One Thousand Threads

The farbeast’s claws raked across Khorsa’s back, and he strained to put on just a little more speed. It would do nothing to change his fate—once the beast had your scent, there was no hope left for you—it was for the village. If he didn’t lead the monster far enough away, far enough upwind...it would find them again.

But today the wind was blowing down towards the river, and even that gentle slope had made Khorsa’s legs clumsy and feeble. He didn’t even make it out of the valley. A little more than three quarters of the way up the slope, there was a steep earth ridge. Here, his legs gave way beneath him and he slipped.

Rolling over to face the fiend, Khorsa bared his teeth, drawing the dagger from his belt. A feeble gesture. The farbeast had five knives upon each paw, and its hide was studded with the stubs of old arrows. The creature slowed as it approached, wide mouth cracking into a jagged snarl. Khorsa snarled back, making a pitiful jab with the dagger, still too weak to stand. It had been his duty to run, and he had failed. The farbeast would take two victims today. And if not two, then more.

But the creature came no closer. Instead, it cowered. Khorsa became suddenly aware of someone scrambling down the ridge behind him. Turning, he saw a figure robed in white. She held a golden thread before her, and it was this the farbeast feared. Wondrously, it fled.

It was only then that Khorsa realised who had saved him: this traveller was human. But he was too grateful to shy away when she passed the thread around his neck. The material flashed cold, and when he reached up to touch it, he found there was no knot—only a seamless band of gold.

“You need fear those creatures no more,” said the traveller.


The wounds on Khorsa’s back had healed over by the time the village could repay the white-robed witch. Two bags of gold nuggets, painstakingly claimed from the banks of the river.

But “I cannot accept this,” said the witch. “One of your number still does not have a cord.”

“And with good reason.” The elder waved a finger in the air. “A farbeast fears only one thing, and that’s bad magic!” It was not the first time he’d said it.

“If you don’t, you’ll be in danger. You don’t want that.”

Saria spoke. “How do we take these off?”

Khorsa had been wondering the same thing. He had tried slipping it over his head when he lay down to sleep, but it was far too tight.

“You don’t.” The witch smiled. “But it’s a small price to pay to be free of the farbeast.”

“Too great a price, if you ask me.”

“I don’t...” Saria fiddled with the cord around her neck. “It feels like it’s breathing. I don’t want to wear this forever...”

“You see!” The elder cried. “Bad magic!”

But Saria had already found a solution. Taking the scissors from her pocket, she set about cutting through the cord around her neck. It took some work, but soon she was done. “There,” she said, smiling.

The witch was preoccupied with the elder. “Such a fuss over nothing!” she sighed.

Meanwhile, Saria had become quite pale. As Khorsa watched, she began to shiver. The scissors dropped from her hand.

“Are you alright?”

A bead of blood trickled down from Saria’s nose as her eyes rolled back in her head. She fell to the floor, twitching wildly.

“Why are you just standing there?” the elder shouted at the witch. “Do something!”

“Not until we’ve finished.” she said, firmly, holding the last cord out to the elder.

Khorsa tried to re-fasten the cord around Saria’s neck, but in his hands the substance would not be rejoined. It refused even to hold a simple knot. Saria was now lying perfectly still.

“Just hurry up!”

Khorsa could see the elder didn’t have any other choice. He held still while the witch joined the cord around his neck.

“Now help her.”

The witch glanced at Saria. “There’s nothing I can do.”

With a roar, Khorsa leapt forward, brandishing his dagger. But the leap did not take him far: the cord around his neck suddenly tightened, and he couldn’t breathe.

The witch held a thin red thread, which she twisted between her fingers. On her left arm, she wore many more like it.

“Did you think I would walk among you savages unprotected?” she hissed. “The true magic is mine alone.”

Khorsa’s throat burned. His eyes felt as though they would explode. Suddenly, the cord relaxed. Kneeling, he saw the bags of gold hit the ground in front of him.

“Melt those down and draw them into wire. I hear there is another village quite nearby.”


The wounds on Khorsa’s back were old scars by the time he managed to forge the key to the witch’s tower. He had cast it from the same gold she used to make her cords. Fifty feet below, the “village” sprawled, coal smoke choking the sun from the sky.

The witch’s eyes, accustomed only to the distant sights of her crystal ball, widened in surprise as he came through the door. Immediately, she rushed for her collection of threads, all tied to a vast rack or frame, a label and a name on every one. Frantically, she searched and searched, fingers running across the labels of innumerable threads. Khorsa, however, simply stood and waited. As the witch’s hunger for slaves had grown, she had only become more vulnerable: for in that great mass of lives that she had stolen, she could no longer find the first. Finally, with one wide sweep of his hammer—taken from the mines—he smashed the wooden frame, one thousand threads scattering to the floor. He threw Saria’s scissors at the witch’s feet.

“Unmake them,” he spat. “Every single one.”