The Vile Prize - 1. The Vile Prize

In the sliver of existence between one reality and another lies the twisted realm of Grumbeld. Its inhabitants view decency as a character flaw, and they hold madness in the highest regard. Under their wretched king, all the inhuman folk practice the most beautiful wickedness. King Mergwil is their ruler, second-named the Crazed, and he is cruel indeed. Those who dwell in Grumbeld are without conscience, their minds full of eldritch thoughts the age of Time. They are beings from outside any universe.

The king and his aberrant followers view reality as passing dull, with its tiresome humanoids toiling about their tedious lives; they die so often and so easily and are almost entirely ignored in Grumbeld. However, into the unreality on the opposite side of Mergwil’s kingdom, his ghoulish subjects do enjoy to venture. They enter the otherworld as ghosts and apparitions, often appearing in that unearthly playground on the far side from reality, for the monstrosities that dwell in the weird realm beyond are much more akin to the dreadful folk of Grumbeld.

The king’s lands are vast and flat, crushed in between the two opposing realities, but Grumbeld is punctuated by a lone anomalous topographical protuberance. Mergwil’s kingdom stretches endlessly in all directions from a jagged grey rock that thrusts up toward the sunless sky, and upon the single mountain’s summit sits a castle. Within the palace’s decrepit grand hall, seated on his living throne, the king holds his court.

It takes five subjects of Grumbeld to make up the royal chair, and each day the five individuals are different. Mergwil the Crazed rests the massive girth that harbors his toothy maw upon one subject, while another supports his rigid thorax. Loyal followers on either side of the king serve as his pair of armrests, and a final individual stands behind Mergwil, facing away from the king so that his majesty can lean back at his leisure.

On one auspicious day, beneath the black sky, a young imp with his familial clan from the quagmire caves was granted an appearance before the king. This was the imp’s first time joining the rest of his people at court, and the group was in King Mergwil’s atrocious presence to pay tribute to their dark lord. The imp’s chieftain stepped forward and set a large crate before the king.

Its lid opened.

The courtesans, attendants, advisors, and all the guests peered around each other in delight to behold the gift.

Contained within the box was an entity of flesh and energy. The thing bore an appearance not unlike a writhing knot of snakes. It was mouthless, yet it consumed itself and was regenerated in a constant flow of limbs and light. Broken body parts were devoured and disappeared, as uncanny new flesh radiated and came into existence. Claws, tentacles, eyeballs, teeth, and probing fingers were swallowed in a black hole of illumination, replaced by appendages of smoke, shadow, iron, and bitumen. The creature was a churning mess of blood and pus and slime.

The young imp turned his eyes from the crate and stared with fascination at the monstrous form of his king. He watched the bulbous mass that made up Mergwil’s stomach and face as it rippled with laughter. Gifts from the quagmire caves were always perfectly repulsive, and the king looked mightily pleased with the offering. One of his attendants picked up the box containing the self-eater and set the gruesome thing next to the throne of people.

Mergwil’s unearthly laughter echoed throughout the great hall, as his four separate eyes scanned the group of subjects before him. Suddenly the king’s third arm snapped forward like a viper. It extended across his court, grabbed the young imp by his face, and he was yanked toward the front of the living throne. The others looked on in jealousy as the dark lord’s horrible mouth opened to reveal multiple circular rows of serrated teeth, and the imp was sucked into the hideous maw to be chomped and chewed and gnawed.

The onlookers rejoiced.

Mergwil spat the imp to the ground in front of his throne and vomited a geyser of stinking putrescence over him. The boisterous crowd added their bestial laughter to that of their lord, but none laughed more than the imp. He was giddy at the baptism of bile and rolled in the puddle, coating himself in the slime.

After the day’s festivities, when the imp was again alone in his cave, he contemplated what gift he could present the king in order to best express his exaltation and thanksgiving for the blessing. Teeth marks covered his arms and shoulders, his neck and head. He was delighted, and he was determined to show his appreciation to the king. Where he would find something unique enough to suit Mergwil’s fancy remained a mystery.

The imp opened a small chest that held a cursed skull given to him by one of his elders, and he placed the dry bones onto his desk. He became very still and stared into the empty sockets of the skull’s eyes.

A mirrored liquid began to fill the voids until the imp could see a distorted reflection of himself in the tiny pools. He first gazed through them into the unearthly reality, and he beheld nameless wonders beyond counting, but none of them seemed to offer what he was seeking. Looking deeper, through and beyond and into the other realm, the imp found the oblivion he and his kind had always ignored.

He peered through the reflection of his own eyes, and he saw a strange grey world. His gaze traversed across oceans and mountains. He saw congested cities and farmlands that sprawled over rolling hills. Little villages and hamlets dotted the landscape, and the imp watched the entire history of the world stretch out before him. Life and death, growth and destruction, he saw it all, and compared to the beautifully repulsive unreality, it was all grey. Even the people milling about like soulless drones seemed greyer than they should have been.

The imp focused, pinpointed to the sounds of sobbing; they were the sobs of one soon to be slain. He could taste tears in the air and they smelled like despair. His view honed in on an imposing castle, and the imp’s vision moved through the stone of the walls as if they were nothing more than fog. There he found the source of the tears.

In a room full of straw sat a woman beside a spinning wheel. Her head was in her hands and she was crying.

The imp spoke to the mirror-eyed skull before him and asked, “What is this?” He blinked and the reflective liquid rippled.

He turned toward his mystical mirror, his gateway glass, and he removed its fabric covering. The mirror allowed him to pass as a spirit, moving into the unreality outside of Grumbeld at his pleasure. He now used the portal to enter the room full of straw.

This was the imp’s first time into the bizarre grey world, and after passing through the gateway, he was surprised to find himself in a corporeal state. In the other reality, he was never more than a ghost.

Through the woman’s tears, she did not see the illumination from the imp’s portal before it faded. He poked her in the arm and she jumped to her feet. She stepped back in shock from the grotesque little individual, dry-heaving at the repulsive stink of him, and she covered her mouth and nose. She looked toward the heavy wooden door to the chamber, but it was still bolted from the outside.

Her eyes turned back to the diminutive character, and she blurted out, “Do you have any gold?” Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “All I have is this antique bracelet from my grandmother, but I could give it to you!” She then added in despair, “They’re going to kill me if I can’t spin this straw into gold.”

In the realm of Grumbeld, gold is worthless and exists in vast abundance. It makes up a majority of that world’s sand, and the tar-black waters of the ocean are a stark contrast to the glittering shores.

The imp gave the woman a jagged-toothed grin, and using his gateway glass, he opened two tiny portals on her spinning wheel. Into one he deposited the straw, and from the other poured a steady stream of sand that was made of the purest gold. When the straw was gone, the imp closed both portals.

He looked up at the woman and opened his palm. The instant she placed her bracelet into his hand, both he and the bangle vanished.

On the following evening, when the woman was locked in an even larger room that contained even more straw, she again plummeted into sorrow. The scent of her tears and the sound of her crying drew the imp back to her.

“Do you have more gold?” the woman cried, relieved at his return. “I’ll give you this necklace from my mother!”

The imp repeated his miraculous trick in exchange for her jewelry, and again he disappeared.

Without hesitation, on the third and final night, when she was locked in the grand hall with mountains upon mountains of straw, the woman immediately called out to her mysterious savior. The realm of Grumbeld sits just a hair’s breadth away from the other realities, and the imp heard her prayers. The glow from his gateway appeared in the locked room, and the woman’s tears began to flow as he appeared. The imp stepped up to her.

“I have nothing left to give you,” she sobbed. “The king has vowed to kill me if I cannot complete this task a third time, but if I am successful again, he will marry me.”

The imp thought the idea of his own king marrying the ugly humanoid was terribly amusing, and a smile began to spread across his face.

“If you use your magic,” the woman continued through her quavering breaths, “and turn all this straw into gold, the king will make me his wife and I will have children.”

The imp perked up at her words and reached out his hands to accept. He did not know what children were, but his grin widened.

It looked to the woman like he possessed far too many teeth. “I don’t have any children now,” she said, and his smile extended wider. “No,” she declared, “you can’t have my children.”

The imp’s expression stretched far beyond the smile of a human mouth.

“But I have nothing else,” she whispered. There was a moment of hesitation, and she repeated, “I don’t have anything else to offer you; I have nothing.” She sagged under the weight of the dilemma, being forced to choose between her own life and the life of her potential children, children who might never even be born.

“You can’t have them all,” the woman whispered, and the imp’s smile spread so wide that it threatened to split his head in two, “but you can have one,” the woman conceded under her breath, “the first one,” and her eyes fell to the floor.

The imp did not know what it was that he would be receiving in trade, but he accepted nonetheless.

When the woman looked up, much of the straw was already gone, replaced by a hill of gold sand, and the moment the imp was finished, he turned his inhuman smile toward her and evaporated into nothing.

Against all odds, the king kept his word and married the woman who had magically increased his quantity of gold, and only a year later, the new queen was screaming in pain as her first child entered the world.

The blood was wiped from the babe and one of the nursemaids gave its bottom a sharp slap.

The infant’s first cry was heard by the imp, just like its mother’s sobs had been, and the glow of the gateway appeared in the birthing chamber. With the midwives focused on the queen, she was the only one to notice the imp’s arrival.

“No!” she screamed. Everyone present was startled by her outcry. They all froze and looked at her.

“My queen, this is a joyous moment,” an attendant said, but the queen was staring across the room in horror.

All eyes turned to the imp.

He stepped up and stretched out his arms to take the child.

The queen shrieked, “You can’t have my baby! Names have power,” she declared.

The imp looked at her with curiosity.

“Give me three days,” she commanded. “If I can name you, then you will leave, and you will never return. You will leave my baby behind, and you will go.”

The imp’s mouth split into a wicked smile and he laughed aloud.

It was the first time the queen heard his voice, and she did not like the sound of it at all.

The imp reached up, pinched the air, and he pulled a 72-hour taper out of nothing. He placed the candle onto a table and lit the wick.

His cackling laughter could still be heard echoing even after he and his gateway vanished.

Back in Grumbeld, the imp waited two days, and then he again peered into the reflective liquid pools within the skull’s eye sockets. He saw the child.

“It’s so disgusting,” the imp said with a malevolent chuckle. “The dark lord will love it!” and the imp sang.

Tonight, tonight, my plans I make

Tomorrow, tomorrow, the baby I take

The queen will never win the game

For Rumpelstiltskin is my name!

He smiled a wicked smile, and the moment his mystical candle died, he opened another ethereal gateway.

Cackling with glee, Rumpelstiltskin entered the queen’s chamber to collect his vile prize.

- End.