Scarecrow Stories: Flight of the Wax-Men Part I

Flea Bag was wandering around the lobby, looking for something to take up his time. Xeraphina was talking with Arawna down in the prisons, and Flea Bag didn't like being down there much, too many chains. Sensing his boredom, the young Marsha Foxtop guided the group of child changelings towards the older gentleman.
"Sir Baggington, do you have a minute?"
"I have much longer than that for a fellow Autumn Courtier, and even more for such an intelligent youth such as yourself, Miss Foxtop. How can I help you and the little ones?"
"Well, several of the children and I listened to your story of the wax-man filled with Desire, and we wanted to hear more about him. Do you have any more stories about the wax butler?"
"Why yes I do. I have the story of how he escaped Faerie, the events before he served the foul Prince."
"We'd very much like to hear it, if you wouldn't mind..."
"Take a seat around me, children, and I'll begin." Flea Bag sat down on the nearby couch, sitting on the edge and leaning down to address the small creatures. Then he began.
The three of them were always close. Few Wax-Men ever made friends, much less with each other, for they knew the day could come when their friend would be their competitor. But such thoughts were always brushed away by Vanil, Grume, and Citrouille. They all began and ended their careers as Wax-Men at the same time, the former event being what brought them together to begin with. They first met when they were shaved bald, as they would remain for the rest of their days, to make room for the thick twine to be bored into their head. Young boys barely old enough to walk; the three were there for each other when their bodies were encased in steel, the metal conforming to every minute detail of their form. They even called out for each other when the metal molds were first filled with wax, burning away their old bodies and rebirthing them as Wax-Men proper, as they would be every time new molds were taken to fit their progressive growth into adulthood. They even learned the blade together, and took the same mentor, the reputable Noix, to shadow during one of the older gentleman’s Fuses. They even tagged along to each other’s first Fuse, and thought they couldn’t get involved, they provided the morale support any young man needs when they first take a life. Even when Cire would come for one of them, they would hold each other’s hands for support.
Cire was never kind to them, doing so would have been special treatment. Just like any other Wax-Man back from a Fuse, Cire would put them back in their molds when they finished a Fuse, melting them and reforming them all over again. Agonizingly painful, this process was the only thing that would heal the damage to their bodies from the Fuse, a hunt they were set on by Cire himself. Cire would give a Wax-Man a target to eliminate, alighting the wick on their heads with fire. Until the Wax-Man killed his mark, he would gradually melt. If he failed to kill his target, or if someone else did his job for him, the wick would burn brighter until there was nothing left. If two Wax-Men were sent after the same prey, only the one to strike the final blow would survive. Running away was never an option either; the Wax-Men were only let out of their prison-barracks when aflame with a Fuse. That didn’t stop the three comrades from plotting, which led to more than a few failed attempts at escape. Grume wanted to see the world, Citrouille wanted to become an artist, and Vanil dreamed of finding true love. They were young dreamers to be sure, which is why each took their respective Fuses so seriously, failure meant their dreams would never come true.
One day, the three were all called to the Waxing Room, the smell of liquid wax and industrial metal as pungent as ever. Cautious before their master, the three furtively kneeled beside their molds, awaiting orders from Cire. As always, Cire the Candle-Maker cut to the chase. He wanted the life of the Vain Queen’s huntress extinguished; Cire saw the Queen as an obstacle in his climb up the ladder of society and thus wanted to wound her spirit by eliminating her hound. He told them her previous huntress had recently escaped and duly replaced, leaving them to deal with a much less experienced adversary. Them? The three glanced at each other worried. Certainly this Fuse was only for one of them, or so they Desired with all their heart. Cire never told any of them why three Wax-Men were needed for a job one of them could do just as easily, but they each noted the misplaced sinister grin on Cire’s face as he lit their wicks and dismissed them from the gates.
At first they were each in denial. They packed their travel kits and sharpened their blades in silence before leaving. Citrouille was the first to speak, talking of the Fuse as if it were any other job.
“The Vain Queen keeps her huntress locked up until she is needed, much like us. A caged beast is easier to kill, and with the three of us...”
And then he grew quiet again. How could they work together if that meant only one would survive? After hitchhiking on the back of a wagon filled with arrows on its way to the Green Knight’s hold, Grume became the second to address the group.
“We could run, you know. There has to be a way to extinguish the Fuse without Cire and his damn wax. We could be free, the three of us, just as we always wanted! When next will all of us have a chance to run together?”
But even if they could put out the Fuse, they had already begun to melt. How would they survive with their bodies melted away? They needed Cire’s wax... but only one could earn it.
An hour later, they had made it through the Backwards Mountains, and were rowing a stolen dingy across Lantern Lake. The Vain Queen’s castle loomed on the horizon in front of them. It was time to form a plan.
“What if, what if we-” Vanil’s voice was shaking; he couldn’t look his brothers in the eye. “We could kill her together; plunge our blades into her at the same time. If the killing blow belongs to all of us, Cire has to let us live!”
The other two looked worriedly at each other; it wasn’t a great plan. It wasn’t even a good one, but it was all they had. It was their one shot to all survive.
Climbing steep barricades was Grume’s specialty; he scaled the castle walls with ease. Tossing a rope down behind him, the other two made it up to meet their partner without being detected. Cire had warned them of the Queen’s penchant for surveillance; the three avoided all mirrors and puddles of water, and any other reflective surface they came across. Meanwhile, Citrouille began formulating an escape plan. Making a detour at the Queen’s stables revealed no animals kept there, meaning they would have to run on foot. Run where? Did they take their chance to escape, or return to Cire for the wax they needed?
Vanil tracked the huntress’ cage down. For a man made of wax, his sense of smell never failed him, and he knew all too well the scent of lost hope and prison walls. Vanil picked the lock on the grate above the hound’s head, and the three Wax-Men dropped down into her den.
She was crying to herself, balled up in the corner. The three knew the look like the back of their now melting hands: she had just taken her first life. Vanil approached her.
“Everything is going to be fine, little chien. Soon your Desires will come true; you will escape from this place and you’ll never have to kill again.”
His half-truth was convincing enough, the girl began to calm down. Citrouille moved in, using a handkerchief to wipe the tears and wet blood from her face.
“There, there, mon chien. It is time to go.”
Grume and Citrouille helped the girl to her feet.
“Go? Go where? Does the Queen want me to take another of her princesses’ hearts? I can’t, I can’t do that again... all the pain I caused.. I just-”
“Calm down, chien,” Grume softly said, rubbing her back with his softened hands, “We’re here to make sure you never have to hunt again.”
This is how each of them had spoken to every mark they ever had. None wanted their targets, no, victims, to die with Fear in their heart. Or Sorrow. Least of all Wrath.
The moment of truth came. While the girl stood between them unawares of her swift fate, the three gripped their daggers, leaving their true blades sheathed. Eyeing each other with looks of intense anxiety, the three silently stabbed into the fresh killer’s heart. Vanil muffled her dying breath with his hands, and the three let go of her when she slumped to the ground.
One wick went out. Two others burned brighter.
“No, NO!! Something is wrong; we can still fix this!” Vanil’s head had gone dark, but his face was already half gone. What was left was missing his right eye and everything above it. “I can still save you, somehow!”
He tried to reach out for Citrouille, but the fingers on his right hand had started to meld together in their less solid state. Beads of wax made of his own flesh dripped down his body. The other two were not so fortunate; they had already begun to lose structure, their bodies becoming less and less humanoid as they melted down into mounds of pure wax. They looked at each other and smiled.
“While you tracked down the hunter’s cell, Grume and I had a chance to talk.”
“What, what are you talking about, Citro?”
“Your plan wouldn’t work, Van; we wouldn’t even have been the first Wax-Men to try a simultaneous coup-de-grace.” Grume’s voice was serene, even soothing, but not enough to calm Vanil down.
“You seemed so set on it working, and you didn’t seem to know, so Grume and I made the decision to let you live.”
“Why, Citro, brothers? Why let me live?”
“So you could live for us! Even if the plan worked, it was either return to Cire or live as melted men. Neither of us wanted that. If only one of us can live, we want him to live enough for all of us!”
Vanil began to cry as his brothers lost any resemblance to their former selves, their faces distorted and stretched along the piles of wax they had become.
“But how?”
“Use our wax, brother. Reform your body, and we will always be with you.”
“Live your life and fulfill your dreams, so we may finally rest in peace.”
Vanil yelled at them, tears streaming from his eyes, but there was no response. While their wicks still burned, they had already passed. There wasn’t enough wax left of them to sustain their lives.
But there was enough to sustain his.
Flea Bag took a sip of water from his rather ornate silver flask. Marsha and the other 'children' sat there, waiting for the story to continue on bated breath. Flea Bag smiled with obvious intent; he loved their anticipation.
"And the rest is a story for another time." Flea Bag reattached his flask to his belt, the skull keychain hanging from it jingling against his leg.
"Sir Baggington, if it would please you, could you finish your story now? I desperately want to know what happens next to the character of Vanil!"
"Ah, Miss Foxtop, now where would the fun be in that?"
Characters involved in this Chronicle: Flea Bag, Marsha Foxtop, Francois Dior    
Category:Fiction