The monarch of a small kingdom (population: her) had purged her small kingdom (holdings: the tower) of everything she deemed unworthy. She had demanded I come to her to run a message to the leaders of the not-small kingdoms carrying her demands for their surrender, and details for how their kingdoms were to be run.
I have carried many a varied message as a Courier. Messages that pained me to take away, that pained me to deliver, that brought an end to war, that brought an end to bloodlines. I have crossed gulfs, men, and gods. And each time I did so after willfully accepting the job offered and completing the service to the best of my abilities.
Every Courier has the right to decline the request for service.
I declined this one.
I bowed and turned to walk away from the silently furious monarch. Before I had reached the door, she had pounced upon me and was dragging me to an opened grate. (She has that lever. Of course.) Screeching that I couldn’t quit her because I was fired, and I couldn’t leave because I was exiled, she threw me into the refuse chute and closed the grate over my head.
I landed in the tower’s open septic pool at the polluted ocean’s shore.
My reasons for declining the job were very personal. She resembled a waking person too much, and I would not be able to keep my composure or neutrality as required by my position.
I had declined to keep it from becoming personal.
It was now quite personal.
The gathering of my muttered expletives caused a small rain cloud to form over my head. It gave a wee little lightning bolt before expending itself. The clean water it doused me with did not add insult to injury. I washed myself clean and thanked it for its small and short existence. (The wee bolt was so cute.)
Not far away from the outlet were three ogres. One was silent and had only one large eye. One was deaf and nearsighted, but had a large nose that could change the course of winds, and a large mouth with one solid tooth. The third was blind and mute but could hear everything with surprising sharpness and had overly large hands, even for being an ogre.
The three of them watched me carefully as I cleaned myself off. When I started to walk away, they rushed to where I had originally fallen to pick through the sewage for scraps to eat.
They felt familiar.
They felt like they were broken pieces of the monarch.
I stopped walking away and came back to them. They regarded me with the same silent inspection as I gave them.
“She exiled you, too.”
The blind ogre nodded.
“For being not in alignment with her beliefs.”
He nodded again.
“But you belong in there, with her, in that tower.”
Another nod.
“Because you are the parts of her that she had rejected for not living up to her expectations of herself.”
The nod was slow and deliberate, and I knew I had said too much. They moved deceptively slow, but I could tell they were setting up for a physical attack.
“Wanna go back?”
They stopped. They motioned to each other with symbols written on palms and bared skin. The blind one waved at me, pointed to himself and his brothers, then pointed at the tower.
“SHE WON’T LET US IN THE GATE!” One-Tooth could not help but yell, though I knew he was trying hard to be quieter for my sake.
“Who the fuck said we’re going in the front door?”
“WE’RE TOO BIG TO GO UP THE CHUTE!”
“Who the fuck said we’re going back in the way we came out?”
See-All motioned that the tower had no other entrances from the ground but there was an opening at the crown of the tower. Gripper motioned that the tower could not be broken into or dug out from underneath.
No problem.
“Give me your eye, your tooth, and your ear. You will have to trust me because this will make you blind, weak, and defenseless while I work. But I will work quickly, and you will be in the tower before you know it.”
See-All looked at me, and I knew he could see through my clothes and skin to the depths of me. He liked what he saw, removed his eye, and placed it in my hand.
One-Tooth sniffed me all over, and I knew he could smell the deceit I carried in my mind. He liked what he smelled, removed his tooth, and placed it in my hand.
Gripper felt me all over before placing his ear over my heart. He liked what he touched and heard, pinched off his ear, and placed it in my hand.
I placed the body parts in an interior pocket of my coat. Transforming into a raven, I flew away from the tower at first before making a wide circle around it. I wanted to make sure the monarch was clear before landing.
I watched her peering through a scope, watching the not-small kingdoms and venting furiously about their failure to acknowledge her greatness. Eventually, she tired of the bitching, and stormed away into the tower to sulk further.
My plan relied on her arrogance. She had fortified the tower so well from the ground, I was betting that she left the roof untouched because who could reach it, am I right?
I was right. The trap door was not even held by a string. No wards or alarms to be found. I transformed back into Weaver Ravencloaked, and snuck into the upper levels of the tower.
I found a dusty and forgotten storage room filled with tributes and monuments to a time when the monarch had friends and family who were glad to see her. In the far back of the storage room, I removed the eye, the tooth, and the ear of the ogres.
“See-All! Come! From your eye, remake yourself, and see what I have found!” I tossed the eye into the air where it glowed. In a flash, See-All had remade himself and was standing before me. He blinked as he looked around. He smiled at my success.
“One-Tooth! Come! From your tooth, remake yourself, and smell what I have found!” I tossed the tooth into the air, and One-Tooth remade himself just the same. He started to take a breath to congratulate me, but caught himself and just smiled wickedly instead.
“Gripper! Come! From your ear, remake yourself, and hear what I have found!” I did the same with the ear, and Gripper was soon beside his brothers. They punched each other with brotherly glee and patted me hard on the back and the head with thanks.
“Right, then. Gentlemen, I will assume that you will do what is right and proper for yourselves. There is much here to devour and break. What happens to the monarch is not my concern. I can not be exiled from a kingdom that was never mine, after all.”
The three ogres thanked me for bringing them back into what was originally their lair. With gestures and drawings in the dust, they explained that the tower was theirs from the beginning, and they had taken in the monarch when she was just a lost little girl.
They doted on her too much and spoiled her rotten thinking that she would become an ogress, not knowing the way of things or the deceit that lives in human hearts. When she grew up, she took advantage of their care and service to steal their power from them before exiling them from their own home.
When I called them back into the tower, I restored their connection with their power held deep within it. They would go put things to right now, and I was free to stay or to go.
I chose to leave. Wasn’t my problem anymore, and I considered this the best revenge I could have.
Before I left, Gripper seized me and motioned to me to wait. He took an eyelash from See-All, a nose-hair from One-Tooth, and a hair from the depths of his own ear, and braided them into a short length of cord.
He handed the waxy talisman to me with a grin. One-Tooth, in a rare moment of whispering, said clearly, “You helped us for nothing and took nothing in return. If ever you need the favor returned, call us, and we will come.”
I accepted the cord, but not without teasing them. “Such altruism is how you got in this situation in the first place. What makes you think I won’t abuse you just the same?”
“Because you know the cost.”
I nodded. Got me there. I waved farewell to them, ascended back to the open crown of the tower, and jumped off the parapets. Becoming a raven once more, I exited the dream.