The face was distorted in a contemptuous grimace:
- Vile offsprings of darkness, premature bastards of eternal night whether you recognize me?
- Yes, oh, the Yellow Queen, we learn - the squeezed hissing was distributed from all directions.
- Whether you to me got that I enjoined?
- Yes, about the Yellow Queen. In total in an integrity and safety...
- Kindly, - the loud metal voice with satisfaction answered, - tomorrow in the same time wait for my gift - one hundred dwarfs and one hundred flying monkeys will come here... I think, for one winged maid and two plush youngs of wild animal it is quite enough, isn't it?
- Yes, about the Yellow Queen, You as always are divinely fair and generous, - prosipet arachnoid from all directions.
- And now transfer them to my messenger and you look - if you take in head
to deceive, know - I will burn all your garbage can - I will leave nobody!
After that the Face on a gold board flashed and went out, having lit up darkness of a cave intolerably bright light. The being in a raincoat efficiently got black from a pocket
subject from which the long tongue of a yellow solar flame escaped,
reminding something a sword edge. This sword it in a flash chopped dense
kleyushchuyusya the weight which tied captives to a ceiling.
The kitten and Puppy fell to a stone floor as usual plush toys - it is soft and is not heard, and the Fairy - directly on hands of the Being.
When falling it touched with hands its hood. He slept from the head, and it
saw … No, not the person, and a gold mask which of eye-sockets streamed it is dazzling a bright sunlight.
- Well, here, seemingly, I in possession of the Invincible Sun, - thought the Fairy and
fainted consciousness again...
Chapter 14. Unexpected meeting.
1.
The fairy regained consciousness from bright light.
It lay on the wide bed made by down feather-beds of yellow color. Over a bed - a magnificent gold silk canopy. Pillows were down and yellow too, and the blanket was not as temperature in the room was as in hot summer. On the Fairy the snow-white-white nightgown, also from the thinnest silk was dressed, hair are washed and accurately brushed and all body shone freshness and purity, umashcheno some aromatic smelling oil.
The first minute the Fairy could not understand where she is and what happened to her. In the head sketchy images - terrible nasekom of an eye, feeler flashed, zhvat, spidery paws - and they did not match the magnificent situation surrounding it in these solar chambers in any way. It seemed, all what occurred earlier - it was no more than dreadful dream... If not... Prince!
The look of the Fairy fell to a wedding ring on a ring finger of the right hand, and she remembered everything at once - Prinze's disappearance, loneliness, a difficult way on searches of the gone happiness... She wanted to begin to cry from melancholy again, but she did not manage to make it as she heard the Voice in the head. Soft, pleasant, musical, but with hardly distinguishable metal notes.
- I am glad to welcome you, the brave Fairy, in my modest dwelling. Be not afraid, you in safety now. Your nightmares behind. You in reliable hands...
- Who is it? - also mentally asked the question Fairy.
- And how you think? - the Voice responded.
- Invincible Sun?!
- It is most. I so seldom have guests, and here - to me as if on wave of a magic wand the fairy from Skies moreover from the highest ranks welcomed! Very long ago to me such guests did not come! I admit, I am flattered and surprised and even … is intrigued … - and somewhere away metal hand bells rang out.
- Why you left me in live? I am your enemy! And where my friends - the Kitten and the Puppy? And in general, how I appeared here? Where these terrible monsters and that … with Prinze?
- Oh, not all at once, not all at once, expensive! - again gold hand bells rang out in the head. - You are still very weak - poison of Inhabitants of a gloom is not so quickly removed - even beyond my powers to cure you all for couple of days... However, calm down, with your friends everything is all right - look in a window.
The fairy got up, removed a silk canopy, and it appeared in the spacious richly decorated room. The walls from a gold brick covered with the gold plates given a mirror-like polish in which it was possible to look as in a mirror. The big case and a bedside table from mahogany, a floor is laid by fluffy expensive carpet with the image of the meadow which is filled in with sunshine.
Having marveled unprecedented luxury of the room, she approached a gold window and looked out on the street. There, on a lawn from a gold grass, among gold trees with the gold singing parrots and cheerful gold to monkeys a happy Kitten and the Puppy already froliced. They carefree played with each other dogonyashka. It was visible that they have already rather a rest and otjetsya - they had happy muzzles burning from delight of an eye and an elastic brilliant hair. Their squeal filled all to the district.
- I understand nothing, - the Fairy thought. And really, somehow it did not match image of the Invincible Sun which was drawn with it by the "Reference book of fairies": the cruel mad sorcerer aspiring only to the power and ready for the sake of it to spill the rivers of blood …
- … And there is nothing surprising here... - the Voice responded, without hiding that it reads all her mind. - Yours "The reference book of fairies" is written by my enemies, to be exact, not enemies - I personally have no enemies - and envious women. Very long time ago fairies envied my knowledge and my beauty, and then - envied also my forces. They weaved plot networks against me and when I managed to win against them honest fight, they slandered me in the educational books and by that to this day new and new generations of fairies incite everything against me. But now you see that it not so …
The fairy from surprise was not what to answer on such absolutely, to put it mildly, very unexpected interpretation of events, and therefore kept silent. And a metal Voice in her head, having a little waited and not having waited for the answer, continued further:
- … And therefore - welcome, my Beautiful Fairy, in my modest halls! You will find not the ruthless Empress in me as deceitfully wrote about me, and the kind girlfriend and, perhaps, the wise tutor, - metal notes in her voice became softer and softer. It seemed, with the fairy not the imperious and ruthless sorcerer, and the form-master from School of fairies speaks.
The fairy it was literally fascinated by beauty of its voice. It caught itself on thought, what cannot already think of anything, except as about that, "as its voice as It is beautiful as dobra as it is wonderful, It - perfection is beautiful..." These thoughts rushed in consciousness of the Fairy a persuasive refrain while she listened to her, but suddenly the look of the Fairy fell again to a wedding ring and as if the veil fell down from her eyes.
- And where Prinze? Where my favourite Prinze? Where it was gone? Where you hide it?
- Well what with you to do! - with easy reproach the Voice with what the gentle mother or the grandmother afflicted with the fact that the sick child and tries ahead of time usually speaks provorkovat to get up. - You will absolutely ruin yourself, so being indifferent to the health. You not worse me know that after the second childbirth the health of fairies is affected irrevocably on for the rest of the life. In such state in general it is dangerous to them to be let in any travel, especially in such dangerous what was started by you...
- To me all the same, what my health! - the Fairy did not sustain. - Without Prinze and life is not lovely to me, I will better die prematurely, than I will be left without him though for a moment. Show me it! Immediately!
- Truth? Surprisingly... For the sake of mortal - to die... Very strange... - as if arguing with itself aloud, murmured the Voice. - Probably, during my absence in Skies fairies had some unforeseen mutations … - And then, having as if bethought that gave accidentally the thoughts, suddenly sharply passed to official and unctuous tone. - Well. As you want. I will send Pri
nze to you very soon. Remember, I wait for both of you in an hour in the Emerald hall. Prinze knows about her. To a meeting, dear Fairy, see you soon!
And the Fairy remained one. In her soul there was a storm. She understood nothing. She went to cause the Invincible Sun on fight, and met the rescuer and the hospitable hostess in her face. It went to win the Prinze and to run from here, and now the Invincible Sun itself sends to it Prinze. She did not trust to the uniform word of the Invincible Sun, but she had no basis to catch her in a lie... The fairy understood nothing because she was not ready to such succession of events.
Its course of thoughts suddenly interrupted small soft noise - the part in appearance of a solid mirror wall stepped aside. The tall man in the gold tunic to knees which is tied up up to a waist by a gold belt with a buckle in the form of the sun and gold sandals entered rooms of the Fairy, on the head of it the gold hoop with an emerald shone, and the face is hidden behind a gold mask.
The fairy vaguely remembered the person in a raincoat with a hood and a mask in a cave of these awful paukomonstr.
- Who are you? - watchfully the Fairy asked, having instinctively recoiled from the stranger. - Why you in a mask? And well remove it quickly, otherwise I will strike magic blow to you!
- Well, well, well, only without the victims! - soft, gentle, such painfully familiar voice was distributed. And with these words the man unmasked, and she saw … dear Prinze's face! He friendly smiled, approached, sat down on edge of a bed near the Fairy.
- Welcome to the Gold Hall, expensive. Now you in safety, - he told, having repeated three-four times the last phrase, gently running hands over hair of the Fairy.
- Why you were in a mask? - being mistrustfully discharged of it the Fairy spoke. - Why you were in a cave in such strange look?
- Anything strange, expensive. For such, as we, got used to twilight, and even to darkness and cold of mortal carnal life, here too bright light and heat. The mask helps eyes not to grow blind from a large number of light, especially at meetings with its Perfection, and to face skin not to sweat from heat. Besides it shines in darkness, and therefore was useful much to me when I went to rescue on behalf of its Perfection you from Murin.
For some reason the Fairy did not believe to his uniform word, though really there was too bright light and enough hot. But she pretended that everything is good.
- Well and glory to the Creator! - falsely with relief the Fairy - all women any natural skilled workers of pretense, and our Fairy told not an exception of this rule. - I am glad, dear Prinze that you are live and healthy. Well, let's thank the Hostess for reception and we will go home. - With these words it took Prinze's hands in the palms (they were so heat that the Fairy frowned from pain, but endured). - We are waited by our children, Oslenok … And the Kitten and the Puppy want already, probably, home. Missed...
- Why home?! - suddenly somehow Prinze as though heard some perfect nonsense strange started. - Unless to you it is bad here, expensive? Let's stay for a while a little more. Its Perfection so the dobra is already hospitable, to me at it it is so good and it will be pleasant to you too. By the way, if we want (for it there is nothing impossible, it is powerful as the Sun), it in a couple of hours will transfer both our kids, and Oslenk here - as transferred me.
The fairy felt ill at ease - the Prince as changed. At first this mask, this raincoat hiding a figure, then intolerable heat of palms, now talk on remaining. And the thought that her beloved children will become hostages in a den of this terrible solar ghost was for it disgusting.
But the Fairy gave nothing the feelings. On the contrary, having pretended to be attentively listening, the Fairy got up, approached a case where her things were hung accurately up, and got from a pocket of the washed and stroked tunic presented to it by Laura Zerkaltse of the Truth and as if was accidentally looked in it, allegedly to correct a hairdress. At the same time it turned a mirror so that in it is mute also the face of the Prince was reflected. What was seen in a mirror forced it to shudder - the Prince from legs to the head was filled with a flame, from his lips and eyes clubs of a solar flame escaped, and around the head the fiery nimbus reminding a royal crown shone.
The fairy fast hid a pocket mirror under a pillow and, indifferently, embraced Prinze, pressed his hot person to the breast, hardly suffering from pain, and whispered:
- Yes, yes, of course, my dear Prinze, all is good, now all will be good. We surely will remain and we will stay for a while with its Perfection so much how many it is necessary. Now all will be good. - And at this time mentally considered - time, two, three, four... ten … twenty. If only it was not given by thoughts - who knows, maybe now the Invincible Sun reads them. One thought at the same time haunted it - what became with Prinze? And the answer to her question was not …
And then the Fairy discharged it and told:
- Well, all, darling, I should make toilet. Its Perfection waits for us in the Emerald Hall.
- Yes, yes, of course, - began to nod-headed Prinze, giving a hand to the awful mask. - I will come for you exactly in hour - And right there left in the opened aperture in a wall.
At last the Fairy remained in the room one! Though, of course, no guarantee in it existed - the Invincible Sun could give nothing the invisible presence. And therefore the Fairy tried not to think of anything serious, and to concentrate on usual female features.
First of all, she decided to descend in a bath. Though it was pure, but she wanted to be washed once again, most. It it, of course, did not manage to be made as not only that at one thought of it the door in a bath opened by itself. So still it should have entered inside as on it the whole pack of the flying basts, vials of shampoos and other bathing accessories snatched. And when it was poured from all directions by streams of hot water, she understood that will not allow to be washed independently by it.
However, it was even pleasant to the Fairy. "It will be necessary to make the same at home. Only to make the mode is softer because sometimes there is a wish to descend in a bath with Prinze, and then all these self-washing basts will only disturb …"
Therefore she quietly passed to wooden floorings, laid down on them and allowed basts to wash herself as much as necessary. It is necessary to tell, they did it skillfully. Accurately, unostentatiously, gently … The fairy needed only to substitute this or that part of a body - any more than nothing!
The head it was washed special, made of some soft and elastic material, a hand (more precisely, only hands). Shampoos were absolutely unusual. Such impression that it was not soap but only that collected nectar from fresh flowers. From such smell there was even a wish to taste them - the Fairy hardly from it kept. When streams of hot water washed away from it foam, water stopped flowing, the stream of warm air getting into a bath, probably, from the same openings as water right there rustled.
"And massage?" - the Fairy thought, she so loved this awfully pleasant medical procedure which with such art was done by the Kitten after a bath!
To it it was worth thinking only of it how to it right there from where flew up the whole six hands from the same material, as the first two, and began to mass all parts it thin, turned pink from a bath, bodies. The fairy closed eyes from pleasure and thought that after all horrors, and the most important - difficulties of this travel from which the most difficult was - refusal of comfort, obligatory for any fairy, is her lawful award!
When massage, at last, was finished, the same hands began to oil her body pink odorous from which skin became gentle, as at the baby.
Generally, the Fairy left absolutely changed a bath. So well she did not feel long ago! It is a pity only that in a mirror you will not be looked - local mirrors are bewitched - better not to risk …
Then the Fairy approached a case from mahogany and wanted to take the old clothes … But here other door of the same case opened and from it another took off absolutely …
The fairy gasped with surprise! Such expensive dresses, it, is remembered, carried never before …
The long dress entirely weaved from gold threads, with big cut on a breast and without sleeves, sheathed at the edges by small diamonds (as did a dress unusually valuable and beautiful).
Together with it from a box of a case the diamond necklace on a gold thread and a diamond diadem took off. And a little later there were already familiar "hands" armed with combs and gold hairpins of different caliber, hanks of gold threads. They right there began to braid golden long hair of the Fairy in a long braid, interweaving gold threads there. They worked so accurately and carefully that the Fairy never screamed from pain - what you will not tell about how to it the Kitten braided hair! - and the Fairy thought that it would be quite good and to bring such magic servant in the lodge … Absolutely not bad!
And then also, from nowhere, there were other "hands" - with a totality of various cosmetics in caskets from red and an ebony. The gold chair itself approached legs of the Fairy, and as the playful lamb, slightly butted her to the back place, inviting to sit down. The fairy sat down - and hands right there began to impose a make-up …
The fairy had to trust in them completely because she persistently did not want to look in a mirror. But "hands" knew the business. Their program was made by the Invincible Sun when it still had a body, and made taking into account all possible factors - and like skin, both a shade of hair, and face proportions, and colors of eyes and … much many other. "Hands" were counted at once what colors, tone and half tone most of all will approach such person and turned to work.
When work was ended, the Fairy was burned with impatience - so there was a wish to be looked though somewhere! But she was afraid of magical mirrors, and the Truth Mirror - especially. You never know, as it will react to such impudent attempt to use it not for designated purpose! The destiny of his unfortunate creator still did not go out of the mind of the Fairy …
Unconquered Sun Page 45
