Rise: A Gay Fairy Tale (4 page)

Yet tonight, no sleep would come.

After an hour, Jack rose and dressed himself in clean undershorts and brown trousers. He pulled a blue tunic over his head and tied a cloth belt around it. The tunic was his favorite since he liked to think the blue matched his eyes—not that anyone would notice. It was foolish and sentimental. He yanked on his cap, ensuring his hair was completely covered.

The walk to the beanstalk was peaceful. A cool breeze wafted over him, and he gazed at the stars. When he reached his destination, he peered up. It disappeared into the blackness, seeming to reach right up to the heavens themselves. He took hold of the stalk and shook it. It didn’t so much as tremble. Breathing deeply, he blew it out slowly.

Jack hoisted himself off the ground. Reaching up, he lifted himself to the next stem. Hand over hand he rose, pushing with his feet, and a laugh bubbled up from his chest. It was all so…
easy
. He was really doing it!

Finally, after all these years of longing, Jack climbed.

Numb fingers gripping the stalk, Jack held his breath as he swayed. The gust of wind howled in his ears and he closed his eyes, pulse racing. He’d been climbing for hours, and sure enough the stalk had begun to narrow. He forced his lungs to expand and suck in the thin, frigid air. For once, he was grateful for the woolen cap on his head.

The stars were hidden by thick clouds, and the tiny slice of moon only appeared from time to time as the wind whipped up. Jack could barely see the stalk, relying on touch to find his hand and footholds as he climbed. He hadn’t looked down once, and of course now it was pointless since there was only a black chasm beneath him.

While at first he’d climbed quickly and with a sense of abandon, anger and grief fueling him, now he plodded, lungs heaving in the thin air, his limbs burning with exertion yet the cold making him shiver. Sweat dried on his skin and his throat was parched. As he trembled with another gust of wind, he considered retreating.

Jack thought of what he would be returning to: nothing. An empty cottage without Inga for company. A debt he couldn’t hope to pay if he still wanted to feed himself. Worst of all, more loneliness without end in sight. He exhaled deeply and reached up. No, even if he should die on this night, it would be preferable to going back to his hollow existence.

Pushing with his foot, he lifted himself up, continuing onward slowly and steadily until the air turned to a strange fog that he was afraid would choke him. Jack realized after a few moments that he had reached the clouds. His limbs ached—his muscles cramped and pushed to their limit from the hours of climbing. He willed himself to continue, knowing he must be close.

Jack’s breath caught when the moon disappeared altogether and the darkness seemed to close in even tighter. As the narrowing stalk rocked from side to side, he curled his fingers around a thin stem, certain it would snap. But the stalk seemed made of iron at its core, and no matter how thin it became, it did not break, not even at the point where Jack wrapped his arms and legs around it, hauling himself up as he once did on the rope Adair nightly dropped from his chamber window so many years ago.

It wasn’t until the stalk was almost at an end that Jack looked up and realized the deeper darkness shrouding him was due to the hulking shadow of a structure above.
The giant’s lair! I’ve made it!
As he’d heard from those very few who had returned with their lives, it was a stone castle, as huge as any Jack had seen in picture books. Excitement pumped through him.

Eagerly, he searched for a way inside. He shimmied farther up the stalk and reached. He touched only air. In the dark hulk of the castle above, he could make out a hole in the bottom. With a sinking heart and a violent churn of his stomach, he realized his predicament.

The stalk had not finished growing, of course.

The wind, sharp as a blade, slashed Jack’s face, and he closed his eyes as the stalk wavered and whipped to and fro. Panic unspooled in his gut, and he swallowed hard, his throat like sandpaper
. I’m going to die
. A whimper escaped his lips, and he clung to the stalk, utterly rigid.

Earlier he’d told himself that death was preferable to his lot, but now as he faced the very real possibility of the end, he found the yearning for life still held sway over him. There was a frantic need deep within to survive, and Jack drew on that urge to bring energy to his body and clarity to his mind.

Inching up, Jack climbed as high as he could on the stalk, squeezing it between his knees as he stood on the last stem and reached. His fingertips barely grazed the stone. If he could go just a bit higher, he could grasp the ledge and pull himself into the castle. For a wild moment, he wondered how quickly the stalk grew, and whether he could simply wait.

Laughter tinged with an edge of hysteria escaped Jack’s lips. No, he must act now. He knew what he must do. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly as he bent his knees. He would have but one chance. After all the years of dreaming, of imagining his victory over the stalk, the moment was here.  He could go back, or he could strive forward and make the world new.

With a desperate burst of power, he jumped, arms outstretched.

His left hand lost purchase almost immediately, and he gripped the ledge with only his right. Swinging his legs with a grunt, Jack propelled himself up and caught hold with his left hand. His fingernails cracked as he dug in, the tendons in his fingers screaming.

His chin reached the ledge, and he managed to get his arms up, digging in with his elbows. The wind shrieked, and he used it to rock back and forth until he had the momentum to swing his left leg over the ledge. With a groan, he hauled himself up and rolled to safety.

Heart pounding and body trembling, he gasped for air.
I made it
.

He panted and stared up at the domed ceiling above him. Through his exhaustion, he felt giddy as he chuckled softly, every inch of his body burning and aching. He knew he should move—must find the treasure!—but for a minute, all Jack could do was breathe and revel in the fact that his heart still beat and his throbbing body remained in one piece and not splattered red on the fields far below.

But there was no rest to be had, for a bellow of rage boomed like thunder.

Jack clasped his hands over his ears, gasping as the very foundation of the castle seemed to shudder. Summoning strength from he knew not where, Jack leapt to his feet and turned this way and that, not sure where to run.

Light appeared in the passageway ahead, flickering flames that illuminated the great shadow of a beast. The giant’s growl filled the air as if dredged up from the depths of hell, and Jack quaked, clammy fear clawing its way from his throat in a cry. He ran blindly in the other direction.

Naturally, the giant pursued.

Jack turned left, then right, running deeper into the darkness. Lurching forward, he sought a place to conceal himself, but he could barely see in front of his face let alone discover a hidey hole. The giant’s booming footsteps swelled in Jack’s ears, moving ever closer.

The giant’s outraged roar reverberated off the walls, and with the ease of a child plucking a worm from the garden, Jack felt a rending tug on the back of his tunic. Then only blackness.

Chapter Three

With a grunt, Rion dropped the invader from his shoulder. The man landed with a thud on the dank dungeon floor. Rion quickly backed out and slammed the door with a
clang
before the Outsider awoke. He peeked through the small, barred window in the iron door. The man hadn’t moved a muscle.

Rion knew he should have simply tossed the intruder through the portal and back down to his world. Yet as he’d stared at the crumpled man at his feet, he’d remained unmoving. If the criminals fell of their own accord, that was out of his hands. But to actually heft a defenseless man—even an immoral animal like an Outsider—in his arms and drop him into the void?

His gut churned. No. He would send the vermin on his way soon enough with a new story of the giant’s bloodthirsty fury to terrify his brethren. In the meantime, Rion would follow the protocol.

Stepping away from the dungeon, he carefully stripped off his gloves and lifted the hard leather mask, breathing deeply. He’d whispered the enchanted words to return his cloak to a normal size instead of towering and billowing above him, and now he carefully lifted the heavy garment from his shoulders completely for the moment.

It had been more than two years since he’d had to don the magic cloak to frighten and fool an Outsider. Sweat beaded on his forehead even in the chill, and he swiped at it with the sleeve of his nightshirt. He hadn’t had time to dress when he’d been awoken by the invader.

Rion made his way to the center of the castle in the darkness, his slippers silent on the stone floor. After years alone in the structure, he knew its every moan and groan, every creak and rasp. A moment after waking he’d known without a shadow of a doubt that an intruder had somehow breached his home. Now that the Outsider was locked away, the question of
how
returned to Rion’s mind.

Reaching the portal, he could make out the top of the stalk wavering below. Rion lowered himself onto his belly, leaned out, and inspected beneath the hole, searching for climbing apparatus.

Nothing.

Sitting back on his heels, he pondered. How had the man made it the last distance to the castle?

Still contemplating the question, Rion went to the kitchen to stoke the fire and heat water. The Outsiders were disgusting, disease-ridden creatures, and even with his gloves and cloak, Rion couldn’t be too careful. He’d never had an intruder make it more than a few feet past the portal, and now this man was properly inside the castle, polluting its air. If he took ill before fulfilling his duty to carry on his family line, he would fail his parents and ancestors so completely he would not be able to face them in the afterworld.

Rion scrubbed his hands and arms up to his elbows in scalding water and lye soap, remembering his mother telling him,
the hotter the water the more disease it kills
. When his skin was red and raw and his nightshirt burned, he hurried to his chamber to pull on breeches and a tunic before returning to the kitchen. Quickly, he prepared the necessary equipment and filled an iron pot with boiling water.

Once again donning his leather mask—carved with an ornate, demonic design and topped with horns—and the hulking cape, Rion returned to the cell and peered through the bars. The man shivered on the stone floor, his back to the door. Wary, Rion turned the key, one eye on the Outsider, who froze.

With a dramatic flourish, Rion threw open the door and growled, “Who dares trespass here?” The cell fairly shook as the mask amplified his voice. He’d been taught the giant’s script as a child and he rarely altered it. He stayed out of sight just beyond the doorway but knew his shadow cast from the torch behind him appeared as a looming terror to the Outsider.

There was a scuttling sound, followed by a gasp for air. Then a plea. “Please. I beg for mercy.” The Outsider’s voice was hoarse.

Mercy
. Why should Rion show mercy to any Outsider? They were ruthless, greedy thieves. He had no pity for this creature, who would surely kill him without a second thought if given the opportunity.

“Face the wall.”

He waited a few moments before peering in. The Outsider did as he was told, and stood in the far corner, shoulders hunched and his back to the door. “Please, sir. If I could just explain—”

“Silence!” Rion roared.

The man trembled and said nothing. Good. It was easier this way. Rion placed the iron pot in the cell, along with a scrub brush and lye. He pulled the door partially closed. “Remove your garments.”

The Outsider hesitated and started to turn. “M—my garments?”

“Face the wall!”

Jerking back around, the man nodded and yanked off his tunic. With erratic movements, he stripped down. With his eye to the crack in the open door, Rion watched as the Outsider revealed his flesh. He was long and slim, his forearms colored from the sun as if he rolled up his sleeves. The rest of his skin was pale, and Rion wondered if it would be smooth to the touch…

Enough!
It was shameful to even consider it for a moment. He’d truly been alone for too long. Yes, time to get a wife. Rion turned away.

Yet a few moments later his eye was pressed to the opening once more. As the Outsider bent and bared his round arse and firm thighs, Rion’s mouth went dry. He flushed and shook his head, regaining his control. It was repulsive, feeling…what?
Desire?
For such a creature? Never.

The man stood facing the corner with his arms wrapped around his waist. He was naked now except for his woolen cap. The torch flickered as a draft whipped along the stone walls, and the Outsider was cloaked in shadows for a moment. Rion leaned closer, the mask digging into his forehead.