‘The rose is controlling the plants! She didn’t want the people to leave!’
Despite the pressure I’m under to hold back the surging onslaught of tendrils, I glance back towards the innocent looking rose.
‘I’ll cut it down,’ I yell back to Apsara, making a series of desperate, hard slashes at the plants and briefly gaining enough freedom to draw away a little from the window.
‘If it’s that easy, why didn’t the soldiers try that?’ Apsara cries out.
I ignore her; my blade, at least, is in easy reach of the rose.
I strike out at the rose with a curving slash.
The emerald green light suffusing her quivers; and instantaneously becomes as solid as any precious stone.
My sword shatters upon it.
The clatter of breaking iron is horrendous, yet even that is drowned out as part of the room’s wall crashes inward.
It’s not wisteria or ivy this time; it’s a whole tree that’s barging its way towards us, its innumerable branches violently thrashing like the countless serpents of a Gorgon’s head.
With yet another loud crash, the door to the room falls aside.
The plants we’d passed as we’d ascended the stairs have now also come to life.
And as they stream into the room, they cut off any possible escape route for us.
*
Chapter 23
‘Hold them off for as long as you can!’ Apsara shrieks back at me as, with a whirling of her blades, she breaks free of the entrapping coils.
‘Hold them off? Are you kidding me?’ I cry back, find myself almost being overwhelmed by the writhing tendrils even though I’ve already replaced my broken sword with a dagger.
To make things worse, Apsara uses her hard fought for freedom as an opportunity to head for her bag.
Her bag?
What’s she want? A handy cup, maybe?
My own whirling of my blades is proving increasingly less effective.
There’s just so much to hack through, and you need a good, sharp strike to cut through the stems effectively.
The more the tendrils wrap around me, however, the less striking distance I have to create an effective blow.
Before I know what’s happening, a grasping branch of wisteria whips my arm up high above my head, holding it there, and leaving one of my daggers useless, unusable.
Others curl about my legs, dragging them together despite my efforts to prevent this.
With a further coiling of tendrils, my legs are suddenly tightly bound together.
I can’t move anything but one arm, and even that is so restricted my strikes against the stems are just about ineffective.
And then, with a brutal wrench, the branches binding my ankles jerk me up off my feet.
I’m hoisted up into the air, tipped virtually upside down.
Before I can do anything about it, I’m dangling helplessly high above the floor.
Like a piece of fruit.
Like those dead soldiers we saw when we first arrived here.
*
As I’ve fought them, the tendrils of the plants have struck me as being like snakes, like the tentacles of octopuses, the hissing serpent hair of the Gorgon.
Now they remind me more of spiders, swiftly enwrapping their helpless victim in strand after strand of an entrapping, muffling cocoon.
It’s only through one eye, and that already partially covered, that I see that Apsara is now standing by the rose.
The emerald glow is vibrating excitedly once more. It’s swirling, flowing.
The rose is trembling.
Toppling.
Wilting.
Screaming.
The emerald light is no longer fully supporting the rose. The sparkling glow is slipping away from the rose’s stem, rushing instead towards Apsara.
The rose tumbles towards the tabletop, already darkened once more, its bright colours swiftly fading.
It strikes the table with hardly a sound, the petals so brittle they crumble, becoming nothing but a dark dust.
No longer kept alive by the vase, all the aging it has kept at bay is catching up with it all at once.
It’s darkening, powdering.
In a moment, it’s hardly different from the layer of dust its fall had briefly disturbed.
The frenzied whipping of stems, the furious thrashing of branches, the writhing of the tendrils, all comes to an immediate end, the sudden eruption of silence and stillness quite startling. With nothing driving them on to act as if they are not only alive but aware, the tightened coils of the shoots instantly loosen their previously tight grip up on me, the twists and loops of leafy fronds dropping away from me.
I sigh with relief; then begin to plummet headlong towards the wooden floor lying far beneath me.
Hearing my scream, Apsara worriedly glances up towards me. She’s holding an almost complete slipper, the toe box now in place.
She’d drawn the vase into the slipper, the only thing that could tear it away from granting the flower everlasting life.
Abruptly, my fall is brought to a jolting halt.
Thankfully, my legs are entangled enough amongst the jumble of steams to stop me dropping all the way towards the floor.
‘Er, could you cut me down, maybe…’ I plead with a giggling Apsara.
*
Apsara had lost an ear in the showering of glass we suffered.
We’re both scratched and bloodied badly by our experience tangling with the climbing roses and the rainfall of glass slivers. But Apsara’s head wound is very bad indeed, causing her to loose tremendous amounts of blood.
I try and bandage her wound the best I can by using strips torn from her spare dress.
‘See: and you said everything in there was junk!’ she’d exclaimed happily in between protesting that there was nothing to worry about, that it was bound to stop bleeding at some point.
Trouble is, I don’t think it is going to stop bleeding.
It’s far too serious a wound, and requires proper treatment.
‘The palace: we need to get to the palace that’s on your map!’ I sternly warn her. ‘Presuming your map isn’t totally useless, of course,’ I add despondently.
We’re following a map in a storybook, after all.
Apsara mounts up on her horse without any problem, and soon we’re galloping across the rocky land, heading in the direction that the map assures us leads towards a grand palace. Cer, Ber and Us, as well as the horses, sense the urgency, and break into the fastest pace they can manage, taking into account the distance that Apsara’s mount might have to travel.
In a situation that’s the exact reverse of what had happened earlier, we find the rough brushland abruptly changing into grandly cultivated fields, as if someone had defined a clear boundary beyond which a more civilised land lay.
There’s even a road, the tracks formed of beaten stones that we’re used to.
When I glance behind me, the scrubland has vanished. Only the neat fields stretch out behind us, the delicate weaving of the road a yellowy-white band splitting the myriad greens.
Ahead of us, however, is an even more spectacular and welcome sight.
It’s the palace, rising up from the landscape like a soaring peak formed of rubies.
*
Chapter 24
Despite the richness of the palace’s construction, there are no protective walls, no guards.
I’d hope we’d come to some outpost or lodge house where we could ask for help.
We’ve no choice but to ride on towards the building’s entrance, despite the unlikelihood that such a fine palace is going to lay on a welcome for two dusty and bloodied travellers.
‘Welcome, welcome,’ the servant standing at the bottom of the grand flight of steps declares warmly. ‘We’ve been expecting you!’
*
A group of other equally exquisitely dressed servants stand on the steps behind the one who had welcomed us.
They rush for
wards to help us dismount and take our bags. They stare a little warily at Ber, Cer and Us, but relax when they realise the vicious looking hounds mean them no harm.
‘Please, please help my friend,’ I plead with them. ‘She’s lost an ear!’
‘No, no, I’m fine, fine,’ Apsara bravely insists, even attempting to shrug away from the servant who is trying to tenderly remove the bloodied bandage.
‘Apsara, please!’ I snap at her, hoping to get her to recognise that she does need attention. ‘I was really impressed with your skill and bravery back there, but–’
‘Luck, all down to luck–’ she continues to protest.
‘Lost ear, Sir?’ the servant says doubtfully, glancing my way and drawing my attention back to the side of Apsara’s head.
There’s no blood there.
But there is an ear.
Apsara notices my bewildered expression.
‘Oh, yeah; and there is that of course,’ she says.
*
Chapter 25
Before I can ask Apsara how she’s managed to grow her ear back, the servant politely invites us to ascend the elegantly curving flight of steps.
‘The Cup of Joseph: that’s what you’ve come for?’ the servant declares proudly, adding when he says and misunderstands my puzzled frown, ‘The seer’s cup?’
Ah, well now; if it’s a seer’s cup, no wonder they knew we were coming.
The large doors to the palace lie open. In the darkness beyond, there’s a ruby-red brilliance that sparkles even more startlingly than the palace’s walls, even though I wouldn't have thought it possible.
Apsara is already racing up the stairs towards the door, carrying her bag with her.
‘Wait here,’ I command the horses and dogs.
There’s hardly any need to order them to wait here. The servants are already taking care of them, with bowls of water, food, and blankets to help them cool down at the correct and healthiest rate.
The seer’s cup again, right?
They knew the mounts and my hounds would need attention after such a long, hard run.
But if they already know so much about our journey here, then what else could they have lying in wait for us that isn’t quite so welcoming?
I nervously glance back towards Apsara.
‘Wait!’ I cry after her.
Too late.
She’s already passing through the open doors.
*
Despite my exhaustion and the pain of sorely exerted muscles, I sprint up the steps as quickly as I can.
As always when you pass beneath a doorway’s soaring arch, there’s an abrupt change from sunlight to shadow; and yet within that darkness here, there’s a glow more brilliant than the condensed blaze of a furnace.
It’s a fire of light, a flickering of every red imaginable, dancing before me in a way that’s totally entrancing.
Certainly, Apsara is gawping in awe at the glass cup that stands so proudly before her upon a stone pedestal that can only have been specially prepared for it.
‘Is that it?’ I ask hopefully, adding more suspiciously, ‘Can it really be this easy this time?’
‘Yes, it’s the cup you seek.’
The answer doesn’t come from Apsara.
A woman is gracefully descending an elegantly curling staircase, drawing unhurriedly towards us.
Like her palace, her gown glitters as if made from gemstones, rather than being more simply adorned by them. In this case it’s diamonds rather than rubies, however, the light effusing from her making her shine as if every rainbow has been collected in this one place.
The suffusing light sparkles endlessly, diffusing even the few parts of her flesh – her face, her hands – not completely covered in dazzling diamonds.
She could be made of brilliantly twinkling ice, or even iridescent stars, but – of course – I’m sure she’s not.
She flows down the stairs as if the most luminous section of the Milky Way has broken free and cascaded down to earth.
‘It’s yours to take,’ this Luminous Lady offers, waving a hand in a gesture inviting us to pick up the brilliantly shining cup. ‘I know you need it far more than I do; for the completion of the Glass Slipper, yes?’
I’m still expecting a trick.
This is all too easy.
‘No, Apsara!’ I say firmly as she eagerly reaches out for the cup.
The Luminous Lady is now on our level. She glides over to us while hardly disturbing the hanging of her gown.
She chuckles warmly.
‘I can understand your suspicion,’ she says kindly. ‘Every other piece you’ve collected has been far more of a challenge than I ever expected it to be.’
‘Expected it to be?’
‘The cup, I’m afraid – despite its quite obvious beauty – is actually quite wilfully reticent when it comes to revelations; it denies many things to me, such that I can only guess at the outcome.’
‘Still; it can only be a remarkable cup to own,’ I say warily. ‘Why would you give up something so powerful so easily?’
Drawing nearer to the pedestal, she calmly reaches for and picks up the cup, handling it as carelessly as if it were an everyday drinking goblet.
With every move of her hand, even the very slightest twirl of a finger, the cup bursts with the most glorious red light.
‘It shows only what must be,’ she declares with a slight hint of sadness. ‘And therefore if it believes there is anything that I could have even the slightest effect upon, it denies me the vision it would grant anyone else.’
‘But…surely, there are still advantages in seeing future events?’ Apsara says uncertainly.
The woman smiles wearily.
‘Obviously, you have never heard of the Emperor’s Master Potter? No?’
She sees the bafflement in our eyes, our expressions.
‘He had perfected his art, such that his pots – much as the way the finest of glassware will resonate to a sung note that reflects its nature, or animals can sense the charged atmosphere of a forthcoming storm – would excitedly vibrate the night before an important event.
‘Thus one sang of tomorrow’s joy, another rang like jubilant bells heralding glad tidings – and a third mournfully wailed an imminent death.
‘The emperor, flattering himself that he was wise, refused the offer of the first pot, scorning its frivolous nature; the second was likewise refused, the emperor pronouncing that it could only ever lead to disappointment, for people by their nature will always optimistically overestimate the expected glad tidings.
‘The third, however, could only be a boon – for who didn’t wish to be made aware of and prepare for an imminent death?
‘It was placed within the corridor leading to the great hall itself, a pot the size of a man, elaborately decorated in the earthy Green of Emperors. And here it would sorrowfully grieve throughout the night whenever anyone connected with the emperor was due to die the following day.
‘Naturally, everyone began to dread its nightly laments, fearing of course that they themselves – or at least someone they loved – might be the one the pot was mourning for. Thus Death’s arrival meant relief for some, unbelievable anguish for others; an anguish made all the worse for they well aware that those spared this pain had prayed all night that Death would call on someone else – for hadn't they done this very same thing themselves on previous occasions?
‘In this way, the premonition of death became a greater source of fear than Death itself. And so everyone was thankful on the night the pot wailed so much it shattered completely; and news of the emperor’s own death the following day was greeted as glad tidings, and a great cause for joy.’
‘Then–’
I’m not quite sure how I should phrase this.
– ‘are you saying you want us to take the cup?’
She nods, smiles.
‘The cup: it’s such a startling red,’ I say as Apsara eagerly reaches into her bag,
‘Yes,’
the Luminous Lady agrees, ‘although, strangely, the colour something reflects is the only colour it hasn’t absorbed, the only colour it doesn’t resonate with; and so it is actually every other colour but red.’
As Apsara elatedly brings out the almost completed slipper, the Luminous Lady’s eyes widen in amazement.
‘It already looks quite beautiful, doesn’t it?’
She’s so entranced by the way the slipper glistens in the light of the ruby cup that she’s briefly tempted to reach out for it.
‘Sorry,’ she says, chuckling as she quickly withdraws her hand. ‘I’d heard that –well, when it comes near another of its missing pieces, it resonates, connecting with it even though they are yet still parted.’
Apsara nods.
‘Yes, I’ve felt that too,’ she admits.
‘May I – if I could just…?’
The Luminous Lady tentatively reaches for the slipper once more, her gaze pleading, her smile reassuring.
‘Sorry,’ she chuckles once more, ‘it…it is too much to ask, isn’t it? That I could experience the resonating as they merge?’
Apsara and I exchange doubtful glances. I can see in her eyes that she wants me to make the decision.
‘I mean,’ the Luminous Lady adds, ‘if you don’t wish to take the cup, then…’
The implication seems clear; we only get to complete the slipper if the woman is allowed to hold the slipper as the sections meld as one.
‘Can we trust you?’ I ask suspiciously.
‘You’re heavily armed, I see,’ she points out, drawing my attention to my dagger-strewn belt. ‘Whereas I am not.’
Yet again, I exchange worried glances with Apsara.
But I nod, granting my permission that the woman should be allowed to hold the slipper.
Apsara hands the slipper to the benignly smiling woman.
I ready myself, watching the Luminous Lady closely for any suspicious move.
She takes the slipper.
She smiles.
Says, ‘Thank you.’
She draws closer towards the glowing cup, bringing the slipper closer still towards it.
And the glass of the cup begins to tremble in excitement.