RUMPELSTILTSKIN RETELLING.
"I challenge you to find my name, princess. Three tries." Light flickers beneath the recesses of his mask, the wooden fangs and shadowed eyes. "Think you can beat me?"
***
A witch doctor, user of dark magic, terrorizes a...
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One of my squad mates has the honor of bringing the baby back to their mother. His name's Tawil. A party-boy and heavy drinker, tall, ochre, and skinny, son of a noble. Tawil got sent away to the military for getting a girl "in trouble". He doesn't look so happy about babysitting, as the infant, fed on honey and goat's milk from Kura's stash, is squalling and burping all the way. Sol sits me down at the kitchen table, coaxing me to eat dried biscuits mashed in herbal tea, to calm me down from the memory of that ghoulish specter last night. "So," she covers my hand with hers, "tell me."
"A blood-magic sorcerer from Jiwa." I shake my head. "Turning children's blood to gold. But not for keeping it themselves. I think..." I wander back to the memory of sacrificing gold to Cato last night. "The sorcerer's giving their bloodied bounty up to their god. A Jiwanese god. Rangda."
Sol steeples her fingers, her plate spotless after Kura had heaped sweet rice and oily fried bread on her plate. "But, the Queen of Thieves, Ratu is from Jiwa. She follows Islam. I've never heard of Rangda in all my training as a general. Nobody from Jiwa spoke of her. Ratu told me that those who followed the old ways are peaceful, not like this."
"Maybe Rangda's one of the dangerous old gods then," I lean forwards, "look, I'm not book-smart like Advisor Boaz, I don't know everything about all the world's mythology. But I know I saw a monster last night."
Sol smiles sadly at me, that infantilizing gaze like a mother telling her child there's no ghouls hiding beneath their bed at night. "Golems aren't monster enough for you?"
"No," I shudder, gritting my teeth to try and suppress it. "Baqir can smash through a golem. Not this. Not this."
She looks me up and down, sees my shuddering. "You shouldn't get cold with the Diviner's magic inherited from your father."
I bite my lip, not wanting to admit it's from fear.
"General!" Tawil runs back in, looking terrifyingly sober, the baby gone. He's breathing hard. Must have sprinted all the way back from the village after just throwing the kid at their worried parents. That's Tawil. "The temple. You have to see this."
