He said to me, ‘Dear lady, would you like money for I know where there’s some to be earned.’
I answered that of course I would.
He told me then to go to the city of Rappernape, where the king was in need of a good soul to help him with a family problem.
‘What kind of family problem?’ I asked, demonstrating the muscles of my fighting arm.
The knight put his long fingers over my wrist. ‘No, it requires cunning and stealth, but there is a cost. Some have died already.’
I did not like the sound of it, but was intrigued.The knight went mysterious on me, and would say only, ‘from what I heard of the oracle at the pool, drink nothing, speak nothing and you will be invisible to their eyes.’
Of course, he was no ordinary knight, as I discovered when I woke in the morning, and found only a strange, grey-skinned elemental sitting on my chest. ‘Do not go in by the canal road, but the iron road,’ he said, and flew out of my tent, uttering a scream, which I hoped, celebrated repletion and not something more sinister.
I came to a fork in the road, and there was a hag plaiting hemp in the dust. ‘Is this the way to Rappernape?’ I asked her and she nodded.
‘Which is the best road to take?’
She indicated to the left, ‘That is the canal road’, and to the right, ‘that is the iron road. They are both roads, and the distance to the town is equal down either one.’
I thanked her and rode down the right hand fork, trusting that my elemental lover had not played a trick on me. The iron road was hard beneath my horse’s feet and around it there was a feeling of intensity. The taste of blood was in my mouth. When the twin spires of the city’s cathedral were visible above the trees, a creature stepped into the road ahead of me. It was not beautiful, and disturbingly human in appearance, although its face was a nightmare of tusks and warts. Most fighters would slaughter such a beast on the spot, but I have travelled through many strange lands, and have learned from the wise men and women who lurk in their darkest corners that no creature should be judged on appearance alone. ‘Greetings,’ I said, pulling my horse to a halt, which was difficult for his strongest urge was to flee the apparition before us. ‘You are blocking my way, so I presume you want something of me.’
The creature snuffled a little and I supposed he might be thirsty, so offered him a drink from my leather. He took it and was clearly delighted to discover I did not keep water in it, but something more potent. ‘A witch gave me that,’ I said. ‘By all means, finish it.’
The creature did so, then grunted, ‘You are going to the castle of the king.’
I nodded. ‘There is a problem there, I understand.’
‘Many have died without solving it,’ said the beast. ‘The soft-skins know not the ways of the land.’
All non-humans have this attitude. They think we are inferior, and in many ways they are right. But what they fail to recall is that humanity rules the world, whilst they are consigned to desolate spots and the unreal realms beyond enchanted gateways. From what the beast had said, I determined that the problem was supernatural in origin. The creature would give me no further information, so I bid him farewell and carried on into town.
The king seemed eager to meet me, and I was presented to him in his great hall that very afternoon. He asked me my name and I told him, ‘Maris.’ My full name is Marissa, but I dislike the simpering implications of it, and only my parents, who have never been happy with the life I’ve chosen for myself, now use it.
‘You are an adventurer,’ said the king, a statement loaded with judgements. They always need us, but never do they lose their opinion that we are somehow undesirables.
‘Life to me is an adventure,’ I said reasonably. ‘I look for problems and attempt to solve them.’
The king pointed outside the window to where a number of headless bodies were impaled on spikes in the courtyard beyond. ‘They too shared your philosophy.’
‘Why are they dead?’ I asked clearly, not letting apprehension colour my voice.
The king sighed. ‘It is the price for failure. I resent having my raised hopes dashed. It is unfair and must be punished.’
There was a certain neat, if grim, logic to this. ‘So what is the problem?’
‘My sons,’ said the king. ‘Calobel and Cataban. They are twins. A year ago they succumbed to a strange ailment and are now listless and pale. Every morning, they lie upon their beds fully dressed, even though they disrobe the previous eve. Their boots are worn through and their hands tremble. Guards stationed outside their rooms see nothing. Heroes, knights and adventurers have kept vigil by their bedside, but can never stay awake - hence the dangling corpses.’
I nodded, frowning earnestly in sympathy. ‘I can appreciate your exasperation in this matter. I would like to apply myself to solving the conundrum.’
The king sighed. ‘Nothing would please me more. I will give you three days to succeed, and if you fail, you will join the others hanging outside.’
He was not a lenient man, it seemed.
The queen herself took me to her sons’ apartments in the castle. She wrung her hands continually, muttering that she did not like to think of a woman undertaking this task, as it would grieve her to see me dangling in the courtyard. I assured her she should not worry. Privately, I mulled the situation over in my head. Sorcery was the obvious cause of the sickness. I was surprised none of my sorry predecessors hadn’t worked this out and sought magical aid.
The sight that greeted me in the bedroom of Calobel and Cataban is still with me. They lay upon their bed, their black hair draped across the pillows like unravelled elven silk; hints of purple shining among the black. Their skin was translucent, their eyelashes long against their poreless cheeks. They were the most beautiful youths I had even seen and I yearned at once to touch them. They appeared to be asleep.
‘It is always this way,’ whispered the queen. ‘They lie in an enchanted swoon waking only at sundown to take their meals. Then they are instilled with a feverish animation and make plans to go out riding or to walk the fields. But their excitement does not last and within an hour they are once again apathetic on their bed.’
I shook my head. ‘Hmm. May I examine them?’
The queen assented, and I approached the bed. First I checked for the marks left by vampires and succubae, finding none. I attempted to wake the youths, to no avail. I smelled their breath to learn if any of the major sleeping sicknesses infected them, but their breath was sweet. Too sweet for individuals who lay in continuous sleep - I would have expected their humours to be sour. There was no sign upon them of enchantment and no tokens hidden around the chamber. The queen explained that several wizards had inspected the rooms before, and certain magical precautions had been taken, but none had worked. I admit I was perplexed. All I could do was perform the vigil and make sure I stayed awake. Now, I wished I hadn’t given away all of my witch’s potion to the creature on the road, for its effect was to keep one awake for days at a time.
‘I must sleep now,’ I said to the queen. ‘Have your people wake me before sundown.’
The queen bade me sleep upon a couch in the adjoining sitting room, and here I willed myself to refreshing sleep. At the appointed hour, a maid shook me awake.
Calobel and Cataban were still slumbering when I entered the room, but as the last slanting red rays of the sun lifted from their bed to finger the wall above, their eyes opened in unison. They looked at me immediately, and never had I been transfixed by so dark a gaze.
‘Will you tell me what you do each night?’ I asked them, and they smiled at me like cats, secretive and deceitful.
‘My lady, we sleep,’ they said. ‘We dream.’ Their voices were of different timbres, but other than that they might have spoken through a single, shared throat.
I had to ask a difficult question. ‘Is your father the king?’
They nodded. ‘He is.’
They did not, to me, appear completely human, but that might have b
een the effects of the enchantment, for the moment I saw their eyes, I could sense a hex hanging about them like an odour. They slithered from their bed in nightshirts of soft linen that fell enchantingly down their shoulders, revealing the milk of their flesh. At first glance they were effeminate - and indeed their dark charms were like those of many a sorcerous female - but I quickly realised they were otherworldly, like elf children, sinister and deceptively frail in appearance.
‘We must eat,’ they told me, brushing past me like a storm of feathers, towards a table by the window where various platters lay heaped with food.
‘I shall sit in this chair,’ I told them, pointing to a seat beside their bed.
‘As you wish, dear lady,’ they replied and looked at one another with a smile.
I expected trickery and have to confess I did not feel wholly confident. Many had failed before me, some of whom had no doubt possessed equal cunning to my own.
As their mother the queen had predicted, the youths ate heartily and then discussed what they would do for the evening. I listened to their conversation carefully, alert for any strange nuance of tone, or innuendo of speech. All seemed normal. They wanted to ride their horses into the forest and even moved towards their dressing room to equip themselves accordingly, but even before they crossed the threshold, they began to yawn and rest their heads upon each other’s shoulders. ‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ said Cataban. As one, they fell onto the bed.
I stood looking at them for some time. Their breath was even, their pose relaxed. I must not sleep, clearly, but what bewitchments might come stealing through the night to rob me of that resolve? I sat down in a wide seat beside their bed, and put my chin in my hands. The moon rose outside casting eerie shadows about the room that moved slowly across the bed. Periodically, I arose and paced the chamber. The air was full of expectation, as if unseen presences stooped in the corners of the room, holding their breath. Beyond the high windows, I heard the king’s guard intone the calls of the watch, as the night ticked on. Presently, even that fell silent, and it felt as if only I was awake in the entire world. Unaccountably, my heart had begun to race. I fancied that some unheard music vibrated the air that my ears could not detect, but that my heart could hear. I had an urge to tap my feet, my fingers, even though not even the whimper of a dog broke the silence of the waiting night. Never had I felt more wide-awake.
Then, a sigh came from the bed, and I saw the princes writhe out of sleep like twin serpents upon a heated rock. They blinked, wiped back their loose hair from their eyes, and stared at me inscrutably. I did not speak, but stared back. Hadn’t my elemental told me not to speak? They clicked their fingernails and advanced upon me.
‘Here, pretty lady,’ lisped one. ‘Come stroke my hair.’
Another slithered across the floor on his belly. ‘Are we not beautiful? Don’t you want to touch us?’
They were lovely, yet hideous. An invisible steam seemed to seep from their pores that lulled the senses and brought back the most poignant memories of joy. I lived for a moment in some idyllic summer of my childhood, when all the world was mine and I celebrated the true, innocent freedom that is lost to us through maturity. Oh, to taste that emotion so many years on. It was like wine, or stronger, like the blooms of a narcotic lotus. Now I could see how others had failed before me. Knights had slumbered in this chamber, neglecting their duties, but it was not a slumber of the mind. Their hearts had leapt into the realm of dreams, and there they stayed. The room seemed to fade before my eyes. I felt cool fingers on my knees, and smelled a fragrance of cut grass and carnations. They wrapped me in their hair, breathed snatches of alien words into my straining ears. I was caught in the music of their soft laughter, drowning, drowning.
Then they offered to me the cup.
I saw it hanging before me, independent of their hands: a crystal chalice full of a deep blue liquid. ‘Drink,’ they said to me. ‘Be a child once more and run over the endless hills. Run with the deer, the hare. Feel the winds of immortality cut the years from your body.’
I could smell it: a scent like envenomed nectar. My mouth watered. I wanted it so badly: to forget, to be back there, without scars of mind or heart or body. I took the cup from the air, and heard them laugh. ‘Enjoy,’ they cried and I knew they were moving away from me. All that existed was the cup, cold between my palms.
I cannot say I think myself superior to any of those who challenged the darkness before me. There is no doubt that many men and women of calibre had sipped from that deadly vessel in my place, perhaps far nobler than I: stronger, wiser and more clear-headed. Perhaps there comes a time when a chink in the universe opens up, and a blinding clarity comes through. It is chance, I think, not design. Whatever, something closed my lips as my nerveless hands lifted it to my mouth. It was as if another dwelt inside me, crying ‘no, for pity’s sake, no!’ I wanted to drink - there is no doubt of that - and on another night or perhaps only a few minutes earlier or later, I would have done. But that moment was mine. Somehow I had earned it, and the cup stayed trembling at my lips. I like to think it was the influence of my elemental lover, calling me back from the abyss.
Beyond the phantom chalice, I could see, as if through a veil, the princes standing beside their bed. One of them clapped his hands, and slowly the bed slid to the side. The canopy above it swayed and creaked, and an opening in the floor was revealed beneath it. The twins paid me no more heed, perhaps seeing only the cup at my lips. Presently, with a swish of hair and a flash of pale linen, they disappeared into the opening in the floor. I held my breath for fully a minute, then gently set down the chalice on the bedside table and rose to my feet.
I was afraid, but it would have been foolish not to be. Beneath the bed, a stairway appeared to lead down into the deepest regions of the castle. There was a smell of earth and a cool, damp breeze rose up from the dark hole. Cautiously, I stepped onto the top stair. I could sense no movement below me; the princes had descended quickly. I imagined their feet had not touched the cold stairs: they had glided down like phantoms. What commerce could they have in the dungeons of their father’s domain? I shuddered, thinking of unholy feasting and the cries of weak, dying prisoners. But the stairs did not emerge into the filthy vault I expected - they continued to plunge into darkness. What little moonlight had seeped into the hole was now eclipsed. My heart hammered against my ribs, and my eyes strained to see some glimmer of white below. On several occasions, I paused, thinking it would be better if I retraced my steps and sought to escape the castle undetected. Only a terrible fate could await me here. But perhaps some lingering essence of the princes’ charms, or a fume from the deadly chalice, encouraged me deeper.
After what seemed an hour of slow descent, I walked into a wall ahead. The stairs had ended. Feeling with outstretched fingers, I encountered to the right what appeared to be the entrance to a passageway or room. There was in fact a door, which opened at slight pressure from my fingers. A cold blue light engulfed me immediately, which sent me reeling back into the stairwell. After a few moments, my dark-adapted eyes adjusted, and I saw that a bare chamber lay before me, lit by tall white candles, which emitted the strange cyan radiance. At my feet lay two discarded skins; the night robes of the princes.
Opposite me was another door, upon which was carved the grinning head of some otherworldly creature. I knew that whatever lay beyond that door was personified by this carving, something bestial and corrupt. The princes had thrown away their mundane trappings; who knows what they had transformed into? Venturing onward might bring me to the same conclusion experienced by all my predecessors: death or perhaps worse. Doubt and fear yelped at my heels the entire distance of the chamber, and then my hand was upon the door and slowly it opened to my touch.
Beyond it lay a vast cavern, lit by knobs of greenish yellow radiance atop carved posts. I stood upon a stretch of black, mica-starred sand at which lapped the sluggish waters of an oily lake. A single boat carved a route across it; even from a distance I knew the pri
nces sat within it. The place was otherwise deserted. Looking up, I could see far overhead a forest of polished stalactites.Gnarled posts of stone rose from its waters like ancient markers. It was like the entrance to the land of the dead.
I walked along the shore following the direction the princes’ boat had taken, wondering how I could possibly keep close to them. The lake was a maze of stalagmites and I had no doubt that soon the twins would be lost to my view. Then, rounding an outcrop of rock, I came across a rotting jetty to which was tied a small rowboat. I exalted for only a moment, because I soon saw that a creature clad in black rags was crouched in the prow, its manner proprietorial. ‘Is this boat for hire?’ I asked it.
Twiggy, clawed fingers pushed back its tattered hood to reveal a leathery face with only slits for a nose and a lipless mouth, rather like a bat. Sparse hair grew along its brow. It regarded me thoughtfully for a few moments, and then shifted restlessly upon its haunches. ‘Might be,’ it lisped.
I offered it a coin, which it sniffed and bit. Presently, it snuffled loudly, then gestured at the simple bench seat in the middle of its vessel. ‘Where going?’
I climbed aboard and pointed at the vessel on the lake, which was fast disappearing between columns of stone. ‘To wherever that boat there goes.’
The creature nodded, as if this was a reasonable destination. It waved its skinny arms in the air, and the boat launched itself from the sand. Without the agency of oars or rudder, it began to nose its way after the vessel ahead.
The journey wasn’t long. After only half an hour or so, stronger light began to show through the forest of stalagmites and eventually the pillars of stone thinned out, until the lake was as clear and unmarked as a black mirror. Ahead, loomed a festival of lights and music; an island reared from the still water, and here it seemed was the princes’ destination. I have never heard music like it, nor shall again. It was fast and merry, yet strangely morbid; a blend of wailing pipes and hammering drums. I could see a host of figures cavorting about on the shore of the island. ‘What is this place?’ I asked the creature guiding the boat. ‘Who lives there?’
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