Thorn Boy and Other Dreams of Dark Desire (39 page)

‘
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 the 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.

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.