The Rock Gambit

ONCE, too many generations past even for me to recount, when our ancestors were newly arrived in this land and their feet still ached with the memory of walking, there lived a young weaver and a hunter. Their life-circlets were so recently hung in their hut that sometimes they still imagined a whiff of wedding-blossom fragrance, yet already the hunter carried the very beginnings of a new life within her. It would be the first child born to our people since settling in this strange new land — the first to grow up having called Ðiéithtír home all their life — so if the expectant couple anticipated their child’s birth with every passing day, the community multiplied their joy tenfold. Indeed, nearly every foray from their hut saw a neighborly exchange of delight over the news. It was during one such foray that they met another first on this soil: their first stranger.

The weaver welcomed the stranger into the village. “Greetings,” she said, “we are called the Cuédleür and we have traveled far to these lands to make our home here and prosper. I am glad to see that we are not alone here. Who might you be?” 

The stranger smiled, and their teeth seemed just on the cusp of predatory, and their eyes glinted like opals, and the hunter and the weaver realized in that moment that this was no ordinary human. “I am of a people that has called this land home since the sky fled the earth and made a life far away. I am of the dust that gathers in the corners of the hills." They took a step closer and tilted their head at the couple, sharp and avian. "I am eager to know more of you." 

The weaver knew well that friendship is found in the crumbs of a good meal, and equally that a fox in your sights is far preferable to a fox around the bend; so she invited the stranger to dinner to see which piece of wisdom would be needed today.

As they sat to eat, the stranger said, "Forgive my manners, gracious hosts." They lifted their first bite towards their mouth, examined it thoughtfully. Their eyes and the corners of their mouth lifted towards the young couple. "May I have your names?" 

Now, you all know, of course, the proper response to such a question, and should your mind or tongue slip, you may rest assured knowing that what slips from it offers only the barest tangent on the circle of your soul. But the hunter and the weaver had come from a land of no crossing points, and had little knowledge of the Fey. They had heard of them only through the story of the Longest Night, so they believed them to be ultimately honest dealers and had no insight or guard against this particular trick. Therefore they introduced themselves to the stranger by the only names they had.

The stranger took that bite of food into their mouth, swallowed, and grinned ear to lengthening ear. “Delicious.” And that is when the young couple realized their mistake.

The stranger’s teeth grew into white daggers, their face sprouting fur and a tail unfurling from their hips, their eyes abeam and sparking with inner light.

“Dance!” the fey commanded. And it was as if a foreign soul had animated their bodies, for they sprung up and danced a dance that neither had ever danced before, feet light as birds and precise as dragonflies.

“Sing!” And they sang in perfect, slanted harmony a leaping song in a language they had never heard and certainly did not understand. “Now sit, and be silent!”

The hunter and the weaver looked at each other, eyes wide and frightened, mouths opening and closing soundlessly. The Fey sauntered lazily around the table and peered into the faces of their new acquisitions, their own face coming far too close. They smelled of black pepper. The couple shivered. “You,” the Fey murmured, “are mine now.” 

After a lengthy pause, they added carelessly, “You may speak now, I suppose.”

The weaver blurted, “What have you done to us?” The hunter, hands on her swelling stomach, remained quiet.

“You have given me your names, and I,” replied the Fey, “have taken them. Now I may do with you as I please, for I possess the keys to your very beings.”

“Is there anything we can do to get them back?” the weaver cried. “How will we raise our child? Please, anything you want, you can have, please just–”

The Fey waved their hand dismissively, snapping the weaver’s mouth closed. “Hush now. You bore me with your pleas. What could you possibly offer me that would be more delightful than your two lovely lives?”

It was then that the hunter spoke. “Perhaps a fresh life, one so fresh that it has yet to even begin?”

The Fey flicked their gaze to the hunter, eyes trailing down her body to where her hands rested and narrowing in calculation. “My, my.” They tapped a needle-like claw to upturned lips. “If that isn’t a delicious prospect.”

The weaver was staring at her wife in horror. But the hunter’s steady eyes said, Trust me. “We have been calling them Rock.”

The Fey did not catch the weaver’s quickly disguised flash of bafflement – they had been calling it no such thing – and they laughed loud and long. “You’ve named your child Rock?”

“Do you take offense? A rock is a steady thing, trustworthy and honest, the kind of thing one can depend on.” The slight was not lost on the Fey, but they were too intrigued to press it. “And we are not here to discuss naming habits. Let us return to the matter at hand.”

"You'll give me your firstborn babe?" 

"In exchange for my name and the name of my wife, you can have Rock." 

"Are you sure?"

“Such things are replaceable, and we are yet young. If you restore to us possession of our names, you may return when our child is born, and when you leave, I swear to you by all we call holy, you will have Rock in your hands. And then you will bother us no further.”

This satisfied the Fey. “I accept your deal.” Grasping the hunter’s jaw, they opened her mouth and pressed her name back into her own tongue where it belonged, then did the same for the weaver. Their tail waved smugly back and forth as they strolled through the doorway, turning back only to call, “I’ll see you again soon!” with a wave and a wink. And that, indeed, was the last the young couple saw of them for several months.

So they went about their lives and grew further settled into the land, the weaver discovering which plants made the most suitable dye, the hunter learning every contour of the hills; and though they lived with normalcy, they never forgot the promise they had made. The hunter had been confident in her plan on that day, but as she grew more and more laden with child she began to doubt herself. You, indeed, may be doubting her as well. Rare is the human who can outwit a Fey! This one was clearly as much a master of wordcraft and sleight of tongue as any of their kin; what if they had seen through her as if through water, and had already devised some clever means of stealing the child despite her? Many nights passed sleeplessly under their roof until, finally, one morning, a brand new life drew its first wailing breath.

That evening, instead of resting or celebrating as most couples would have, the hunter and the weaver sat grimly in their doorway, a blanket-swaddled bundle in the weaver’s arms. When the Fey came strutting down the road to their house with a smirk on their lips, the weaver greeted their arrival for the second time. “So you’ve returned for our Rock.”

“Indeed I have,” the Fey purred, voice silky with satisfaction.

“Remember the terms of our deal.” The hunter was calm.

“Yes yes, you’ve already gotten what you wanted. Now it’s my turn.”

“Do remind us of the details.”

The Fey rolled their opal eyes, impatient to claim their prize. “I returned your names to you, and in exchange, your child, your ‘Rock,’” – the weaver held up her bundle – “yes, that precious little bundle is mine, that new life a plaything in my hands, a shiny toy of a person–”

“And once Rock is in your hands you will leave and never return.”

“Yes! Gods, yes, why would I suffer you any longer than I must, now give Rock to me!” And they snatched the swaddling from the young mother’s arms.

But as they gleefully swung it towards their chest, they staggered under the unexpected weight. “What–” The Fey pulled back the blankets to reveal a large grey stone cradled lovingly in the soft fabric. They gaped, eyes burning with rage. “You said you would give me your child, not a–”

“Rock,” the hunter finished, smiling, her features lit by a merry spark. “I never once promised to give you my child. I promised Rock, and lo, what do you hold in your arms but a rock indeed?”

Sputtering, the Fey threw the heavy bundle to the ground with a thud. “This is outrageous!” they seethed.

“Why so angry?” asked the weaver innocently. “We’ve given you exactly what we promised.” A hiss was all the response the Fey could come up with, and they stormed off the way they had come with their tail lashing all the way into the distance. 

When Rock grew old enough, their parents told them their true name and made them promise to keep it safe; when they married, they told their husband, and he too kept it close to his chest; when the bitter Fey came through town from time to time, seeking to capture after all the life they saw as theirs, that name and the power it held never did slip into their keeping. And neither shall yours.

THE END