The Golden Princess and the Moon

by Anna Mendell

Erik reached and clasped the hand against his cheek. “All that I do is for your sake.”

  Rosa spoke, and her beautiful voice trembled. “You must get up. I will not have you die.”

  Erik smiled. “Does this mean you have forgiven me?”

  “Oh, Erik.” The way she spoke his name made the prince’s heart flutter in hope. “I do not know what it is I have to forgive, but, if there is anything, then I forgive it freely. I am sorry that I ever pushed you away.”

  “Let me remain here a little longer, and stay with me.”

  “Of course.”

  He lay there drawing strength and comfort from the princess. He spoke again after a while.

  “They both died well, your father and Edmund. They died in battle defending you.”

  He then told her of how Edmund had protected her to the last. He felt that he owed it to the tortured, young man somehow, even though, in a sense, he considered Edmund a rival. Rosa did not say anything, but he felt a teardrop fall on his face.

  “Did you love him, Edmund, I mean?”

  She spoke after a pause. “Yes… but not in the way you mean. Edmund needed me to rescue him. He had not the strength to rescue himself.”

  “We all need to be rescued, Rosa. You have rescued me since I was a small boy.”

  “Yes, but he would only take. He could not give. When he learned how to give, I was already gone. We cannot always save ourselves from what the world thrusts upon us, but our strength is measured by how we face our fears.”

  Erik pondered this and then said, “Do you think you can help me stand?”

  For an answer, she put his arm over her shoulder and helped him rise.

  “Rosa,” Erik said with his arm still about her, “I was in despair before you came, but now I believe that I can find my way. My princess, you are still rescuing me.”

  She laughed and then brushed his cheek. “I am glad, and you are right. We all do need to be rescued.” Then she clasped both of his hands and said urgently, “Erik, you must search for me. You must find me.”

  Then she was gone, and Erik felt her absence like a great hole in his heart.

  He steeled himself to begin again his search for the way out. He peered around, hoping against hope to discern something in the inky blackness, and was startled to find the pair of yellow eyes looming again in the darkness before him. They had been silently watching him all this while.

  Erik calmly drew his sword and waited, but the eyes did not move, and slowly the darkness around them was faintly illuminated, as if light was emanating from the yellow eyes. He could just make out the shape of a cat as large as a leopard sitting there watching him. It rose and slowly slinked over to him. Erik gripped his sword, but did not strike, for the beast did not appear to be threatening, but only walked around and past him, then it looked back. Erik sheathed his sword and stepped forward, Immediately the large cat began its loping walk.

  So the prince followed, and, as they journeyed, the cat’s eyes cast a light on the path before them. To their left were large pools of water darker than the darkness of the tunnels. They passed by the gaping mouths of many intersecting tunnels. Erik followed warily, trying to discern all he could in the gloom lightened by the cat’s eyes, but mainly all he could do was distinguish one dark shape from another and the lithe figure of the black cat moving steadily forward.

  Finally they reached the end of the tunnel, and a white light emanated from it. The prince stepped into a wide and spacious cavern, where in the center stood a woman holding a silver lamp shaped like a globe, which shone with the soft radiance of the moon. It was from her lamp that the white light came. She was tall and straight, robed in silver, with long flaxen hair that was almost white.

  She stood before two pedestals behind which were the entrances to two more tunnels, each leading to somewhere dark in their mysterious depths.

  The woman waited for Erik to approach and then spoke. “Tell me what it is that you seek.”

  “I am seeking the sleeping princess in the tower,” he answered.

  “And why seek you a tower in the dark caverns of the underground?”

  “I was betrayed and fell into the dark.”

  The woman studied Erik slowly and then said, “It is the strange way of fate that many bring about what they wish to prevent. For it is true, Erik, Crown Prince of Lothene, that Barden of the Winds wished to betray you to death and oblivion. His heart has become dark and twisted, searching for answers to secrets he should not know, and, when he finds an answer, he does not understand that it is merely another secret. He thought that a secret would lead to your death. Instead it has led you to me, and I bring before you a choice.”

  She cast the light of her lamp on the two pedestals behind her and illuminated the objects on top of them. The pedestal on the left bore a silver crown, set with diamonds and a large, red ruby; the pedestal on the right bore a simple leaden casket.

  “If you choose the silver crown,” she said, “you will take the path on the left and it will lead you back to your castle. There your father waits, suspicion darkening his brow over your disappearance. You will allay his doubts and become King of Lothene after him, ruling the kingdom with justice and bringing it peace and prosperity. If you choose the leaden casket, your path will take you to the dark tower.”

  “The choice is simple,” Erik said.

  “Hold.” The woman’s voice echoed throughout the cavern. “You would choose the leaden casket that leads to the dark tower, but know that, once made, the choice is irrevocable, and I would that you know your heart.”

  “I have sworn to rescue the sleeping princess.”

  “What would you find if she is not there?” she countered, her words heavy leaden drops reverberating throughout the cavern.

  All of a sudden, questions Erik had been avoiding flooded over him. When had he ever seen the princess but in his own dreams? Could his dreams have simply been wishful thinking? Then there were Dunstan’s own disbelieving questions. What if a witch from the west sought to entrap him to revenge herself against his father? What could Ninny Nanny be, if not a witch?

  He stared at the beautiful and impassive face of the woman before him. What would he find if the princess was not in the tower?

  Nothing but despair.

  He had placed all his hope, all his belief in love in his stark, hollow world, on Rosa. Would it be better for him to live his life with the hope that she might be there in the tower, always waiting, ever sleeping, a promise? His dreams of her would be untarnished. Would that not be better than to find out that she was not real and have all his dreams shattered. If he chose the silver crown, he would rule his people justly. The obligation he owed his kingdom weighed him down. Could he really throw that all over for what might be a selfish dream?

  Yet, as he thought of all this, Erik knew that he could never condemn the princess to a life of eternal sleep merely because he was afraid. Had she not just spoken to him and told him that strength is measured by how one faces one’s fear?

  “I have made my decision,” Erik said.

  He stepped up to the leaden casket and opened it. Something silver glimmered inside, and, as he took it out, he saw that it was a half-moon pendant on a silver chain. On it was engraved a heron with a delicately arched neck and wings outstretched. He pulled out his own pendant from around his neck and fitted the two pieces together. The symbolon became as whole as the full moon. He turned to the woman beside him.

  “You were testing me.”

  She gave him a small smile. “It was only by making such a choice that you will have strength to face the ordeals ahead. Do not think that all will be simple after you have found the princess. But go. Take the path on the right that leads to the dark tower. You now have all that you need to help you find your way.”

  Erik nodded, gazing at the woman and the large cat beside her. The cat’s yellow eyes were unblinking, and then a low rumble issued from its throat that was its purr. Erik felt a flicker of recognition stirring w
ithin him, and his eyes moved from the cat to the woman and he saw something there he could barely believe.

  “Ninny Nanny, is that you?” he asked in amazement.

  The woman smiled and then laughed, and such a cheerful, tinkling laugh had never bounced off the cavern’s walls before. “You mortals are ever surprising. Erik, I did not think that you would recognize me.”

  Erik stared at the beautiful woman in awe, wondering how she could be so like Ninny Nanny and yet so unlike her at the same time. There was something in her laugh, her smile, and something in her eyes, which belonged to the old woman who had raised him. The prince knelt before her and kissed her hand.

  “To think that I almost did not know you.”

  The woman’s eyes softened, and she caressed Erik’s cheek. “Your heart sees truly, princeling. Remember to trust it when all seems to darken before you.”

  “Ninny Nanny, why have you appeared before me as an old woman all this while, if this is your true form?”

  The Silver Lady smiled a little sadly. “My kind left the kingdom long ago, although occasionally you may catch a faint trace or a glimpse, if they wish to reveal themselves. But you mortals no longer look for us and would destroy us if you could, so we dress ourselves in guises that you can understand and hope someday to change your hearts. Besides, Ninny Nanny was more fun than I thought she would be.” The Sliver Lady’s eyes gleamed full of Ninny Nanny’s mischief. “Now it is time for you to go. Princess Rosamund has been waiting long enough, think you not?”

  Erik nodded happily and, springing to his feet, entered the tunnel that led to the dark tower.

  The Silver Lady watched him go with her large cat beside her. “You helped him recognize me, did you not, Mnemosyne?”

  The large cat purred.

  “I should be angry with you, but I am glad.”

  ERIK traveled through the dark tunnel at a steady pace. It inclined upwards gently, and it was not long before he saw the daylight up ahead of him. When he emerged from the tunnel, Erik blinked at the brightness of the early morning and realized that he had spent the entire night underground. He saw that he was in the middle of the thorn wood and recognized the same twisting corridors winding inside the maze of thorns that had so baffled him before. The underground tunnel had brought him to another entrance in the thorn maze, one that would lead him to the princess. But, as he stood before the many paths extending before him, he recalled the Silver Lady’s words: You now have all that you need to help you find your way.

  Erik lifted the full moon pendant from around his neck and studied the image of the two birds. Then he turned it over and looked at the cross hatchings on the back, those seemingly random scratches that had held the strange fisherman’s interest that now seemed so long ago. With both pieces fitted together, he saw that the scratched marks were not as random as he had originally thought, but instead resembled a map of some sort. Erik smiled as he realized that he held a map to the labyrinth of thorns in his hands. Two round notches on the silver surface marked where he was and where he was going, and parallel scratches were the pathways in the maze.

  Erik found the path on the map and followed its twists and turns through the maze until he emerged into a clearing. In the center was the tower. It loomed high with rubble and large chunks of stone strewn about its base. Before the prince stepped toward the tower, he heard the crackling of a fire, and the scent of cooked fish hovered on the breeze. He turned and saw a man with bone-white hair sitting on a large boulder amid the rubble and broken fragments of rock. The man was grilling fish over an open flame, and, as he looked up, Erik saw that it was the fisherman he had met before.

  “Come and share a meal with me,” the fisherman called.

  Erik joined him by the fire, knowing that this strange fisherman was more than what he seemed. He handed the prince a fish, and both ate together.

  “Who are you? Did you know that the piece of the symbolon I wore about my neck was half of a map to the thorn maze?” Erik asked.

  “That indeed I did,” the fisherman said, “for I have been many things in my time, and one of them was a silversmith. I made the symbolon you wear about your neck and carved the map on the back by my lady’s instruction. She gave a piece away and kept the other until the time came for the two pieces to be drawn together again.”

  “Your lady is Ninny Nanny?” Erik asked in surprise.

  The fisherman’s dark eyes twinkled. “Is that what she goes by these days? I will have to remember that.”

  “May I have your name? For though you know of me and even more than I do, it seems, of my quest, I know nothing of you. Besides, I hope that you are a friend.”

  The fisherman’s eyes took on a faraway look, then he spoke in a voice with the low round tones of the old tongue of the west. “Some would know me as Lothene, and, before that, they would know me as Aurlia. But even before that, long ago, I was called by the name Auryn, and I was a Golden King of old. After the battle between Lyr and his brother Annwyr, I was cast out of Faerie and parted from my faerie bride. I am cursed to wander the broken kingdom, mourning the diminishment of its glory, unless the rift caused between Faerie and mortal kind, planted in the dark night in the hall of the Faerie Lord of the Glass Mountain, is healed.”

  The fisherman fell silent, and Erik sat in awe before the ancient Golden King cursed to wander all these years.

  He rose and bowed deeply. “My lord, I pray that your hope is granted, and that the two worlds may be joined one day as they were of old. But I beg you give me leave, as I would go and wake Princess Rosamund, who has also been waiting this long while.”

  The fisherman laughed. “Go, Prince Erik. Fulfill your quest and wake your sleeping princess. Bring healing to your divided kingdom.”

  Erik set off for the tower and found the wooden door at its base. It was so heavy and rusted with age, it took him a few minutes to pry it open. Stone steps spiraled up before him. Shafts of light shot through the narrow windows as he steadily mounted each step. A hushed stillness entered him. When he finally reached the uppermost room, he found it flooded by light from the morning sun streaming through the open window, and there before him lay the princess. Erik went to Rosa’s side and gazed at her for the first time anew. She was real, no longer a dream, and as beautiful as the northern star.

  He stooped down and softly kissed her. Then he quietly waited, watching the gentle stirring of her features as slowly her eyes opened. Rosa’s eyes shone with the joy they had first held when she beheld him on the riverbank in their dreams. Only this time, their joy did not diminish, but turned into the gentle radiance of recognition.

  The princess seemed as if she wished to speak, so Erik gently took her hand, but she must have forgotten what she wanted to say. Instead they both simply gazed at each other without speaking. Rosa laughed, then she burst into tears, and the prince held the sobbing princess in his arms.

  After a while, her tears subsided, and she said in an embarrassed tone, “Please forgive me. I couldn’t help weeping.”

  Erik thrilled at the sound of her voice. “Rosa, don’t be sorry.” He gently wiped each tear away, and then kissed one eye and then another. When he had finished, the princess had turned bright red and she ducked her head in his shoulder.

  He gave a delighted laugh. “Rosa, what are you doing? Don’t hide your face from me!”

  Rosa only shook her head and buried herself in further, so he contented himself with holding her tightly. Then he recollected himself. “Rosa, we should leave this tower. I must get you somewhere safe. Are you hungry?”

  Rosa extricated herself from his embrace. “Now that you mention it, I am famished. I suppose I haven’t eaten in hundreds of years.” She looked up at him shyly and softly traced the scratches on his face with her finger. Erik held his breath at her touch.

  “You suffered all this for me,” she whispered.

  Erik did not say anything, but tucked stray golden strands of her hair behind her ear. Rosa then tried to rise ou
t of bed, but, when she got to her feet, she wobbled, and the prince had to catch her.

  “I suppose I haven’t walked in hundreds of years either,” she sighed.

  Erik helped her down the stairs and into the sun. The wood and the fresh breeze welcomed them when they stepped outside. A wave of wonder and of shyness washed over him as he gazed at Rosa standing before him, a miracle of flesh and blood, not the wisp of a dream. Rosa was looking thoughtfully about her, and Erik realized that she was observing the ruins of her old castle. He felt a twinge of the old fear that Rosa might not ever be able to look at him without thinking of the loss of her family and kingdom. He pressed her hand in comfort, but was interrupted by a rustling sound behind them.

  “Lodestar,” Erik cried, as he sprung forward to greet his horse, who was making its way through a gap in the thorn hedges.

  Rosa laughed and caressed his handsome mane, while Erik went to explore the strange, new gap.

  “I don’t know how this opening came to be here,” he said, turning to Rosa. “I wonder if the fisherman made it.”

  They both mounted Lodestar, the princess sitting before the prince, and made their way to the healing woman’s cottage, where they found Emma tending the herb garden outside. The dark-haired girl stared in amazement when she saw them, then dashed indoors to call her mother. By the time Erik and Rosa had dismounted, both of them were back outside, and the old woman’s eyes brightly threatened tears as she cried, “To think that I have lived to see this day!”

  Rosa approached her and Emma shyly, but then held out her hands to them. “So you are both the distant children of my dear friend and handmaid, Edwina. It brings me much joy to see you, particularly since all that I know is gone.”

  “So she is real,” came a voice from the doorway, and there stood Dunstan wrapped in bandages, leaning against the door-frame, gazing with wonder at the princess. He knelt down on one knee and bowed his head. “Please forgive me for my disbelief.”

  Erik sprang to his friend’s side and lifted him up. “Now, none of that, Dunstan. You have been faithful throughout the journey.”