CHAPTER 73

The Woodcutter screamed as the guards bound his hands in iron and lifted him from the chair. He screamed as they fastened the manacles to the wall.

“Now, none of that, you,” said one of the guards as he struck the Woodcutter across the face.

The other guard laughed. “As long as you stay nice and still, the good iron won’t bite you.”

Sure enough, there was just enough space in the cuffs to float his wrists.

“Wouldn’t want to drain a guest too soon.” The first laughed menacingly.

And they left the room.

The Woodcutter shook the iron and cried out, screamed and wailed until, at last, his voice sounded like it had quieted in exhaustion.

And then he chuckled lowly.

Iron only held injury for the fae. And he was not fae.

He closed his eyes and breathed.

Fire was his only enemy. If she had stayed with her original methodology, the story would have been different, but her greed was her downfall. Since iron did not bind him and she was not there to block him, he reached down into the earth and connected with the flow of energy.

The wound on his palm healed into a thick bark scab.

The manacle sprung open and he rubbed his wrists before making his way across the workroom. He swept up his belongings into his pack and bound his axes to his side.

He looked at the front door and at the staircase.

He decided to take the stairs going down.

A door blocked his way. The energy surged down his arms, and he blasted the wood with his palms. The time for games was done.

He strode into the room, but the sight stopped him in his tracks.

Thousands of eyes turned to him, thousands of black eyes begging for mercy. Iron cages hung from the ceiling and lined the walls several stories high. Inside, pixies hovered in exhaustion, clinging to one another and trying desperately not to brush against the iron bars. Some had fallen upon the floors of their cages, exhausted. Their faces rested upon the cold iron, uncaring of their sizzling flesh.

Many eyes no longer opened.

Beneath the cages, receptacles gathered the falling dust and funneled it into a hole in the floor.

Quiet shock took over. The Woodcutter threw his pack on a table to free his hands and began unlatching the simple locks that the pixies could not touch. He unlatched the cages and opened the doors.

The pixies began to fly out, but far too many hovered only inches away from the ground, far too many still lay upon their cage floors, far too many were too weak to save themselves.

The Woodcutter reached into the cages, picking up as many as he could. The stronger pixies watched him and tried to imitate his efforts, tried to pick up the injured so that they could be carried to safety.

But there were too many, there were too many to save, and as the Woodcutter looked around, he realized there was no window in the room.

He stood, arms full of pixies, knowing the Queen could return at any moment. They had to get out, but there was not enough time; he was not enough to save them.

His arms were full, full of tiny bodies gasping for breath. Their bodies shivered like baby birds.

He looked around desperately for help, when his eyes fell upon a familiar shape in the farthest corner of a cluttered shelf that hung above the table where he had thrown his pack.

The harp.

She was motioning to him, trying to tug something out from inside.

The Woodcutter ran over, just as the harp pulled out a large brown bag.

The gift from the Lady in Blue.

He knew what to do.

He placed the pixies down upon the table as gently as a father with a day-old newborn.

He opened up the bag’s yawning mouth and turned to the room, bellowing to all the fae, “All you pixies, get into my bag!”

A mighty tornado swept into the room. Like an invisible hand, the wind picked the pixies from the air and swept them inside the bag. In they flew, one after another.

They flew from all corners of the room. They flew so thick he could not see through the storm of bodies.

When the last pixie disappeared from the last cage, the Woodcutter closed the bag.

It weighed little more than when it was empty.

He threw it over his shoulder as he looked at the harp in thanks. He stowed her carefully away, and then he ran.

He heard the Queen’s voice discover his escape. He heard her howls of anger and rage. Footsteps rang behind him, so he ran toward the silence, ran up the curved stone staircase. Breathing hard, he emerged on the battlement at the top of the fortress. He was trapped with no way out besides the way he had come.

The land spread out before him, hundreds of feet below his stony perch.

His mind searched for options as he stared at the sky, looking for a miracle.

And then he saw them.

The clouds.

He put down the brown bag, and his hand felt his inside pocket, the pocket that carried his handkerchief, a handkerchief that was wrapped around several small fish bones.

He opened the handkerchief and took out a bone, placing it upon the edge of the parapet.

He heard the guards’ footsteps drawing closer.

The fishbone stuck and grew larger.

He placed the next bone upon the last.

He picked up his precious cargo and stepped upon the ladder.

The ladder held.

Bit by bit, he climbed through the sky.

Halfway up, he looked down upon the castle, down upon the raging guards as they poured out onto the roof, down upon the raging Queen who stood shouting orders, down as the guards began to climb up the ladder behind him.

But still he built, the bones in his handkerchief magically replenishing themselves after each bone that he took.

When the ladder reached the clouds, he climbed upon the stone path that bisected the dust fields. He turned and kicked the ladder.

He watched the fish bones break. Piece by piece, they shrunk and fell. He watched the guards scurry backward and fall, tumbling to the earth.

He looked down upon the castle, no larger than a pinprick, so far beneath him.

There was nothing the Queen or the Gentleman could do to stop him.

He opened the bag and gentle wings fluttered.

One by one, he lifted the pixies from the bag and placed them upon the clouds. One by one, they looked up at him from upon the soft pillows of stolen dust.

As far as the eye could see, he placed their bodies. Their pinks and blues and greens became an undulating ocean of wings and flickering light.

The Woodcutter did not stop. He continued until, finally, he lifted the last pixie from the empty sack and placed it upon the last cloud.

With gentle gasps, they gulped in the life force that had been stolen. With gentle gasps, they began glowing stronger as they left barren holes in the field of dust clouds, absorbing and reclaiming the captured magic.

Tentatively a pixie lifted from the clouds and then another. They hovered, almost unbelieving, and then swooped and then soared. They joyfully sped to the earth, suddenly aware that they were alive and well.

The Woodcutter sat upon the path, the path that, once, a million lifetimes ago, he had walked to reach a Giant’s home. He sat, suddenly weary, and watched that final pixie waken. He watched as it shook off the stupor and stared at the world in awe.

The pixie took off as the last rays of the sunset faded.

And it was done.

The Woodcutter looked out over the dusky farmlands, over the forests, off to the horizon. He looked down at the lives that did not know he hung his feet over the edge of a world above theirs.

And he felt peace.

Peace.

But even as the Woodcutter marveled, the light of the pixies began to gather, began to swirl and grow larger until the faces of those that he had carried to safety were level with his.

Thousands of faces shone at him with gratitude; thousands of faces opened their mouths and thanked him with gentle bell-like sounds.

The pixies drew closer and touched him, soft gentle fingers against his skin, upon his clothes, gentle hands that felt like soft wind on a summer’s evening.

Those soft hands lifted him, lifted him like water, and together they rose into the sky.

He was flying.

He laughed, exhilarated, supported by the wings of thousands of pixies, supported and carried through the night, past the milky moon, past stars and shooting lights, and he did not know whether they were heavenly bodies or heavenly fae.

His flight lowered, and his foot touched down upon the earth, touched the soft green grass of his Wood.

His heart filled so that he thought it would overflow and break with happiness.

He stared at the cloud of the tiniest fae, those fae whose lives had been large enough to fill his entire world. Slowly they began to dart before him, but then faster they came so that he couldn’t even see beyond a wall of their sparkling light, couldn’t hear beyond their tinkling laughter.

Each touched his cheek, soft as a feather’s kiss, before flying away.

He watched them go, spreading out against the sky, like new constellations playing amongst the stars.