Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden

by Stefan Milicevic

In the one thousand, one hundred and first year since my creation and the twenty-second year of my incarceration, I was locked inside a class showcase, discussing the finer points of philosophy with quite the disagreeable Guillotine.

“I am simply saying that even if we are not strictly human, we possess a soul. Your insistence on an upbringing being vital does not help your case.”

Monsieur Guillotine snorted, shaking his wooden head, which at one point had been a chopping block.

“My dear, our existence is a curse. Having the ability to reason is not even beyond animals.” He gestured at me with a as much of a flourish, as the glass constraints around him allowed. The blades sprouting from his elbows clattered against the glass. “Look at yourself. If I may be blunt, I sincerely doubt that body of yours could give birth. Reproduction is a key aspect of humanity.”

I stifled a snort. It all came back to coitus with these damned Freudians. Some days I wondered if there had been an influx of perverts and pederasts in France when Monsieur Guillotine had been nothing but an instrument of torture, but I knew it had to be their literature. Hugo and Leroux, those gentlemen thrived on misery, and back in the day the quickest way to the decapitation device du jour was to write a book.

I should know, really--the inside of my lid impaled many great thinkers, many of which kept me awake at night with their tortured screams. When they were not arguing with each other.

“I’ll have you know that the Japanese have a conceit known as kami, which dictates that every object in the universe--”

“Hush, now,” Monsieur Guillotine cut me off, rather rudely. “They are coming.”

It was true, the wail of creaking stares announced that the curator was coming, but I thought it a tad too fortunate that he came down to the basement just as I was to make a rather good point.

He was not alone, however. A gangly young gentleman accompanied him, a nouveau riche if I had ever laid my eyes upon one. It was rather obvious that he came from money, and very recently at that: his motions spoke rather of raking dung than prolonged debates or scholarly reading.

“Here they are, Otto, my precious contraptions come to life,” he said, his lips curling into a smile. “Monsieur Guillotine and Fräulein Iron Maiden.”

I nodded in acknowledgment. Not that I would have curtsied, had the space inside my glass cabinet allowed it, but unlike Monsieur Guillotine I was conscious of my duty to display proper manners, even to the less fortunate members of humanity.

The boy regarded me with an innocent awe that I almost found charming.

“You were right, Uncle,” he said. “They certainly look alive. Clever engineering, indeed!”

“Excuse me?” I said. “I do not recall calling you a result of clever duties marital.” I rose my chin with a clang. “Know your place!”

The curator laughed. “Careful now, Otto. The maidy is a prickly one.”

Otto still ogled me as if I had never admonished him. “I meant no disrespect, Fräulein. By clever engineering, I meant to say that you are... beautiful.”

Such impertinence! Uninspired flattery was for pubs and houses of ill-repute, not for the Nürnberg Museum of Industrial Culture. I averted my gaze, out of sheer regard for propriety, of course.

He inspected my body from head to toe--the locks of chain and wire that sprouted from my iron-wrought skull, every jagged spike that jutted out my smooth metal body. Nothing was safe from his consideration. Had there been a heart in that hollow body of mine, its beat would have flung open the lids covering my chest.

“And no one knows how they came to life?” Otto asked, his gaze still lingering on me like a canker of rust.

The curator shrugged. “People are afraid of them. We never got a chance to examine their inner workings. I used to have more of them. Back I could still show them in the museum proper without the visitors crying bloody murder. Now I have to keep them in the basement.” He shook his head. “Such ignorance.”

The curator was right. Around me stood glass cases, hollow and forgotten. Gone were the days when I could exchange opinions with the Judas Cradle or the Brazen Bull.

“What happened to the other devices?”

“They probably got smelted.” The curator laughed. “The irony. Right now someone is sleeping on a bed that used to be a part of my torture rack.”

“Must you discuss smelting in front of us?” I bristled.

The curator raised his hand in a placating manner. “My apologies, maidy. You know you are safe with me.”

“I would love to examine them,” Otto said. “Why, I could write my thesis about it!”

The curator ruffled the boy’s hair. “Easy, boy. You have five semesters to go. Can I count on your assistance over the next month?”

“Of course, uncle.”

I cleared my throat, eliciting the sound of a nail being dragged across an iron sheet. “Come again, sir?”

The curator put a hand on Otto’s shoulder. “Otto will be doing maintenance on you. He is an engineering student with the University of Berlin and I decided to help him for his trouble. A couple of marks for every hour he spends with you two--cleaning, polishing, oiling-- the whole works.”

His words hurt like ulcers of corrosion. Our own curator relegating his duty to a plebeian to save a couple of marks. I would have to consult one of the voices in my head to see if there was a circle in hell reserved for tightfisted old men.

The two men excused themselves, leaving me once again in the questionable company of Monsieur Guillotine.

“Young Otto is quite smitten with you,” he said.

I scoffed. “Now I have it on good authority that they used you to behead writers, dear.”

“Can you blame the fool?” he said, his voice laden with poisonous sarcasm. “You are a rose without petals.”


* * *
The plebeian thought that he could he win me over with books. One week after committing to his maintenance duties he made it a point to lug tomes of philosophy and history to the basement, which much to his dismay failed to capture my fancy.

Otto knit his eyebrows, two curious caterpillars wriggling on his forehead. Despicable.

“Uncle said you love books,” he said.

“I do. However, I never said it was your duty to furnish me with reading material, young man.”

“Banish the thought, boy. Her head is filled with nonsense as it is.”

“I appreciate it when you keep your opinions to yourself, Monsieur Guillotine.”

“Quiet, you two,” Otto said. He inspected the leather-bound tome. The title read Poetica. Grecian reading. Enough to pique my interest, but I had my doubts about the plebeian’s competence to argue with me on an intellectual level. Oh, he could read, but life would be very dull if a debate consisted of nothing more than parroting other great thinkers.

“Your reticence baffles me. My colleagues recommended these.”

“Oh, did they?” I cursed the fact that my body was not as pliable as I wished. I would have crinkled my nose otherwise. “I recommend you read some of these yourself before you wish to match wits with me.” I pointed at the heap of books outside my glass prison--books by Diogenes, Hobbs, Schiller and Goethe, coated in dust.

“Bribery will not bring you far, young man.”

“But I need to help you. Uncle has been clear about it and you need it too.”

He was right. Lichenous patches of rust crusted some of my surfaces and each movement brought forth a chorus of creaks. Never mind how dust managed to sneak and creep into crevasses, drying my joints. Even moving in my glass cage caused friction that induced gangrenous pain.

But my resolve remained unshaken. I was a woman of principle.

“Just let me oil and varnish you.”

“Never.”

The boy threw the book onto the ever growing heap in the corner. Such disregard for literature.

“Fine. If I prove myself your equal, you shall let me do my duty.”

Monsieur Guillotine chuckled, the sound of a butcher’s knife hitting hardwood.

“Do your worst, boy,” I replied. “You threw down the gauntlet, so the topic of discourse shall be of my choosing.”

“Very well.”

I had a topic in mind the moment he spoke. I harbored no hope of him actually elucidating me, but it was a hobbyhorse of mine.

“What does it mean to be human?”

Otto laughed. “I am engineer. Do you think I concern myself with humanity?”

I twirled a lock of chain around my finger, offering him the slightest of smiles. “You are a boy who got sent to University thanks to his Father’s hefty bursary. Engineer or not, do you accept this challenge?”

His pained grimace made my inner workings jingle and jangle. How I derived such pleasure from seeing him squirm I did not know, but the base enjoyment of playful banter made me feel alive. I suppose the boy was to be commended--his mere presence spurred my curiosity about humanity.

“All right.” Otto took a moment to concentrate. The sight of him fidgeting in his cheap finery was quite lovely.

“Being human is about knowing about love, I suppose.”

“Ever the plebeian!”

“What is your counter-argument?”

I swiftly consulted the plethora of thinkers roaming within me. Their spirits clashed like swords, metal ringing on metal, each sound an opinion, a school of thought. As was their habit, their dissent erupted into a skull-cracking headache. I shooed the voices into compliance and siphoned an assortment of attractive ideologies, a varied enough arsenal to hold my own against Otto.

“Well, according to--”

Otto made a cutting motion with his palm. “None of that. I want to know what you think, not what you read.”

“Read?” I said, feeling as if my head had been dipped into a smelting oven. “Countless thinkers have died by hand. You dare to question the quality of my victims?”

“Really?” Otto scratched the fern that was his beard. There was a flash in his eyes, a lovely glitter of curiosity. “Uncle mentioned something to that effect. The memories of the dead stay with you. What mechanism within you could possibly account for that?”

The dead. The memories. It all came back to me, memories leaking through my once well-maintained mental dam. The screams and the keening of entire families, maidens, mothers and crones. With the memories came the clitter-clatters. My limbs creaked and convulsed. My knee joints collapsed and I sagged against the glass wall.

Otto flung open the door and cradled me in his arms, my spikes piercing skin and impaling flesh.

“Maidy? What happened? God in heaven, you need maintenance.”

“Do not ever mention them,” I said, my voice rusty.

“Pardon?”

“The deaths. They bring the clitter-clatters.”

“Oh. I understand,” he said through gritted teeth, in a way that indicated that he did not understand at all.

“You are bleeding.”

“That means I win our little battle of wits, does it not? Bleeding for love makes us human.”

“Hah, he got you there, maidy,” Monsieur Guillotine said, as if what transpired before him had been nothing but a play.

“Please,” Otto said, “let me perform a routine maintenance on you.”

And he did. After bandaging his wounds, he oiled and varnished me. An unfamiliar sensation rose inside me and my inner voices informed me that it was shame.

But also pleasure.


* * *
As the days went by, Otto spent time with me beyond his scheduled maintenance duties dictated. Our banter became more intimate and after a little while, we started to disregard Monsieur Guillotine’s presence altogether. At least he had the manners to feign being in torpor.

Our curious exchanges were centered on us. Our lives and dreams. I had little to relate-- I had no memories to speak of, not before I became assumed a humanoid shape and became conscious. My other memories were unpleasant at best--Luddite witch hunts, stoning, and promises of hot furnaces and melting pots.

“It is unfortunate that people are so bigoted,” Otto said wistfully. “There is so much we could learn from you. You are marvelous--a machine turned human. Marvelous, I tell you.”

He had a way of making me feel hot and bothered. The philosopher and educator in me wanted to reprimand him for his wanton behavior, but the pleasure of hearing him praise me outweighed all the voices in my head.

That must be love, I mused to myself. Casting aside common sense even if one should know better.

“I would love to introduce you to my colleagues. They would be astonished if they could see you.”

The gift made me fall for him completely. Lest someone decry me as a materialist, it was the intention that made me consider him more than a mere flirt.

“Is there anything human that you desire?”

“Something tangible,” I said. “A chemise.”

He laughed. “I did not take you for a woman of fashion.”

“Why not? I have a great mind, if I may say so myself. I want something to own.”

“A chemise does not make a woman.”

“A chemise makes a charming woman, love.”

Sure enough, one week later, in a show of astounding imagination, he brought me a lovely magenta chemise.

“I had the clothier take your spikes into account,” he said as I was slipping it on.

It was true--it fit, for the lack of a better metaphor, like a glove. Each spike had its own pocket and the cloth was sturdy enough that it didn’t rip.

“Why so silent?” Otto asked me.

Curses. He noticed my trepidation. “I just noticed that all the time I had been naked in front of you.”


* * *
It had been a month before Monsieur Guillotine asked a most bewildering question.

“Say, Iron Maiden, who is that young man?”

“Surely you jest,” I said, thinking his question just another ill-advised attempt to ridicule me.

“Honestly, I do not remember being introduced to him. I did not want to interrupt you two, so that is why I am asking now.”

“Read up on Wilde. Your sense of humor is stale. He is the curator’s nephew.”

“Which curator?”

Little did I know that Monsieur Guillotine’s joke would prove prophetic.

* * *
They came at night. One swift stroke of the clothier’s hammer shattered my glass case and they dragged me out, ever so mindful of my spikes.

“We’ve got you now, slag,” the clothier said. I remembered him from Otto’s description--grandfatherly face, a puff of hair clinging to his balding pate. “Prepare yourself. The smith has need of new nails. The furnace will be your hell.”

“Let me go,” I cried. “I am like you! I can reason! I can love!”

The hammer came down with a sickening clang. For an instant my world became a blur, the inside of my head resounding with an irritating ring.

The clothier’s cohorts guffawed as if I had just told a bawdy joke.

“A woman’s face don’t bend like that.”

The clothier and his rogues brought a chest with them. I thrashed, I writhed, I screamed and I bled them to no avail. They stuffed me into the chest with little effort. Monsieur Guillotine, I noticed before they shut the lid, was limp like a rag doll, slouching against his glass showcase.

The clothier ripped the chemise from my body, shaking the fistful of cloth angrily at me.

“The likes of you need no nice clothes.”

They shut the lid and the clasp snapped closed with eerie finality.

I could still hear them in the darkness, the sound of their voices dampened, but vicious nonetheless.

“What do we do with the guillotine?”

“Leave him be,” said the clothier. “He ran his course, I reckon.”

* * *
I did not know where they were taking me. In the darkness I could do nothing but consult the voices in my head, hoping against hope that I could piece together a compelling argument; an argument that would appeal to the humanity in my captors. My voices proved not as charitable as I had hoped. My thoughts felt palsied and rotten.

Pieces of discourse and ideology slipped away from me as if run through a sieve. Information frayed, knowledge paled.

Panic seized me and no amount of reason could help me now. I decided to calm myself, composing essays and dissertations in my mind, but no single sentence stayed coherent.

I forgot. I forgot too much. Just like Monsieur Guillotine. I wondered how long it would take for me to regress into a tool of murder. A facsimile of a murderous doll.

Minutes felt like hours, and the hours stretched into infinity. I jounced left and right, denting with each bump. I needed maintenance. I needed safety.

But no one was there.

My vocabulary shriveled. Before long I kept time by the number of things I forgot.

I never forgot Otto, though. I retained enough working knowledge of fairy tale narrative and Jung’s collective unconscious that I sussed the pattern of events to come.

At least I thought I did.

Untold days later a crowbar slid into the tiny gap between the lid and the chest’s body.

Light, lovely light flooded into my dark little world and like an angel haloed by its glow was Otto. My Otto.

I wanted to pounce at him, but did not, out of fear of injuring him.

“This was not what I had in mind when I said I wanted to introduce you to my colleagues,” he said hastily.

“What do you mean?”

“The clothier put them up to it, damn him. Look, think of it as a practical joke on their part.”

I looked around me. Furnaces and melting pots surrounded us. A plethora of steel tools hung on the walls--hammers, pliers, and tongs.

“A practical joke?” I said, my voice gritty. I needed oil. More importantly, I needed an explanation. “Look at what they’ve done to me.” I was battered and tarnished. While I had lost a good portion of my education, I still had a firm grasp of practical jokes. “They want to smelt me. Your colleagues want to murder me.”

Otto put up his hand, as if they could shield him from me. “They should know better! They are tomorrow’s engineers, for God’s sake. Give them time and they will understand. Once we dismantle you and find a way to harness your inner secrets, you will finally have a purpose again.”

I forgot most of my Aristotle. Freud and Jung slipped away. But what I most wanted to forget was what Otto had dared to utter next.

“Think about it, you will no longer be a tool of murder. After we put your inner workings to good use, you shall forever be a part of humanity. You shall be cherished. Is that not marvelous?”

I wished for a wind of rust and decay to wash over my body.

“See? I brought my tool box.” He lifted it as if showing it to a dolt. “We must hurry, and yes I am still an apprentice engineer, but I love a challenge. Remember, I bested you at your own game.” He laughed.

I wished for well-oiled hinges that connected sharp blades.

“Now if you let me dismantle you now, I shall be able to sketch out a blueprint for each part of your body. Think of all the advancements we could claim for our own! Prosthetics, complex machinery, nay, intelligent machinery! The list is endless.”

I wished for blood and screams.

And yet I still loved him.

The clitter-clatters returned and with them a sobering realization. Otto was right. To be human means to love and have a purpose. It was the missing piece of the puzzle, the Marx to my Engels. How foolish had I been--I almost travelled down the path of obsolescence, much like my friend the guillotine.

I thrust my arm out and impaled Otto.

His scream was a symphony, waking hidden desires in me. I finally understood, I finally had found my purpose, the very reason of my existence.

As the blood left his body, I frantically searched for his voice inside my head, like a gambler rifling through a deck of cards.

I found him screaming into the abyss of my conscious. It was all well, though. Pain was humanity. Purpose was humanity. Loss was humanity. I would never forget about him. About his kindness, about the Otto that he once had been. I still had a lot to learn, but as long as I could retain my memories there, I could bide my time. I heard the clothier and his cohorts approach. I just stood there. Waiting. Blood smeared my body and the tatters of my chemise snapped like banners with my every move.

Let them come.

I would love them all.

* * *
Stefan Milicevic is an author of fantasy, horror and science fiction who likes to talk about himself in third person (which makes him sound kind of important). When he is not involved in a mind-racking game of Go or Shogi, you can find him tinkering with a new story, or hanging out with his friends. He is also fluent in four languages and can't waltz to save his life.

What do you think is the attraction of the fantasy genre?

The sheer possibilities and depth of the subject matter. Well-written fantasy stories are a crucial part of the modern myth.

Fire and Lye

Fire and Lye
by Stefan Milicevic

The scholar was dying on our table, but all I could hear was master Helveskar’s voice, urging me to churn faster.

“There is a right way to go about it. Hold the paddle upright, you are a soap maker, not a dockside whore. You make soap. You do not pleasure a sailor.”

I thrust as hard as I could, ignoring the calluses and sores that ridged my fingers. Sores heal. They always did.

“No.” Master Helveskar’s voice was like a knife wrapped in silk. He swung his quirt at me. There was a sharp hiss and a flash of pain blazed over my cheek. Blood trickled down my face. “That man will die if you don’t churn faster.” He cracked the quirt once more. “What is your name, girl?”

“Lye,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“And what is your calling?”

“I make soap.”

Master Helveskar nodded his approval, quirt in hand. The smells of blood and rotting guts argued with the smell of burning fat and ashes. I churned faster, my chains cackling as if in mockery. I ignored their cruel glee. One day I would undo them and plant a knife in my Master’s back.

Under my breath, I murmured the name of fire, stoking the flames that burned under the kettle. It was one of my few treasures. The little pinch of magical spice that seasoned my otherwise bland and lonely life. The flames licked upward, heeding my call.

I stuck the paddle into the kettle. Two breaths later it still stood erect. The soap was ready. Master Helveskar pushed me aside and scooped up some fresh soap with his ladle.

“There’s no time for it to dry and harden. The fresh stuff is more potent anyway.”

He turned to the dying Magister and dabbed the man’s head with a dirty cloth. Flies dotted his soiled brocades like tiny, black brooches. Master Helveskar poured the soap into the ruin that was his stomach. The scholar’s scream held no horrors for me. I had long been accustomed to the agonies of common men under Master Helveskar’s apprenticeship.

I watched the scholar moan both with pain and relief, as my master poured the scalding soap over his wound and rubbed the gooey mass into the scholar’s intestines. Soon his flesh would mend.

* * *
Alveista, once the city of gods, had been reduced to a sprawling ruin. The spires jutted out of the ground like rotten teeth, their glory as houses of worship but a bone bleached memory in the minds of few. The gods had been thorough in their punishment of the rebellious mortals. The doom they had unleashed seemed boundless in its fury, for the backlash of their powerful magicks crippled their bodies, until we were left. The slave race. Sentenced to live or to die according to the whims of all mortal remnants of the doom.

The sun sank beneath the horizon while I was watching how peddler and peasant flung offal and rotten vegetables at a caged slave. I snorted. The fault was his own; I had my own chores to take care of.

I sat next to the ashbin, scraping at the spidery tattoo that marred my body. My master decided to chain me outside while he treated the scholar’s wounds. Bit by bit I flayed off my skin, cutting my arms into ribbons. As soon as I had carved out a substantial amount of the tattoo the flesh of my forearm burned. Layers of skin sprouted like tufts of grass, mending the wound. The intricate lines of ritual ink were still intact, as if they have never seen the edge of my knife.

Sores heal. They always did. For a moment I considered cutting out my heart, but dismissed the idea. It was a coward’s heart. It belonged in my chest.

Such was the fate of the slave race. To be beaten, whipped and flensed, only to heal again.

A dull, remote part of my mind was grateful that my gravest concern was the stench of fat and ashes while making master Helveskar’s healing soap, but another made me raise my head and behold the poor sod, exposed to the jeers of the mob. I cursed him for his ham-fisted escape attempt and because he had the courage to do what I yearned for. At least he had the assurance that he failed. He knew that execution was nigh. I still trembled at the mere thought of my master’s quirt.

My name is Lye. I make soap. I repeated the words in my mind like a prayer.

A deep, tenebrous voice interrupted my solitary task. “I owe you my thanks.” The scholar squatted next to me. His face was round and his hair sleek, and tangled like a bird nest. “Without your soap I would be dead. You possess a precious gift.”

“It is a curse,” I said raising my arm to show him the tattoo that brandished me as a slave. “I healed you not for love, but for the fear of my master’s quirt, and the all crueler instruments of torture that he owns.”

He blinked and said, “But heal me you did, all the same. I am obliged to return the favor.”

I tugged at my chains making them snarl. “Can you undo these? If not, stop bothering me, magister.”

He started at the sight of chains as if I brandished a weapon at him. I found him a vexing man. Like most scholars’ his knowledge came only from books. He was the type who would read dissertations on agriculture and want to grow beans, never having seen plough nor field, or an honest day’s worth of hard work.

Again he blinked and assumed a somber expression. He spoke my suspicions before I had the chance to.

“I am no magister,” he said. “Just an apprentice.”

I gave a bitter laugh. “I assume your purse suffered.” The mere thought of my master’s face when he discovered that the magister had been nothing but a poor apprentice was enough to sweeten my day.

“Quite a bit.” His gaze trailed off as if he was immersed in solving a mind-racking equation. “Helveskar was quite furious too. At least I think he was. Until I offered to make him an etching acid in the foreseeable future.” He winced. “But making etching acid requires caustic substances. I think I will not go near those after today’s accident. I nearly killed myself.”

I did not reply, my gaze fixed on the cage and the poor soul who was bound to die soon. The silence was broken by the wind whispering through the stuccoed ruins of Alveista.

The apprentice reached for my hand. “Still, I would very much like to repay your kindness.”

I withdrew it and pointed at the cage. “See him? I want what he wanted before they put him in the cage.”

The apprentice lapsed back into his annoying habit of blinking like an ox.

“I want freedom,” I said.

The apprentice’s face turned blank like slate. His brow furrowed and for a moment I believed that he was a member of the Collegium.

“There might be a way.”

“Is that so?” I said, trying to not let hope bleed into my voice.

“Yes. In the days before the Collegium magic was a common phenomenon. The process of unleashing magic is a difficult one, but the basics can be broken down to this: To utter the true name of a thing or person is to control it.”

If I were to find out Master Helveskar’s true name I would repay him every thwack of his quirt doubly.

“I must admit that I dabbled with such things in my youth,” the apprentice said, his voice but a whisper. “I know a few names, but my command over them is tenuous at best.”

“I know the name of fire.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Fascinating. It must come naturally to your kind.”

I felt how my entire face wrinkled like an old sheet of onion paper. “Yes, it surely does. My kind also enjoys beatings and public humiliation.”

A spark of shame lit the apprentice’s bovine face. “I meant no offense,” he stammered, scrambling for words in that awkward manner of his.

“Never mind,” I said. “Teach me the name.”

Then he spoke a word that sounded like clashing swords and my chains slithered and rattled.

I twitched with surprise.

“That was no parlor trick,” I said, my voice slow like rolling honey. “I felt the tug of iron on my skin.”

The apprentice’s lips curved into a smile that told me that he was not used to praise. “If you master the name of iron, one day you will be able to break those chains.”

My heart beat so hard I felt it strike my ribcage. A warm feeling lit my chest. To be free of both my master and my chains. I relished the idea like a sweet drink of water, and the more I savored it the thirstier I became.

“Do you accept this gift?”

I nodded slowly. The apprentice brought his lips to my ear. The warmth of his lips tickled my neck as he spoke, his lips uncomfortably close to my skin.

The word he spoke was the snarl of chains and the song of swords. It was the sound of clinking coins and the deep voice of ore waiting to be unearthed.

The sound of it went through me, deep down to the marrow of my bones and stayed in my mind as if etched in steel.

“One day the sounds will turn into a word. Keep it close to heart and it will reveal itself to you.”

I looked at the apprentice again. His round attractive face. His curly, flamboyant hair. A gruff voice nudged me from my reverie.

“Girl.”

I looked up and saw Hobbard, the cobbler. Next to him stood the boy I saw in the cage a few moments ago, slave collar around his neck.

“Since this boy here don’t want make no shoes, I’ll let him ‘prentice for the soap maker. Where is he, girl?”

I nodded towards the door. “He is inside.” I snuck a glance at the boy and saw fear spreading on his sallow face. At least he had been fed well. Hobbard knew the price of good fat.

Yet he wore his resignation like a mask. I could respect that, for it required a queer sort of courage found only in slaves.

“Very well. Get moving, boy.” Master Hobbard dragged the slave boy inside.

I felt ink-black contempt spread in my chest. Then regret washed over my mind as I gripped the handle of my knife.

I should have stuck it into that bastard Hobbard’s black heart.

“What is wrong?” The apprentice’s head darted between the shops entrance and me. “Soap making is a respectable business as any. Especially your master’s soap.”

I snorted. What else to expect of a person whose knowledge came from nothing but books?

“They don’t seem to teach you common sense at the Collegium.”

“What do you mean?”

“To make soap you need lye and fat.”

“That is common knowledge,” the apprentice replied.

“From what do you think does my master render his miraculous, healing fat?”

* * *
For days I was savoring the sound of singing iron in my mind. When I cut the congealed mass of soap into bars I heard the clash of swords, when I scrubbed the kettle I relished the sound of brittle chains and kept undoing them in my own private fantasies.

The name was like water, without constant shape or form, yet I heard it whisper to me like a babbling brook, inviting me to call its name. Yet whenever I opened my mouth the word fled or froze or caught in my throat like a fishbone.

But it did not roughen my patience. Naming was much like making soap. It took practice and mastery.

One day I would undo the chains and be free, at least as free as one of the slave races could be.

One evening Master Helveskar sat down on his stool and watched me churn the thick, sudsy mass of soap. I tried to pay him no mind for his scrutiny always tensed my shoulders, and made my fingers thick and clumsy. I think I was churning the cobbler’s prentice since the kettle’s contents smelled faintly of old leather and polishing fat.

I kept churning and the fire crackled. Whereas my mastery of the name of iron was far from perfect, I found that practice strengthened my command over the flames. Once the heat burned against my face, but with each passing day it felt more like a lover’s caress. A little gentler. A little bit more arousing.

I snuck a glance at master Helveskar, half expecting him to admonish me for my lack of attention, but I found him nod his approval. The quirt was nowhere to be seen.

A rare compliment indeed.

“Lye.” He spoke my name with a hint of pride. I did not like the sound of it. “You have served me well, and although at times I find your concentration lacking you have become a fine soap maker.”

Upon hearing those words I almost dropped my paddle. Was this another game of his? To coax a smidgen of pride from me, to only let me know what a fool I was?

“Thank you, master,” I said. “You flatter me.”

He shook his head. “I do not. I think that you have learned all I can teach you. It is time to move on. For both you and me.”

I released the paddle and turned to face Helveskar. His lips curled into a smile, as cruel and crooked as a knife.

“You see, Lye, the slaves are becoming a humble and broken lot.” He shifted on his stool as if he was telling his grandchild a story. “But as time went by they learned their place. That is good, in some ways. But bad in others. Certainly bad for me.”

I embraced the song of iron, the clashing steel and cackling chains. I embraced them like a charm, but they seemed pale and silent sounds when I saw the glint in Helveskar’s eye.

“Since the cobbler’s boy I had had no new slaves brought in. No fat for our soap. But I fret not. It is time I retired. After a last batch of soap bars, that is.”

He rose from the stool and approached me with not a quirt in his hand but a knife that he procured from the folds of his master’s robe.

“No...” My protest was half a whisper. I edged slowly towards the exit, but the snarling chains reminded me that I would not make it far. The man who had been my master shook his head.

“You never learn, girl. Tell me your name.”

“My name is Lye. I make soap.” The words came unbidden and I cursed myself.

“Indeed. Lye is a crucial ingredient in soap making, girl. Do not make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

My eyes were glued to the knife in his hand. The pitted piece of steel that had bit through many a slave’s flesh. I gritted my teeth and swore that it never would know the taste of mine.

I grabbed the paddle and tossed it at Helveskar. He shielded his face with his elbow, and that was when I seized my chance. I took a length of chain and slapped him at his temple, sending him to the ground. I sat on his torso and proceeded to wind the chain around his throat. He groaned and I yanked the chain as hard as I could. His eyes were bulging like bubbles on a stew, his face taking on a disturbing shade of purple.

Then I heard not a word, but a name come from his chapped lips, a name as sharp and beautiful like a jagged piece of obsidian.

“Marisella!”

The word knocked the breath out of my chest. My muscles slackened and I felt to the ground with a dull thud. Helveskar was already up again, dusting off his lavish robes. My mind sloughed through morass.

“Foolish wretch. Every slave is sold with a name. A true name. Not the pesky monikers we bestow upon you.”

He kneeled next to me and drove the knife into my thigh. Pain flashed through my body, hotter than the caress of flame. Steel tore through my flesh and I felt blood seep out of the path that the knife carved. My wounds wept and I wept with them. I was never meant to be a master of names, but a bar of soap. My name was, after all, Lye. I sunk into the dream world, the only place where I felt safe from the pain.

In my dream it smelled of smoke and burning hair. I heard the sound of toppling walls and the keening of children. I saw an arc of light tear the seams of heaven. Alveista was a silver torch that lit up the night.

And then there was silence.

Soon the survivors crept out of the rubble and built and toiled and enslaved.

And then I knew who I was.

My eyes snapped open, the wound in my thigh nothing but a wet memory. I spoke the name of fire and it came to me naturally like a song. The flames leapt and danced, engulfing the kettle, filling the room with the smell of ash and rancid fat.

Helveskar swiveled his head toward the kettle and his eyes grew wide. I seized the moment and crawled toward the water basin, where I used to wash my hands after hours of toiling over the kettle making soap of my brothers and sisters.

“No!” Helveskar yelled. He knew what I was about to do. It was one of the first rules he taught me. Never pour water over burning fat.

He plunged the knife into my back, but pain had ceased to mean anything to me. There was only the smell of smoke and burning hair and the sound of keening children. I knocked over the wash basin. Fire and water met and the workshop was ablaze with curtains of fire, dancing reds and flickering crimsons.

I watched how the body of my master turned into a smoldering mass of flesh and bone. I felt the fire embrace me hungrily, tugging at my skin and cleansing my soul. Scabrous burns sprouted all over my skin like lichen, purging my slave tattoos. Burns heal. They always did.

I went out into the street where people had already gathered around the burning workshop. They looked at me and slave, master and merchant alike dropped to their knees.

They did not see a soot-covered girl with blisters on her fingers. That had been a foolish girl, who tried to claim a name that did not belong to her.

In front of the burning workshop they started to chant my name.

My name is Suulani. Scion of Fire.

* * *
Stefan Milicevic is an author of fantasy, horror and science fiction who likes to talk about himself in third person (which makes him sound kind of important). When he is not involved in a mind-racking game of Go or Shogi, you can find him tinkering with a new story, or hanging out with his friends. He is also fluent in four languages and can't waltz to save his life.

What do you think is the attraction of the fantasy genre?

The sheer possibilities and depth of the subject matter. Well-written fantasy stories are a crucial part of the modern myth.

The Dragonbone Curse

The Dragon Bone Curse
by Stefan Milicevic

The dragon bone taint runs deep in our village. The beast’s giant skeleton sprawls from one end of the village to the other, enclosing us in its boneclast embrace. At times the eye sockets gleamed with a purple light, as if threatening to come alive again and devour us all.

When Athuros Valerian had slain the Black Drake, people sang his praises, but now we curse and spit at the mere mention of his name. The fool had doomed us. With its dying breath, the dragon unleashed a terrible curse upon us, defiling our ground. A few scores of years passed and our soil became hard and gravely. Where once had been patches of green, now there was an ashen taint, spreading every day, staking out the borderlines of its little kingdom. Our crops withered away, and the only things that grew with any enthusiasm were scanty bitterweed shrubs.

But these were laughably trifling things, compared to what befell us.

Unlike other girls my age, I am anything but comely. The taint has warped and deformed my body. My teeth are dagger-sharp gnashers. My nails are shaped like pointed claws and rock-hard to the touch. Worse, however, are the grey dapples that fleck my body, like bruises.

When I was younger, the pain kept me awake at night until I became somewhat accustomed to it. Every motion sends a biting pain through my limbs, every breath feels like a scattering of steel flakes in my breast. Every word I speak reeks of acid and brimstone.

I knew I would be lucky to live to be thirty three, just like my father.

* * *

It was by the beginning of my sixteenth year that Eclarion came to our village. Under the harsh stare of the sun, I was harvesting all the bitterweed the hard ground would yield. As I picked and hacked at a particularly stubborn patch with my trusty bone shard, I saw a person approach the village. Visitors were unheard of in these parts, travellers avoided us like the dragon bone plague itself.

Only when he drew closer did I realise that he wore white robes and a sword at his waist.

“Quite the tool you got there,” the stranger said, his voice not unkind. “Would you mind if I took a closer look?”

“No, sir,” I said, my eyes fixed on his sword. I never thought that I would see one, save for the ones in my father’s books.

“A masterful piece of craft,” he said, admiring my shard, trying very hard to sound like an artisan. “Is this your handiwork?”

“Yes, sir. I break pieces of bone off the dragon and shape them into tools.”

The stranger’s gaze shifted to the dragon. “Ah, that old thing.” He smiled. “I almost didn’t notice it there. What is your name?”

“Laria,” I replied.

“Greetings, Laria. My name is Eclarion. I came to cleanse your village.”

* * *

As I balanced the bitterweed-brimming tankard on my tray, I realised that Eclarion was in no great hurry to help us.

When the message of his coming reached us, his name was whispered amongst the tavern goers, with an equal measure of excitement and reverence. My father often talked about the priests of Runya. In his tale, they helped the needy and healed the sick. Runya had fashioned them after her angels; beautiful and golden-haired. They were clad in resplendent robes, white like innocence, brandishing silver swords that could slay the darkest things. I put the tankard on the table and snuck a glance at him.

Eclarion was nothing like the priests from my father’s stories. His white robes were tattered and frayed, the colour of innocence faded to an eggshell white. His golden locks were a tangled and greasy mess. He showed no interest in healing the sick or aiding us in any way, save for frequenting my father’s alehouse.

Only his sword lived up to my expectations. It was a beautiful piece of art. I often admired it secretly, slipping clandestine glances at it, as I served Eclarion his bitterweed ale. He noticed my awkward ogling.

“It is beautiful, is it not?” he asked. His voice sounded like pieces of old parchment rubbing together.

“Yes,” I said, barely able to contain my excitement.

He grabbed the sword by its leather-wrapped hilt and slid out the blade. The silver sang as it scraped the inside of the scabbard. There it was, right in front of my eyes;

salmon-silver and beautiful like nothing I had ever seen before. It glowed as if bathed in fluid moonlight. My hand reached out for it. I wanted to touch it, feel it--partake in its beauty. When I came close to touching it, I felt a fiery pang burn my skin. It was unlike any pain I had experienced before. The dull ache of the taint bruises was nothing compared to the searing heat. I yowled and withdrew my hand.

Eclarion chuckled. “It is the taint that runs through your veins. You will never be able to use it.”

My heart shrivelled. I did not just want to hold it in my hands. I wanted to own one. “But I will be, once you cleanse us? Right?”

A shadow cast over Eclarion’s face. He was but a handful of years older than myself, but his haggard appearance made him look worn. “What do you think of Athuros Valerian?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “He had slain the dragon long before I was born. I’ve been taught to curse his name, but I think he just did what he considered to be right.”

“So you would choose this accursed existence over death?” He often quizzed me like this; I could tell by the sly cast of his face. And I could also tell by his lopsided grin that he enjoyed it.

“I never knew another life. The other villagers say that a quick, smouldering death would have been better for our ancestors, but I don’t think so.”

“And pray tell why, dearest Laria?”

“Because we carved out our life from this hard ground. Father tells me that we deserve cleansing. I think so too; I want to see green grass. I want to see flowers.”

“Flowers and green grass, you say?” And with that Eclarion knocked over his tankard of bitterweed ale, spilling its contents all over the table. A sheet of pale-green liquor splashed over the rough, wooden surface.

“What are you doing?” I grabbed a piece of cloth and wiped the slush off the table. I rubbed and scraped until the table was clean again. Despite my best efforts, a sticky smudge of green stained the table.

“See?” Eclarion said. There was a triumphant smile on his face. “It will never be as clean as it once has been.” He picked up a cutlery knife and rammed it into the table, sending small splinters flying. “You did your best cleaning it, but the wood has been soaked and is now brittle.”

I blinked. “So? It’s still usable.”

“For now. It is but a matter of time until it cracks. Maybe not today. Maybe not even tomorrow. But one day it will.”

His riddle ravelling did not make any sense to me. Instead of cleansing our village, he indulged in alcohol and revelry. If all the priests of Runya were as slovenly and lazy as Eclarion their order was a sore disappointment.

“What does this have to do with our village?”

Eclarion sucked in a draught of air and let out a heavy sigh. “It seems that I am a poor educator. It matters not.” He rose from his chair. “Meet me tomorrow, at break of dawn, in the village square.”

“Why? I have to help Father all day, and I need my sleep.”

“I will begin the cleansing tomorrow morning. Then you will understand the little lesson I have just given you.” He turned away and left.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest. Tomorrow we would be free of the filth that has riddled us for generations. I had to witness it firsthand. Although I doubted Eclarion’s competence, I wanted to see him wield his magnificent, alabaster sword.

Later, it occurred to me that he left without paying for his ale.

* * *

I woke early and met Eclarion at the village square, where the skull of the dragon lay. He sat on top of the ugly thing, perched close to the edge, his long legs dangling in the air. Its eyes were empty and dead.

“Oh, good. You came,” he said, and heaved himself off the skull with, what in my eyes looked like, a neck-breaking jump. “Watch the daybreak with me.”

I nodded and turned my gaze eastward, to witness my last taint-ridden daybreak.

The sun peered beyond the blade of the horizon, as if reluctant to greet our tainted village. Bars of sunlight shone through the dragon’s ribcage, casting interspersed shadows at us. We stood there a while in silence, as the iron-grey morning slowly turned blue like steel.

Eclarion broke the silence. “You said you wanted to see green grass, Laria.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I only heard of it from the stories my father had told me.”

Eclarion nodded and drew his sword with fluid grace. Then, he buried the tip of the blade into the ground, piercing the crust of the gritty soil. When he removed his blade, a tuft of grass sprouted from the ground.

I could not believe it. It was green; not the pallid green of bitterweed ale, but green like life. Like hope. I wanted to touch and smell it. I felt a warm feeling rise in my chest. I loved it--it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

My excitement was short-lived. A few moments later, the stalks of grass withered away and turned to dust, blown away by the wind.

“Do you remember my little lesson?” Eclarion asked.

I nodded, my gaze still fixed to the naked patch where the grass had been.

“This land is beyond repair, not even the magic of Runya can lend it succour,” he said, with deep regret in his voice. “It will never be as clean as it once has been.”

“So you’ve come here for nothing? You drank our ale, ate at our table and now you will just walk away?” I heard how bitterness bled into my voice.

“No. I will fulfil my mission, and cleanse this village duly,” he said, and his eyes turned hard. “My last name is Valerian. Athuros was my ancestor, Laria.”

I froze. He bore the name of Valerian. The name we learn to curse as soon as we speak. “I did not accept this mission lightly,” he said. “When my order sent me to your village I felt responsible for the fate that had befallen you, for even if it was not his intention, the deeds of my ancestor brought this plague upon you. I wanted to ascertain whether cleansing was the correct choice.”

I felt my chest constrict as he spoke. “You mean...”

He said the words I did not dare to utter. “Yes. If I am to cleanse this village, I have to slay every one of you. The taint is spreading every day, and my order does not want it to reach the cities.”

“But your sword revived the ground! If we get more priests we could--”

“No. It is hopeless. I have to burn this accursed stretch of land, but before I do so, I will let the people die by Runya’s blade. They are a weak and weary lot, but finishing them off in their sleep it is the least I can do for them.”

He approached me with small steps, sword brandished in hand. I felt rooted to the ground. I could not scream nor move. There was finality in Eclarion’s voice that made my spine tingle. He was a quick-witted reveller, a clumsy educator and a rogue, but at that moment, I realised that he was a priest of Runya before all else. I feared that he would strike me down, but he just walked on.

“Run away,” he said, with his back turned. “The other people in your village have given up a long time ago. The blade may be a more merciful end for them. You still have hope. Therefore, I will let you go.”

Fury swelled in my chest as I saw him, bared blade in hand, in the fading dawn. A part of me realised that he wanted to carry out his duty. Another part of me knew that he wanted to atone for his ancestor’s sin. But nothing of that mattered. He was about to slay the people who shared my cursed blood.

As I grabbed a jagged bone shard, I saw the face of my father in my mind’s eye; his gaunt face, his squinting, watery eyes. He was the one who taught me to hope. I would not allow him to take my father from me.

I charged at him, screaming at the top of my lungs. Eclarion turned and parried my attack, and there was a dull sound as steel and bone touched.

I was fortunate; the shard was hard and sharp.

It was nowhere near a potent weapon as Eclarion’s blade, but at least I had a fighting chance.

“Begone. I will not tell you so again,” Eclarion said with an edge in to voice.

“No. These people have a right to live. There must be a cure.”

Eclarion smiled bitterly. “Do not make this more difficult than it has to be, little Laria. I shall atone for the sins of my ancestor and give your people the rest they deserve.”

“His sins are not yours. You don’t need to atone for anything.”

“Is that all you have to say?” he asked. Silence settled between us. That was one of these moments in life when words accomplished little. “I see.” He walked towards me with slow, solemn steps. I saw the fire in his eyes and the inside of my mouth became dry. “Then you too shall be cleansed.” He swung his blade at me and I raised my makeshift sword to defend myself. He let down a shower of blows upon me, each of which I blocked clumsily. He swung his blade at me like a man swatting away a fly. That was what I really was for him. A nuisance.

I gasped and trembled, parrying each attack with the best of my ability, each time escaping within an inch of my life. The sword’s bright, warm light burned on my skin each time it flashed near my face.

The dance continued and soon Eclarion had me with my back against the dragon’s skull. I felt the skull’s cold, rough surface chafing against my back, creating a sharp contrast to the sword’s blazing luminescence.

“I shall tell you this one last time. Run.” Although there was steel in his voice, I could hear him quaver.

“No,” I said, my voice atremble. “I won’t run. I won’t betray the others.”

Eclarion sighed and raised his blade, ready to deliver the final blow. I prayed to Runya herself that her harbinger would make my death quick and painless.

The cold surface of the dragon skull became warm, as Eclarion’s body turned a glowing hue of purple.

His face was ashen and his eyes fixed onto the skull. A strange mixture of fear and admiration was on his face, like a man who just found a new god.

I seized the moment and rammed the pointed end of my shard into Eclarion’s chest. There was a terrible sound of cracking bones and piercing flesh as I pushed my weapon deeper and deeper into his breast. Red blood seeped from the wound as he staggered back. He held the place with one blood soaked hand and soon most of his faded robes were stained with scarlet. He rasped, coughed and wheezed until the last of his strength left him. His sword fell to the ground with a clang and Eclarion collapsed.

I watched him die, as the thirsty earth soaked up his blood. Catching my breath, I turned to see the glimmer in the dragon’s skull that had saved my life. There was a sound of cracking bones as a tremor swept me off my feet.

The skeleton was moving its joints in a jerking manner, as if breaking free from invisible chains. The gargantuan thing beat its skeletal wings and stared at me, the purple flame in its eyes leaping and dancing. Fear filled my heart; my chest constricted, trapping the air in my lungs.

The beast continued, each moment a lifetime. Then, a fleshy membrane formed around the frame of its wings, and with a gigantic heave, it propelled itself into the skies, leaving the barren lands behind.

I caught my breath again and realised that both my forehead and my loins were wet.

I broke into tears, burying my claws into the blood soaked earth.

* * *

I ran the dry cloth one more time over the flat surface of my sword to hone its brilliant sheen. The grip had been waxed and the blade polished; I was ready to go and spread the word of Runya. I gazed at my reflection in the mirror, scarcely able to believe that the clean, smooth face it reflects was mine. Not even after five long years.

Eclarion’s blood removed the dragon bone curse from our ground and with each passing day our appearances changed; claws became fingernails, fangs became teeth. But whereas the other villagers started to grow crops, I came to the cities and became an anointed priestess of Runya, so that Eclarion’s sacrifice may never be forgotten.

The only mystery that still scrapes at the back of my mind is why the dragon rose, after the ground drank Eclarion’s blood. Time and age had dulled its thirst for destruction, and after decades of languish even the revenge it received seemed a poor compensations for all those lost years. Maybe it just wanted to pass away with the precious little dignity it had left. After all, I like to believe that it was weary of the curse itself.

* * *

Stefan Milicevic is an author of fantasy, horror and science fiction who likes to talk about himself in third person (which makes him sound kind of important). When he is not involved in a mind-racking game of Go or Shogi, you can find him tinkering with a new story, or hanging out with his friends. He is also fluent in four languages and can't waltz to save his life.

What do you think is the attraction of the fantasy genre?

The sheer possibilities and depth of the subject matter. Well-written fantasy stories are a crucial part of the modern myth.