Eleanor Kannon-Hall’s fierce fuchsia toenails skulked through the snow white fluffy carpet with the most delicate of footsteps. Far removed from the frigid chill and the shrill whistle of the Ottawa wind, Merlin Bay was treated to a richly warm evening serenaded by birdsong and wave’s crashing.

Ellie’s steps needn’t have been so dainty - not that she could ever muster cumbersome - as Imogen and Alexander were both dead to the world, and wouldn’t stir for a marching band being diverted between their cots. As the armchair Ellie collapsed into almost consumed her in a softly cushioned gulp, pristinely manicured fingers retrieved the hardback book that had perched perilously on its arm.

Curling up and pulling the pin on her platinum blonde hair, Ellie snuggled into the chair, expelling a yawn that only sank her deeper.

“Once upon a time…” she began to read, jetlagged words softly floating across on the breeze. “There was a King. A mighty and brave King, who made an unbreakable vow to his Queen. For her, as a sign of his devotion, The King would conquer even the furthest lands to bring the world under his will. True to his word, The King brought even the most ancient and mighty of lands to their knees, from the sky-piercing mountain realms to the hellish subterranean empires. Rumour became myth became legend; The King, in his golden armour, fuelled by an unbreakable bond of purest devotion. By the time The King had fathered a Prince and Princess to one day inherit his world, there was just one land which remained unconquered. The Land of Sin. Every trusted advisor who could claim to have the ear of The King warned him, pleaded with him to cease his age of conquest… but his vow would be left empty if just one square inch of dirt resisted his word. So it was that The Golden King marched on the Land of Sin, knowing that it would be his toughest battle, and with only the vow of devotion to his Queen to repel the sin and corruption. In the Land of Sin there was no one King or Queen for him to defeat and inherit their subjects… but a whole realm full of eternally quarrelling dangers, as cunning and vicious as he was mighty and brave.”

The scar that dissected his face’s left hemisphere had been itching feverously for days; ever since the artist who’d sculpted it had wandered close. Brittle, mustard-yellow fingernails scraped at the irritable scar tissue to no relief.

Into the largest shard of frustration-shattered mirror a hazel eye peered, tracing the grotesque scar’s ridge from furrowed brow to snarl-elevated cheek bone. For the briefest of glimpses, The Cyclops’ good eye betrayed him, delving back into his vengeance-warped mind to project the reflection of the handsome face with which he was once blessed. Fresh skin, flowing locks of blonde hair, vibrant eyes... Jonathan. The largest shard become 43 much, much smaller shards.

The Cyclops’ skull began to split, barely able to contain the echo of approaching footsteps. His itchy scar became a burning brand, its creator’s close proximity becoming a white-hot reminder of the time he’d strayed from his realm. Courage and strength had brewed a potent potion deep in the Cyclops’ gut, fuelling him to set out beyond the murky borders of the Realm of Sin. Courage and strength had been bested by guile and experience, at the cost of the Cyclops’ left eye.

A deafening, primal roar tried in vain to vent the pressure from his throbbing skull, bringing a dense deluge of rock and dust down around him. When the pulsing of his skull only intensified, the roar became his battle cry.

Driven to the brink of feral insanity by his searing scar and seismic skull, the internal, bone-shaking pulse within the Cyclops’ head became his radar. The queasy stench of scorched flesh festered in his nostrils as the scar began to singe the fraying skin around it, then ignited. His good eye struggled to remain in its socket such was the deafening beat that emanated from his bone marrow.

From a mile away, The King heard the furious war-drumming and felt the dry, scorching heat of the scar he’d inflicted. He ground the soles of his boots into the gritty path, for it was as good a piece of ground as any to stand.

Unquenched, unyielding vengeance flung the Cyclops toward The King.

Feet planted in the dust, The King brought weary lids down over his vivid emerald eyes. Arms folded, head bowed, lips barely parting as he whispered a respectful farewell to his doomed enemy.

Fire erupted from the Cyclops’ feverous scar, accelerating his bounding strides as it began to consume him. Through a shower of crumbling charcoal lids and lashes, the Cyclops caught a red-hued glimpse of his tormentor. Another roar erupted from deep within him, expelling a flare of swirling, tarry fire through which he charged. The thunderous, bone-splintering strides which propelled the Cyclops intensified the pulsating within him, grotesquely warping his body.

Closer and closer, hotter and hotter, fiercer and fiercer.

Then, as a molten fist reared back to strike at his tormentor, the Cyclops’ body yielded to the fire, its internal drumming shaking apart charred bones in an instant. The King pursed his lips as a sandstorm of ash blew over him, peppering his black beard.

Eyes opened, lips blew a fine plume of smoke which he’d inhaled through his nostrils, and his worn soles once again crunched into the gritty path.

The King had come for gold.

The Wise Man’s door flew off its hinges, splinters and shards of wood exploding like a cluster-bomb into his secluded hovel. Even through the thick cloud of disturbed dust that engulfed him, The Midas King felt himself drawn to the honeyed glow of The Wise Man’s golden crown. For in the Land of Sin, no King or beast wore the crown; the cunning and underhand had triumphed over seemingly all.

The King’s nostrils began to tickle as they probed the air; gold dust.

A trap.

“Clever old thing…” The King barely had time to muse as The Wise Man’s irresistible bait flickered in the air around him.

Creaking floorboards began crack under The King’s fleet feet, the stomach-turning grasp of gravity trying to drag him into the infernal caverns that festered beneath the Land of Sin. On fractured timbers The King danced, soaring up to clamp his gauntlets around a beam overhead; just as The Wise Man estimated he would.

The weight of The King turned beam to lever, setting off a tooth-grinding mechanical churning overhead. The industrial grumbling ceased, then let out a hissing sigh before a molten hail storm fell from the shadowy heavens above. With all his might, The King swung, his golden armour’s weight blessing him with the momentum needed to swing through the jungle of rafters, glowing slag igniting timbers in his wake. Through the torched roof of The Wise Man’s hovel, the bruised swollen sky above churned and sparked.

Touching down on a stable surface of stone, The King ran a gloved hand through his crimson hair, sweat that bubbled to his skin’s surface in the choking heat slicking it back. Overhead there was a stuttered rumble, but little did The King know the that it was more a knock at the hovel’s door.

All around him, a loose cage of copper bars reached up to the skies; lightning rods.

The churning skies unleashed their wrath on the shack, fierce barbs of raw electricity lashing through smouldering timbers and shattering slate tiles as it punched through on its unrelenting surge toward the lightning rods. The trap had quickly upgraded to death-trap.

Unsteady foundations underfoot, scorched air parching his lungs and a heavenly bombardment threatening to smite him with it’s fizzling whips of lightning, The King signalled his retreat. Through raging fires he waded, golden armour not having felt such ferocious heat since it were forged. Blinding flashes ignited the air around him, ozone soured his nostrils.

A burning, golden wrecking ball hurtled out of the collapsing hovel, an unrelenting barrage of lightning punching its charred remains down into the welcoming bowels of the Land of Sin.

Through sweat-stung eyes and haze of unclean fire, The King caught sight of The Wise Man, his trap unable to snare its prey, thwarted, but the gold still in his possession, glorious in the glow of the embers.

Nostril’s hooked by the heady scent of gold, The King stuck to the elusive Wise Man’s path like a feverish bloodhound. The scent had led him to the great chaotic chasm, a scar in the Land of Sin that cut to the bone.

A tentative boot probed the ancient, rotting wooden rope bridge, but even an uncharacteristically half-hearted step triggered a disapproving creak. Teeth ground to enamel dust as The King strained to relieve the burden of his golden armour, heaving it off his shoulders and down into the bottomless cavern.

Should he have stayed to count the depths to which it would plummet, The King would wither and died where he stood.

Gusts of stale, dead air from the chasm gobbled up the gold’s scent trail, weakening the glow of The Wise Man’s fleeing beacon. Gauntlet-clad hands gripped the fraying ropes, and The King, stripped bare of his glorious armour, set out across the perilous bridge.

Under the archaic groans of the bridge and sheltered by the deep gurgling winds of the chasm, a rustle in the long, dry grass crept towards the bridge. Flared nostrils poked out, the intoxicating nectar of gold dragging The Rat onto The King’s path.

Vivid emerald eyes refusing to concede to the lure of the misty ravine beneath his feet, The King crossed with deliberate paces, his breaths shallow in fear that a heaving lungful would have the decaying wood crumble underfoot.

Creeping behind the blinkered King, the Rat began to gnaw at the ropes, skittering from side to side, shaving each down to its core. Shared goals kept the Rat from cleaving the bridge’s supports and sending both plummeting deep into the diseased gullet of the Land of Sin, but with every step The King took, strained ropes had their fibres frayed away like their muscles were being torn apart and shredded by the strain.

Then, as The King began to feel his stomach ascend, freeing itself from the queasy pull of the chasm’s depth, the Rat pounced. The cerated dual daggers of the Rat’s teeth plunged into The King’s neck, finally biasing his balance and causing the staining, compromised ropes to unravel. Hurled from side to side by his shifting weight, the bridge tried to propel him into a death roll. The Rat’s teeth then stabbed away at The King’s hands, slinking in between the defences of his gauntlets to sink into vulnerable flesh.

Punctured and disorientated, The King’s eyes were suddenly drawn down to the hypnotising depths of the chasm as The Rat pounced from rope to rope, teeth scything through the aging fibres with ease… until it emitted a pain squeak as The King’s battle-worn boot stamped down onto his tail. Anchored, the panicking Rat was doomed to The King’s fate as the ropes continued to give, close to expelling their final gasp.

Gnashing teeth sawed away at The King’s calf, only causing his heel to grind down harder, splinters from the rotting wood injecting putrid bacteria into the Rat’s tail. Feeling the bridge begin to yield to the chasm’s pull beneath their feet, both King and Rat were forced to make a dash for solid ground as ancient timber crumbled into the depths below.

Between The King’s feet wove the Rat, wounded tail lashing out to try and trip his rival. Opening his stride, The King channelled his might and heart into speed, heavy, scorched-earth steps leaving each wooden plank dissolving into the mist under the Rat’s feet.

Solid ground was a step away.

She had the entire Land of Sin suspended on the puppet-strings of her web, not even the furthest shadowy corners free of her influence. From deep within its black cavernous heart, she was the conductor, one tug on the finest of silk strands collapsing mountains or parting land masses.

One such strand lassoed the ankle of The King, bandaging the Rat’s bloody tooth-marks in a thick sleeve of silk. The King froze, the ensnaring strand dripping with paralysing pheromones. The Rat, at first as petrified as his muscle-locked rival, heard the shrill alarm-call of self-preservation and sprung onto solid ground just as the Spider recalled her strand. The bridge crumbled to dust, and into the eerie, red-hued mist The King was dragged. Onto the sticky and sweet mesh of her web he fell, a rowdy inmate deep within the prison of his paralysed body. The scent of gold no longer tickled his nostrils. Peering out from the depths behind his glassy eyes, The King saw the husks of the other poor souls that the Spider beckoned down to her web, man and beast dragged over mountains and against tides into her grasp.

She was as close as the Land of Sin had to a Queen. A Queen who would sooner devour her King than share a throne.

The tide of the web grew more erratic, and The King knew that the Spider was circling him, ready to play with her food. Weighed down by his own petrified body, The King heaved and strained inside his shell, just to raise a little finger up towards the gold which the Wise Man was carrying further and further out of reach.

He thought of his Queen; his vow. Unbreakable.

It would remain so.

As the lethal, wiry limbs of the Spider unfurled from the murky shadows, a piercing beam of golden light flushed the darkness from her lair. Pinned to her web by the blade of fierce light, the Spider unleashed a shriek which drove the imprisoned King to the brink of insanity as its daggers pierced his eardrums and picked at his brain. But, as the golden light intensified, the shriek hollowed.

On her back, the Spider flailed her pacified legs about, trying to slash the beam for just a nanosecond of relief from its burning eye.

As the light fought its way into every craggy corner of the Spider’s lair, a golden halo formed. A uniform, unbroken rank of men, loyal to their King and sworn to his unbreakable vow, encircled the wilting Spider’s web. Their faces hidden behind golden masks, The King’s men - his Golden Army - hacked their light-infused swords at the Spider’s web. The rich aroma of glowing gold seeped into the King’s nostrils, replenishing and revitalising him. As The King’s spirit swelled to once again fill his energised body, he tore himself free of the Spider’s syrupy silk strands.

Skewered by the spear of golden light, a dense darkness erupted from her shrivelling body, dragging it down through her web and into the depths of the Land of Sin. The descending darkness opened wide, dragging its web down with it, and so collapsing the Land of Sin down into the festering crater.

The Golden Army formed around its King as creation was undone around them. It was the Spider’s realm, she was its puppet-master, and she was the keystone whose removal would bring it crashing down.

As whole forests were stripped and vast deserts funnelled down into the deepest depths, the King once again shed his golden rank of armour to stretch a gauntlet into the torrent of rubble and dust and pluck out The Wise Man’s golden crown. The ground burped beneath their feet, the heavy darkness quenched.

When all that remained of the Land of Sin was a mourning whistle on the wind, the King stared with authority at the empty sky above, naming the barren earth beneath it as his own.

His vow complete, The King released his Golden Army from his service and began the trek back to his Queen.

Eleanor Kannon-Hall stood between Alex and Imogen’s cribs, her bare face flawless in the raw moonlight, her words tender and warm.

“…and they all lived happily ever after…”