Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(23)

“Well, here’s our father’s latest guest.”

It was the tallest, eldest girl who spoke, with amber hair. In age, the soldier thought, she was some years his junior, but then a wealthy, cared-for woman, he knew, could often look much younger than her years, just as a poor and ill-used one could seem older.

“There is a chamber set by for you,” levelly said the girl with tortoiseshell hair.

“Every comfort in it,” said the girl with topaz hair.

“But we know you won’t enjoy that since—” said the girl with hair like beech leaves.

“You must watch us closely and follow behind so that—” said hair like walnut wood.

“You may report to the king what we do,” concluded hair like cornfields.

“A shame,” said Summer Wine.

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? Tanith Lee ?

“And unkindness,” said Spring Hair.

“Every inch of your tired frame must protest,” said Winter Mead.

“But such is human life,” said Copper, tossing her locks as she stopped her comb.

“Alas,” said Bronze, also stopping hers.

Then, in the sparkless gloaming, Gold-as-Gold said this: “We know you must do it, and will never deny you have now no choice.

Come, join us then in a cup of liquor for the journey, and we’ll be on our way, while you shall follow, poor soldier, as best you can.”

The soldier bowed very low, but he said nothing, and when they poured out the wine, each had a bright metal cup with jewels set round the rim. But the cup they gave him was of bright polished metal too.

Then the young women drank, and the soldier pretended to drink, because what the witch had told him was so firmly fixed in his brain he was by that instant like a fine actor who had learned his part to perfection. And presently he did speak, and said might he sit just for a minute, and the young women who were by then finishing putting on their cloaks and shoes for the outer world, or so it looked, nodded and said he might.

Yannis thought, The draught came from the same pitcher. The drug must be in the cup—but no matter, I never even put my lip to it without my finger between.

Next he plumped down the cup, spilling a drop. He let his head droop suddenly and seemed surprised. He smiled for the first, stupidly. Then he shut his eyes and thought, God help me now, but he had not forgotten the secret of the trance.

Another moment and Yannis himself sat upright in the chair, even as his body stretched unconscious across it. He was out of his skin.

And oh, the moonlight in the chamber then, how thrillingly clear, a transparent silver mirror that he could see straight through. And the soul-cord that connected flesh and spirit, more silver yet.

He let himself drift up a wall, and hung there, and watched.

They came soon enough, and tried him, gently at first. Then they ? 79 ?

? Below the Sun Beneath ?

mocked, and Amber and Beech Leaves and Spring Beer slapped his face, and then Cornfields came up to him and tickled him maliciously.

Walnut Wood kicked his sound ankle, and Bronze and Winter Mead spat on him. Tortoiseshell cursed him articulately, in which Summer Wine and Copper joined. Only Topaz stuck a pin into his arm and twisted it.

Sure he slept, they then turned together up the room to its darker end, where Gold yet stood, the youngest of them. She instead came down, and hesitated by him a second. Standing in air, the soldier thought, Now what will she do?

“Poor boy,” said Gold, though her face was impassive, and she anyway half his age. “Poor boy.”

“You silly,” called one of the others. “Why pity him? Would he pity us? Hurry, so we can be off.”

So Gold left him, or his body, sleeping.

But Yannis pursued all of them, unseen, up the room.

They spoke a rhyme in that ancient and angular other tongue, and then they stamped, each one, on a different part of the floor. At that, the dogs, cats, and birds—who had taken not much note of him— looked round at the far wall, which sighed and slowly shifted open.

Beyond lay blackness, but there came the scent of cold stones and colder night. One by one the girls fluttered through like gorgeous moths. Yannis followed without trouble. Even though the hidden door was already closing, he strode on two strong legs straight through the wall.





III


Beginning with an enclosed stone stair, which did not impede the now-fleet-of-foot Yannis, the passage descended. Nor did the almost utter dark inconvenience him; his unbodied eyes saw better than the best. After the stair came a descent of rubble, but everything contained within the granite bastions of the palace. Here and there the accustomed steps of the princesses now did falter. Once, Yannis found to his dismay, he reached out to steady the youngest princess.