by Tanith Lee
Yannis thought the king did not anticipate a reply.
The king said, “I suppose, soldier, you’d call it death. Maybe, when they cracked your leg off, you even paid a little visit.”
Yannis found he hated the king. It was a response that this king wished to foster in him. The king preferred to know how he weighed with common men, and to make men hate and fear provided an instant measure. Yannis had glimpsed traces of hate, fear, all over the court, both high and low exhibited signs. So the king knew where he was.
“Well,” said the king, “you’ve few words. Do you know what you’re to do here?”
Yannis did, of course. “No, sire.”
“Then you are not like all the rest, all seven—or was it seventeen of them—those others who failed. Very well. My daughters, in my hall, those girls with their hair. Even you will have noticed them. On nights of the round moon they go to another place, the place we spoke of. Despite they sleep all together in their luxurious bedchamber, which every night is locked and guarded to protect and make sure of them—on those three nights they slip through, like water from a leaky bowl. At dawn, they come back. Do you know how this was discovered?”
Yannis heard himself say, “By the soles of their feet.”
The king unsmiled. His eyes shone like scorched stones, cooling, cold. “So you do know.”
“Only the phrase.”
“Yes. The soles—not of their shoes, which are pristine as when sewn for them—but the skin of their feet. That is marked as if worn right through. Blemished, black and red and decorated in silver and sparkle, too. As if they’d bruised and torn them, then dipped them in rivers of moonlight and rime. You must follow these bitch-whores of mine, and see how they get out, and where they go, and if—if—it’s to that hidden underland, and next—what goes on there. Things no man can see, of course, and keep his sanity. But you’ll already have been there, as I said, when you lost half your leg. You’ll already know. You’re already partly mad. Why else are you here now?”
“And were the other men mad, sire?”
“They must have been, would you not say, old Crook-Shank?”
“Have you,” said Yannis, “never yourself asked your daughters?”
“I?” The king stared at Yannis. “A king does not ask. He is supplied. Without asking. I set others to find out. And now you are here. If you succeed, you will be my son, and a prince, my heir, to rule after me. Any of the twelve whores you choose shall be your wife. Or all of them, if you want. I’ll have someone fashion an extra-large bed for the sport. If you fail, however, your head shall be slashed from your body, as the best of your leg once was. Top to toe, soldier. That’s fair. And now,” said the king, “since this is the first of the moon’s three round nights, the servant outside will show you the way.”
• • •
It was rising in the long middle window, the moon, round as the white pupil of an immense dark eye. It watched him as he entered and was closed in, but it watched them, also, all twelve. Together, they and he made thirteen beings. But the moon perhaps made fourteen. Besides, there were the animals.
Three big, wolf-like dogs sat or stood, still as statues; a strange pale cat, with a slanted yellow gaze, lay supine. Additionally, there were little cages hung up, in some of which small birds perched twittering—and as the door of every cage stood open, several others flitted to and fro, while occasionally one would let loose a skein of lunar song, or a moon-white dropping would fall, softly snow-like on the floor.
The princesses were arranged, like warriors before a skirmish, some on the richly draped yet narrow beds, or they stood up, and two were combing their hair with plangent silking sounds, and drizzles of sparks that flew outward in the brazier-spread fire-glow. This combing and spark-making was like the playing of two harps, a musical accompaniment to the birds’ descant.
A magical, part uncanny scene. It lulled Yannis, and therefore made him greatly more alert.
But he took time, as with the king, and since they stared full at him, even the dogs and the cat, and some of the birds, to study these women a while.
For a fact, though, he could not properly see past their hair.
Charms they had, and they were alike, all of them to each other—and unalike, too—but the hair was still, in each one her symbol, extraordinary, unique. Three colors, every time transmuted. For she had hair red as amber, and she hair brown as tortoiseshell, and she gold as topaz—and she red as beech leaves, she brown as walnut wood, she gold as corn fields—she red as summer wine, she brown as spring beer, she gold as winter mead, and she was red as copper, and she was brown as bronze. But she—Yannis hesitated between two flickers of the brazier-light—She—the youngest, there, there in the darkest shadow of the farthest bed—she had hair as gold as gold.
“Well, here’s our father’s latest guest.”
It was the tallest, eldest girl who spoke, with amber hair. In age, the soldier thought, she was some years his junior, but then a wealthy, cared-for woman, he knew, could often look much younger than her years, just as a poor and ill-used one could seem older.
“There is a chamber set by for you,” levelly said the girl with tortoiseshell hair.
“Every comfort in it,” said the girl with topaz hair.
“But we know you won’t enjoy that since—” said the girl with hair like beech leaves.
“You must watch us closely and follow behind so that—” said hair like walnut wood.
“You may report to the king what we do,” concluded hair like cornfields.
“A shame,” said Summer Wine.
“And unkindness,” said Spring Hair.
“Every inch of your tired frame must protest,” said Winter Mead.
“But such is human life,” said Copper, tossing her locks as she stopped her comb.
“Alas,” said Bronze, also stopping hers.
Then, in the sparkless gloaming, Gold-as-Gold said this: “We know you must do it, and will never deny you have now no choice. Come, join us then in a cup of liquor for the journey, and we’ll be on our way, while you shall follow, poor soldier, as best you can.”
The soldier bowed very low, but he said nothing, and when they poured out the wine, each had a bright metal cup with jewels set round the rim. But the cup they gave him was of bright polished metal, too.
Then the young women drank, and the soldier pretended to drink, because what the witch had told him was so firmly fixed in his brain he was by that instant like a fine actor who had learned his part to perfection. And presently he did speak, and said might he sit just for a minute, and the young women who were by then finishing putting on their cloaks and shoes for the outer world, or so it looked, nodded and said he might.
Yannis thought, The draft came from the same pitcher. The drug must be in the cup—but no matter, I never even put my lip to it without my finger between.
Next he plumped down the cup, spilling a drop. He let his head droop suddenly and seemed surprised. He smiled for the first, stupidly. Then he shut his eyes and thought, God help me now, but he had not forgotten the secret of the trance.
Another moment and Yannis himself sat upright in the chair, even as his body stretched unconscious across it. He was out of his skin. And oh, the moonlight in the chamber then, how thrillingly clear, a transparent silver mirror that he could see straight through. And the soul-cord that connected flesh and spirit, more silver yet.
He let himself drift up a wall, and hung there, and watched.
They came soon enough, and tried him, gently at first. Then they mocked, and Amber and Beech Leaves and Spring Beer slapped his face, and then Cornfields came up to him and tickled him maliciously. Walnut Wood kicked his sound ankle, and Bronze and Winter Mead spat on him. Tortoiseshell cursed him articulately, in which Summer Wine and Copper joined. Only Topaz stuck a pin into his arm and twisted it.
Sure he slept, they then turned together up the room to its darker end, where Gold yet stood, the youngest of them. She instead came down, and hesitated by him a second. Standing in air, the soldier thought, Now what will she do?
“Poor boy,” said Gold, though her face was impassive, and she anyway half his age. “Poor boy.”
“You silly,” called one of the others. “Why pity him? Would he pity us? Hurry, so we can be off.”
So Gold left him, or his body, sleeping.
But Yannis pursued all of them, unseen, up the room.
They spoke a rhyme in that ancient and angular other tongue, and then they stamped, each one, on a different part of the floor. At that, the dogs, cats, and birds—who had taken not much note of him—looked round at the far wall, which sighed and slowly shifted open. Beyond lay blackness, but there came the scent of cold stones and colder night. One by one the girls fluttered through like gorgeous moths. Yannis followed without trouble. Even though the hidden door was already closing, he strode on two strong legs straight through the wall.
3
Beginning with an enclosed stone stair, which did not impede the now-fleet-of-foot Yannis, the passage descended. Nor did the almost utter dark inconvenience him; his unbodied eyes saw better than the best. After the stair came a descent of rubble, but everything contained within the granite bastions of the palace. Here and there the accustomed steps of the princesses now did falter. Once, Yannis found to his dismay, he reached out to steady the youngest princess. Fortunately, she seemed not to realize. But he must be wary—her compassion might have been a trap.
He had learned her name, nevertheless. The eldest girl had called her by it. Evira. That was the name of the youngest princess, Gold-as-Gold.
Ultimately, the way leveled. Then they walked on in the dark until splinters of the moon scattered through. At last full moonlight led them out onto a snow-marbled height, far above the city. They were on the western hill, where massed the houses of the dead.
Yannis knew they must soon enter some mausoleum, and next they did, after unlocking its iron gate with a key the eldest princess carried.
Yannis had lost all fear. He had no need of it.
Within the tomb lay snow and bones, and the ravages of the heartless armies of death and time.
And then there was another door, which Yannis, as now he was, saw instantly was no earthly entrance or exit. And despite his power and freedom, for an instant he did check. But the twelve maidens went directly through the door, even she did, Evira. And then so did Yannis too.
• • •
Beyond the door lay the occult country.
It was of the spirit, but whether an afterlife, or underworld below the Sun Beneath—or an else-or-otherwhere—Yannis was never, then or ever, certain.
Although it was unforgettable, naturally. In nature, how not?
• • •
Should the sun have sunk into a country beneath the earth, then this land, lying below the other two, had no hint of daylight. Nor was the round full moon apparent. Yet light there was. It was like the clearest glass, and the air—when you moved through it—rippled a little, like water. The smell of the air was sweet, fragrant as if with growing trees and herbs. And such there were, and drifted flowers, pale or somber, yet they glowed like lamps. Above, there was a sort of sky, which shone and glowed also, if sunlessly. Hills spread away, and before them an oval body of water softly glimmered. Orchards grouped on every side, they too glinting and iridescent. The leaves nearby were silver, but farther off they had the livelier glisten of gold.
The moment this somewhere closed around them, the women discarded their cloaks and shoes, and shook out the flaming waves of their hair. Then they ran toward the lake.
As they ran, he saw their plain garments change to silks and velvets, streams of embroidery budding at sleeves and borders like yet more flowers breaking through grass.
And he was aware of his own joy in the running, and his lion-like pursuit, his joy in the otherworld, in life and in eternity. Strong wine. Strong as—love.
He did not glance after the spirit-cord, however. He sensed he might not see it, here.
When the women reached the lake, they were laughing with excited pleasure. Some of the silver and golden leaves they had sped under had fallen into their hair—ice on fire, fire on water—he, too, had deliberately snatched a handful of each kind of leaf. But the leaves of the lake-side trees were hard with brilliancy. They were diamonds; they did not deign to fall. Impelled he reached out and plucked one. It gave off a spurt of razorous white—like a tinder striking—filling the air with one sharp snap.
“Someone is behind us,” said the eldest princess, amber-haired.
The others frowned at her, then all about them.
Yannis thought, Strange, Amber is the oldest of them, yet she is young like a child, too. Perhaps in knowledge, soul-wise, the youngest princess of all . . .
And I, he thought, What am I? Perhaps in fact I am only drugged and dream all this—
But the youngest princess, Evira, said quietly, “Who could follow here, sisters?” Trusting, and like a child as well.
They could not see him, he knew. Not even the silver and gold and diamond hidden in the pocket of his no-longer-physical shirt.
Then what looked to him at first like a fleet of swans appeared across the lake. Soon he saw twelve gilded boats, one for each princess. Who guided these vessels?
Up in the air, Yannis stood a pillar’s height high. He scanned the vessels; each rowed by itself, and was empty.
Beyond the lake a palace ascended. It resembled the palace of the king in the world above, yet it was more fantastic in its looks, its towers more slender, more burnished—a female palace rather than male, and certainly young.
In the sunmoonless dusk, its windows blazed rose-red and apricot. Music wafted over water.
Oh, he could see: this country mirrored the country of Everyday, prettier, more exotic—yet, a match. Had they then instinctively created this otherworld out of its own basic malleable and uncanny ingredients? And was that the answer to the riddle of all sorcery?
In a brief while, the fast-flying boats beached on the near shore.
Then the princesses happily exclaimed, and flung wide their arms, as if to embrace lovers. And at that—at that—
There they are, Yannis breathed, in his unheard phantom’s whisper.
For there indeed they were.
Begun as shadows standing between the land and the water, gaining substance, filling up with color, youth and life. Twelve tall, young, and handsome men were there, elegantly arrayed as princes. But their royal clothes no better than the panoply of their hair—one amber red, one brown as tortoiseshell, one gold as topaz, red as beech leaves, brown as walnut wood, gold as corn fields, summer wine, spring beer, winter mead; copper, bronze, and gold—as gold.
In God’s name—could God have any hand in this? Yes, yes, Yannis’s heart stammered over to him. A snatch of the ancient tongue came to him, from his own past, where he had known pieces of it—that the soul was neither male nor female, yet also it was both male and female. So that in every woman there dwelled some part of her that was her male other self. Just as, in every man—
The fine princes walked into the arms of their twelve princesses. Why not? They were the male selves of each woman. Every couple was already joined, each the other, sister and brother, wife and husband, lovers for ever and a day.
Yannis stared even so as the princes rowed them all back across the lake to the palace of unearthly delights.
Invisibly, he sat in turn in every boat.
Was it heavy work for them? No. Yannis was lighter even than the light.
Nevertheless, they sense I am with them, he thought.
He returned to the air and landed on the other shore first.
• • •
H
ow long, that night? Dusk till dusk—so many hours. In the world they had left, he thought at last it would be close to dawn. But here it was always and never either night or day.
In the kingly great hall that far outshone that of their father above, the young women danced the often lively dances of their world and this one, forming rhythmic lines, meeting and clasping hands with their princes, parting again to lilt away, and to return. Sometimes the young men whirled them high up in their arms, skirts swirling, hair crackling. Wheels of burning lights hung from the high ceiling, which was leafed with diamond stars. On carven tables food had been laid, and was sometimes eaten, goblets of wine were to be drunk. Somewhere musicians played unseen. There were no other guests.
The soldier watched, and sometimes—the plates and cups were communal—he ate and drank. He wondered if the food would stick to him, or leave him hungry; it seemed somehow to do neither. He himself did not dance until it grew very late.
And then, as it had happened on the shore, and as he had known it must—turning, the soldier found another woman stationed quietly at his side. She at once smiled at him. He knew her well, though never had he seen her before. She might have been his sister.
“Come now,” she said, soft as the silver and golden leaves in his pocket, and firm as the single adamant.
And onto the wide floor of the hall, which seemed paved with soot and coal and frost and ice and candle beams and sparks, she went. And somehow then she was dancing with the amber prince who had partnered the amber eldest princess. So then Yannis went forward, and took the princess’s hand. While his spirit’s sister danced with the prince, Yannis danced with Amber, who seemed then to see, if not to remember him.
“How lightly you step,” he said.
“How strongly you lead,” she answered.
After this, one by one, he danced with each of them, twelve to one, as his feminine aspect engaged their princes.
“How strongly you lead,” said each princess, seeing him, too.
