The Thorn Boy

by Storm Constantine

  Then the garden wall was before me. I yearned to leap it, but it would not be necessary. Flights of steps run up to the top of the wall at regular intervals, so that guards can patrol it or else temple staff might sit there and watch the life of the city. I chose one of these flights at random and ran up it, then stood for a while on the wall, looking down. The city was spread out ahead of me, a mass of dim glows and hulking shadows. Now I must jump, for there were no steps on the other side of the wall. It looked so far, yet I knew it was not. I glanced behind me, fearful for a second that someone was watching me, but the temple and the gardens were still and silent, as if enchanted. I drew in my breath and leapt.

  I landed on all fours on the short wiry grass and, for some moments, felt I should continue my journey in this manner, that I had discarded the body of a woman altogether. Then I stood up and saw that, yes, I still had arms and legs and that running on all fours would be both ungainly and slow. Quickly, I ran to a grove of tamarinds near the road, which was a glaring pale ribbon in the darkness. The wilderness was very near. I had only to follow the road for a short time, then take a narrower track to the east. The wilderness is always there around us. If people should abandon the city, it would soon revert to a strange and tangled waste, dry and tough and desert-coloured.

  I had arranged to meet Arcaran at the edge of the waste, by a forest of broken towers, which were all that remained of an older city than ours. Their shattered fingers cast eerie shadows on the ground and I was sure that ghosts lingered there. For a while I could not find the magician and ran about in circles among the looming ruins. Then he stepped out of the shadow of a tower in front of me. He was a creature of night, yet I could see his face clearly; its sculpted planes, the faintest breath of dark beard about the jaw.

  ‘I am here,’ I said, ‘where is the prince?’

  ‘I have hidden him in the ruins. I thought you were not coming.’

  ‘Take me to him.’

  ‘We must venture further from the city. We are too close here.’

  Prince Reevan lay with his head resting on a broken column. He looked young and vulnerable, his eyes staring blankly at the stars. I thought for a moment that he was dead, then he made a small sound and a thread of drool fell from his lips. I was alarmed by his condition and knelt at once to place my hands upon him, but Arcaran cried, ‘No, don’t touch him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The parasite could transfer itself to you. We are not yet prepared.’

  I stood up. ‘Then we should proceed quickly.’

  Arcaran lifted the prince in his arms and began to walk away through the ruins. I followed, looking about myself. I did not feel afraid or, if I did, the sensation felt pleasurable. It did not cross my mind that I was essentially, despite my title and status, a young woman alone with a strange man far from my sanctuary. I had always believed I was a goddess, but in truth did I really possess a goddess’ powers? I did not know how to smite a man if he should attack me. I did not even know how to defend myself with human strength. Yet there I was, following him. It seems senseless now.

  Beyond the ruins was a rocky valley, surrounded by high spiky cliffs. We went down into it and there I saw that a fire had been built and already lit, flames leaping hungrily at the sky, shedding showers of sparks.

  The magician laid the prince down on the ground and I awaited the preparations for what I was convinced would be some arcane ritual. As he arranged the prince’s limbs, the magician said, ‘I have spent a lot of time in Mewt, my lady. I have visited the great temples there of Sekt and of her sister, Purryah, the cat goddess. The priests revealed to me some of their knowledge. It is a wisdom that never came here. For a century, your people have had an incomplete belief system.’

  ‘The original priestess of Sekt in Madramurta was trained by Senu, High Priestess of Akahana,’ I said. ‘How do you know what we have or have not learned?’

  ‘I know because you are unaware of what to do now. A true avatar of Sekt would know.’

  ‘And so, presumably, do you.’

  He nodded, squatting before me, his long, expressive hands dangling between his knees. ‘I do, and I will tell you, but it may alarm you.’

  I stood stiffly before him, wondering what would be said and whether it would be true.

  ‘You must expel the breath of Sekt into the boy,’ said the magician. ‘You must conjure it. Do you know how?’

  I wanted to answer that I did. I wanted him to think I was something more than just a mask, but I couldn’t answer, because I didn’t know.

  He ignored my silence and said, ‘First you must remove your mask.’

  ‘No! It is forbidden. I may only do so when I’m alone. You should know that.’ But, in my heart, that leap of hope.

  He looked at me steadily. ‘The mask should be removed for certain types of work. This is one of them. Don’t you know why you are masked?’

  ‘Because I am the goddess and her presence in me has changed me. I am too terrifying to look upon. I would wither you.’

  He laughed softly. ‘It would take more than that to wither me. Do you think you are hideous beneath it, a gorgon to turn me to stone?’

  Again, I could not answer. ‘It is the law,’ I said.

  He stood up and came towards me. He drew back the cloak of my hood and put his fingers against the hard skin of the mask. Beneath it, I burned. It was I who was turned to stone. ‘I can see your eyes,’ he said. ‘I can see your mouth. You wear this mask to contain your power. The high priestess in Akahana wears hers only for state occasions, but you are bridled here, held back.’

  I felt I would die from suffocation. I could not breathe. The mask constricted me. I was more aware of its presence than I’d ever been.

  ‘Take it off,’ he said. ‘I am not afraid. Nor should you be. Claim what is yours, what you’ve never truly had.’

  My hands moved automatically. I had no choice. He took a step back and watched me as I lifted the mask from my head and shoulders. Immediately, the wind felt too hot on my skin. My hair was lifted by it. His expression did not change. I felt exposed, impotent. Was all of my courage contained within the mask? I had no strength now. He came towards me, put his hands upon my face. I expelled a cry for his touch burned me. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘I have always known you.’

  Some instinct made me pull away. I glanced down at Prince Reevan and saw that his entire body was covered in a crawling black smoke. It was as if he was being devoured by a swarm of insects. The magician’s face looked black too, yet his eyes burned wildly. They were blue now, yet surely only a moment ago, they’d been dark?

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘Accept. You can see now, truly see.’

  I gulped the searing air. My eyes were weeping tears of flame. ‘The prince,’ I managed to burble.

  The magician laughed and with a flick of his hand, made a gesture. ‘The brat doesn’t matter. He is only a decoy. Watch.’ At once, the enveloping darkness rose from the prince’s body into the air. He cried out, his limbs jerked. ‘It is done,’ said the magician. ‘Simple. The salamander was my creature. I put it there. It was you I wanted. It was always you.’

  I backed away from him, incapable of thought, of rationalisation.

  He stalked me. ‘You people are pathetic,’ he said. ‘You were given a power you could have developed. You did nothing but lie complacently in the temple until the power fell asleep from ennui. I can wake it, lady. It is already mine. I have come for you. Do you understand? For all it has atrophied, something was created here in Jessapur. I smelled it. It drew me. You are more than Senu ever could have been, yet you do not know it.’ He drew himself up to his full height and it seemed to me as if his flesh was smoking. I could smell charred meat again. His eyes were smouldering blue flames. ‘Do you know what I am?’

  I knew. Part of me, a part of me that should have been greater, had always known. ‘Djinn!’ I said. Hungry, envious of flesh, full of guile.

  ‘They let me in,’ he said. ‘
You let me in. Look at you. A gargoyle. The mask has more life in it.’

  I put my hands to my face and all I could feel was a frozen snarl, made of ivory. I had the wedge-shaped muzzle of a cat, a cat’s sharp teeth. If ever I had been a normal woman, now I truly was a semblance of Sekt, lioness-headed, a statue made flesh. Hideous. Monstrous. This was the secret the mask had hidden. Now, the lioness had been released, but she had no strength. She had been domesticated.

  ‘You have the potential power of the red fire, the white fire,’ said the magician, ‘that which is stronger than the orange fires of hearth or altar. You are most powerful free of your mask, lady, but also, paradoxically, most vulnerable.’

  Arcaran made a sudden movement and grabbed hold of my arms. It was strange because there was no substance to him. He was smoke, yet I could not escape him. From the waist down he had transformed into a boiling column of darkness. He dragged me towards the fire and I could hear the song of the sparks. The flames leapt higher as if in anticipation. ‘We shall be one,’ he said. ‘I shall have Sekt’s essence. You do not deserve it.’

  He was never flesh, I can see that now. Even his body was an illusion. He wanted mine, and the gift of fire that lay slumbering within it. To him, I was naïve and stupid, a posturing child with no true understanding of the goddess’ power. Perhaps he saw himself as a denizen of Sekt and sought to reclaim her, release her. But most of all, he wanted my body. I knew that when I returned to the temple, I would no longer be me, and that a prince of djinn would hold sway in the hallowed precincts. No one would ever guess.

  The flames licked at my clothes. Soon, it would be over. I could not help but fight, even though I felt my predicament was helpless.

  Then she moved within me. I felt a flexing in my muscles and bones, a great sense of outrage. A voice roared from my throat. ‘I am Sekt!’

  I breathed in the flames, and expelled them in a gust of blood red sparks. Arcaran uttered an inhuman scream and fell backwards into the fire. The leaping hot tongues enwrapped him and he lay there staring up at me in fury. I snarled at him and he snarled back, but he was no longer the one in control. ‘Do not presume,’ I growled. ‘Don’t ever presume.’

  Then I turned my back on him and put my hands against my face. I was no longer snarling. I felt pliant flesh, slightly furred. The golden mask stared up at me from the ground. It was a lifeless thing. I sensed him move behind me and turned round. He looked like a man again, a beautiful man, although his long hair was smoking.

  ‘You cannot have this flesh,’ I said. ‘It is mine. I have provenance over this land.’

  ‘Sekt,’ he said, ‘you misunderstand. I sought only to wake you.’

  I snarled at him again. ‘Fool! I know what you sought – a way into my temple, and thus to create your own reign of fire over the land and its people.’

  ‘It has already begun,’ he said. ‘You cannot stop it, but should join with me. Look at this land. It is dying. The divine kings are shorn of grace and power. My influence smokes through the streets of Madramarta, inspires its slaves to revolt.’

  I shook my head. ‘You are deluded. You were banished once, because you could not, or would not, help the people of Jessapur against their conquerors. You have no true might, only a sneaking creeping insolence that finds a home only in the hearts of the ignorant and debased.’

  ‘The greatest changes will always be born in the darkest gutter,’ said the magician. ‘What happens in a noble court or an enclosed temple affects only the privileged few. That is not change, but indulgence.’

  ‘Perhaps there is some truth in your words,’ I said. ‘But now the people have me. I will serve them here as I serve them in Mewt. I always will.’

  ‘Brave words,’ hissed Arcaran. ‘It is most likely that all you will do is fall asleep again. You need my influence.’

  I snarled and stamped my foot, and the ground shook for a great distance around us. ‘Smite you!’ I hissed.

  He raised his hands. ‘I am already smitten, as you pointed out. Is there to be no peace between us?’

  ‘There cannot be. You cannot be trusted.’

  His face twisted into an evil leer. ‘Go back to you temple, then. Be alone. But rue this day, Sekt. Remember it. It will haunt you.’

  I stared at him unblinking for some moments, then turned away. I went to the prince, who lay unconscious near the fire and lifted him in my arms.

  ‘Sekt,’ said the magician. ‘You cannot contain me. You will return. You will call for me. You know you will. Like speaks to like. I woke you.’

  For some moments, I considered his words, then carefully placed the unconscious prince back on the ground. Arcaran was sitting amid the flames of the fire, the most beauteous sight I could imagine, the most treacherous. I lifted the lion’s eye pendant in one hand and held it up before my face on its chain. ‘I will never be without you,’ I purred. ‘I both love and hate you, and will hold you forever against my heart.’

  He grinned at me, confident.

  I dropped my jaw into a smile and spoke in a voice of command. ‘I call upon the light at the centre of the universe!’

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Arcaran. The smiled had disappeared from his face.

  ‘Great powers, attend me!’ I roared. ‘Hear now the voice of Sekt! Give me your power of compulsion’

  ‘No,’ said Arcaran. The features on his face had begun to twist and flex.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered softly, then raised my voice once more, arms held high. ‘By the power of the creative force, I compel you, prince of djinn. I command you. Enter into this stone. I am Sekt, queen of fire. You will obey.’

  A searing wind gusted past me, pressing my robes against my body, lifting my hair in a great tawny banner. Sparks fountained out of the fire. Arcaran expelled a series of guttural cries and his body writhed amid the flames. I do not know whether he felt pain or not, but very swiftly, he reverted to a form if smoke. I sucked his essence towards me, then blew it into the lion’s eye pendant. It felt hot for some moments, and glowed with an eerie flame, then it went cold and dark. I placed it back against my breast once more. He would always be with me, but contained, a genie in a stone.

  I lifted the prince once more and glanced down at the golden mask lying nearby. Already ashes from the fire had drifted over it. I would not wear it again. There might be another mask, and sometimes I would wear it, but it would be of my own design and I would don it through choice.

  It seemed my altercation with the djinn had taken only minutes, but as I walked back towards the ruins, I saw that already the light around me was grey with dawn. Soon the pink and gold would come, the morning. As I walked, I breathed upon the prince’s face. His eyes moved rapidly beneath their closed lids. He would recover swiftly from his brief ordeal. I had breathed the white fire into him. He was mine. I would make a true king of him, for all the people.

  Near the temple, I passed a peasant woman with her children taking fish to the market. When I drew near, they fell to the ground before me, their hands over their heads. ‘I am Sekt,’ I said to them. ‘Look upon me.’

  The woman moaned and uttered prayers, but even so, raised her head.

  ‘You are blessed,’ I said. ‘Carry word to the city that Sekt walks amongst you. She is unmasked and awake. Remember her face.’

  Now, I am home. I can sense Meni awaking in his chamber. I will go to him, show myself to him. I am Sekt.

  The Island of Desire

  This is the most recent of all the stories and was only completed for this collection. I began writing it a couple of years ago, with the idea of sending it to the editors of one of the adult fairy tale collections, but for some reason I lost the thread of the story and couldn’t be bothered to finish it. Coming back to it after so long with fresh eyes has given me the inspiration I needed to write the end.

  The story is based upon the fairy tale ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’, and also another old Scottish tale, ‘Kate Crackernuts’, which shares a similar plot.In t
he first story, the hero is male and solves the mystery to free the princesses from their enchantment, but in ‘Kate Crackernuts’, the protagonist is female and it is she who frees an ensorcelled prince from the fairy realm, where he is drawn to dance every night. I liked the idea of a male victim and a female rescuer, so used it in ‘The Island of Desire’.

  There is often little logic in fairy stories, and even as I wrote this I wondered why and how, in all versions of the tale, no one ever works out what the wayward royal children get up to at night. Lone strangers, usually knights, keep vigil and succumb to sleep, but why on earth doesn’t the king move his daughters/son to a public room, or a different town, or wherever, to seek to break the enchantment? Why doesn’t he have a gang of soldiers stationed outside the bedchamber, who can come rushing in the moment they hear strange sounds? Still, if sensible actions like this were taken, half the story would be gone, or at least made more difficult, and the mystery would probably have been solved long before the enterprising adventurer reaches the palace. I think that wrestling with this problem was what caused me to abandon the story in the first place, so decided the only way to complete it was to go with the fairy tale logic.

  Again, as with other short story characters, I can see the possibility of writing more about the lady Maris. She is an adventurer, and this is only one of her adventures.

  The land of Skyripi is blue and mauve: that was my first impression. The tall, slender trees have softly-furred leaves that are more silver-grey than green; plants grow there like nowhere else in the world. Their foliage is dark purple, the most sombre tones of deepest cyclamen and the green of winter ivy. I rode in on the King’s Highway from Cos, whistling through my teeth to my horse, looking for all the world like the happy wanderer I was. Two nights before I had met a fair knight beside the road, and because he looked doleful, I had invited him into my tent and there, after some persuasion, divested him of his armour. As we lay upon my furs he asked me where I was going, and I told him I would go where my nose led me. Every morning, I sniff the air and follow the scent most pleasing.