Its fields were stripped of crops and scattered with the bones of its slaughtered herds and flocks.
It struck the prince that the wide band of destruction could have been made by a Great Wyrm, devouring everything lying before it as it snaked its way across the countryside.
‘What kind of blight have you suffered here?’ the prince asked a family now barely making a living on one of the farms he passed.
‘A blight of men!’ the mother of the hungry children spat. ‘A large battalion of armed men, led by a beautiful princess! She charmed us, asking us to give whatever we could spare to feed her men. Then they decided we could spare whatever they needed!’
‘I’ll find these men and this princess,’ the prince assured them, ‘and see if I can bring their unthinking and selfish destruction to an end!’
Tracking the serpentine course of the armed band took no effort whatsoever, for they had left behind them nothing but the detritus of their greed and insatiable hunger: the wasted lands, the cast away bones of the cattle and geese they had devoured. It was a long and winding track that eventually took him towards the endless and impenetrable wall he had intended to avoid.
Even as he approached the soaring walls of purest white, he saw that the trail of discarded bones appeared to end there, as if the men had been magically spirited over the looming battlements. Where the snail’s trail of detritus ended, the wall’s regular pattern of cut and mortared stones was broken by a huge white circle, what could easily be taken to be either a gigantic pearl or a minute moon, depending on your state of mind.
Of course, it was neither of these things. Rather than being an object, it was a large and perfectly circular hole carved into the wall. Indeed, it was easily large enough for a mounted man like the prince to comfortably travel through, requiring him to neither bow nor slow his mount.
Just as the wall was unbelievably high and long, it was equally unbelievably thick, yet the hole became a long tunnel that snaked through it, the edges as smooth and regular as if the stones had been seared rather than crudely hacked at.
Despite this, there was no smell of burning or singeing until he was so deep within the tunnel that it was womb-like in its closeness and darkness, the light of the sun unable to penetrate even dimly down here. It was the smell of bonfires, of burning wood.
The prince’s horse came to a halt, refusing to progress any farther into the darkness, no matter the prince’s urging and pleading. Dismounting, he reached out into the darkness to see if he could discover why his horse so suddenly refused his directions. He found that the tunnel was blocked, a cave-in of roughly shattered stones, of splintered timbers, the ends charred and of brittle charcoal.
Although it was impossible to guess the nature of whom or what had created this smoothly made tunnel, the cave-in was quite clearly man-made. A huge fire had obviously been lit here, one presumably so ferocious that it had cracked the stones above, bringing them crashing down and sealing the tunnel.
Far from finding this disheartening, this knowledge gave the prince hope that the blockage’s extent might not be as deep as he had first feared: the wall’s stone surely wouldn’t have been easy to crack?
Removing most of his armour, he began to carefully pull out some of the looser stones towards the top of the pile, reasoning that this would probably be its narrowest point. Moreover, the removal of the higher stones was less likely to bring even more crashing down.
After a while, after much scrambling around, and the painful dragging out of some of the more firmly set stones, he caught a glimmer of light flickering in through a small gap he’d managed to create.
He sighed with relief.
That weak ray of light not only meant that the blockage wasn’t completely unsurmountable, but also that he must be much nearer towards the end of tunnel than he had originally surmised.
Nevertheless, he realised with a pang of sadness that he would have to set his horse free. Although its heavily muscled flesh had undoubtedly served him faithfully as he’d travelled through all the other lands, it would naturally be far too large and cumbersome to squeeze through any hole he could make.
Loading the horse’s saddle up with all his discarded armour, he also fixed the lance to its fleshy flanks, keeping for himself only his breastplate, shield and sword. With a hard slap on the horse’s rear, he sent it on its way, heading back down the dark passageway towards the far-off light of the lands they’d only just left behind.
He regretted most of all relinquishing the pennant bearing the symbol of his love: but, after all, the real flame still burned deeply within his heart. And that flame surged painfully now, the farther he travelled from his love causing the greatest agonies. And the stronger the flame burned, the stronger became his sense of irretrievable loss.
‘With you, I am blessed,’ he had said to the princess as they had parted.
‘Then without me, you are not,’ she had chided him.
The thought of his love made him think of the song she had taught him, the song she had promised would bring him protection should he ever need it.
‘My love in the heart of the man who thinks of me,
‘My love in the mouth of the man who speaks of me,
‘My love in the eye that sees me,
‘My love in the ear that hears me.’
Misty eyed with the hurt of his estrangement, he began to clamber up the pile of rock and earth, finding it far firmer and more stable than he had hoped to expect.
Navigating through the small gap he’d created was also much less of a scramble than he’d feared, the abrupt swiftness of the wind he felt curling across his body cooling him down. The light of the sun now visible at the exit drew him on to make that last, final effort to squeeze his way through the narrowest part of the opening.
He leapt surprisingly lightly to the floor, trotting quickly towards the tunnel’s beckoning exit.
Then he stopped; the opening was guarded by at least two armed men.
Hearing the prince’s approach, one of the men glanced back into the dimness of the tunnel.
‘Now where did you come from?’ the man demanded curiously.
*
‘No matter where it came from,’ the other soldier said, drawing his sword and stepping into the tunnel with a highly pleased grin on his face, ‘let’s thank the heavens for providing this gift of lunch!’
Rather than retreating, the prince stood his ground. He reached for his sword, prepared to bring his shield up high for protection.
But he no longer had a sword. Neither did he have a shield.
Worse still, he had instead of arms only the most slender of legs, ending in hooves.
The oncoming soldier was licking his lips with anticipation. Suddenly, his companion reached out, grasped him firmly by the shoulder, dragged him back.
‘Are you crazy?’ the second man demanded of his companion. ‘A gift of the heavens is right! Haven’t you worked out yet what these deer who end up in these cursed lands really are? If it’s flesh, it’s not flesh I’d be prepared to eat!’
The soldier stopped in his tracks, looked down at the prince with sudden distaste.
‘Is that what you think it is?’ he asked his friend unsurely. ‘I mean, he doesn’t look like all the others…’
‘A youngster, a fawn,’ the friend said, staring at the prince with a mingling of awe and horror. ‘All the others we’ve seen must be adults: maybe this is what all the poor bairns who end up here look like when they first arrive.’
A fawn? Is that what I am? the prince wondered.
What magic is this? Is this the result of the princess’s song, granting me protection by shielding me from view?
He drew closer towards the men, uneasy in the way they now loomed over him. Yet they shied away from him as if he were the one instilling terror.
‘Set the damned hind loose!’ one of them breathed fearfully, stepping back and leaving the way completely clear for the prince to exit the tunnel.
>
As the prince ambled past the terrified men, ducking easily between their legs, one of the soldiers aimlessly lashed out with a kick of his boot, doubtlessly hoping to quickly send him on his way.
The other man shivered with fright and disgust.
‘Through the strength of heaven,’ he murmured, ‘is this what every poor child becomes in this cursed land? I wish I knew what other manner of things were being concealed to us!’
*
The lower parts of the mountain soon gave way to gloriously rolling grasslands.
Here the little fawn found himself amongst herds of harts and hinds, as perfectly white as new-born souls, their antlers glistening like ice-laden trees.
And within each of these tenderly cupping branches, the prince saw a wondrously glittering pearl.
It was only as he drew ever closer towards these peacefully, gracefully grazing deer that he recognised this pearl as being an orb of sparkling light, within which a naked babe appeared to be comfortably nestled.
Surrounded by these wondrous creatures, he was filled with a sense of purest contentment. They refused to be startled even when the air was shriekingly rent by the wail of serpentine horns, the kind he had witnessed being used to draw men together, to organise them into phalanx or square within the midst of pitched battles.
The howl of the serpents seemed so out of place here that the fawn rushed to see what the source of its withering call could be. On surmounting the rise of a nearby hill, he found himself looking down on an encampment of heavily armed men.
Armour, lances and shields were stacked on supports standing outside gaily coloured and heavily pennanted tents, the whole camp laden with the heraldic symbols of swans, bulls, martingales, suns, stars and moons. The wraith-like shrieks that had drawn the prince here came from the dragon horns standing within the very centre of the camp, the lightly gusting wind passing in through elongated tails coiled like Great Wyrms, then emanating as terrifying moans from snarling maws.
Such a rainbow hued encampment was always a beautiful sight yet, just as if it were no more than the gorgeous veiling of the ugliness of some horrifyingly ugly beast, a slimy trail of devoured carcasses lay snaking behind it, stretching right back to the wall.
Above the wailing horns, there fluttered the long, slender banner of the army’s commander. It was of the brightest, emerald green, graced by a large eye, one of an equally blazing-green.
The prince stepped back, briefly fearful that the all-knowing gaze of that glaring eye had somehow penetrated his disguise.
It was the symbol of his sister, the Princess Episteme.
*
Chapter 25
The prince was not aware, of course, that the eye of his sister’s serpentine banner had been embroidered by her own fair hand.
Had he known this, he might have been wary of approaching the encampment.
At the very least, he might have glance every now and again at the banner, and caught the way it’s ever-watchful gaze was intently following his every move.
He wanted to draw closer, however, in the hope of hearing any men talking, giving him clues as to why his sister was here in this land beyond the Mountain of Curses.
Not unnaturally, he assumed that these men must be responsible for the hole in the wall, even though he couldn’t understand how they had managed to carve it out of such thickly impenetrable stone so quickly, so smoothly.
Towards the centre of the camp, beneath the urgent flapping of the all-seeing banner, the Princess Episteme drew back the flaps of her tent. She stepped out across the heavily trodden grass, eager to see this curious fawn that had been drawn to her attention.
It had, after all, such a truly gorgeous pattern. One not just of light and dark hues of brown, but also a sparkling breast of the colours of falling leaves; reds, yellows, greens.
Its eyes, too, were of the most sparkling amber: so revealing, she thought, to anyone prepared to stare deeply into them and penetrate the mysteries they might divulge.
Such a dear, beating little heart too – pounding so terribly fearfully, as if it might give way at any moment.
The fawn was startled to be so abruptly confronted by the smiling princess, who seemed to appear almost out of nowhere.
‘Don’t be scared now, my pretty little thing,’ the princess said kindly, reaching out a hand as if to draw the fawn closer, to pet it tenderly upon its head. ‘I mean you no harm, my dear: indeed, I mean only to keep both you and myself entertained for a little while.’
She sat down on a patch of untouched grass, bringing her skirts about her, making herself comfortable.
‘I’d like to tell you the most delightful tale: one I’m sure even you will find quite deliciously amusing!’
*
Chapter 26
The Lake of Eternal Youth
There was once a queen who, whether she needed to or not, insisted on bathing at least once a week.
Stranger still, rather than bathing in a tub of heated water, as her elevated position entitled her to, she always insisted instead on bathing out in the open, in a lake not far from the king’s castle.
And so her maids, whose more usual task would be to heat the water and fill the tub, found themselves acting as guards throughout the nearby woods, armed with swords and shields, with orders to kill any approaching man bar the king.
Naturally, the king frequently took advantage of this remarkable opportunity to replicate the innocence of the Garden of Eden. His wife’s beauty was legendary and, naked, her beauty was even more incredible, beyond the imagination of any man less fortunate than the king.
His love for her was as great as his longing, his lust. Her love for him was returned in equal measure.
Not surprisingly then, she was with child, and within a few days – it was affirmed by all the kingdom’s astrologers and sages, after studious consultations of charts, planets, entrails and ancient prophesies – of bearing the king a son and heir.
One morning, as she prepared to set off for her bathing session, she tenderly caressed the rising mound shielding her child, whispering lovingly, I would be born and I would bring to birth.
Turning to the king, she seductively whispered an invite to join her as soon as he was able; I am a lamp to thee who beholdest me.
As soon as he could, the king eagerly made his way through the undergrowth towards the area of the small lake where he knew his wife would be bathing. The maids he came across let him pass, veiling their knowing smiles.
At the very edge of the lake, the queen was just beginning to rise from the waters, the droplets clinging to her sparkling like so many diamonds in the sunlight.
She shone, a blaze of white fire against a setting of the blues and greens of the lake and its surrounding woods, the perfectly rounded mound protecting their child glistening as if it were the world’s most precious pearl.
The king felt dazed by such an unimaginably beautiful sight, by his great fortune to possess such priceless jewels.
His rapture was brutally interrupted in the most inconceivable of ways: for his naked queen also suddenly appeared alongside him, stripping herself of a tangle of snaking, binding ropes.
‘My love, my love,’ she screamed in warning, ‘it’s all an illusion, a demon who means to kill you!’
Two queens, too beautiful to imagine, the most perfect mirror images of each other.
Who was really whom? What was the king to think?
‘No, my love, it’s a trick!’
The harsh, croaking voice came from the lake. And when the king turned to look, he saw not his beautiful queen but an old, withered crone, dripping with rotting weeds.
‘Hah! Her concealing charm has come to an end!’ the queen beside him announced triumphantly, pulling hard on the last threads still attached to her limbs as if they were a puppet’s strings. ‘Kill her now, my love; while your mind isn’t addled by her witchcraft!’
With a shake of his head, as if throwing off the last residues of a
dreadful spell, the king rushed into the water towards the still oncoming, still fearfully wizened woman.
The crone threw her arms about him, as if to greet him within a loving embrace. The king naturally recoiled in horror and disgust, bringing his own hands up to wrap tightly around her throat.
‘My love,’ the harpy choked in surprise, her horrendous ugliness made all the worse as she struggled for breath, as her eyes wretchedly bulged, ‘what madness is thi–’
‘Fool, fool!’ the king shrieked in his madness at been taken for a fool. ‘Your own inner ugliness as revealed you for who you really are!’
‘My love, my lo–’ the dying crone gasped pleadingly, her attempt at struggling free from the king’s tight grasp weakening, her limbs, her whole body, going limp within his arms.
And as she died, she transformed once more into the beautiful woman she had been only moments before, such that he doubted his sanity, doubted the sense of his act.
His whole body sagged with sorrow as he let the cold, lifeless body slip into the water, let it drift away from him.
What had he done?
His doubts dispersed as rapidly as a concealing mist as he sensed the hot, naked flesh of his queen alongside him.
‘She came at me from the water lilies, a sea serpent!’ the queen explained, her voice quaking with recalled horror, her arms warmly enwrapping him. ‘When she changed before me – became me! – I was every bit as bemused as you were, my love!’
Her body warmed him, brought him back from his coldness, quickened that sense of deadness that had pervaded his own flesh.
He had made the right choice.
Here was his beautiful queen.
There, floating away on the swirling waters, was the demon, concealed by nothing more than a semblance of beauty. Remarkably, the sun still shone, still made her wet flesh glisten, her rounded belly like a moon reflected on dark waters.