And then, at last, the innkeeper thought he had arrived at a way that would turn the deal completely in his favour.
‘Then if, by some magical means, the purse becomes something that cannot be held, then the wager is null and void, yes?’
To his surprise, the goblin not only nodded in agreement, but added a stipulation that played completely into the innkeeper’s hands.
‘You have to give up the purse through your own free will!’
The ecstatic innkeeper almost cried out in triumph.
Well, there you have it!
What tricks could be hidden in such a clear-cut deal?
*
No matter how hard the innkeeper thought about it, he couldn’t think how he could fail to hold the purse for just five minutes.
Even so…
There was no harm in ensuring he swung the deal around even further to his advantage.
No harm in utilising his own brand of cunning and trickery.
‘Naturally, I would need to check the quality of this dust first,’ he said, thinking: If the goblin’s fool enough to accept, he’ll be placing such a ridiculous amount of power in my hands that I’ll be able to thwart any magic he might have in mind.
‘Of course,’ the goblin agreed foolishly, lifting the necklace strap over his head and offering the pouch to the innkeeper.
Then, as if abruptly aware of the foolhardiness of such an action, he snatched it back, his narrowed eyes observing the innkeeper suspiciously.
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘I should warn you: if I’m handing the pouch to you, then this means our wager has begun!’
Admittedly, the innkeeper hadn’t foreseen that this would be the case; and yet he recognised that it was only fair, after all.
Besides, it didn’t in anyway detract from his plan, for he would still be left wielding more power than even the great King of Cronus could have imagined.
‘And if I deem the quality as poor, the deal’s off?’ he said, refusing to throw away the opportunity to include yet another precautionary stipulation.
‘Of course,’ the goblin agreed, wide-eyed with surprise yet again that the innkeeper could ever think it might be otherwise.
The innkeeper nodded in acceptance, holding out his hand for the proffered pouch.
With a satisfied smile, the goblin dropped the pouch into his hand.
And as soon as the sparkling pouch of fairy dust was in his hand; it remained as a sparkling pouch of fairy dust.
It didn’t suddenly become too heavy or too large to hold.
It didn’t suddenly become too light or too small to hold.
It didn’t transform into a dangerous creature.
It didn’t transform into something that stung, or smelt, or squirmed away.
It didn’t become too hot or too cold.
With his other hand, the innkeeper began to excitedly open this pouch that was still a pouch. He began to pour out the glittering dust into a cupped hand, enthralled by its beauty, this universe of multi-coloured stars streaming into his palm.
It was the finest dust he had ever seen.
It was hard to believe that each grain was in fact a whole kingdom, a whole new world!
It ran more like water than dust.
‘Careful, careful!’ the goblin warned him fearfully, anxiously reaching out to stop the flowing dust from spilling onto the floor. ‘If you drop even a grain, its magic can cause mayhem to anyone who even accidentally picks it up on their shoe!’
It was difficult to control, like trying to cup spring water in your palm.
‘You have more than enough there to create the greatest kingdoms on earth!’ the goblin declared proudly.
Yes, yes, he had!
He had an uncountable number of vast kingdoms literally within his grasp.
He couldn’t let one single grain fall – for it wasn’t a grain, but yet another one of his kingdoms!
‘Yes, yes: I would have those kingdoms now!’ he commanded.
In the blink of an eye, he was no longer standing within the tight confines of the inn’s bedroom.
He was seated within the enormous expanse of a great palace, thronging with lords, ladies and knights.
And he was seated upon a towering throne.
And he was crowned as emperor; as the ruler of an uncountable number of vast kingdoms.
*
There was no sign, of course, of that foolish goblin and his ridiculous Box of Fools.
He had been left far behind, standing with a dumbfounded look on his face like the ignoramus he was, suddenly left all alone in the bedroom, clutching nothing but his box.
The emperor looked for the pouch he had held in his hand when he had still been that lowly innkeeper.
He no longer held it,
Not to worry: he had more than enough power and riches,
He literally couldn’t wish for anything more.
Ah yes: he remembered now how he had come to relinquish the purse.
The flowing dust, flowing more smoothly than water, even more chaotically than mercury, had been remarkably difficult to contain within his cupped palm.
The goblin had offered to help, reaching out for and taking the purse from his other hand.
Hah! So that devious goblin had got his purse back after all!
But so what?
What could the goblin do now, when he was probably hundreds of miles away?
Even if the goblin managed to find him, what could he do against someone as powerful as an emperor of innumerable kingdoms?
Wouldn’t he have his own magicians? His own subservient goblins and elves and fairies?
He glanced eagerly around his court, seeking out the most likely magician amongst his many courtiers.
His courtiers were enjoying themselves: dancing, chatting, laughing.
Laughing?
A cold shiver suddenly ran through him.
No! Surely he couldn’t…he couldn’t be entrapped within the box, could he?
He sprang up from his throne, much to the consternation of his court. He dashed towards one of the looming arches that opened up onto an expansive balcony.
The palace was obviously situated high up on a hill, the lands lying beyond the balcony stretching away in one direction as far as the eye could see. In the other direction, the land only reached so far, but only because it was a bay encompassing a sparkling sea dotted with fabulously beautiful ships.
‘My lord, is there anything troubling you that I might be of help with?’ a man who had followed him out onto the balcony asked him concernedly.
‘Oh, no, no…I mean yes, yes,’ the emperor said edgily, but trying to quickly regain his composure, ‘I was wondering…wondering how far my lands…’
‘Ah, I see my lord,’ the man replied with a satisfied smile, ‘you were wondering if the latest military endeavours to extend your lands have been successful yet again? And indeed they have, my lord; your empire grows with every passing day!’
The emperor sighed with relief, silently admonishing himself for his foolishness.
‘Thank you,’ he said gratefully to the elegant man, who withdrew with a gracious smile.
‘If something ails my lord, perhaps I could make him laugh?’
The court fool stepped out from the thronging crowd of concerned courtiers who had flowed the emperor out onto the balcony. He was dressed in his foolishly comical hat, his overly bright costume, his small, stumpy stature alone causing much amusement amongst the court.
He even had a box slung about his waist, from which much laughter emanated.
And around his neck, he had strung a purse, which he jangled tantalisingly in his hand.
‘It’s a shame, my lord, that your five minutes have passed.’
In the blink of an eye, the kingdom returned to dust.
And as the emperor himself also became nothing more than one more speck of fairy dust, the box laughed raucously at the arrival of one more fool.
*
Chapter 31
‘Hah!’ the goblin sneered irritably at the humbled man, his eyes lowered in loathing. ‘That’s just your version of the story!’
As the story had unfolded, the goblin had cringed, apparently on the point of angrily interrupting the humbled man on numerous occasions.
Helen had felt sorry for him, particularly in the story’s descriptions of him as being miserable and ugly.
Does anyone like to hear themselves described in such terms?
And yet; was it true that the Box of Fools served as a hideous prison for so many unfortunate people?
‘I’m extremely well read on these matters, I assure you,’ the man coolly insisted in reply to the goblin’s assertion that he’d told an untrue version of the story.
‘So: what’s not true?’ Helen asked, her eyes fixed not upon the humbled man but upon the goblin.
‘Well, quite obviously,’ the goblin huffed, holding out his arms placatingly, ‘I’m not hideous, for a start! In fact, there’s many a young maid who–’
‘That’s it?’ Helen snapped, dissatisfied with his answer, his attempt to change the subject. ‘The one untruthful part of the story is that you’re not really hideous?’
‘It’s hardly a minor point, is it? Getting the main character wrong?’ the goblin retorted. ‘How can you trust anything else he’s saying if he can’t get that right?’
Helen wasn’t to be dissuaded by his arguments. She regarded him sorrowfully.
‘How could you do that to all those poor people?’
‘It wasn’t really me!’ the goblin protested. ‘I had to do it.’
He pointed accusingly at the mischievously grinning man.
‘He left out of the story the little matter of the evil witch who–’
‘Who made you do it?’ the man scoffed, finishing the goblin’s sentence for him. ‘Isn’t that always so reassuring for us all, don’t you think? “I’m not the evil one: that was someone else!” Pah! A likely story!’
‘It’s true, it’s true in my case!’ the goblin pleaded. ‘You’ve no idea what she’d have turned me into if I hadn’t agreed to help her collect fairy dust! Something truly horrible–’
‘Oh, whereas someone who imprisons men in a little box isn’t truly horrible?’ the man scoffed once more, this time with a hint of triumph, a touch of satisfaction that the argument has been won.
‘Why have you still got the box?’ Helen asked, looking over towards the area where they had stored their belongings. ‘I mean, if you thought it was all so wrong: why do you still have the box? Why did you keep the pouch of fairy dust?’
The goblin hung his head ashamedly.
‘I could hardly just discard it, could I?’
‘The box or the fairy dust?’
‘Both! The dust is too powerful to just let anyone take possession of it. Whereas, as for the box; yes, I feel responsible for entrapping all those poor people in there!’
‘Can’t they ever be released? Using the fairy dust, for instance?’
The goblin shook his head miserably.
‘If it is possible, I don’t know how,’ he admitted.
‘Surely, you just wish over each grain that it returns to being a person once more?’
‘A person, sure: that’s easy enough. A whole nation of people; again quite simple! But the person it had once being?’ He shook his head again. ‘Once you’ve cooked a deer, and you eat it, it becomes a part of you: but can you somehow bring that deer back to life, raise him from the dead?’
Behind the goblin, even through the swirling snow, Helen could see the sparkling stars of the Hunter begin to rise above the horizon.
The Hunter was still on his back, asleep, the string of three pearls that formed his belt pointing directly down towards the stars still lying below the horizon.
In particular, it was pointing towards the Star in the East that had announced the birth of the Saviour. That’s why these three stars, she recalled once being told, had been named The Three Kings.
As that brightly shining star rose, it would seem to be pushing the Hunter up onto his feet.
Awaking him.
Or raising him from the dead.
And that’s why those three stars were also called The Three Marys.
*
The three of them were asleep.
The goblin had industriously strung up a number of materials he had found aboard the elephant between its massive, pillar-like legs, creating the equivalent of a large, comfortable tent. It was bathed in the yellow glow of the humbled man’s lantern, for he had insisted that the goblin retrieve it for him from the elephant’s vast belly.
It was a lantern that, it seemed to Helen, never went out, never spluttered as the flames fought for precedence whenever air bubbles caused the flow of oil to be briefly choked.
It was while they slept that the third Mary appeared to Helen.
Helen was grateful that she had appeared to her once more.
Having seen the uplifting of the sleeping Hunter, the rising of The Three Marys, she had prayed for Mary’s help.
Mary could restore her legs to how they should be.
There was no need to resort to magic.
This Mary appeared to her as the youngest Mary of all.
The Untouched Myrrhbearer.
‘It is not right for me to do as you wish,’ Mary said, obviously aware of why Helen had called on her for help.
Mary observed Helen’s bizarre form curiously.
‘This is what happens,’ she stated flatly, ‘when you delve into the darkness.’
‘Then…I have to stay like this?’
She was crestfallen, but recognised the truth in what Mary had told her.
‘There is so much in the world that we regard as being important when it is in reality nothing but an affliction,’ Mary said, ‘while those things we deem unimportant and redundant are of far more significance than we could ever realise.’
Helen tried to see how this insight applied to her own situation.
Surely having goblin legs was an undoubted affliction?
She cursed herself for regarding her own plight as being of such importance that she had dared to ask Mary to cure her. And this for an affliction that she had foolishly brought upon herself.
‘No matter what problem you face, it is your attitude to it that ultimately determines the effect it will have on you. Do you accept it, or do you rage against it? Do you seek revenge, or do you grant forgiveness? And so if we can deal with problems in such a way, then how much easier must it be to realise that we determine everything within the world?’
‘It is tempting, I must admit,’ Mary continued, ‘to use the more brutal and ultimately destructive means to attain what we crave, rather than the slower and originally more frustrating route of careful consideration: even though this is the only route leading to a true and lasting solution to our ordeals. Think of Alexander, and his crude response to the Gordian Knot.’
Naturally, Helen was well aware of the tale of how Alexander the Great had approached the problem of unravelling the intricately complicated Gordian Knot: to the horror of his learned advisors, he had simply hacked at it with his sword until it had fallen apart. Yes, he had gone on to conquer the known world by similar means – of hacking his way through countless other kingdoms, of putting uncountable numbers of people to the sword – yet he had also died young, making it all a false victory for him.
‘There’s a reason for me being like this?’ Helen asked. ‘A warning of the dangers of magic?’
Mary nodded, yet smiled pityingly.
‘It is no use being told to do something we do not accept as being true: we can never hope to learn anything in this way, as we dismiss all well-meaning advise, refusing to believe what is so patently true to others.’
‘And yet this way…I have learnt too late that I must avoid the use of magic!’
*
Chapter 32
When
Helen woke up the next morning, she hoped – despite the lessons of her vision – that she had somehow been forgiven her indiscretions.
She glanced down hopefully at her legs: her stunted, hairy, goblin legs.
It had been too much to hope after all.
Looking about her, she saw that the goblin’s bed was empty.
He had obviously risen early, perhaps to get a wash, perhaps to prepare food.
From where the humbled man had made his own bed, however, she heard a painful, bestial whimpering. He was still partially wrapped within the thick drape he had used as his bed, but he was sitting up, bending over at the waist as a cleric leans over his desk.
He had a quill in his hands, one he was using to scrawl something on the inside of his leg. Each slight swirl of the quill caused him agony: indeed, it wasn’t a quill at all, Helen finally realised, but a finger nail sharpened into a nib that merely scratched and gouged at his flesh, while the feathering was the shredded skin of his hand, gently fluttering in the breeze.
A hawk was nearby, staring at her with its curious eyes.
The sight of the hawk jerked her fully awake: was it one of Fausta’s spies?
It was perched on a low hanging branch, observing her calmly enough. It seemed to have no inclination to fly off.
She didn’t feel that this hawk was anything to do with Fausta.
She felt, rather, that it was – somewhat strangely – something to do with her.
Certainly, the eyes of this hawk were different to those that had deviously watched her and the empress that night within the encampment.
More bizarrely still, each eye was different.
One glowed far more than the other one: the way that the sun glows so differently from the glowing moon.
There was a metallic clunk, and then a repeated, rhythmic clanking.
The tree rising everywhere around her groaned. Branches snapped, crashed to the earth, bringing with them an avalanche of packed snow.
The sheets of the makeshift tent twanged as they were pulled taut – and then, in many places began to rip apart.
One of the huge pillars formed from the elephant’s legs shuddered, another vibrated, a third twanged as if struck.
The fourth lifted slightly off the ground, and began to languidly swing forward.
*
Chapter 33