The Fabergé bastard was raging. Tools flew, doors slammed, the 
walls and floorboards rattled. Through it all, he loosed a stream of 
profanity so acid it threatened to peel the already faded paint. 
Rejected. Him. HIM. Heir to the most prestigious jewelers in the 
world, makers of wonders only seen in dreams, tossed out like some 
beggar at the gate. What's more, it was done by some pathetic, 
overpuffed lackwit of a servant, his offering never even reaching the 
edge of the Czar's gaze. 


He threw a hammer hard enough to lodge it in a wall, fuming and 
drooling with vitriolic rage. His egg, a perfect representation of the 
legendary Fabergé eggs presented to the young princes and 
princesses, lay shattered in a fine dust around the floor. It had taken 
nearly a full year to create, at no small cost to his personal finances, 
relationships and nerves. Glittering and gilded, inscribed around 
every inch were miniature scenes and tales of Baba Yaga and 
Koshchey the Deathless, the cold eyes of clear diamond, the fearful 
children of soft pearl. 


Behind a tiny hidden catch in the painting of the chicken-footed 
home of Baba Yaga, there opened a tiny clockwork pageant of 
horror. As the tiny, delicate doors swung open, the battle between 
hero and villain unwound, the bright clear-faced lad battling the 
eternally old Koshchey. Gruesome, but just the thing for a bloody- 
minded boy, as the youngest prince was well known to be. All this, 
dashed to splinters because some worthless advisor was “offended” 
and would not have it “upsetting the delicate sensibilities of the 
young lord.” Pigeon-hearted swine, he'd had the audacity to have 
the guard escort him none too softly outside the gate. 


His rage ebbed, head throbbing as he slouched against a wall. The 
workshop/living quarters was in shambles, only the highest shelves 
remaining somewhat untouched. He panted, starting to quietly sob, 
looking down at his worthless hands. It was his best work, and he 


knew he'd never make its equal again. His eyes rolled to the rafters, 
absently seeking out the stoutest, the most likely to bear his weight. 
Suddenly, his eye settled on the clockwork rose resting in the high 
corner. With a twist, it would bloom open, then fold in on itself to 
become a chirping bird. He stared, eyes red-rimmed and feverish, 
as an idea started to slowly writhe. 


He stood, taking down the rose, winding it and watching the ballet of 
change. It was always the change that amused. The secret 
unfolding. With the eggs, the outside was almost ignored, in the hunt 
of the secret inside. Secrets. Change. He slowly smiled, a 
unwholesome expression on his gaunt, grim face. He would build 
them a wonder, the likes of which the world had never seen, and 
would never see again. He would create a treasure that would be 
kept and passed down ages after the Czars were dead, gone and 
forgotten. 


He started with smashed clocks. Crawling from workshops and 
rubbish heaps, he gathered every toy, tool or clock he could find 
with so much as a cog in it. His workshop filled quickly, with stacks 
and stacks of gears, belts, flywheels and springs, all ordered and 
stacked to the rafters. His blueprints grew as well, from two sheets 
to five, then eight, then twenty. Soon, he'd taken to jotting outlines 
on the walls, scribbling notations on the floor of the narrow walkways 
through the gears. 


What few friends he'd had started to talk. He'd grown impossibly 
more gaunt and haggard, his eyes feverish and driven, and seldom 
spoke above a mumble. The few who stopped to check on him could 
barely squeeze in his door, and were quickly choked by the smell of 
oil and rust. His already limited output of jewelery and clockworks 
stopped completely, along with his income. He took to selling 
furniture, clothes, anything that could buy the little food he needed. 
Whispers of possession and dark arts started to follow him. 


The shunning was nothing new to him, and in a way was almost 
welcome. He had a suspicion of those who were too nice, too open, 
and the constant, nagging drain of interaction slowed down the 
Work. Since discarding the frivolity of sleep, he'd gained even more 
time to devote to the Work, the petty whining of his neighbors over 
the night noise silenced by his grim stare. The assembly started to 


take shape, the millions of parts starting to move from pile to the 
growing mass that took up most of his small room. He drowsed in its 
silent heart, as close to sleep as he had been in weeks, and listened 
to the phantom ticking of the coming birth. 


He poured all that he had, all that he was into the Work. He spoke to 
it, cajoling, cursing, whispering, shouting. He lost flesh to slipped 
bolts and suddenly engaged cogs. He poured blood and pus over 
chisels, awls and screwdrivers as his hands split, blistered, healed, 
then split again. He asked the mass its opinion on its slowly forming 
wooden skin. Should this window go here, or perhaps a tower? A 
rabbit or a rat behind this tree? The first time it started, the clanking 
and rattling causing dust to pour from the roof, he embraced and 
kissed the wood and metal horror with more passion then he had 
ever shown a woman. 


Finally, it was ready. So large he would have to batter down a wall, 
so heavy it would take thirty stout men to hoist it out, he touched it 
with all the delicacy and adoration of a father touching the tiny 
fingers of his new child. It had gone beyond a simple gift, an offering 
to the mighty. It was all he had never known. Lover, child, mother, 
he had wrung out all that his pinched soul had, to this beautiful, 
terrible creation. 


The parade was a grand affair, if boring. In the five years since a 
gaunt, grim man was turned away carrying an ornamental egg, the 
Czar and his family had changed very little. Perhaps a little more fat 
on the Lord and Lady, a little more firmness of feature to the princes, 
and some suggestive curves to the princess, but otherwise an 
identical portrait. Even the birthday parade had the same tired floats, 
the same gilded carriages. When the procession came to a road 
blocked by a massive shape and an emaciated horror, the princess 
actually had to be nudged awake from a light doze. 


The mad Fabergé stood before a hill covered in grimy tarps. He had 
not spent the years in idle suspension. His limbs were as thin as a 
scarecrow, muscles like thin cables writhing beneath. His head was 
a pinched skull with some expression, and his smile nearly sent the 
queen into a swoon. The worn, tattered clothes hung from him like a 
sack, puffing and swaying as he made a low bow. His voice was a 


brittle, harsh rasp as he spoke: “My Lord, may | present, on this 
glorious day, my gift.” 


The tarps fell away, and the whole square lost its breath. A fairytale 
kingdom had sprouted in the center of the street. Around the base 
were small trees and shrubs, thick with cavorting faeries and 
goblins. Tiny brooks and lakes held glittering mermaids and smiling 
fish. Deeper, a tiny gnome village rested against a lilliputian 
mountain range, the men frozen in work and play. Songbirds and 
dragons nestled in the high places, and dark, suggestive shapes 
lurked in caves and burrows. 


All this paled, however, to the castle. With spires rising nearly twenty 
feet in the air, it shone like a vision of another world. Two large, 
stout gates stood open, armored knights guarding the way in plumed 
helms. Balconies held ladies of unearthly beauty, their suitors bent 
to a knee in devotion, or shielding them from horrors spawned from 
the darkest dreams of man. Grand balls and feasts were frozen in 
the inner halls, and a king with a visage radiating power presided 
over a trial. The moat swarmed with beasts, and every pinnacle 
played roost to all manner of wings. 


Speech was impossible. Every inch glittered and shone with gems 
and gilding. Crystals radiated rainbows along every surface, pear! 
and gold shimmered like a dream. The creator stooped to an 
alleyway and drew forth a mangy dog, gently jostling it up the 
shimmering walkway of silver to the left castle gateway. He closed it, 
then stepped over to a fairy ring of silver mushrooms. In it were 
arranged tiny statues, and he lifted one up, fitting it into a small 
stone altar above the ring. He then slotted a polished brass key into 
a slot below the stone, and twisted. 


Suddenly, the kingdom came to life. The whole square, until now 
struck dumb, almost screamed with delight. The fish swam, the birds 
sang, the knights marched, the gnomes dug. Everywhere was 
movement, sound, light. The trees swayed, the dragons brooded, 
from the dungeon depths came a small, chilling moan. The king held 
court, pronouncing judgment as the Czar and his family clapped and 
watched in pleasure. The world suddenly froze again, and the 
scarecrow man opened the left gateway, to reveal it empty. He 
smiled wickedly, then opened the right gateway, releasing a sudden 


burst of tiny, pure-white doves. 


Man and machine were bundled back to the palace with all haste. 
His repellent, almost demonic appearance was almost immediately 
forgotten in the wash of this new amusement. A ballroom was 
cleared, walls razed and rebuilt to admit the massive piece. Items 
were found, placed, and reborn. Wonders beyond imagination were 
born from the most base objects; Glittering threads from a stone, a 
clockwork kitten from an old clock, a wobbling jelly that could not be 
punctured or torn, no matter how abused, from a simple ceramic jug. 


The young prince had to be stopped twice, carrying one of the royal 
cats. Things entered through one gate, and left the other, and never 
again could they be returned to their former shape. Still, a canary 
was sacrificed to the cause, and emerged a peacock in perfect 
miniature. The Czar was delighted beyond words, and embraced the 
reeking, horrid wreck of the device's creator like a brother. Dinners 
were planned, rooms were made ready, and in the black heart of the 
bastard Fabergé there stirred the alien feelings of true, honest joy. 


It was in the dim of the night that two small forms slipped into the 
ballroom. One in nightshirt, the other a soft white nightgown, the two 
forms stole silently through the dark up to the fairy tale castle. The 
night-shirted figure, the young prince, whispered and pinched, 
prodding the princess up to the gate of the castle. He had whispered 
wicked things in her ear in the night, and threatened to reveal two 
unpleasant secrets to their parents if she did not accompany him 
and do as he said. 


He was not a truly wicked boy, no more so than any young boy is. 
The same impulse that made him put frogs in his sister's toybox, 
chase her about with snakes, and kick her shins at dinner, also 
drove him to see what would happen to her in the castle. The 
princess pleaded at the gate, begging her brother in a whisper to let 
her go back to bed. He pushed harder, sneering as he threatened to 
tell their father the true way his favorite clothes had been ruined. 
She paled, shivered, and silently went into the gate, tears rolling in 
cold silence. 


He pulled shut the gate, his little daemon heart dancing with naughty 


glee. He hopped to the ring, selecting the frog with a barely 
suppressed giggle. As he turned the key, he settled accounts for 
many of his sister's tattling, her clever remarks and finger-pointing. 
As the castle sang and clanked, the prince grew afraid. If someone 
should wake up, he'd be blamed for sure. He started working up a 
hazy lie as the figures danced, practicing a half-asleep blink and a 
story of being woken up just moments before the first to arrive. He 
was still practicing when the castle stopped and he opened the other 
gate. 


The screaming awoke the Czar and his wife first, even with their 
rooms so far from the ballroom. In the way of parents, they seemed 
to know without question their children were in danger. They passed 
servants and drowsy footmen, the Czar a grim-faced ghost in pale 
robes. He burst into the ballroom, servants quick on his heels, the 
door cracking the plaster behind it with the force. The young prince 
was curled a short pace from the castle, sobbing and gibbering, 
shuddering as if with great cold. As the Czar went to his young son, 
he heard a sound from the castle. He looked, and his son was 
forgotten. 


Hell had been born in the fairy wood. A blubbering, writhing mass 
worked to push through the trees, hard nibs of what looked like teeth 
scraping as it crawled. Oozing pools that might have been eyes 
drooled hissing pus, the bloating wound-like mouth working in soft 
horror. The soggy, dripping paws pulled and plucked at the shining 
ground, tubes and strings waving along the heaving back. It 
squealed at the assembled men and women, the tatters of the 
princess's nightgown still hanging, trapped in the folds of its flesh, 
the little tiara sunken near the hollow pit of a nose. The servants 
were dumbstruck, frozen by fear, none even stirring as the the 
Czar's wife swooned and hit the floor with a heavy thud. The Czar 
rose, slowly, too shocked to be afraid, and went to comfort his 
daughter. 


The princess took hours to die. Her room was sealed, the doorway 
plastered over, the body within too twisted and misshapen to bury. 
The young prince was broken, a mindless shell. His ability to speak 
decayed over several months, finally little more then a shambling 
ghost, left to stare for hours at windows and walls. The Czar fared 


little better. He wandered, staring at his throne at times as if he had 
no idea what it was, suddenly prone to fits of sobs or acidic rage. 
The public was told little to nothing, the servants in attendance that 
hellish night threatened with death for the merest breath of the truth. 


The mad Fabergé fared worst of all. Besides the princess. He was 
bundled from his bed by six guards, a bag thrown over his head and 
an armored fist in his belly. He was dumped in a cold cellar and left, 
bound and bagged, for a full day. Soiled and exhausted, he was 
drawn up and the bag removed, only to face the haggard, manic 
stare of the Czar. The mad Fabergé hardly had time to speak, and 
when the Czar's fist shattered his already cracked teeth and sent 
them lacerating into his tongue, it was impossible anyway. He beat 
him off and on for nearly two days. Finally he had the man's 
fingerless palms hacked off, his remaining eye gouged out, and 
locked him in the deepest, blackest pit to rot. 


The fairy palace was removed. For all the Czar's wrath, he could not 
simply destroy it. The very sight of it overwhelmed him, the mention 
of it enough to give him shudders and migraines. It was shifted 
painfully along to a basement in a disused wing of the palace, and 
forgotten. Over time, the gilding was peeled, the gems worked free, 
the statues stolen. Years came and went, the now-bare wooden 
shell slowly warping and splitting with age and season. It was 
moved, then moved again, finally coming to rest in a vacation home 
of the royalty, buried alongside other unknown and uncared for 
treasures. 


A legend rose around the wooden forest and castle. The great- 
grandchildren of the now long-dead Czar scared each other with 
stories about it, daring each other to slip into the dank, dark store 
room and touch it. An ancient, crumbling butler finally spilled an age- 
faded copy of the story, and delicious scandal rolled through the 
bars and boarding houses for days. However, other concerns took 
precedence, and during some uprising or another, the summer 
palace was burned to the foundation. Along with it went many great 
works of art, and the twisted, warped shell of the wooden palace and 
forest. As the embers cooled above it, buried deep in the rubble the 
ancient, charred clockworks lay unnoticed and unknown. 


SCP-819: Vital Suckers