Lilet had to use handfuls of magic to get where she wanted. First, she jumped into the river and swam along it, asking fishes to pull her and save her when the current proved to be too strong. Within a few days, she reached the sea. Using her own methods of location, listening to leaves’ whispers, songs of birds and pieces of advice passed by boars, deers, and foxes, she found a small fisherman’s hut just by the sea.
‘Is there anybody here?’, she asked, knocking at the door.
A little bird approached her and sang:
‘The fisherman and his wife are currently living in a beautiful castle. It’s not far away from here. It’s magnificent and expensive.’
Lilet smiled to herself.
‘And how come the poor fisherman could afford it? His little hut looks like the poorest of the poor.’
‘They say that he found something and this something makes all his wishes come true. But they keep it a secret.’
‘Is there a limit to the wishes?’
‘I don’t know. First they lived in this dilapidated hut, then they moved to a big and comfortable house, and then to a beautiful castle.’
‘It seems that they used two of their wishes. You know, little bird, wishes tend to come in threes. What can you tell me about the fisherman and his wife? You seem to know them well.’
‘The fisherman is a humble and hard-working man. He used to wake up before dusk, feed all his animals, go on his fishing boat to the sea and work until his fingers got numb and back started to ache. He deserved what happened to him. He would share his last piece of bread with the poorest of men. I’m happy that he can now live like a king.’
‘And the wife?’
‘The wife had never worked. She always relied on the fisherman. It was her who moved into the hut, it was her who wanted the big comfortable house and it was her who from the house wanted to move into the castle. She’s pretty insatiable. She wants more and more. I wonder how the poor man stands her whims.’
Lilet was deep in her thoughts. The bird ensured her that the fisherman was in possession of what she really needed. But she needed something else to win this thing from the fisherman.
‘I need a duck!’ she exclaimed and made the bird fly away in fear.
‘Miss, you are terribly loud! A duck?’
‘Yes, a duck. There’s another legend I’ve been told as a little girl and now it’s time to check whether there’s no smoke without a fire.’
It took her another day to take a step back in her journey and travel south to find a cave. Finally, she found it, and for hours, holding a lantern over her head, she was looking for the duck. Suddenly, she fell and realized that her shoelaces were untied.
‘Damn!’ she swore and kneeled on one knee to tie them up.
‘Have you come for my gold?’, she heard a woman’s voice.
She looked down and saw a small sparkling bird with a golden crown on her head.
‘You’re the Golden Duck, aren’t you? Finally! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’
‘Like everybody else. Haven’t you heard that I give people gold?’
‘Yes, you give them gold coins and then you turn them into stones.’
The duck played with her feathers and laughed.
‘Yes, I tend to be a little bitch. But, understand me, it’s the punishment for my sins.’
‘What sins?’
The duck went back to the underground lake and swam for a while in circles.
‘When I was young, I was pretty spoiled. I had the best dresses, the best horses, I attended the best balls. My father left me a substantial fortune. I enjoyed my life to the fullest. I was rich and beautiful. And then, unexpectedly, this beggar crossed my path and destroyed everything!’
‘Beggar?’, Lilet stood up and approached the lake.
‘Yes, a cursed beggar. Maybe a witcher. He asked for some of my money, or bread, perhaps for some water, and I didn’t give him anything. Mind you, I was extremely busy, I was preparing for my evening theatre performance. And the next day, he cursed me. He turned me into a duck.’
‘And from that day you also curse other people?’
‘Well, this is the deal. I give them gold coins, endless amounts, really, I’ve lost count. And if they don’t share their wealth with others, they turn into stones. If they shared, I would be turned back into a woman.’
‘No one shares?’
‘It really depends. People are unbelievably strange. Some of them use this money to improve their material situation, but soon you hear that they destroyed their marriage or invested in something really silly and now they have debts. Others don’t even use the money but live as if they had never met the Golden Duck, their biggest fear is being robbed so they keep this money a secret, dug behind some tree. The majority lives in luxury and yes they share, but they don’t share enough, so neither they turn into stones, nor they turn me back into a woman. So, I’m stuck in this forever!’
‘Poor you,’ Lilet expressed some sympathy, ‘So if your situation isn’t about to change any time soon, wouldn’t you like to improve your living conditions a little bit?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to live in a beautiful castle instead of this gloomy cave?’
‘To be honest, I have been thinking about improving my situation a bit, but you see, I cannot spend my money. I can only give it to others to spend.’
‘That’s perfect! And I can take you to the castle and win something else.’
The duck was eager for an adventure but travelling with her took longer than expected. She didn’t want to be tired, so they rested longer than necessary. She didn’t want to be hungry, so they dined in inns and slept in rooms, which by magically putting coins into Lilet’s pockets, she paid for to avoid the cold of the night.
One day, when they approached the castle, she looked at Lilet and frowned.
‘Have you seen yourself recently? You cannot bring me to the castle like that. You don’t look representative!’
Lilet rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t oppose when the duck took her to the dressmaker’s and bought a set of beautiful dresses of the best fabric, which Lilet had never worn and never even seen.
‘Now! This is what I like. If you had been raised by a mother, you would know how to take care of yourself, being as beautiful as you are.’
‘Instead, I was raised by my grandmother and from an early age prepared to be a witch!’ Lilet laughed.
But when she looked at herself in the mirror, suddenly the image of Princess Karina in her beautiful blue dress faded, and she had to admit, in the white dress ornamented with white and silver lace, which the duck had bought her, she genuinely looked like a beauty.
The castle was big and impressive. And there wouldn’t be anything surprising in it, but it wasn’t the castle of a king or a duke, but it was the castle owned by a poor fisherman, who had by now considered the day lucky if he hadn’t gone to sleep hungry. But now, in the castle there was a selection of the greatest wines to drink, the best roasted birds and lambs to eat, the tastiest cakes to try and fruit imported from foreign countries to devour. To the utter surprise of the fisherman, the maintenance of the castle was costly and he was working from dawn till dusk to manage everything and keep the property standing. There were bills and salaries of cooks, maids, tailors, and guards to pay for, service to maintain and numerous rooms to clean and keep warm. His wife was only buying dresses and enjoying her life, eating muffins for breakfast, taking care of her beauty during her lazy afternoons and inviting her friends for evening te-ta-te to boast about her new jewelry.
The fisherman went up to his castle’s tower and sat on the armchair to rest.
‘What now?’ he heard a voice behind a small glass bowl.
‘She wants to be a god,’ he laughed, looking at a gold fish swimming inside the bowl, ‘Two days ago she wanted to be a queen, yesterday she wanted to be an emperor, now she wants to be a god. I fear tomorrow.’
‘So is it your wish?’ the fish jumped from the water and jumped back inside as if she was performing a salto.
‘Don’t be silly. Now I see what kind of woman I married. She drives me to ruin. I barely stand on my feet to maintain this level of life. I miss my life as a fisherman, the simple hut, my daily routine. I had far fewer problems. I now see how happy I was and how my life was full.’
‘Dear fisherman, don’t get depressed. You only make her wishes come true. Maybe you should think about yourself. What do you wish for?’
‘A less greedy wife,’ thought the fisherman to himself and left the chamber as there was someone at the gate to the castle.
‘Yes?’, he opened the gate, as he didn’t get used to the servants doing everything for him.’
Lilet in her white gown, holding the duck under her arm smiled broadly.
‘You must be the owner of this castle! I came to visit!’
‘Are you a friend of my wife?’
The fisherman looked suspiciously at Lilet’s beautiful dress. For many years, his wife had only one friend, an old Henrietta, the neighbour, but now, the more money she had, the more friends she seemed to have.
‘Not really. I have something which you might be interested in!’
The duck was in the meantime looking around the castle, admiring it’s shiny pavements, tall towers, and cushion-filled rooms.
‘I like it a lot!’, she said, ‘It reminds me of the castle of my father.’
The fisherman invited Lilet inside and led her to the chamber where his wife was currently admiring her new collection of curtains.
‘You have a guest!’, he announced.
Lilet entered the chamber and the old woman raised her eyes from the tray of muffins.
‘I wish I had her beauty,’ thought she to herself ‘I wish I had her youth’
Lilet smiled broadly and welcomed the fisherman’s wife.
‘I brought something that you might find interesting,’ she said and presented the duck to the married couple.
‘A duck?’ they stood dumbfounded.
‘Yes, a duck. But it is a special duck. A Golden Duck. Her owner and protector will never have to worry about money. She can provide endless amounts of gold.’
Lilet gently kicked the duck and all of a sudden a few sacks filled with gold appeared on the floor.
‘She’s like a sack without a bottom.’
‘It could end our financial troubles!’ thought the fisherman to himself.
‘It could buy endless numbers of dresses!’ thought the fisherman’s wife to herself.
‘I like this castle a lot,’ thought the duck to herself and conjured a few sacks more.
‘What do you want for it?’
‘I want an exchange. I want something which one day you found in your net while fishing. I want something which makes your wishes come true. I want your Golden Fish.’
‘You silly girl, we can ask our fish for such a duck. A duck that gives endless amounts of coins!’
‘That is true, you can make such a wish. But then, you will use your last wish and the fish will no longer serve you. Then I will happily take her with me.’
‘Only one wish??? You didn’t tell me that there are only three wishes!’, the wife was furious.
The fisherman shrugged. He didn’t mention many things to his wife in fear of her rage.
‘Then this fish is useless. If I have an endless amount of money, I can buy as many things as I want without limits. I can make all my wishes come true. Husband, bring her the fish and let’s take the duck.’
The fisherman came back to his castle’s tower and took the bowl in which the Golden Fish was swimming.
‘You are about to change the owner,’ he announced, ‘I hope that you will be happier than here.’
Lilet took the fish, and gave the duck to the fisherman's wife. The duck received her own cosy chamber, food and protection, and wanted to talk with Lilet before her return to her homeland.
‘Thank you, young witch. I hope that you received what you wanted.’
‘Yes, duck. I hope the fish will be able to help us. You could also help us, giving us all the money you have for the army, but then, unable to share, we would change into stones. I will leave all the dresses you bought me and only take this white one I have on me right now. I have a feeling that you may use them and your fate is about to change.’
The moment Lilet left the gates of the fisherman’s castle, fate began playing its part. Was it the character of both the fisherman and his wife that made them use the money in a different way, or was it the fish's last wish for the fisherman, they never knew. But the fisherman’s wife, abundantly spending money all on herself, turned herself in a stone within a week, and the fisherman, cheerfully giving numerous sacks of gold to starving fishermen, who suffered from a particularly hard storm, within the same week managed to turn the duck back into a woman. This woman was happy in his castle and never wanted to leave. The widowed fisherman soon got married to the recovered spoiled princess. And even though she was spoiled, she was moderately spoiled, far less demanding than his wife, and still being able to magically make as much money as she wanted, they lived happily in richness and helped as many as they only could or wanted to help.
‘And what are your wishes?’ the fish asked on their way back looking at Lilet from the glass bowl.
‘I want us to win this war.’
‘The war is hard, my girl, it takes years sometimes, it consumes people, drives them mad and destroys everything that you, humans, consider precious.’
‘I’m not the proponent of this war. I just know that it is inevitable. And my last chance is you. This is my wish. I want us to win this war.’
‘And for yourself? Is there anything you wish for yourself?’
Lilet didn’t answer this last question. But somewhere at the back of her mind was a picture of her in her hut, surrounded by trees, children playing around, and Gwidon coming back with some hunted rabbit for dinner. But she was ashamed to express it, and the fish, even though she had seen it (for she could read in mind), knew that circumstances made some wishes impossible, so she didn’t ask further questions.
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