete sentence. First he tried the stables. He was afraid of the horses, but he would have to get rid of that fear anyway if he wanted to live in this world. Coaches, carts, ploughs… horses moved this world. There was no way around them. After a few weeks he had learned to not get kicked or bitten. There was even a stallion who liked him and let him climb on his back when Lucas, the main stable hand, wasn’t watching. Saddles and bridles… mysterious things for a boy who had been raised in a city that was ruled by concrete and cars. His hands had just stopped growing calluses from the shovels when the owner fired Lucas, because he had caught him with his daughter behind the coaches. The new hand was friendlier than Lucas and not as foul-mouthed. Balthus Gans never stole the others’ wages and food, as Lucas had done when he’d spent all his money on girls and beer. But Balthus Gans liked young boys. He liked them so much that Jacob lay awake at night to listen for his steps. He liked Balthus, but not that much. So no stables anymore.

For a while he slept behind the railway station and earned a few coins carrying suitcases and bags. One morning he woke with a constable’s boot on his rather empty stomach. Titus Pferdschlaechter had quite a reputation in Schwanstein for kicking drunks and arresting men whose clothes or haircuts he didn’t like. The constable had broken a strike of the workers at the weavery singlehandedly by waiting in front of their houses and frightening their children and wives. Yes, Pferdschlaechter took his duties very seriously. He covered Schwanstein’s walls with the pictures of anarchists, burglars and highwaymen, and suspected every troll or dwarf to be a criminal. He was suspicious of every foreigner who came to Schwanstein and he was six feet six tall, with shoulders that barely fit through a door and hands the size of frying pans.

“Listen, you skinny little rat,” he hissed at Jacob while dragging him away from the doorstep by the neck. “I don’t know where you come from. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but something is. I smell it. So don’t let me catch you lurking around in the streets again, or I’ll deliver you myself to the workhouse. Understood?”

Jacob had learned enough words at the stables to understand very well. And he had heard about the workhouse, filled with the poor, with orphans, cripples, and madmen.

“Try the factories,” said the grocer who hung dead Thumblings in his shop window to prevent the street urchins from stealing his food. But the factories meant twelve hours of work per day getting deaf from the noise of the machines. Not exactly what Jacob had come to find behind the Mirror.

The Innkeeper paid even less than the stable owner. Jacob wiped tables that stank of beer and cheap wine, got little sleep, and could sometimes barely breathe the smoke filled air. But within a few nights he learned more about the MirrorWorld than he had learned during all his weeks at the stables. You cannot listen while you learn to saddle a horse or clean up behind their hooves. But oh, the stories he heard while clearing away dirty glasses and scrubbing spit and vomit from the floor! He heard soldiers talk about battles against the armies of Albion, and about hunting the Goyl. He heard salesmen curse the cunning of Dwarves, and describe the riches of Lotheraine and Lombardia. Men sobbed into their beer because they had dreamt of a Fairy. Hunters brought prey from the Hungry Forest, weird creatures that killed a man with one sting or whose claws were worth a solid gold coin. A tailor from Vena described the Empress’ robes. A man whose face was covered with scars described the dangers of hunting for the glass hair of Genies in the north. Women, as beautiful as Fairies (well, they were not, but he found that out much later) climbed onto the counter and sang songs of Nymphs and Lorelei while the drunken men threw coins and themselves at their feet.

Oh, he loved it. He didn’t mind the smells, the dirt and the sleepless nights. Maybe he knew already that one of these nights would change his life and grant him everything he’d hoped to find behind the Mirror.

It was almost midnight when Albert Chanute walked into the Schwanstein Inn. There were not many guests left in the dark bar room, just a weaver who had lost his job and didn’t dare go home and tell his family, the old postman who couldn’t sleep since his mail coach had been attacked by brown wolves, and three men who came almost every night to play cards until one of them left in his underwear.

When Jacob saw Chanute’s ugly face emerge from the night, he first thought that he’d finally met his first troll. He had just heard about them and had painted a picture in his mind that came quite close to the man who walked in with a Goyl rifle in his hand, a brown wolf’s pelt around his shoulders, two pistols and a knife in his silver belt.

Chanute gave Jacob a shrewd smile when he walked past him. He loved to be admired and stared at, as Jacob would soon find out. He loved to hear that he was the best, the toughest, the most cunning man in all of MirrorWorld, and he heard it quite often in those days — his glory days — even from the Empress of Austry. That night he’d come from the Hungry Forest where he’d searched for a magic ring whose bearer had last been seen riding into the forest, never to emerge again.

“I’m sure he’s a pair of pants by now,” Chanute growled while he threw a golden coin onto the counter. “I cursed the Tailor’s name a dozen times and yelled that he should show me his workshop so that I could search for the damned ring among the remains of his victims, but he wouldn’t show. Well, no one wants to mess with Albert Chanute.”

He emptied half a bottle of wine while he gave his speech, and split his ugly face with a grin when he saw the guests staring at him. Albert Chanute. Everyone knew that name, even Jacob. He had read about him in the beer drenched newspapers he picked up under the tables. Albert Chanute. Treasure hunter for the Empress. Finder of the Seven Miles Boots, of Cudgels-in-the-Sack, and of Cinderella’s glass coffin.  Fairies, Watermen, Child Eating Witches… Chanute had seen them all.

“What will you find next?” Jacob was glad that his Austrian was by now almost as fluent as if he’d been born behind the Mirror.

Chanute gulped down the other half of his bottle and stared down at Jacob with eyes that were already becoming shortsighted.

“What will I find next?” He laughed. “Did you hear the boy? What will Chanute find next? I don’t know. What do you think I should look for?”

“The knife that cuts through anything! No. A witch comb that turns you into a crow!”

“I found a witch comb,” Chanute grunted while he ordered another bottle of wine, “but it almost turned me into a rat. Not exactly the shape you wish for.”

The men around the tables laughed. None of them took their eyes off Chanute’s ugly face. How could one? Every line on it had been written by adventure. Every scar had been carved by glory. Jacob was breathless with adulation.

“How did you find the glass coffin?” he asked.

Chanute scrutinized him. “Where do you come from, boy? I can’t place that accent, and I’ve heard them all.”

Damn. Careful, Jacob.  “Uh, from Albion,” he stuttered. “A small village far up north.” A seamstress had told him that he sounded like her cousin from Albion.

Chanute frowned. “Really? Well, there’s for sure something strange about you. Maybe some Thumbling blood, considering your size?”

The others laughed.

“I am only twelve.”

“Well…” another glass of wine. “I was a head taller than you when I was twelve. And I had already killed my first Stilt. Mean skinny bastard. Tried to suck my blood. Killed him with my bare hands.”

Jacob stared at the hand that once again grabbed the wine bottle. He believed every word. Later on he would hear at least a dozen versions of that story, but he never found out whether any of them were true.

Chanute told many stories that night, until his tongue got too heavy to form the words. When he stumbled up the stairs to his room the others left, as if the sun had set in the middle of the night.

As usual, the Innkeeper didn’t allow Jacob to go to sleep before he had cleaned all the glasses and tables. Ignaz Winterer was a tall baldheaded man with teeth that reminded Jacob of the horses at the stable, and he counted his money every night before he went to bed. He was as joyless as he was cheap, but that night Jacob didn’t care. He didn’t care that Winterer inspected the glasses he had washed and pushed half of them back into the dirty water, didn’t care that he told him he’d take it from his wages when he broke one. Jacob heard his nagging voice as if from afar. He knew he would be gone soon.

Chanute didn’t wake until three o’clock the next day, and he could barely open his eyes when he came down the stairs. Jacob waited until he had had another mug of wine for breakfast and followed him when he walked over to the stables to pick up his horse. Chanute only noticed him after he’d crossed half the marketplace.

“What?” he turned with a growl.

“I’ll come with you.”

“What are you talking about?” Chanute spit out, swiping a fly off his scarred brow.

“I’ll come with you. You need an apprentice.”

Chanute stared at the statue of the Empress’ uncle that stood in the middle of Schwanstein’s market — a reminder of the days when a shadow in the sky could still be a Dragon. Jacob was terribly sad that he had missed those days. So was Chanute.

“I can clean your knives and pistols. I can feed your horse and grease the saddle. I can get you wine and tobacco, and make sure the elves don’t sit on your forehead when you sleep.” (This was said to give one very bad dreams.)

Jacob had spent all night figuring out what he would say. He thought it all sounded quite convincing, but Chanute looked at him as if he had offered to carry his head from now on.

“Listen, boy,” he growled at him. “I have a hangover, and you are a dirty little liar telling me you’re from Albion.  Get out of my sight.”

Well, there had always been the possibility that this wouldn’t be easy.

But what if the treasure hunter got on his horse and rode off? He would never be able to follow him on foot!

Chanute disappeared into the stable.

When he came out with his horse, Jacob was waiting.

“I’ll find my own food and I’ll work for nothing.”

Chanute ignored him.

He tried to get into the saddle but the horse shied away from him.   They didn’t like the smell of cheap wine on a rider’s breath.

Jacob caught the bridle and calmed the horse.

Chanute cast him a dirty glance. “So you know about horses too?”

“Everything,” Jacob lied.

“I don’t like them,” Chanute grunted. “Never have.”

That was a godsend.

He tried once again to get into the saddle, but he was still quite drunk.

Jacob grabbed his boot and pushed. He nearly broke his fingers, but Chanute made it into the saddle. He stared down at him.

“You’ve been in the forests?”

“Sure.” What a blessing that he was such a gifted liar.

“I am heading for a gingerbread house. You’ll run away screaming like a little girl.”

“No I won’t.”

Chanute groaned and slapped his fist against his forehead. “Get me something from the apothecary. Something that helps a headache.”

He threw a few copper coins onto the grey flagstones. Jacob hastily picked them up.

He had never run so fast in his life.

What if Chanute had tricked him?

What if he rode off, laughing at the stupid boy who’d been foolish enough to believe he could be the apprentice of the great Albert Chanute?

But he was still there when Jacob came back.

Chanute was still there.

The Beginning

Fox hadn’t seen them. The iron teeth in the dew-damp grass. The trap carefully hidden beneath wilted leaves. The scent of a rabbit had distracted her. Winter was coming and food was getting scarce.

The trap snapped into her left hind leg, smashing her bone and drowning the world in pain. And while the vixen struggled to lick the blood off her downy fur, Celeste wished back the hands she’d nearly forgotten. But the fur wouldn’t let her go. She had exchanged her human form for the body of the vixen far too often, and far too long. Maybe the girl she had once been was nothing but a dream.

Yes. A dream.

She was Fox. Nothing else.

She just hoped death would find her before the trapper came to claim his prize. They smashed in the heads of the ones who were still alive, and they did it with particular pleasure when their quarry was a fox. They didn’t like animals so cunning, sly and red-clad — like the devil. They preferred wolves.

It hurt so much. The cold iron in her warm flesh.

What if she bit off her leg? And then? How far would a three-legged vixen get?

A horse.

Fox heard it snort between the trees. The rider dismounted. Boots plowing a path through the ferns and bramble. She would bite him. She had at least that much strength left.

Fox snapped at him as soon as he leaned over her. But all she caught between her teeth was his sleeve.

He yanked his arm away. He was young. Nearly a boy.

“As you wish,” he said. His voice was cool. “You’ll bleed to death before nightfall. Unless they get to club you to death first.”

He got up. Something about his scent was strange, like a foreign land.

“This is not your trap?” She barely recognized her own voice. She hadn’t used it for human words in a long time.

What are you doing, Fox? If he didn’t kill her for her fur, then he would do so for speaking in a human voice. But he just looked at her. And all she saw in his eyes was curiosity.

“I can open the trap. But not if you’re going to bite me.”

The vixen still wanted to bite, but Celeste held her back, even when he touched her injured leg.

“It will be fine,” he said, quietly, as though fearing his voice might add to her injury.

It will be fine. She held on to his voice while she drowned in pain. The iron would not give up her flesh easily and finally the world around her went as black as death. The last thing she felt was the touch of his hands.

Black.

But this wasn’t death.

She awoke to the smell of burning wood, meat roasting over open flames and when she opened her eyes she saw the pale light of morning sneaking through the branches of an oak.

Celeste wanted to get up, but her first movement immediately brought back the pain — and the memories. Her hind leg was splinted with a piece of wood and her wounds were dressed.

“Looks bad. But I’ll take you to a friend of mine. She can heal almost any wound.” He threw a strip of meat towards her. “What’s your name?”

“Fox.”

“That’s it?”

She didn’t answer. “What shall I call you?”

He brushed his dark hair from his forehead. “My name is Jacob.”

His eyes were alert, like those of an animal. Fox could smell his loneliness and his anger, but also his fearlessness. Almost too much of it.

He had saved her life. There was only one way to repay that debt. One day she would do the same for him.

Jacob.

The taste of his name on her tongue was familiar, as if she’d always known him.

Hopes & Dreams

Johann and Traugott were farmers’ sons. They had worked their fathers’ fields since the age of six, and knew all about the hardships of living off the land. They saw the town folk who drove past in their carriages, who didn’t have to worry about the weather, who hid under umbrellas from the sun and were safe from the rain in their well heated houses.

Johann and Traugott wanted lives like that.

So one night Johann convinced Traugott to come with him... down the road to Schwanstein, where they could find work in the factories. Johann was good with words. He painted a beautiful picture for Traugott, of city life, nights illuminated by more than a candle, clean clothes, clean hands, a straight back, a warm room — and instead of the smell of cow shit, the scent of perfumes and smoked meats.

They followed the freshly laid tracks of the trains that wrote progress into the air with smoky smears. The fields they passed showed the scars of battle. War was upon them, but so far it had just been a distant rumor, a rumbling of cannons beyond the horizon, as unreal as the new life they were dreaming of.

As dawn broke, they came upon a dead soldier. There was stone growing on his neck and cheek.

The Petrified Flesh.

Traugott had heard about it, but thought it to be only a fairytale. He backed away. His mother had been right. His father’s fields were after all the safest place. He would go home.

But Johann wanted to press on. He called his best friend a coward, maybe afraid that he too would turn around without Traugott by his side. They came to blows — the two best friends fighting the fear in their hearts by fighting each other.

They didn’t hear the riders approaching through the thick forest...

Goyl.

Their stone faces were wet with rain. Two of them were wounded.

They were angry. And their rage was legend.

Neither Johann nor Traugott had ever seen a Goyl before. They had only heard about them. The ‘Stonefaces.’

Their claws were as sharp as the blade of a sickle and they cut through the boys’ skin as if it were paper.

The Goyl then bound the boys and took them with them.

One of the Goyl was as young as they were. Nesser. She watched them. She despised humans. She preferred to kill them. It frightened her that they could become like her.

On and on they rode. Into a cave. Into the dark underground.

Into the warm womb of the earth...

Their eyes were already changing. The dark was suddenly as bright as the day. They saw flowers on the walls around them. Stone flowers, made of malachite and ruby. And creatures neither of the farmers’ sons had ever seen before. Giant bats, lizards with two tails, spiders that glowed in the dark.

It was easier for the boys to look at the Goyl than to look at each other.

Johann’s skin was turning jasper, as dark as the earth he used to plow. The stone in Traugott’s skin was as gold as ripe grain.

Their own human flesh began to disgust them. So pale and soft. Like snails’ flesh.

On the third day Traugott managed to grab the pistol from Nesser.

He put it to his head and pulled the trigger.

Johann stared down at his bloody corpse. But he couldn’t feel anything.

He was almost relieved that Traugott was gone. He didn’t want to be reminded of what they had once been.

He liked the dark.

The shimmering stone that did away with his flesh.

The golden eyes that looked back at him.

And Nesser was so beautiful.

The Spell of a Fairy

First he sees her only in his dreams.

Skin as white as moonlight.

Eyes like water drowning you.

Hair like spider webs.

Fairy.

He can’t wait to go to sleep just to see her.

And touch her.

He wakes still feeling her warmth on his empty hands.

So empty.

Everything seems empty.

The days grow long.

The voices of his wife and children seem to come from a faraway place.

He wants the dreams.

Nothing but those dreams.

His wife goes to a witch and puts oak leaves on his chest at night.

She burns elderflower under their bed.

But she can’t keep her away.

Now he sees her in the water.

In every dew drop.

In the buckets he fills for the cattle in the morning.

In the puddles the rain fills on the road in front of their house.

The moonlight and the spider webs.

They wrap his heart with a sweetness he has never known.

Once his wife was beautiful too.

She wore flowers in her hair when he first met her.

Now her hands are rough from work, and her skin has withered in the sun.

He walks into the woods to sit by a pond and stare at the face that smiles back at him.

The reeds whisper...

Come.

Come to me.

He stumbles through the woods.

Come to me.

A valley...

There are unicorns grazing.

They lift their heads, but let him pass.

The valley smells of wild roses.

He has forgotten his name. He has forgotten his own face.

There is only hers before him.

His heart has the shape of her face.

He reaches a lake.

It is coated in lilies.

They cover his skin with petals as he walks into the water.

She is on that island that drifts on the waves like a promise.

He knows it.

She.

No hunger ever felt like this.

No pain ever hurt like this.

He barely makes it to the shore.

The reeds whisper his name.

Is it his name?

He doesn’t know anymore.

There are moth webs in the trees.

They cling to his wet clothes as he searches for her.

The longing burns like fever in his flesh.

He trembles with desire.

And there she is.

Even more beautiful than in his dreams.

Her moths are swarming all around him.

And he is lost.

~ ~ ~

Mortal men...

The lake offers us their faces

The lake that gave birth to us

Their allure is as fleeting as a flower’s scent

But their love feeds our emptiness — at least for a while

We do not choose the most handsome ones

We seek a shadow in their eyes

A shell that wants to be broken

A mind that longs to be drowned

A man who knows our hunger

To make the world feel whole again

We never lose ourselves in them for long

But they give in so completely that in the end nothing is left of them

We begin to smell the staleness of death in their flesh

Then we send them away

And wait for another face

To feed the hunger for a fleeting while

~ ~ ~

A few months later his eldest son finds him wandering around aimlessly near their village.

He barely remembers his son’s name.

He stands by the well.

Stares into the water for hours.

“I can’t see her,” he murmurs.

Over and over again.

They find him drowned in the bottom of the well a week later.

~ ~ ~

They lose themselves so completely that in the end nothing is left of them

How the Tailor Came
to the Hungry Forest

Once upon a time, there lived a tailor in Vena who had become a master in his trade. His garments were so beautiful that the famous tailors of Lotheraine secretly copied his designs, until every nobleman and woman promenading down the boulevards of Loutis wore them.

The Emperor of Austry and the King of Albion commissioned him to make clothes for them and their families. The tailor could not have been happier. He bought proper shoes for his children, and wrapped his beautiful wife in satin and brocade dresses embroidered with gold.

His wife however was troubled. “My love,” she said, “don’t you see how our neighbors look at us? Even our friends behold me with envious glances. Our children have become strangers to their friends. They can only look on, afraid to soil their precious clothing, as the other children play in the streets.”

She pleaded with him. But the tailor was embarrassed by his family’s plain clothes, and he hated to see his wife’s beauty fade against the golden splendor of the Emperor’s daughters. “You will do as I say!” he demanded. “These are the most beautiful clothes I have ever sewn!”

Afraid to shame him, they obeyed.

Soon, rumor spread that the tailor’s wife was dressed more beautifully than the Emperor’s daughters. The Emperor was furious. How could a humble tailor show such disrespect? He had the tailor’s family thrown into the dungeons. Then he ordered the tailor to make new clothes — more beautiful than those he’d made for his own family.

The tailor tried, but he’d poured all his passion into his family’s clothes. The needle wouldn’t obey him anymore.

After three tortuous days there came a knock at the door. It was one of the guards who had arrested his family.

The tailor stood in stunned silence as the guard informed him, with great regret, that his family had been slain in the dungeons.

They had been killed for their clothes.

The tailor didn’t speak for a long time. Then he told the guard he would need to measure the Emperor’s family for their new dresses.

The Emperor’s wife and daughters came the very next day — from their country palace where they spent their summers — directly to the tailor’s workshop.

A week later, a magnificent coat was delivered to the palace. The Emperor was overjoyed. Such finely tailored leather! Such ornate embroidery! He put on the coat and basked in its elegance. He would once again be the unrivaled image of regal grandeur befitting his status.

But then he froze....

He turned pale. Transfixed by a detail on the leather sleeve. It was a birthmark. One he knew all too well. From his wife’s naked shoulder.

He ordered his cavaliers to speed to his summer palace. But his wife and daughters were nowhere to be found.

The tailor’s workshop was also found empty — the floor covered in blood.

A few weeks later, a coach was attacked in the Hungry Forest. The travelers’ bodies were never found.

Shortly thereafter, the Emperor received a beautiful new set of hunting clothes.

Soon, woodsmen began telling stories of trees that wore clothes made of human skin. And the coal burners working in the forest, who had once feared only the howling of wolves, now trembled at the clip-clap of scissors.

The Yearning

She should have known.

She should have seen. The features still so soft, the face just the bud of a flower. But the boy had been unusually tall for his age. And he had thrown stones at the cat who carried her secrets in its fur.

She should have known.

Every Dark Witch feared it, more than pain or death, more than the withering of their skin that occurred from eating too old a child.

It only entered their hearts when they tasted the flesh of a child that was too young.

They called it the Yearning.

She felt it three nights after she had eaten the boy’s heart.

The Yearning sang and wept and screamed in her flesh. It made her fingers shake and every inch of her body hurt as if a child was peeling off her skin with its little fingers.

Two weeks of it. Then she gave in.

She picked one of the men who worked at the factory they had built at the edge of the forest.  It was so easy to seduce them. She just wore a bit of youth and beauty on her skin.

She felt the child moving five months later. The forbidden fruit, growing in her womb, changing her body as if the Yearning had been a potion, or a comb drawn through her hair — not to give her feathers, but another heart, another lung, limbs that moved in her body, fingers that touched her from inside.

She gave birth to it in the darkest depth of night, all alone, as none of the other witches could ever know. The pain was as sharp as if the child were being cut out of her body with the same knives she had used for killing them.

It was a girl.

Hair as pale as the moonlight she’d been born under. Eyes as blue as the sky by day. She held her. Felt her heart beat against her own — the heart that had grown in her womb. The small fingers touched her skin, the tiny mouth searched for her breast, and all her dark magic was lost....

... All the knowledge she had gained with her sinister trade. Everything she had learned by eating their hearts, so pure still, so young… it all faded, and she learned to fear the night again, because she had to protect her daughter from it.

She left the house that smelled of gingerbread, cinnamon and nightshade, and moved to a village where no one had ever seen her face.

She told them the father had died in an accident at the factory.

Of course they believed her. It had happened to other husbands, and she had still enough magic to make them believe whatever she wanted them to.

And the child grew. It found words and songs. Made her forget with every smile what she had been, what she had done to understand and use the darkness in the world.

But every shadow reminded her, every night. And sleep fled her, for she feared the hunger would return. She knew it would. It couldn’t die once it had been woken. It could never vanish once it had been fed. If only the days wouldn’t taste so sweet.

Just another year, she said to herself. Just one more. And another. And another.

She worked as a seamstress. But she hated to touch the scissors, for they reminded her of her former trade. She brewed potions to erase the memories, but they were shadows living in the dark.

There was a woman two houses down the road. She wore the pain of an empty womb on her face. The witch had seen many women like her. They also knew about the Yearning.

They had come to her for help, even though they despised her for how she had earned her power, and she had sent them home with herbs, roots, and darker potions.

But to this woman she would give more.

She sat by her daughter’s bed all night. It was the night of her fifth birthday. She held the small hand and cried until the pale moonlight hair was wet from her tears. It was such a long night.

She slipped a letter under the woman’s door two houses down. Then she walked into the woods until she stood in front of the house that smelled of gingerbread, cinnamon and nightshade. She saw her old power like soot on its walls. She heard laughter and screams. She remembered the knife and the oven. And a tiny mouth finding her breast. The comb still lay in front of the mirror that had shown her face on so many days. She could see it all in its glass. The Yearning and the hunger. So she took the comb and drew it through her hair.

Then she threw the comb into the well and waited for the feathers to grow. They spread fast, until they covered her with darkness, and she flew into the forest and lost herself amongst its trees.

There is a girl with moonlight hair in a small village near the Hungry Forest. Her mother loves her very much. She never told her that she didn’t give birth to her, nor showed her the letter she one morning found on her doorstep. Sometimes a crow lands on the roof of the house. It sits there for hours and watches the girl. The woman doesn’t chase the bird away.

One for the Other

Once upon a time in Albion...

... there lived a poor farmer named Tom who barely could make a living from the stony fields he had inherited from his father.

But he was young and strong, and while he was plowing the stubborn earth he dreamt of a better life, filled with glory and brave deeds, and a new adventure awaiting him every single morning.

Tom liked to tell his younger sister the stories he dreamt up. Anna was only seventeen, and he loved her more than anyone and anything else in the world. Their parents had died when they were young, and for all these years he had been both brother and father to her.

Anna dreamt up stories as well, but they were quite different from Tom’s — they were all about princes, romance, and a dozen children. And as much as Tom loved his sister, he secretly thought that he would get awfully bored if he ever married a woman who dreamt only of these things.

Anna worked for a seamstress in Goldsmouth. Once a week she went there to pick up the fabrics she had to embroider with flowers and gold thread, for the seamstress’s rich clients.

It was a long way to Goldsmouth. Tom had forbidden Anna to go alone. But it was the time of the harvest. Tom had to work from dusk till dawn. And his sister felt bad asking him to accompany her.

So she didn’t.

When Tom returned from the fields late that evening the house was empty. He looked in the stable…

… he went to the well…

… but he couldn’t find his sister anywhere.

He ran through the night, down every path and country road she might have taken, but could find no trace of her...

… until he came to a crossing….

~ ~ ~

Her basket lay by the side of the road — the velvet and silk inside covered in mud…

Deep footprints led away from the road — so deep that Tom could see them even in the dark. The light from the two moons cast the water that filled them with silver and rust.

Tom sat on the muddy ground and felt his heart throbbing like a fresh wound. There was only one creature that left such footprints.

A Waterman had stolen his sister and dragged her to his pond, to keep her as his prisoner until she died.

How could he ever hope to save her?

A Waterman was almost as strong as an Ogre. And Tom would never be able to dive down to his underwater cave.

There were men who hunted them professionally.

But they charged fees he couldn’t earn in an entire year!

Tom sat at the crossing all night, his sister’s basket by his side. When the first pale light of dawn touched the mud-stained velvet he knew what he had to do.

He went home and cooked a brew from the pale yellow flowers his father had taught him about when he was a boy. Then he grabbed his knife and some rope and walked to the forest that stretched for miles behind his fields.

The King’s daughters came there to catch birds. They were always surrounded by servants and soldiers, but the youngest princess often rode off on her own. Tom had watched them many times, as his sister had asked him to describe their dresses to her.

He waited hidden in the undergrowth for three days and nights. Then he heard the horses, the bugles, the barking hounds. Suddenly the forest was filled with gold and laughter, uniforms and silken dresses. They carried ornate cages for the birds, huge baskets filled with exotic foods Tom had never smelled or tasted.

He was so hungry that he nearly crawled out of hiding to steal some food, but he stopped himself by imagining his sister sitting in a wet cold cave enduring the kisses of the Waterman.

The King of Albion had three daughters. The eldest two were famous for their beauty and wit, but the youngest, Portia, was all silence and had never turned a man’s head. She looked like one of the larks the princesses caught — her hair was as plain as their brown feathers, and she gazed at the world as if she was hiding a beautiful song inside her chest.

Tom felt sorry for her, but he would catch her like she and her sisters caught the birds. Then he would make everyone believe that the Waterman had captured her. The King could afford to pay a dozen hunters to find his daughter, and they would locate the Waterman’s swampy pond and save Anna instead.

It was easier to catch her than he had thought.

As soon as her sisters spread their silk dresses on the dewy grass to eat and drink the wine and flirt with the soldiers, Portia rode off on her own, her face dark with boredom and irritation. The others didn’t even notice she was gone, for she was the youngest. The plain one. The invisible princess.

She tried to scream when Tom pulled her off the horse. But he pressed a piece of his sister’s velvet, soaked with the yellow flower potion, over her nose and lips, until she slept in his arms like a child.

He faked the steps of a huge Waterman by widening his own tracks. Then he bound the princess with the rope and rode away with her on her horse, the scent of her brown hair in his face.

Her father’s soldiers never came after him.

No one missed the invisible princess.

They were used to her disappearances.

~ ~ ~

The small cottage Tom shared with his sister seemed not the right place for a princess. So he decided to hide her in an abandoned hunting lodge, whose owner had been killed in the wars against Lotheraine.

She didn’t wake up for quite a while. Tom was already beginning to worry that he had made the brew too strong.

He didn’t dare listen for her heart beat, as he couldn’t help but notice her breasts were far more beautiful than her sisters’. So he put his finger on her lips to feel for her breath.

She was still alive.

He hadn’t slept for three days, so he lay down next to her, and was soon sleeping as soundly as the princess.

It was dark when he woke. Portia was sitting on his chest, holding his own knife to his throat.

“Why me?” she growled.

“You fool of a peasant. Why didn’t you grab one of my sisters?”

She pressed the knife so angrily against his throat that he was afraid it would cut through at any moment.

“You were the easiest to catch,” he managed to say. It was difficult to talk with the knife at his throat and her weight on his chest.

“Well, you’re as thick as a brick,” she hissed. “My father would have paid far more for any of my sisters!”

“I don’t care,” Tom snapped. “I didn’t do it for ransom.”

The pressure on the knife eased a little.

“Really?”

She climbed off his chest.

Then she just sat and listened as Tom told her haltingly about his plan.

“I was right,” she said after he finished. “You are a fool, and your sister is doomed. Yes, my father will in the end hire some hunters to find me. But he will waste a week haggling over their fee because he hates to part with any of his gold. One week with a Waterman — your sister will have lost her mind before they find her.”

Tom got to his feet, though he was not sure he was permitted to stand in her presence. She was, after all, a princess.

“You say your father would leave you for a week with a man who abducted you?”

She eyed him from head to toe. “I don’t think you are quite as disgusting as a Waterman.”

She said it very calmly. As if she was describing the color of his hair. Then she fell silent. For a long time.

“My father’s brother hunted them,” she finally said. “A woman he loved was taken by a Waterman. He had one stuffed and mounted in the hall of his castle. When we went to his banquets, my sisters would get so sick from the stories he told that they had to leave the table.”

Her voice was almost as dark as a boy’s.

“You need an egg from a Swamp Woman’s black hen.”

“What for?” Tom asked.

“To breathe underwater. Can you swim?”

He nodded.

A Swamp Woman. They were almost as dangerous as Watermen.

“I can’t rescue her alone,” he said. “It’s impossible.”

She was still looking at him. “I once saw a girl who’d been caught by a Waterman,” she said. “She couldn’t speak, and she could no longer bear the sunlight. It burned her skin like fire.”

She turned and walked toward the door.

Grab her, Tom! She is the only chance your sister has!

But he couldn’t.

She pushed open the heavy door, slowly, without hurry, and was gone.

Tom sat down on the dusty tiles, cracked by the rain and cold that seeped through the broken windows, and felt tears running down his cheeks. Tears of grief for his sister. Tears of shame about what he had done.

The door opened again.

Tom wiped the tears from his face.

Portia walked over to him. Her dress was as dirty as a peasant’s by now, but she didn’t seem to care. She dropped a clasp in his lap. It was covered with pearls and diamonds.

“Swamp women love shiny things.”

Tom stared at the clasp.

“I will help you,” she said. “For your sister.”

The Swamp Woman’s hut was guarded by swarms of mosquitoes and will-o-the-wisps, but she called them back when Portia held up the clasp. She snatched the shiny trinket with her gnarled hands and in return gave them two eggs with shells as black as the hens scraping for worms outside her hut.

Portia tore some fabric from the bottom of her dress and wrapped the  eggs in it. “I keep tripping over it anyway,” she said.

Then they went to find the pond of the Waterman.

Portia’s horse carried them as if they were one.

~ ~ ~

The pond where they finally found the large footprints was surrounded by high reeds. They hid and waited. Watermen leave their caves at night to hunt for treasure, and the sky was already dark.

After two hours Tom thought the creature would never emerge. Then suddenly a head surfaced from the muddy waters. Six eyes. Scaled skin. Yet the body that waded ashore resembled that of a human man. He was covered in mud and algae, which he washed off before putting on some human clothes he had hidden among the roots of a tree. Watermen found the loot they placed at their captives’ feet in houses, churches, palaces, and in the hollow trees where Thumblings kept their treasures. Watermen even dared to rob Ogres. They were fearless. So much so that the King of Lotheraine retained some of them as his bodyguards.

The Waterman disappeared into the night as silently as a cat. Tom broke the black egg and drank it.

“I’ll come with you,” said Portia. But they needed to save the second egg for Anna, so she could swim up to the surface. And Tom was relieved. The princess had done enough, and he was by now as worried about her as he was about his sister. He wished Portia back to the safety of her father’s castle. But she wouldn’t leave. She told him she would watch from the shore and throw a stone into the pond if the Waterman returned.

The water was murky and cold. But thanks to the Swamp Woman’s egg, Tom could breathe like a fish. He had to search for a long while before he found the entrance of the cave. The rocks surrounding the narrow opening were covered in Waterman scales.

Tom swam through.

When he surfaced he saw his sister sitting on the moss covered rocks. Anna stared at him through empty eyes. The Waterman had surrounded her with piles of treasure — golden plates, candelabra, rings and necklaces.

Tom had to shake her and call her name over and over before the terror gave way to lucidity, and then tears. He broke the second egg and made her drink it. Then he took her in his arms and swam with her to the pond’s surface.

The princess was waiting for them in the reeds. She wrapped Anna in her velvet cloak and fed her some of the food that her father’s servants had stuffed into her saddle bags.

Tom couldn’t take his eyes off Portia.

There was only one thought in his weary head: that he was a peasant and she was a princess, and that once this was all over he would never see her again.

The thought hurt so much...

He looked at the sky. It was still dark.

“Stay with her, please,” he said. “I will be back soon.”

Then he stepped into the water before either of them could stop him.

~ ~ ~

The King’s daughter watched, frozen, as Tom’s dark hair disappeared beneath the pond’s surface. His lungs would burst without the Swamp Woman’s egg. And dawn was approaching.

Gold.

It made fools of kings and peasants alike. Portia tried to remember the endless nights, when her father’s drunken brother had told his stories about the Watermen. So many nights. So many stories. But oh so many years had passed since she had heard them.

Anna suddenly lifted her head and turned around with alarm. Yes, Portia heard them too, and pressed her hand on the girl’s lips. Steps, as if from a huge animal. But it wasn’t an animal, she was sure.

The steps came closer as Tom’s sister shivered in her arms.

Run! Forget him. Forget them both!

He had drowned by now anyway.

Oh that hollow-headed fool of a peasant.

Her father had many names for his kind. Hollow-heads. Dirt grubbers. Worms. He had many names for his poorest subjects. As many as he had for his dogs — only those names were more affectionate.

She stared at the pond’s surface as if her eyes could bring Tom back, but the water was as calm as a mirror’s surface.

She missed his face.

~ ~ ~

Tom’s lungs seared as if the Waterman were clawing through them. The effect of the Swamp Woman’s egg was wearing off, but he managed to reach the cave. He was alive. And the gold in front of him could have filled a King’s treasure chamber.

He stuffed as much as he could into the sack that once held the seed for his fields. Rings, coins, necklaces, golden goblets — until he could barely lift his loot.

~ ~ ~

Of course. How could she have forgotten the Waterman?

He appeared at the pond’s bank like a creature from her darkest dreams. Portia hid Anna under the cloak and then crept to her horse.

The Waterman took his clothes off and slathered his skin with water and mud. He paused once to quickly look around, but his six eyes saw neither Portia nor the cloak that hid his escaped captive amongst the dense reeds. Finally he picked up the sack with his loot and waded, with a pleased sigh, into the water. New presents for the girl in his cave.

Hurry, Portia!

She pulled her knife from the saddle bags but her trembling fingers were searching for something else.

~ ~ ~

Tom saw the dark silhouette above him, just as he was sure he’d make it back to the surface.

Six eyes stared down at him.

Dead...

... He was a dead man.

The Waterman swam towards him as swiftly as an eel. And Tom’s lungs ached as though they might burst at any moment.

~ ~ ~

There it was !

The light of dawn caught the gold. It was just a hunting bugle, but it would have to do. Portia tripped over a tree root as she clambered towards the edge of the pond. Her hands sank deep into the damp mud. She filled her lungs and lowered the bugle until it touched the water’s surface.

“Trumpets, drums, loud sounds… they really don’t like those!” Her uncle’s voice was but a murmur from beyond the shrouds of time.

Portia put her lips to the golden mouthpiece.

~ ~ ~

The claws sliced into his arm like razors.

He saw his blood swirling through the water.

But the Waterman suddenly pressed his hands to his ears.

The water was trembling like the flank of an ox, and the Waterman’s mouth opened in a silent scream. Tom saw a glint of gold above him. And a hand reaching down for him.

The Waterman was writhing in agony, his arms clutching his head, trying to escape down into his cave.

But Tom swam towards the hand.

It pulled him ashore.

Pressed the water from his lungs.

“Fool!” Portia grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

Where was his sister?

Tom’s eyes found her, as pale as the morning sky, sitting on the princess’s horse.

“Get up! Come on. He will come after us as soon as he recovers!”

Portia wouldn’t look at him.

Tom pressed the wet sack of treasure to his aching chest.

“For gold,” she said, her voice hoarse with disgust.

How could she understand? Raised as she was in gold-embroidered dresses?

Tom grabbed the horse’s reins. “It’s for you,” he said as he dragged the horse under the trees. His sleeve was red with blood. But he had his sister. And the gold.

“For me?” Her voice sounded as cold and confused as it had when she held the knife to his throat.

“Yes.”

She stared into his tired face, and suddenly she understood.

And she smiled.

Three days later, Tom went to her father’s castle. He was dressed in the clothes of a peasant, but he covered the marble tiles in front of the throne with the Waterman’s treasures. Then he asked the King for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

And the King consented.

It was a lot of gold.

From that day there was a saying in the huts of the peasants, that a Waterman’s gold made all wishes come true.

A Bad Substitute Father

“What did you say?” Chanute had to trawl every word out of the cheap liquor he’d poured down his throat.

They’d been tracking the rogue apprentice for weeks to retrieve the belt he’d stolen from his master, after slitting his throat. The magic belt that allowed whoever wore it to understand every language spoken by man and beast in MirrorWorld. A treasure of treasures. A coal burner had spotted the apprentice wearing it as he was being carried on the shoulder of an Ogre... the One-Eyed Ogre who roamed these woods.

“I said you’re too drunk!” Jacob repeated.

The bottle Chanute threw at Jacob missed him by more than a yard, shattering against an oak tree.

Old fool. Raiding an Ogre’s cave... no picnic even when you’re sober. More and more, Jacob had to ask himself whether the old man now also drank to give himself courage.

“Fine,” growled Chanute. “You stay out here and keep watch, while I get the belt.”

Of course. Normally he would send Jacob ahead, but this time he wanted all the glory for himself. The cheap taverns where he drank away his senses were buzzing with gossip of how Chanute’s apprentice was already better than the old master himself.

“Albert Chanute is still the best treasure hunter between Albion and the White Sea!” The old man muttered it in his sleep and announced it in every livery stable where they left their horses. In the past he would have never felt the need. Nobody would have doubted him. But he was getting old.

It was over: the adventure of being Albert Chanute’s apprentice. He’d taught Jacob everything about treasure hunting. And it had all been worth it — the beatings, the dark moods, the days of angry silence that followed his drunken binges.

Chanute’s fingers trembled as he loaded his pistol, but not even the shakes could deter him from Ogres on this grey morning.

“You’re out of your mind. Let’s try tomorrow. Maybe your hands will be less shaky.”

“Now you’re telling me how to do my work?” Chanute swayed as he pushed the pistol, which he’d supposedly received from the Empress herself, into its grimy holster.

What the hell, Jacob. Just let him go. Maybe this is the death he wants.

Jacob untied his horse and swung himself into the saddle.

“That’s right!” The old man shouted after him. “Be gone! I’ll tell everyone that Jacob Reckless ran away from the Ogre! That’ll ruin your reputation forever!”

Jacob turned his horse about. “Go ahead. And I’ll tell everyone that Albert Chanute was a senile old fool who couldn’t wait to die.”

~ ~ ~

Jacob steered his horse through the trees. He’d find himself a quiet inn with warm beds and decent food. Yes. He’d take a hot bath, and scrub off all the dirt and sweat — the stench that Chanute called ‘a man’s best perfume.’ Then he’d sleep for three days, without that horrid drunken snoring drilling into his ears.

Jacob reined in his horse.

Damn.

He spun the horse around and rode back toward the cave.

~ ~ ~

Jacob quietly dismounted, a safe distance away from the cave.

What are you doing, Jacob? Turn around. He’s dead. And it’s his own fault.

How often had he dreamt of an Ogre smashing in the old man’s skull.

He drew his pistol and made sure it was loaded, though the bullets would do little damage. He’d have to shoot half a dozen into the beast before they’d even make a dent in its blue scaled skin.

He stepped into the dark cave.

~ ~ ~

Jacob could barely breathe from the stench. Rotting flesh. He passed through the Ogre’s larder cave, but only gave it a quick glance... luckily the darkness hid the more unspeakable details.

Chanute would have looked for treasure in the innermost “sleeping cave.” Ogres liked to surround themselves with the possessions of their prey: watches, jewelry, eyeglasses, belts. One could find the strangest objects in their caves. Carpets piled with neatly gnawed bones, pianos with bloody fingerprints on the keys, suitcases filled with the clothes of the dead.

He came upon the last cave. And there it stood. A massive Ogre. The largest Jacob had ever seen.

The Ogre had his back to Jacob.

And he was holding a human arm.

Chanute was lying on the blood-soaked floor, his saber clutched in his one remaining hand. The Ogre was staring down at him.

They often tore off a few limbs before they killed their prey. They were strong enough to simply pluck them off, like children would the legs of an insect. The next step was usually to lop off the head, as Ogres considered the brain a particular delicacy.

The Ogre unhooked a chain from his belt, then sniffed the air and lifted his head, listening...

Quietly, Jacob...

The Ogre turned and saw him. Jacob raised his revolver and fired all six rounds into the beast’s chest. The Ogre merely shook himself as though he’d been stung by an insect.

Jacob quickly reloaded as the Ogre lumbered toward him, swinging his chain.

He took aim again.

The eye...

It was the only part of an Ogre’s body that wasn’t protected by scales.

Jacob fired.

The Ogre’s screams flooded the cave as he pressed his hand over his eye.

Jacob dropped his pistol and unsheathed his saber.

The Ogre lashed out with his chain. Jacob jumped away, but not fast enough. He cried out as the rusty metal smashed his shoulder blade. The next swing of the chain barely missed his head. The Ogre was teetering with rage, spinning around. The chain came flying at Jacob again like an iron whip. Jacob ducked and then slashed the saber into the Ogre’s side, but the blade merely glanced off the armor-like skin. On the Ogre’s next swing the chain wrapped itself around Jacob’s leg and yanked him off his feet.

The Ogre felt around for Jacob as he lay sprawled on the ground, barely conscious. The enormous hands finally found him and lifted him up by his throat.

Jacob could see the pleasure in the Ogre’s face as it crushed his larynx with its bare hand.

He had to free himself. Now.

The Ogre struck out with his free hand and hit Jacob on the temple so hard that his vision went black.

Jacob crawled around, blind, feeling for his saber. He tried to keep quiet and hold his breath, so it wouldn’t give away his position, but his flesh still smelled warm and appetizing, and the Ogre started to grin.

Think, Jacob!

He threw the saber as far as he could, and as the Ogre turned toward the clattering sound, Jacob quickly crawled to Chanute. The old man looked at him through glassy eyes. It was a miracle he was still alive. The pain had rendered him nearly unconscious, and Jacob wasn’t sure Chanute even recognized him as he reached for the knife in his belt.

The knife that could cut anything. Why hadn’t Chanute used it?

Because the liquor had slowed him down and made him sloppy.

The old fool.

Jacob pulled the knife from its sheath. Chanute had taken it off a gang of highwaymen a year earlier. It had been Jacob’s job to distract them.

“Jacob...” muttered the old man.

So he did recognize him. Chanute tried to grab his arm. “Get out of here.”

Of course. Half dead, and still ordering him around.

Love was a strange thing. How could you feel love for someone who had beat you blue and green every time he came across a bottle?

Well… Jacob loved the old man for everything he’d taught him. And because in many ways Chanute was just like him.

~ ~ ~

The Ogre reached out, stumbling toward Jacob. And Jacob lunged.

The knife cut through the clothes and the blue skin... again and again... until the Ogre finally collapsed.

The blade that could cut anything cut through his heart.

~ ~ ~

Chanute was still flat on his back. His wound was terrible, but he would survive.

“My arm.” Chanute looked around. “Give me my arm.”

Jacob picked it up. “It won’t do you much good now.”

“I knew this soldier who had his leg sewn back on by a Dark Witch.”

“Yes, and he probably started eating children shortly after.” Jacob stared down at the old treasure hunter. “There’s a cobbler in Schwanstein who makes wooden limbs.”

“It’s over.” Chanute’s voice was barely a whisper. “You’re the best.”

Jacob said nothing.

He’d been the best for a while now.

But only thanks to Chanute.

Child Eating Witch Recipes

The original folios from which these recipes have been translated and transcribed were discovered inside an abandoned gingerbread house in the Hungry Forest.

Poorsister’s Stew

First concocted during Guismond’s Purge of the Witches, this stew helps to reduce stress and anxiety during difficult times.

The wings of 4 dragonflies

One-quarter and 7 wart beans

2 choke vine sprigs

2 pints Thumbling sweat

1 glance of a vacuous boy

It is crucial that the glance you collect be not in fact a stare. If in doubt, or should the glance linger, simply snarl at the child to divert his gaze and eliminate any curiosity. Place the glance in a pewter tureen and quickly cover with wart beans and crushed dragonfly wings. Pour Thumbling sweat over the mulch, and snicker sarcastically at it. Plant the vine sprigs beside the tombstone of a fallen Bluebeard. Bring the stew to a boil, and reduce heat immediately. Serve at dusk.

Cosmo Tytketail

1 wiggle of guttersnipe’s run

3 chawts of triple-muc

Lime dirt

Pistol of Fairy lily

Swirl the run and muc and lime dirt with gentleness in the empty perfume bottle. Care not to allow the ingredients to mix complete, only mingle, for the wasps drink but twice a weary night. Break pistol to caress the flume.

Jambe d’Enfant à l’Albion

(Poached leg of stout child with caper sauce)

To replace appearance of aging with appearance of youth

1 whole leg of stout child

1 hexed finger of stout child

1 palm of hard quarry salt per quart of blighted water

2 palms of capers

1/2 loaf of thistle

1 cup of father’s tears

2 tablespoons of earwax

Remove and discard shoe and stocking. Ignore any foul smell emanating from the foot – odorous feet are common to children who wander into the forest, and stenching will not diminish the magic properties of the dish.

Hexing the finger:

Insert the finger into your nostril. Wipe the mucus residue into eyebrows, reciting the Triptych Incantations of Soulise Benoit, then expectorate through uncleaned teeth into cauldron of water. Add salt and bring blighted water to boil. Simmer leg and finger for 13 days. DO NOT OVER BOIL. If crows around your home begin facing west in unison, you have overheated the water, and a plague on local farmers’ turnip crops has commenced.

Caper sauce:

Beat the thistle and capers into the tears, then fold the gritty slaw into the earwax continuously until bubbles form on the surface.

Place poached leg on a wet or moldy wooden platter, preferably birch. Drizzle with caper sauce. Sprinkle with red coriander for rosier cheeks.

Turt

A schoolgirl of the height of a smoot, drowsy

One grab of Moor Comfrey root

Blanched beak of crow

Scalp oil

Yowl at her, prowl, growl to bring her to bite.

Flip the smoot, the beak to toot, and shoot the root into oiled boot.

Hallow the moon and curse the noon.

Savor, for it is done.

Tankhuzkidjabloko

(Meat with apples)

(13c. Andalusian)

Ribs of human child

Middle eyeball of tryclops or cyclops ogre child

Oil of 3 stone

Black onion

Swamp licorice

Birch dust

Baffle beans

Petunias

Flagonette eggs

Infant’s rattles

Reeking root

Ginger flower

Black mark apples

Salt

Chew onions and bury them. Pound the ribs and place them in pot and pour over them oil and salt. Boil and stir in swamp licorice and birch dust and baffle beans and 1 hand of petunias pounded to a mylsc. Add white of one egg and let rest until the lard runs out. Smash three infant’s rattles and put in the pot with onion and reeking root and ginger flour. Boil it in the pot over fire until it releases its water and a single sigh. Cover with the juice from apples and bake. Separately heat eggs with eggshells adding whole apples without cutting and the pickled eyeball of ogre child. The meat is done and so cover the meat with egg concoction and leave to rot on warm hearthstone.

Birch Tea

Pluck the leaves from the sapling of a Witch Birch tree. Care only for the leaves, as stems and dross play no part in this pleasure. Dowse in bubbling water for 8 turns of the beleaguered eye. Witches not consuming children will only allow 6 turns. Remove and deheat.

After School Delight ~ Child Pickles

During the months of early summer, the warming weather brings an abundance of exuberant children, freshly liberated from kindergarten. The best way to cope with a surplus of these sweaty darlings is to pickle them with hedgehog quills and eyes of potato. The sweetness of the children is replaced with vinegar, salt, and malice — the brine itself to be a distinct, secret formula of each individual witch. A helpful hint, however: bitter flowers and aromatic, pungent allium vegetables are not a bad idea; nor are the 17th century incantations of the Northern Hungry Forest witches.

The difference between a good tart child and a great pickled child lies in the emotional comportment of the child and the intensity of the enchantments. Summer humidity also aids the transfer of magic, through the air itself, to the pickles.

The three basic kinds of child pickle:

Hard pickle (or “cartilage pickle”) – Made from the hard parts of the child. The crunchiness and chewiness of these pickles keeps a witch’s eyes sparkling bright and helps suspend motherly instincts.

Soft pickle – Once thought by the ancient Lower Marsh witches to stave off fleas and witch hunters, this supple, fleshy pickle is now known to simply enhance charisma and conceal wickedness.

Ether pickle – An airy, delicate pickle divined from the emotions and dreams of the child, these include giggle relishes, bitterkraut, and brined hopes. By far the most mystical, ethereal, and vague of all pickle varieties, this is the only type of child pickle that contains no actual tangible matter: it is just the brined essence of the child’s psyche.

All child pickles require at least one year of brining, at dank cellar temperatures, and will only get better with time.

Littles of Smirk

Filch smirks. Boil them. When the peak comes, add wine and spirits from ochre and lore. Crush beetle shells, meent stems, and seeds underfoot of gelding stomp. Moisten by vinegar, garum, and dribbled triumph of Goyl. Plenty garum as desired but never more than presses the soul. Bind in oak.

Pastel de Leonia

As the mortals’ war fell upon Leonia, the resulting influx of orphans gave rise to this flaky delicacy. Pythoneses opened the first, and wickedly successful, pastelaria. Peasants and kings alike remained ignorant of the ingredients, that brought rage and war to a man’s mind, and passion to the hearts of women and priests.

The puff pastry:

One fork of wool flour

One forearm of orphan’s grime

Butter, to feel

Juice of carrot

Innards:

Dark irises of orphan’s eye

Horse’s foam

Curdled milk of goat Cinnamon

Tart stalk

For baking:

Moth cocoon silk

Sweet gumption

Squeeze the butter with the orphan sweat using the fist of only the left hand. Mix in the juice and flour and let harden. Beat the milk, irises, foam, stalk, and cinnamon with a wet cudgel. Stack the pastry, alternating layers of hardened dough with foamy innard paste. Cut into pieces the size of the child’s open palm. Wrap the individual pieces in moth cocoon silk, cast into the flames for 6 turns of a wineskin, then cool with the gumption.

Child Suet Pudding

2 hands of child’s suet, mashed rough

2 cups of grapes, dried

4 cups gristle

Albumen of 1 egg of butchered quail

Pinch of sleep crust from dozing tot

1 fingernail of greened cream

Stuff into a pudding bag and boil at midsun for three twists.

Confuse sweetness with lingonberry.

Holdover Bastard Hash

3 bowls of chopped knee and ankle and knuckle meat from abandoned bastard child

2 grabs of Heinzel hair

2 bowls of currants

2 drops of leper puss

3 megs of nut

Sour cream, turned good

In this twilight, dare to provoke the dead with Heinzel hair in teeth. Buried is the forest’s heart with the puss and currants and meat and nuts and cream. Bring the aroma to dance in the willows and grasp nothing but the claws made to appear.

A Modern Compendium of Mischievous & Miraculous Plants from Austry & Lotheraine

A botanical guide, by F.G. Ozwalt, highlighting some of MirrorWorld’s most fiendish, but unassuming residents.

~ ~ ~

For Marian,

This very moment is a seed from which the flowers of tomorrow’s happiness grow.

Bird Tree

Arboreus Aviarium

This diabolical deciduous has bark as spiny as the shell of a chestnut, and its conspicuously sparse canopy has the miraculous paradoxical effect of filtering sunlight into a gloomy brown haze. The tree’s roots lay on or just under the forest floor, extending much further out than the tree’s branches — as far as 50 feet — and often growing as thick as a man’s waist. The oldest roots, like the bark, are covered in spines.

Victims of the Bird Tree are ensnared and strangled by its grasping roots, whereupon the tree’s feathery inhabitants descend from its branches to gorge on the prey. In return, the birds spread the tree’s seeds, and eat insects that threaten its bark and leaves. The birds’ plumage is white as virgin snow; they have long, sharp crimson beaks, and eyes like dark red berries.

Bird Trees are usually surrounded by a mixture of rotting leaves and bones — the skeletons of unlucky animals and ignorant humans — creating a kind of self-generating mulch of death that both nourishes the soil and conceals its lurking roots.

The Fairy Lily

Lillium Nympha

The Fairy Lily, renowned for imparting exceptional beauty, is one of the most sought-after plants in the world. Unfortunately, most extracts purveyed as Fairy Lily are in fact Moor Lily, and have no magical traits whatsoever. Genuine Fairy Lilies grow only on lakes inhabited by Fairies, and such lakes are nearly impossible to find unless under the spell of a Fairy, as they are invisible to the unenchanted eye, and are guarded by herds of deadly unicorns.

The Lily’s bloom is white, and once fully opened is almost one foot wide. Its invigorating scent is said to cause feelings of bliss and timelessness. It is also rumored that the petals can conceal the bearer from the eyes of Fairies.

The best preparation for beautification is achieved by drying the petals and then soaking them in rose water. After three days the essence must be applied to the skin. The transformational effect is almost immediate.

Interestingly, the Mirror Flower has a beautifying effect very similar to the Fairy Lily, but its magic lasts for only a few hours.

Gold Tree

Arborieus Aureolus

An exceptionally rare deciduous hardwood tree, whose delicate oval leaves shower whoever shakes its branches with either pollen or pure gold dust. The pollen carries a powerful, disgusting stench that permeates the clothes and skin, and won’t wash off for days. The gold dust, on the other hand, is of extremely high purity, and is much sought-after by goldsmiths and jewelers.

The Gold Tree tends to be unpredictable when it comes to dispensing its favors, but it is said to release its precious metal only as a reward for a noble and unselfish deed, or to a person whose heart is filled with compassion and love. These claims cannot be verified.

Moor Comfrey

Symphytum Aequor

Moor Comfrey is best known as a powerful pain reliever. Ironically, it only grows in dangerous territory such as swamps, bogs, and moors, marking places where people have been swallowed by the deadly environments. The plant’s flowers are dark purple bells, spotted with red. The leaves are velvety soft and are very sweet to eat. The most valuable medicinal part of the plant, however, is its deep reaching roots.

When pulled from the ground, the plant releases a quiet, unsettling sigh, and the ground around it immediately gives way like quicksand. This collapsing of the ground can be deadly, and both Witches and herb collectors are careful to approach the plants only by first covering the ground around them with long wooden planks.

Old Austry legends claim that Moor Comfreys are guarded by angry gnomes who dig their tunnels between the roots and drag intruders by their legs into the soft ground.

Nightingale Flower

Cerintha Ales Alitis

These delightful flowers are found mostly in Lotheraine, enthralling travelers who venture into its beautiful countryside. When moonlight hits the flower, the petals open and release a hauntingly beautiful melody that resembles a nightingale’s song.

Sadly, the Nightingale Flower loses its melodic magic when cut or pulled from the ground. Many kings of Lotheraine have tried in vain to introduce the flowers into their palace gardens, and many unfortunate gardeners have been executed for their failures in this respect. It is said that only a completely innocent heart can induce a Nightingale Flower to grow in one’s garden — a trait rarely found in kings of Lotheraine.

Goyl Rose

Rosa Lapillus

This fabled “flower made of stone” was long considered a myth — especially after the one on display in the Imperial Chambers of Miracles proved to have been a fake, crafted by a gifted jeweler. But Kam’ien, King of the Goyl, presented the first known aboveground Goyl Rose as a gift to the Dark Fairy at a royal ball in Vena.

Goyl Roses can take up to 25 years to fully develop, and never wither or die, even after they are cut. The Goyl claim that the scent of the flower can heal any illness of body or mind; that the petals when put under the tongue allow one to see the dead; and that the fruit when consumed gives the strength of ten men. More credible evidence suggests its thorns carry a powerful poison that can turn enemies into willing slaves, but most Goyl sources deny this claim.

There is also an old legend that the OnyxLords bred the plant successfully aboveground in their Secret Gardens. But this powerful plant grows only deep underground — so deep that every human who has set out to find it has perished on their quest.

Choke Vine

Labrusca Strangulo

Though easily mistaken for a member of the bramble family, as the leaves and blossoms are so similar, the fruit of the Choke Vine is much smaller than a bramble's, and is covered with a coarse dark plumage. The vine and its berries are used by Witches for various intestinal ailments, and are often distilled into a delicious liquor that serves as a digestive.

In early spring the vine spreads ferociously, crawling up trees, rock faces and fences, and strangling everything in its path. Choke Vines have been employed by armies at war to build dangerous barriers and traps for their enemies, and by highwaymen to catch unsuspecting travelers. Victims become tangled in the thorny vines and are slowly choked to death. A deft and calm victim, however, may be able to free himself if, and only if, the vine is still young. The thorns, however, invariably cause serious wounds that can easily become infected, and will often result in death within a few days.

Only when the vine actually bears its fruit, in late summer, can it be safely approached.

Shadow Daisy

Bellis Umbra Scarabaeus

This small booby-trapped flower has dark blue petals surrounding a golden seed capsule. When stepped on, the center capsule opens up and releases a swarm of beetles. The sting of the beetles is extremely painful, and more than three bites can be fatal.

The Shadow Daisy grows under large solitary trees in otherwise open spaces — most commonly in forest clearings, fields, and meadows — precisely where travelers tend to stop for shade, rest, or lunch.

Forgetyourself

Amomum Bacchus

The scent of this unassuming white flower, when inhaled deeply, causes a devastating loss of memory, self control, and scruples. Victims typically forget their name, their family, their past — their entire identity.

While the flower is coveted by Witches and Harm Apothecaries alike, it owes its fame mostly to its use by Bluebeards, who enrapture maidens by attaching its flowers to their dresses or their hair. The Forgetyourself thrives in the labyrinths that guard the mansions of Bluebeards, and fills their murderous corridors with its sweet, innocent bouquet.

Witch Birch

Betula Flagellum

Witch Birch grows almost exclusively around the gingerbread houses of Child Eating Witches. The trees with the white bark and slender trunks let children pass freely, but help guard the Witches from all other visitors. Their pointy, razor-tipped branches are drawn to the eyes of passersby, and they rarely miss.

Tomb Cloves

Trifolieae Mortis

Interestingly, Tomb Cloves are actually members of the clover family. For reasons not entirely clear — though likely through colloquial evolution and laziness — their name has become shortened to "cloves." And as the name further suggests, these aromatic herbs are grown to accompany the dead. Planted in tombs to protect against grave robbers, they cover their corpses with a lush carpet of green blossoms. Their poisonous pollen can survive for centuries, and once inhaled will cause the skin to break out in a deadly mold that kills the intruder within minutes.

Only the seeds of Dwarf Hemlock can stave off the lethal effect of Tomb Cloves — but one must be careful not to confuse these with the seeds of Dragon Hemlock, which are traditionally used for suicide.

Journal of Ogres

The tragically unfinished field journal of MirrorWorld naturalist Heinrich Eichholz.

THE ONE-EYED OGRE

Despite the fact that most Ogres have two eyes, and some even three, the One-Eyed is the breed most casual observers will picture when they think of Ogres — no doubt because of its powerful cyclopean connotation. The One-Eyed Ogre is often considered less dangerous than other breeds, as the single eye seems to make us believe that we will be able to more easily hide from its view. This is a very dangerous misconception, as the One-Eyed has a highly developed sense of smell and can detect human flesh from a distance of half a mile or more. Like all Ogres, both male and female, it prefers the flesh of male humans, but will prey on women and children for his offspring, as the meat is softer and easier for their developing teeth to masticate.

The One-Eyed Ogre can be found in both blue-eyed and yellow-eyed subtypes. The latter hunts mostly at night, whereas the blue-eyed is very comfortable and functional in both daylight and moonlight.

THE GREY SCALED OGRE

The Grey Scaled Ogre is the only variety of Ogre, to my knowledge, that chooses not to wear clothes. Most other Ogres develop a sense for fashion, often even capturing tailors and seamstresses to make clothes out of their victims’ belongings; but the Grey Scaled clads itself only in dirt and clay, rolling in mud until it dries over its entire body.

Another unique trait of the Grey Scaled: It prefers to eat its victims raw, unlike its blue skinned relatives who mostly cook their meat.

THE WATER OGRE

Whereas most other Ogres prefer — and seem to enjoy — clubbing their victims to death, the Water Ogre is known for drowning its prey. It hides submerged in ponds and swamps, whence it pounces and drags its victims into the water. Notably, its eyes, like that of a frog, are covered with a thin transparent skin — an aquatic adaptation, no doubt, that assists with its watery modus operandi.

The Water Ogre favors dark clothing — preferably loosely tailored suits — the dripping wet fabric typically covered with algae, snails, and pond scum.

The most striking characteristic of the Water Ogre is its raw, hideous, utterly disgusting appearance.

THE SNOW OGRE

The little known, but eminently ferocious Snow Ogre is of Norgian descent. It freezes its victim in ice blocks and keeps them in this state, sometimes for years. I have discovered Snow Ogre caves containing as many as 50 frozen corpses, apparently as winter provisions.

THE NOSELESS OGRE

A very interesting variety — this Ogre cannot smell its victims, as most Ogres can, but rather listens for them. Its ears are similar to the those of a cat, and, also like cats, it spends much of its time simply lying on the ground, listening for footsteps or hoof beats.

THE DWARF OGRE

Deceptively comical in appearance, one would be wise to resist the urge to laugh when confronting a Dwarf Ogre. For while they are much smaller than their human prey, they are incredibly fast and strong. They mostly hide in trees and pounce on their victims.

THE OAK BARK OGRE

Oak Bark Ogres are a subvariety of One-Eyed Ogres, with a distinctive defining gastronomic characteristic: They cook their victims in a rarefied soup prepared from oak bark and pheasant skin. Otherwise, see One-Eyed Ogre for description.

THE GIANT OGRE

Full-grown Giant Ogres can reach heights of over 7 feet tall. They are carelessly loud and noisy, and far less intelligent than other breeds. They are known for their idiotic hyena-like laughter, as well as for crushing their victims’ skulls with frying pans — mostly because they find this highly amusing.

THE CHANTING OGRE

In stark contrast to Giant Ogres, Chanting Ogres are extremely sophisticated. They enjoy indulging their victims in long conversations before killing and eating them — these discussions usually outlining exactly how the Ogre plans to cook them.

Chanting Ogres are also renowned for their singing. They generally have an impressive repertoire of songs they perform for their various victims while preparing them for dinner, as well as very touching, melodious lullabies they sing to their own children.

THE WHISPERING OGRE

Not unlike the Chanting Ogre, the Whispering Ogre has a uniquely insidious manner of stalking, frightening, and killing its prey. These diabolical beasts like to follow their victims for hours, whispering threats and insults into their ears, before finally seizing them.

THE TRAP BUILDING OGRE

As the name suggests, these Ogres build elaborate traps to capture their prey — under trees, and cleverly hidden in open clearings and fields. The traps are usually deep holes covered with branches and leaves, the walls stabilized with wooden planks, and the floors padded with moss and leaves to help ensure the victims are still alive and unbroken when they are retrieved.

THE SPIDER OGRE

The Spider Ogre also employs traps, but uses swarms of spiders to build them. The massive spiderweb traps can easily catch several victims at once. The spider saliva that covers the webbing is poisonous and often kills the victims, but has no effect on the Spider Ogres themselves. In fact they enjoy wrapping their victims in the webs as a method of cooking them — the poison apparently adding a delicious, spicy flavor to the meat. (Many Ogres, of all varieties, complain that human flesh begins to taste quite dull after a while.)

OGRE GENDER AND OFFSPRING

While most people think of Ogres as male creatures, there are of course female Ogres. The male and female, however, do not usually raise their children together — childrearing is the mother's job, and she will often drive the father away, out of concern that he may eat their offspring when faced with a shortage of human food.

Occasionally, as has been seen with Chanting Ogres, the male and female couple will stay together for life. Such pairings are usually refined into sophisticated and dangerous collaborations, wherein the two develop elaborate hunting schemes and dinner recipes together. There have even been reported sightings of Ogre families who hunt with their offspring — though this writer-observer can not verify the validity of such reports.

Certain valleys in Austry to this day carry the name "Ogre Valley" ("Menschenfresser-Tal"), as all their human inhabitants have vanished under the hunting efforts of very efficient Ogre clans.

The Silent Sabre

The definitive manual on self-defense and gentlemanly conflict, by the MirrorWorld’s greatest swordsman and chivalry practitioner, Sir Willard Wallace III.

~ ~ ~

It is nothing to die; it is frightful not to live.

The New Fighting Style of Sir Willard Wallace III

As Written by the Publisher

Sir Willard Wallace III has just unveiled to the world a system of self-defense which would seem to render anyone acquainted with it practically impregnable against all forms of attack, however dangerous and unexpected they may be.

It is possible, however, that after a consideration of the explanations which follow, many persons will exclaim, “This is all very well on paper, but in practice it will possibly be otherwise!” We must confess that when Sir Wallace first came into this office with his credentials and claims (a slight, precious looking man with no indications of unusual strength), we ourselves were somewhat skeptical, but a few practical tests soon showed that we were in grievous error! Others, too, have scoffed at first — professional strong men, gymnasts, and athletes generally — but not one of these has met Sir Wallace and put him to the test who has not in the end been bound to admit that this system is irresistible.

The Chief Constable of Austry says: “In spite of my being a much heavier man than Sir Wallace, his system of defense and retaliation is so much more scientific than my style, that when practicing with him, however great may be my determination to remain firm on my legs and to keep my balance, my efforts are invariably frustrated, and I am ignominiously thrown. Mere strength has no chance of withstanding the science of this new art.”

The Silent Salutation of Steel

The swordsman is a man of actions, not words. Though certainly contingent upon the urgency and the circumstances, both social and physical, of the impending duel at hand, the true swordsman will at all times strive to convey the utmost courteousness and decorum by means of proper gesticulatory etiquette before killing or wounding his opponent.

~ ~ ~

Perform sans verbal communication of any type:

1. Flick the rapier down and angled slightly so the blade becomes as a direct linear extension of the fully extended sword arm.

2. Begin the bow, maintaining eye contact with the opponent — this more to effect his unease than afford guard.

3. Complete the bow while lifting the rapier back and upward into an opposite line under the free arm with a graceful sweeping motion that stands in contrast to the sharpness of the opening flick-o-foil.

~ ~ ~

The swordsman should augment this salutation with his own distinctive flourishes and facial gestures so as to craft his entrée maneuver into an expression of his own unique character and style — his pennacchio.

The Gallant’s Greeting

When a swordsman is meeting a maiden, impressing a lady, or has assisted a damsel, the jewel in his crown of chivalry will be his modest and dignified gesture of gentility — his “there-de-do” or “ciao bella” if you will. It should, of course, go without saying that the salutation presented here is in no way appropriate for empresses, princesses, or royalty of any type. (For such royal greetings, refer to Peterborough’s Protocols, Second Edition, Chapter 17.)

The Gallant’s Greeting is not a maneuver that can be taught or learnt in a step-by-step fashion. Like a coin flip or a rooster pop, there is only one step. Mastering the stunt is a matter of practice — trying and erring, in private, until it can be executed as naturally and as flawlessly as the snapping of one’s fingers.

~ ~ ~

1. Convert a formal rapier hat-tip by slipping the tip of the rapier under the brim — being careful to avoid poking the eye — and flicking the hat upward.

~ ~ ~

The Capital Thrust

When death is nigh, expediency trumps flamboyance. No matter how accomplished the swordsman, there will always exist somewhere an equally skilled opponent. Should this villain ever be crossed in earnest, the only course of action is a direct and speedy win, leaving no window open for counterattack or subsequent reprisals.

The Capital Thrust involves no feint, no parry, no riposte. It requires simply a calmness of the nerves, a willingness to strike first, and the mettle to do so quickly, without hesitation.

~ ~ ~

1. Stand in The Garibaldi Back-Leaning Guard, the body canted away from the tip of the offending rapier and stealthily augmented with a misleading attitude that conveys a strong internal self-preservational desire to be elsewhere.

2. Emit a loud, unsettling squeal, so as to stun the foe, and thrust the rapier through his eye.

~ ~ ~

The deadly efficacy of The Capital Thrust, not to mention the life expectancy of the swordsman, can be greatly enhanced by the adoption of a subtle guise — specifically that of a coward. To this end, the swordsman would do well to incorporate stage lessons into his training regimen.

Drubbing the Brawler

While the swordsman is a master of arms, he will often face an opponent whose greatest weapon is his sheer brawn. A drunken brawler, circus giant, or livery brute can in fact present for the swordsman a capital opportunity to apply his prowess with a cudgel or truncheon. There is indeed a unique pleasure to be taken in trouncing a galoot who would seek to impose his superior size and physical strength on a smaller citizen.

The ruffian’s instigation of an altercation will be for the swordsman as a throw of dice is to the opening of a chess match: the ridiculous swirling-o-fists the brute uses to rile himself up and intimidate his opponent. The true benefit of this show of farce, however, belongs to the swordsman, whence he can time the pugilist’s roisterous rhythm, and perfectly calculate his own counterstrike.

~ ~ ~

1. Stand in Bavarian Monkey Guard, with torso and cudgel held low, counting the brawler’s fisticuff cycles.

2. The instant the opponent throws an actual punch — usually on the sixth or seventh cycle — simultaneously duck low and step in, under the blow, with cudgel fully cocked.

3. When the galoot has fully extended his arm and realized his miss, his jaw will drop slightly in disbelief. Precisely at this moment of astonishment, unleash the cudgel with maximum force in an up-strike to his loosened, gaping jaw.

~ ~ ~

The swordsman should be entirely prepared to repeat this exact maneuver several times, as the ruffian’s jaw is often just as resilient as his predictability and stupidity.

Trimming the Midget

The tiny people, when aggrieved or violent in intent, will seem to the unlearned swordsman but a trifle. A well-schooled midget, however, can turn his dimensional handicap into a tactical advantage by plying his swordplay on a lower plane than that to which his opponent is accustomed.

The trick of the Trim is to present the smaller man with what he presumes to be an easy target, thus luring him into a maneuver from which he erroneously believes his gain will be won.

~ ~ ~

1. Assume the Dandy Guard, drawing the midget in, with wrist-cocked rapier angled downward from high above, the torso fully exposed, and the free hand splayed, ready to spring.

2. Receive the attack not with an expected parry, but rather with the swift snatching of the opponent’s sword by the free hand.

3. Quickly spin both blades in hand into a two-sword double-threat configuration, targeting the midget’s tiny tummy and head.

4. The finale should be considered optional, as the opponent has now been rendered defenseless. If however, the midget’s prior or ongoing demeanor and aggression merit greater humbling, which is most often the case, simply remove his cap with a quick skewering by the upper held rapier.

~ ~ ~

Beggar’s Rout

Few adversaries pose a greater annoyance than the robber-tramp. Invariably armed with the most inane weapon he can find — whether a cobbler’s iron,
hat-stand, or farm implement — the would-be bandit relies more on terror than arms to achieve his end. And while the savvy swordsman will never find himself without a weapon of some type, he must assume he will not be sporting his trusty rapier when the beggar’s attack comes, as such derelicts will never knowingly place their lives at such risk for bounty alone.

The beggar’s assault will almost always arrive in the form of an ambush. For this reason, the swordsman should practice and perfect an instantaneous reaction to surprise attacks, until a full-action stance (Plate 1) becomes for him as instinctive and effortless a response as a sneeze is to a nasal irritation.

~ ~ ~

1. Upon initial confrontation, spring immediately into Lightning Guard, projecting the cane boldly into the air and luring the predictably asinine opponent into attacking the exposed lower body. Often this sudden and striking defensive posture will frighten the beggar, and he will simply flee.

2. If the foe is foolish enough to attack, simply drop the cane firmly to a vertical position with a back-snap of the wrist, and parry the strike.

3. Simultaneously: grab the vagabond’s parried weapon with the free hand, and strike him in the face with the cane, using maximum force.

4. Subjugate the beggar using his own filthy weapon, thus preserving both the cleanliness of the swordsman’s walking stick as well as the shame of the offending dolt.

~ ~ ~

The Saucy Stick

A night on the town presents often a test of the skilled swordsman’s temperament and restraint. A minor affront to one’s honor, to that of a lady, or to an incompetent acquaintance, for instance, need not result necessarily in death or permanent injury, but rather in the simple humiliation of the culprit. Formal walking sticks are most often readily available, if not borne by the swordsman himself, in such circumstances.

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1. Stand holding the cane as one would the rapier in standard sword-play guard position.

2. The attack — and this indeed is the feint — is a thrust low, rather than high to the torso or head as will be expected with a standard lunge, accompanied by an equally surprising seizure of the opponent’s weapon with the free hand.

3. Sharply up-strike to the groin, completing the surprise and causing the clutched stick to be easily taken.

4. Finish with a double-threat stance, poised to poke-riposte from a kick, or strike down an attempt to rise up.

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If executed with proper form and a firm up-strike, no further offensive action will be required. The goal of the Saucy Stick is to humble the offending stooge, not to flaunt the swordsman’s skill or cruelty.