Thorn Boy and Other Dreams of Dark Desire (25 page)

‘
He was
an angel,’ Variel replied, laughing. ‘I was an angel too and he
kicked me into the world of men.’

Phoebe laughed
too. ‘You are a strange one, Variel. Your sense of humour is
peculiar at times.’

Variel
frowned. ‘No, I lied. I was not kicked into the world of men. It
was my choice. I loved a man. I followed him. But now it’s like a
dream.’ She turned and stumbled away from the water, one hand to
her eyes, the other blindly reaching forward.

Perplexed and
concerned Phoebe scrambled from the water, her wet skin gleaming
like silver, and hurried after her, not even pausing to dress
herself. ‘Variel, stop! Come back!’ She ran after the swiftly
marching Variel and laid a restraining hand on her arm.

Variel spun
around, shaking her arm from Phoebe’s hold. ‘Am I human, am I?’ she
demanded angrily.

Phoebe
was frightened and confused. Had Variel gone mad? ‘Of course you
are,’ she soothed, and then remembered the weird, shimmering body
she had found in the byre, the odd sexuality of it, the alien feel
of it. ‘You are
now
,’ she
amended.

Variel
snarled. ‘Don’t be so sure!’ she snapped and then with another
lightning change of expression began to cry and raised her face to
the moon. ‘Goddess, what am I? Can I truly live here in
contentment? Am I worthy of such a thing? Or will I one day petrify
and shatter and break like a crystal shard? Oh, help me! Help
me!’

Phoebe was
concerned that one of her brothers on his evening chores might hear
the commotion and come to investigate. She dragged the protesting,
wailing Variel back into the hollow, where the night breeze ruffled
the surface of the pool. The water grasses rattled as if the
Goddess herself was concerned at what was happening. ‘Get into the
water!’ Phoebe ordered, tearing Variel’s clothes from her back.
‘Come on: hurry! Get into the water!’ Above them, a vast, pale moon
sank towards the trees at the edge of the meadow.

Shivering and
weeping, Variel removed the petticoats and undergarments that were
gifts from Phoebe’s mother. ‘Do not look at me,’ she said.

Phoebe turned
away her face. She did not look back until she could hear Variel
splashing into the pool. Crouched down below the surface, only
Variel’s face showed above the water, her eyes wide and black, her
white-gold hair floating around her head like wet silk.

Phoebe stepped
into the pool and held out her hands, of which Variel took hold.
‘Pray,’ Phoebe entreated. ‘Pray, Variel, pray! Don’t lose it all.
Gain more! Pray!’

Phoebe’s hands
ached from the iron grip of Variel’s weirdly strong limbs. Tears
squeezed from between Phoebe’s eyelids with the pain. The water
felt like ice around her legs and stomach. Everything hurt and
Variel’s face was pinched into an ugly expression of helpless
pleading, of determination, of angry strength. Suddenly, with a
final agonising squeeze of her hands and a shuddering gasp, Variel
threw back her head and, releasing Phoebe from her grip, raised her
arms to the sky. With a fluting peal of triumph, Variel rose up
from the water, her wet hair clinging to her body, and Phoebe
backed, splashing, towards the bank, wiping her face. It was as if
she beheld an embodiment of the Goddess herself. From between the
strands of Variel’s encompassing hair, proud, blooming breasts
jutted like perfect fruit; an area that had been rather devoid of
swelling before. The waist curved in as if carved from perfect wood
and, as Variel strode through the water to the bank, Phoebe could
clearly see that was no longer the slightest evidence of
masculinity between her legs.

Wild-eyed,
Variel stood upon the bank. ‘I have been answered!’ she cried,
fists clenched and raised above her head.

Phoebe
scrambled up the bank. She could not speak. She knew she had
witnessed some kind of miracle but it had been so awesome, so
strange, she was unsure whether gods or demons had been responsible
for it.

The next
morning, Phoebe was awoken by a chilling cry from Variel’s bed. In
an instant she hurried to her friend’s side, throwing back the
blankets, fearing some reversal of last night’s event.There was no
need to worry. Clutching her stomach, Variel struggled from the
bed, where the bottom sheet was stained with red. There could be no
mistake. Variel was truly a woman. The Goddess had visited her with
the indelible mark of femininity. As the earth, as the beasts, as
the birds themselves, Variel was one of the Goddess’s creatures
now. A fertile female. It was then that she knew it was time for
her to seek the city of Ashbrilim.

The family
were hardly pleased that Variel wanted to leave them. At breakfast,
she told them she must seek the city of the king. She was grateful
for all the help they had given her, and one day hoped to reward
them for their troubles, but she knew she had a destiny and had to
fulfil it.

‘
What
business do you have in Ashbrilim?’ asked Phoebe’s
father.

‘
I must
find the man I love,’ Variel said. ‘I made a promise.’

Reluctantly,
the family gave her provisions and fondly wished her farewell.
Phoebe wept openly and begged Variel to return to her one day. This
Variel promised to do, if she was able. She too was sad to leave
her friends, who had given her so much, but she had a purpose and
could not deny it.

For many days
and nights, Variel travelled to Ashbrilim. Along the way, she
questioned people about Jadalan. ‘Does the king have a son?’ she
asked.

‘
Of
sorts,’ she was told. ‘Though some say he is not quite of this
world.’

Variel was
then sure that Jadalan had found his way home. She had only to
present herself at the palace for them to be reunited.

However, once
in the city, Variel quickly discovered that a common person simply
could not walk in through the gates of the palace. She spoke to the
guards on duty at the main entrance and said she had come to see
Jadalan, the son of the king.

‘
There
is no such person,’ said one of the guards. ‘The king’s son is
Ailacumar.’

Another guard
laughed. ‘Perhaps she has come to offer herself as a bride to the
prince! There’s enough of ‘em flocking here for that!’

‘
Then
she should get his name right,’ said the first. ‘We were told that
Jadalan died as a babe. The new son is Ailacumar. Be off with you,
wench! Look at you. You’re no friend of royalty.’The guards clearly
thought Variel was mad.

Variel
pondered the situation until nightfall. Then, because she was more
agile than a human could be, she climbed an ancient oak next to the
high wall that surrounded the palace gardens. She crawled along a
wide limb that hung over the garden and dropped down onto the wide
lawn beneath. The palace gleamed before her in the moonlight. She
could see guards stationed around it. For while longer, she must
think and plan.

At the back of
the palace was an orchard at the end of the kitchen garden. Variel
made her way to this place and climbed into an old apple tree, next
to a clear pool of water. Here, she went to sleep and trusted that
her dreams would advise her.

In the early
morning, the head gardener’s short-sighted daughter passed by the
pool and looked into it. She saw the reflection of Variel’s face in
the water and mistaking it for her own, said, ‘Why, how beautiful I
am! I should not be working in the garden. I shall ask my father to
go to the king at once and tell him that I am the true bride he
seeks for the handsome boy he calls a son, who sighs and sleeps so
much.’

Variel had
been woken by these remarks and looked down in wonder.She meant to
speak, but the girl hurried off before she could do so. A short
while later, just as Variel was considering climbing to the ground,
the gardener’s wife happened to be passing and she also paused to
look into the water. As her daughter had done before her, she
mistook Variel’s radiant reflection for her own – the daughter had
inherited short sight from her too. ‘Well, look at me!’ she
declared. ‘I am beauty itself! Why should I be married to a mere
gardener? I will go to the king at once and tell him I am the true
bride he seeks for that boy he calls a son, who sleeps so much and
speaks so little.’

A short time
later, as the gardener went into his house for breakfast, he was
faced with his womenfolk, who he could only presume to be demented.
There they were in the kitchen, putting on finery and talking about
being so beautiful they must wed a prince. To him, they looked the
same as they always had. In between arguments with each other about
who was the most beautiful and fit to become a princess, they told
the gardener about how they’d seen their reflections in the pool
that morning. Suspecting capricious magic at work, the gardener
went himself to investigate the matter. He saw the beautiful face
in the pool and looked up, spying at once the young woman hiding
among the green leaves.

‘
Are you
a witch?’ he asked her.

‘
No,’
Variel answered. ‘I am a lady from a far land, and I have come to
see the prince.’

‘
Get
down,’ said the gardener. ‘You are charming my womenfolk in strange
ways, and it must not be.’

Variel climbed
down out of the tree. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘You are most
kind not to report me to the guards. Will you favour me further and
tell me more about the talk I’ve heard, that the prince is to be
married?’

Because she
was so beautiful, and the gardener was charmed by her in a
different way to the women, he told her that Prince Ailacumar was
so listless, his parents had been advised by the palace physicians
to find a bride for him, in the hope that vivacious female company
might coax him from his lethargy. ‘Girls and women from all
quarters of the world have come to the palace,’ said the gardener.
‘And now, I have heard, King Ashalan and Lord Jadrin have chosen a
suitable bride. The wedding takes place very shortly.’

‘
Will
you help me?’ Variel said. ‘I am the prince’s one true
love.’

The gardener
stared at her, ‘I should think you mad,’ he said, ‘but I have never
seen a girl like you.’

‘
If
you’ll take me to the prince, you’ll not regret it,’ Variel
said.

Sighing, the
gardener nodded and took her into the palace. They went to the room
where the royal family took their breakfast, and here Jadrin and
Ashalan sat with their adopted son, whose head was sunk on his
breast in slumber. Variel recognised him at once as the one she
loved. Also seated at the table was an exotic princess from a far
land, who was indeed very beautiful, but she might as well have
been a horse for all the notice Jadalan took of her.

‘
What is
this?’ King Ashalan demanded as the gardener ushered Variel towards
the table.

‘
This
young woman claims to know the prince,’ he explained.

‘
Indeed!’ said Jadrin. ‘You must tell us all you know of him,
girl.’

But Variel
barely heard Jadrin’s words. She rushed to Jadalan’s side and knelt
beside his chair. ‘Hear me,’ she said, ‘I have come to you as I
promised I would. Awake and look upon me.’

Jadalan did
not stir, but uttered a soft sound as if his dreams were
pleasant.

Variel knew
then that some creature must have touched Jadalan in love before
she’d come to him, and that all memory of her had faded from his
mind. Part of him was lost, perhaps, in the land of angels.

Variel took
hold of his hands and no one stopped her. Jadalan’s parents and his
prospective bride looked on in curiosity and perhaps some hope that
this stranger could awaken the prince. Variel began to sing, ‘For
you I raised the city dead, for you I drained the lake, for you I
took the pearl of life with both our lives at stake. For love of
thee, beloved one, I fell for love of thee. And to this world I
came a girl, your one true love to be.’

When Jadrin
heard this song, he asked Variel what she meant, for their son had
not spoken of any of these things to his parents.

Variel looked
at him and said, ‘Three times I completed the tasks that Jadalan
had been given by my father, Lailahel. He is my one true love, but
now he will not awaken or speak to me. I have travelled here in
vain.’

‘
Jadalan!’ Ashalan exclaimed. ‘How is this possible? Our son
was hardly more than a baby when he was taken from us. We dared not
hope this person might be him.’

‘
This is
your son, Jadalan, have no doubt,’ Variel said. ‘Time passes
differently in the land of angels. And I was an angel’s son,
banished from my father’s realm for daring to love a
human.’

At once,
Jadrin jumped out of his chair and went to his son’s side. He put
his arms around Jadalan and kissed his face and told him to
awaken.

The sound of
his name drifted through the fog in Jadalan’s mind and he opened
his eyes. The first thing he saw was Variel’s face and she leaned
forward quickly and kissed him upon the mouth. At her touch,
Jadalan’s memory returned completely, and he stood up, drawing
Variel to her feet also. It quickly became clear that the exotic
foreign princess would not become his bride.

Jadalan and
Variel were married very soon after, and lived long and interesting
lives. Jadrin never again resorted to conjuring magical beings to
grant his desires, and used his own magic to stay young for many
years after Ashalan had gone to his grave an old man.Of the angel
Lailahel, nothing was heard again.

The True Destiny of the Heir to
Emiraldra