Rhianon – Princess of Fire

«Do you think it would be much better if the natives deprived you of your mind?»

The voice didn’t come through; she was probably just imagining it. No one would be out there in the nighttime woods. Suddenly it was a woman’s squeaky voice, like a tiny fairy perched on the nearest driftwood.

And yet there was a point to what was being said. Rhianon knew from the tales of bards and the frequent arrivals at the castle gates that an encounter with fairy folk could drive a man mad. It was to be believed. In the castle, even the most innocuous spell had the power to take the mind of any court lady or gentleman. It often happened. Someone was thus deprived of an enemy, but sometimes there were occasional casualties. That’s the worst thing about witchcraft, you never know what powers you might summon and against whom they might turn.

You wouldn’t want to meet a creature that would drive you insane without even noticing it. Or maybe it was worth the risk, to see if everything was as they said.

Rhiannon looked around carefully. There was nothing but fallen foliage, tree stumps, and bare branches that weaved an intricate lace overhead so that the sky was barely visible. There was no movement, not even a remote hint that anyone was around, and yet her senses could not deceive her. There was life bubbling nearby. And it didn’t matter that there was silence all around. Even the sounds of an entire civilization could not excite her as much as what she felt.

«Come, come, we’re almost there,» her companion urged her on and on. He must have said that a hundred times, as if he believed that his words would determine how quickly they reached her.

«What is it?» As the forest landscape in front of them began to change into a cave-like darkness, Rhianon became worried.

«They are only abandoned mines,» said the companion nonchalantly, walking hurriedly down the rocky steps in the darkness of the cave. – Wouldn’t you like to find gold down there? You said you wanted to believe in luck.

«Wait, that wasn’t our agreement,» she didn’t want to go with him to the bottom of some forgotten mine, but she didn’t seem to have a choice; she wouldn’t be able to find her way back, and the green cap of her escort was already disappearing around the corner of the rocky staircase. Here’s the thing, it seems that not long ago it was a hat with bells, not a cap.

«Well, are you coming or not,» she heard from the depths of the ground, where the crumbling steps led. Rhianon looked back one last time; there the forest was behind her, and in front of her went down an impenetrable darkness, and that was where she had to go. She was afraid to step on the stairs carved in the cave, and when she did step, the darkness became impenetrable. It was as if something had closed in behind her, cutting off the way back.

«Hey,» she called out to her guide, but her voice was lost in the cave’s ramifications. No one answered her, only an echo, but not the usual kind of echo, a kind of polyphonic and multi-voiced, as if thousands of tiny creatures were laughing back.

Rhiannon moved forward, hoping to find her guide, but he was long gone. She groped her way forward, hoping to find her guide, but she soon saw him gone, his green cap lined with a single bell on one of the steps. Rhiannon bent down and picked it up, and suddenly the world around her was transformed.

It was still a cave, but no longer as narrow and cramped. The stairway carved in the stone was far behind her, and ahead of her was no mine, only a vast oval-shaped hall, surrounded on all sides by uneven walls of caves. Rhianon was standing in the very center of it. Strangely, it was no longer dark around her. The girl lifted her head and looked around. The vaults of the ceiling were invisible to her, and up there, there was no source of light at all; the light was coming from everywhere, from the very depths of the earth and at the same time, from nowhere. Rhianon didn’t even try to lift the hat that had come off her head, and her hair fell loosely to her shoulders. Something in her clothing was also subtly changing, instead of the stiff man’s clothes she now felt the touch of brocade against her skin, and a long turquoise train swirled behind her.

«Look in the mirror, my dear,» came the voice of her recent escort, though he was still out of sight.

«There isn’t a mirror,» Rhianon said indignantly, but she glanced around for the strange creature who had brought her here. It might be hiding somewhere. But above her head was a wisp of silver smoke. Sometimes she could see the shape of a face through the smoke. Here and there the smoke swirled, causing her to turn back and forth so that she couldn’t let it out of her sight.

When she turned around for him once more, her gaze stumbled upon the mirror. She froze in amazement. The lady whose reflection she could see full-length in front of her was dressed far more richly and elegantly than the princess she remembered. A turquoise dress with a tight corsage gracefully encircled her figure, flowing from her slim waist in clouds of iridescent brocade and seemed not to end at all, because the train lying on the floor stretched endlessly.

«Shall I make it a little shorter?» The voice asked sympathetically. And why would anyone care so much about her? Rhianon turned around to examine it more closely, and the train itself seemed to her like a living snake that slid across the floor.

And then she noticed several more mirrors in the walls and was struck, but not because they perfectly copied and multiplied her reflection. It was something else that caught her attention. The mirrors were magnificent, but not straight, as if granite had grown into the amalgam and frames, the pebbles were unevenly interlocked here and there at the edges, and seemed to be an integral part of these strange shining mirrors. They did not grow out of the walls, did they? But then why were they not even hanging tightly against the walls, but as if they were growing out of them, like fungus or other parasitic growths. And there are more and more of them, whichever way you look. So many recesses with mirrors made the room seem polygonal rather than oval.

«You look beautiful, your Highness,» the same voice said, and Rhianon noticed that she had a diadem in her loose hair and that the long locks of her hair were being gathered into a beautiful hairdo as if someone were setting them and pins the top of it with tiny diamonds.

«Splendid,» the voice went on, «I swear you are the loveliest lady that could have been here, and if we hadn’t been there in time you might have had your charming head cut off.»

«What do you mean?» she said the question with her lips, but the silvery smoke above her rippled, took on a fuzzy shape, coiled itself in a thin ring around her head, and disintegrated back into a myriad of sparkling sprays. And still, even if for a moment it split or disappeared, it looked like one living thing.

«I recognized you,» she remarked toward the swirling silvery dust that made up the smoke. Though the shape was different now, her recent escort’s voice echoed her remark with a laugh thick as smoke.

«You’d better watch yourself,» he advised her.

She did so, noting with pleasure that she liked it better than what she’d worn at Court, and not because it was more beautiful, the brocade gently warming her skin without arousing the firestorm in her veins. On the contrary, it was as if the fabric dulled her inner fire. It felt so good to feel the texture of the precious fabric. And the color was just her favorite blue. Delicate as the morning sky, as water, as ice… perhaps it was this shade that appealed to her because it challenged the element of fire raging in her blood. It was the color of the sea and ice blocks. It went with her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t chosen by accident. In any case, it was the best dress Rhianon had ever felt in her life. She was only surprised by the border of gold lace running cloudy across the hemispheres of her breasts. After all, where there is sun there is fire, even if it is a thin ray.

«But you’re a royal princess. The color of kings is gold,» the voice reminded her softly, and it was clear from his tone that he was lying, trying to divert her attention from something more important. Something she didn’t know yet.

«Why can’t I see you?» Rhianon looked around for the nonexistent person she was talking to. «And where does your voice come from when you can’t be seen? Are you behind one of the mirrors?»

She had seen illusions produced by mirrors at Court before, but this was something else, and she no longer dared to call it a mere trick. She did not feel the presence of a living body nearby, not in the cavernous hall or behind the alcoves of the mirrors. Only the silvery smoke wafted over her head, thinning, gathering back into a cloud, sometimes vibrating, and the voice seemed to emanate from it.

In answer to her, of course, only a light laugh sounded, like the quiet ringing of a bell on the green cap she still clutched in her hands.

«I guessed who you were,» Rianon declared, to reassure him a little. She wanted to stop playing hide-and-seek with him, but then suddenly realized that she didn’t even know his name. He never introduced himself, no name, no title, no position in society, had he at least been a court jester or if she could have called him a spirit for sure, but she couldn’t. She just didn’t have time to ask him his name.

«What is your name?» She looked around quickly, trying in vain to catch sight of the fumes that kept escaping. Now it seemed to envelop her in a shimmering cloud overhead, with a mocking, low jingle.

«Give me a name!» He either asked or demanded.

«But…» She clutched the green cap tighter with her hands and turned her head again sharply, trying to focus her gaze on the haze. It was in motion, and her voice sounded like it was coming from all around the room.

«Courage, princess, call me something,» he began to tease. «I am your own personal demon, after all.»

«What do you mean?» She was already wrinkling the cap nervously with her cold fingers; she wanted to think he was joking this time, but the intonation didn’t sound like it. Even the bells went silent for a moment. «What did you say?»

She’d heard of something like this before, seen even more glazed eyes and corpses, blue with blood loss, with veins ripped open, with dead lips still seemingly ready to whisper the forbidden name of the one who had ripped them from their normal human life to give a moment of sparkle and then ruin them.

«Don’t pretend it’s nothing to you,» he said, as if he had read her mind.

Rhianon shrugged her bared shoulders in contempt, but the images of the terrible premature deaths of those who had become famous were still vivid in her mind. One of these men had even become a court poet, he was granted a title, given an estate, made welcome at all the banquets, the other peasant boy would rejoice to tears that he was out of the mud for his talent almost made a prince, but he just stood in the corner with glowing eyes, drank a lot, did not want to look at women, and once confessed that there is someone who is always watching him from the void and even more owns him. His personal demon was the companion of all the brilliant and illustrious. After such a confession, he was found dead the next morning. It happened long ago, when Rhianon’s father, King of Loretta, was still alive, and she remembered to this day. And even his father’s death did not make such a terrible impression on her as that untimely death. After that, something dark and creepy seemed to take up residence in the castle and remained there until the corpse was burned in the main castle square. Rhianon shuddered in fear and disgust, so as not to betray all her feelings, she could only pretend that she knew nothing of it.

«What is the meaning of this?» She asked as if she hadn’t already done so.

«Haven’t you ever heard of a personal demon, Princess?» It was as if he knew already, and he laughed at her incredulity. It was as if he was looking at her from inside herself, but it couldn’t be. She has no talent for which such an attack as a black companion can be unleashed upon her. The flame within that made the princess dangerous.

«Don’t call me that,» she looked around the mirrors, as if not inserted but grown between the cavernous partitions, searching in vain for his reflection.

«No one can hear us here,» tried to calm her the voice, but Rhianon somehow still thought that these mirrors, as if grown from crumbling walls, can serve as a window to the outside world.

She noticed tiny, strange-looking insects crawling over the scraps of gilded frame visible from the sandstone and stone. How strange, thought Rhianon, the pieces of mirror growing directly from the cave stone, as if inseparable from it, and on the other side of them might well be the fun of the magical folk imprisoned there. Or not imprisoned at all, but just like her, peering through a window into an alien world. She thought she heard laughter and clinking glasses and music. On the other side of one of the mirrors it was as if the merriment of the feast had reached her.

«They, too, were singing and cheering and challenging each other, just like humans, but they weren’t humans at all.»

«Would it be possible to have a look at them sometime?» She knew the risk. But the world, not even open yet, only reflected behind one of the mirrors, drew her irresistibly toward it. After all, nothing bad could happen if she just looked at them once. It is the dream of all men that touching the forbidden will leave them without consequence. There haven’t been any such people who have succeeded, if the rumors are to be believed, yet, but who knows, maybe she’s the lucky one. Gee, how the bottom of a moment of fairy intimacy can cloud a mortal’s mind. She immediately forgot almost everything, the past full of troubles, the danger that still threatened her, and even the silvery haze that had already enveloped her shoulders.

«I’ll take you through all the worlds and show you anything you want to see, but first give me a name,» the voice asked softly, and the shimmering smoke, already shaped like a young man’s head, was bent right up to her ear. «Call me whatever you like, whatever comes to your mind.»

«Orpheus,» she said almost automatically, in memory of the harp, whose enchanting sounds she heard beneath her tower in the evening, and of course in memory of the harpist himself. The sound of her new acquaintance’s voice was just like that harp, just as piercing, invading her brain and completely enchanting. – Is that all right with you?

«Of course,» he pulled back from her shoulders so quickly it would have seemed like an acrobat’s trick, no longer a shapeless smoke but the man she’d met in the tavern. He looked a little different now, as if he had been transformed from a pale buffoon to an almost handsome man. His eyes, at any rate, shone like jewels and his smile became charming. He sat up high on something resembling a long golden pole, stretched flat between the mirrors. Well, with his dexterity and seemingly weightless body he belonged there. It seemed that Orpheus was so dexterous, that he could make his roost from dust particles flying in air. Orpheus. She thought that’s what she called him.

«May I have it back, unless you wish to try it on, ma’am?» He pointed to the cap in her hands.

«Oh, of course,» she stood on tiptoe and held it out to him, watching with interest as the thin, spidery fingers curled in a tenacious grip on the soft velvet. As she passed back to her master, the bells began to jingle merrily again. Admittedly, Rhianon couldn’t figure out why he’d left his cap on the stairs if he valued it so much. And where the thin golden perch had come from, she never understood. Yet it was all so curious to watch.

«Where are my own clothes?» She had only now thought to ask; of course, the dress suited her very well and caressed her skin nicely, but she could not go far in the woods and muddy country roads in such an outfit. In addition, the whole conspiracy came to naught, since she was again dressed as a princess and could, walking around alone, cause a lot of speculation and suspicion. It is better to return the breeches and the pageboy’s coat. They may not be so luxurious, but they are quite comfortable for the journey she has embarked on.

Orpheus shrugged his shoulders expressively.

«Somewhere where it will lead the pursuers astray,» he said nonchalantly.

«You mean the sentinels?» Rhianon was surprised.

«Well, they have hounds.»

«And wizards, of course,» she realized.

«Oh, don’t worry, child,» he scrambled from his golden perch at a pace that would have startled a trickster. «After all, they’re only human, and the very concept of magic came to them from us. And if we give something to someone temporarily, we can take it back at any time. All you had to do was to come to us, or rather to our border, and now you’re more important to us than anyone who imitates us on earth.»

«Yes, let’s say they took magic from you, but now they have their own rules.»

«And you think they know what they do and how they do it, if they don’t even suspect that we give it to them. We make fun of them because of a mirror,» he pointed to the nearest wall, «because of one of those mirrors, and there are windows like that scattered all over the universe. I can, of course, admit that there is one force we fear, but it doesn’t come from the human world.»

«What does it mean?»

«From where we all come from,» he answered cryptically. «You know, my dear, we’re just a splinter, too. And what we’re chipped from, oh, it is better that no one knows.»

He took something that looked like a blowpipe from the folds of his robes and quickly played it, covering one hole and another with his thin, nimble fingers. It should have sounded disgusting, but strangely enough it sounded good. Like the notes to a long-forgotten song or a nursery rhyme, but how could you play it all at such a pace.

«Well, I promised to show you what’s on the other side of the mirror,» Orpheus stopped playing, but the music remained as if hanging in the air. «Choose any mirror?»

She looked around. The room now seemed to her no longer an oval, but a complex polygon, like a multi-faceted gem imprisoned in the womb of a cave and who knows where the light pouring in refracted in each facet, creating different scenes. Behind each mirror a new picture awaited. Rhianon saw sunflower fields yellowing with sunflowers, where, like motley butterflies, the most unimaginable creatures with and without wings were flying in a wild dance; there were also mountain ranges, canyons, fortresses on the rock, meadows, river lagoons, uncultivated croplands or closed deep clefts, and everywhere they were – not people. Even at the bottom of the ravines their voices echoed, and sparks of color flew from the charms they conjured.

Rhianon turned away from the scene of the macabre carnival, where the creatures dressed in red were dancing wildly, quite attractive though dangerous. After thinking for a while, she stopped at the very first mirror she saw. From behind it she could still hear the sounds of the feast and hear the wine glasses being filled.

«It is a good choice,» Orpheus nodded approvingly and bowed his hand to her as if she were his lady at the ball. «Follow me, Princess.»

«Shh,» she put a finger to her lips, letting him know not to call her that anymore, no matter what world they found themselves in, human or not, and she didn’t want anyone there to know about her title and flight. There were few who were capable of informing. She wasn’t the only one who had ever entered a magical world. Maybe someone in the castle could communicate with these creatures, too. Then they might let them know. Any tiny fairy caught could spill everything she knows to get away. Not to mention leprechauns or dwarves or some other insidious creature. Orpheus seemed to understand her and nodded. Anyway, this time he obeyed the order. Since she had given him the name, he no longer laughed at her at all, as if he had become part of her, or for some unknown reason was obliged to obey her orders. Maybe he would even be forced to do her bidding. This was the first time Rhianon had dealt with such a creature, and he never ceased to amaze her.

He led her straight through the mirror, ignoring the long, agonizing moan that the cavernous wall made. The glass was as insensible as ripples in the water, and the opening must have closed the moment she stepped through it, following Orpheus, who was clutching her arm, because she was pinned by the train. She tried to free it and could not. The mirror was hard again. Behind it she could still see the cave and some tiny black creatures now scurrying about there, while on the inside the wall had become smooth and colorful, decorated with some elaborate tapestry.

«Do you like it?» Someone from behind the banquet table called out to her in a low voice.

Rhianon nodded; the tapestry impressed her in some way, but she could not say exactly what it was. Threads lay upon each other, joined together, creating an intricate pattern. There were skies, an abyss, and a transverse line of verdant forests, and all these places were full of unimaginable creatures.

«Doesn’t your lady want to come to the table?»

«Yes, I do,» Rhianon took the liberty of answering for the pandering Orpheus, and she pulled harder on the train to free it, but the case yielded only a little.

Someone at the table laughed resoundingly, sparkling wine was still pouring into the goblets as if there was no end to it, not only was the tabletop piled high with viands, fruit and grapes were also rolling across the floor as if they were growing out of it, some of them turning into golden balls, or so it only seemed.

Rhianon abandoned her futile attempts to tear out the stuck train and looked at the gathering. They were creatures of the ethereal world, with wings of many colors, with skin from which sprouts of flowers or vines sprouted, with eyes that burned with evil fire, with arms full of wool and horns and claws. Such indescribable creatures she could not have imagined.

The scarlet-haired, childlike fairy at the head of the table made an inviting gesture. Her eyes glowed like two rotted beads, and here and there a crust of wood crusted over her lily skin. The mushroom fairy, as Rhianon called her to herself, because her dress and jewelry took on the coloring of a bizarre flyswatter. But Orpheus called her something else.

«Leave her alone, Athenais, I brought her here as a guest, not as entertainment for you.»

«Oh, guest,» Athenais said, and her eyes sparkled slyly. «We’ve been missing her, so beautiful, so sweet…» she smiled, her sharp teeth gleaming dangerously under her blood-red lips. «She is sweeter than the dew on May flowers.»

«I told you she’s not for you,» Orpheus reminded her sharper.

«You mean you brought her here for him,» Athenais’s puppet face mirrored a moment of consternation, even a moment of panic. But what could a fairy be afraid of? Rhianon looked at her with interest.

«Is it he?» She said again, and everyone fell silent at once. Not only the talking and the music stopped, but it was as if life itself had frozen for a moment.

«Who is he? Haven’t I seen everyone else here?» She turned to Orpheus, because everyone else was unfriendly and silent.

«Well…» he hesitated for a moment. «I think the first thing we need to do is find a fairy to make you a camisole.»

«Is it here?» She paused. Rhianon glanced around the feast hall, which, in spite of its profusion of luxuries such as drapery, gold tableware, and chandeliers, was more like a forest. It was not the trees with pomegranate stones instead of berries that looked artful decorations, but the objects of the interior themselves seemed to be merely decorations set in a wild forest. The wind would sweep them away, and all that was left would be rowan thickets.

Once more the girl tried to free herself, but the train stuck tight. True, it was long enough to allow her to take a couple of steps into the depths of the hall; on the third step the brocade crunched, letting her know that the train was tearing.

«That’s all right, get Griselda’s gnats over here, they’ll sort it out quickly,» Orpheus worried. Clapping his hands, he did manage to summon some tiny creatures dragging gold scissors and thread. They looked more like fleas than fairies in size, but they got to work quite bravely. They were called pixies, Rhianon recalled. The tiny dressmakers worked, and Athenais watched her intently from across the table with unblinking, long stares. She had even set the goblet of wine aside, and now her fingers, covered with ingrown wood, were clearly visible. What a creature is it? Rhianon had found the doll peculiar and pretty, but even she shuddered at the sight of such ugliness.