‘It’s the mantel of the universe created by Persephone on her great Loom of Time, my lady,’ Epoptae answered calmly, ‘itself copied by Hephaestus, the iron smith of Mar’s, when he created a shield for her and Zeus’s son, Dionysus.’
The queen, unconvinced, was about to continue her protest; yet she found that the strangeness of this unnatural universe no longer concerned her, for she felt calmer, more contented, than she had for a long, long, long time.
She smiled: and she hadn’t smiled so pleasantly for a long, long time.
She laughed, laughed with pleasure, not malice: and she hadn’t laughed so free of malice for a long time.
She was fully aware, naturally, that the revolving of the planets controlled our lives, dictated our fates. Yet she thought it odd that her life now seemed to be so readily affected by the revolving of mere copies of those planets.
It was a thought that only briefly registered, however.
In an instant, that thought was gone. And even within that brief spurt of existence, it had never really been anything to worry about anyway.
She was young, she was beautiful, and in love with the most wondrously handsome man: and when you have all those things within your life, what on Earth do you have to be anxious about?
*
The king had his empire, vast beyond all normal imagining.
His sons and daughters had even greater empires, each one claiming lands stretching into the empires of their siblings.
Each courtier also each became a king or queen, or at the very least finally attained a richness and comfort they believed their rightful due.
For can’t we accomplish anything within the safety of our minds, unconstrained by worldly realities?
And how much freer and greater are our imaginings when we are young?
Indeed, as the planets whirl about us in reverse, and we become ever younger, we no longer fear what the future holds for us, no longer overload our past with regrets.
Soon, like the creatures of the earth, we have no concept of future, of past, of even the present, apart from the knowledge that we must live.
Does the present last only briefly?
Or is the present the only element of time that truly exists forever?
In which case, of course, it must also contain and be thoroughly entwined with our past and our future, such that we remain strangely unaware of their presence.
Certainly, for a child, one hardly aware of either past of future, each month seems to last an age.
And so we should not feel sorrow for the court as they throw off the cares of age, as they return once more to the womb: for what would their other alternative be, but that they became husks to be eaten by wyrms and transformed once more back into the darkest soil.
To each, their lives were long, and full of significance.
It’s only within the full, glaring light of the universe that they each appear as they truly are, just the merest weft in a vast tapestry.
But please; let the bakers continue their proud, individual search for the very lightest of loaves.
Let vineyard owners seek the perfection of their wines.
And let magicians continue to ensure their jests amuse the simpleminded.
*
Chapter 31
The prince came out of what had seemed to him to be the very briefest of trances.
And yet he was now surrounded by lions, every one of which was bowing to him.
He was bemused by their praise.
Hadn’t the message of the crown being that even kingship is fleeting and, ultimately, insignificant?
Even if, by some strange means, they had been made aware of the message, surely it amounted to an admonishment of kingly pride?
Yet here these lions were, paying subservience as if he were indeed their king. The man who had placed the crown on his head was similarly bowing low towards him, having dropped to one knee.
The prince reached up for and took the crown off his head. Handing it back to the man who had placed it on his head, he thanked him, adding his hope that he had passed whatever trial he had been set.
He left unsaid his other hope: that the man would explain the perplexing behaviour of both himself and the lions, but no explanation was forthcoming.
‘It’s unusual for us to have to take someone back towards the lands of the lapis lazuli: but this is obviously where you seek and need to be,’ the man said, at last rising to his feet, transforming once more into a magnificent lion. ‘I would be honoured if you chose me as your mount to take you there.’
*
The prince’s long, flowing hair was now hardly different to the mane of the lion he rode, such that had anyone been fortunate enough to see them pass, he would have thought them one rather than rider and mount.
Upon the prince’s breastplate, firmly embedded within the first place of the second row, a bright burning coal of karkand now glistened, one similar to that which had graced the crown.
Nearby, of course, was the gold speckled lapis lazuli, the stone he had determined to return: and quite obviously the lion had somehow been made aware of this promise.
At the borders of his own lands, the lion apologetically advised the prince to dismount, explaining that he had no wish to strike fear into the lands inhabitants.
‘You won’t have far to walk before you come across an ass, who’ll be more than willing to accept you as his burden,’ the lion said, departing with yet another respectful bow of his head towards the prince, his mane flaming in the sun’s light.
As the lion had stated, the prince soon came across an ass toiling in the fields. Remarkably, the ass was picking up with his mouth the stones littering the otherwise neatly tilled soil, placing them one by one within baskets suspended on his flanks.
The prince glanced around, looking for the beast’s owner, but couldn’t see anybody close by.
‘Can I help you?’ the ass asked the prince politely, if a little miserably.
The prince silently admonished himself for his foolishness: why had he presumed this ass would be incapable of speech, when he had just spent time amongst a pride of talking lions?
‘I believe this stone belongs here, within your lands,’ the prince answered, indicating the glowing blue stone set within his breastplate.
The ass nodded in agreement.
‘Ah, yes: you’re right! It’s the stone stolen from our prized Shield of Dionysus!’
The prince breathed a sigh of relief that the ass – far from being angry that he was standing here with the stolen stone – spoke with a mix of relief and elation.
With a shrug of his body, the ass caused the heavy baskets to fall to the ground, spilling the stones he had been so diligently collecting. Walking across the tight weave of furrows, he made his way towards the prince, joining him on the roughly beaten track.
‘If you’re prepared to get on my back,’ the ass said humbly, lowering himself before the prince, ‘I’ll take you to our city, where they’ll be more than pleased to receive you!’
*
Chapter 32
The fields they passed through were full of toiling asses, with no man or woman in sight.
The asses brayed mournfully as they worked, as if resenting their every act.
They dragged behind them heavy ploughs, dug at the soil with violent kicks of their hooves, or, like the prince’s own mount, they had set themselves the arduous task of clearing the furrows of the upturned stones.
The prince found their tortured groaning surprising: hadn’t the knight who had stolen the stone told of a land where everyone bore their many burdens almost gladly?
And yet the only ass here who seemed even remotely satisfied with his condition was the one he was riding, who chuckled as he observed the constant moaning of those about him.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said to the prince, glancing back over his shoulder, ‘they’re not usually like this; although, admittedly, it’s been like this ever since that disreputabl
e knight stole our precious gem!’
‘Then don’t you think we should let them know I’ve brought it back?’ the prince asked.
The ass shook his head, chuckling happily once more.
‘Oh no, no! That would deny them the intense pleasure they’ll feel when – even though they aren’t expecting or prepared for it – the stone is actually returned, almost instantly releasing them from their sense of burden!’
‘But they look so miserable…’
‘Oh, they don’t mind the toiling; naturally, they’re fully aware of their condition, and recognise they must accept it. Even an ass has a flame in his heart allowing him to dream of being a lion; for aren’t we all, in our way, kings and queens, if we would but realise it? It’s just that now – for the moment, at least! – it all seems so worthless, with no reward or promise of an understanding of their condition to spur them on!’
The prince scowled, puzzled that the ass could regard such a poor reward as a reason to continue their suffering.
‘If you didn’t toil,’ he pointed out, ‘then you wouldn’t need to understand why you toiled.’
‘If we didn’t toil, then we would surely die. But now recognising why that is so: that, surely, is a just wage for our efforts?’
‘And so why is it so?’ the prince asked curiously.
‘Ahh, now in expecting me to simply present you with the answer to your question, you’re either taking me for a fool or wish to permanently make one of yourself! You have to accept your burden first: otherwise, if you think you quite clearly understand the answer, then quite clearly you don’t.’
*
Inside the vast hall, once the two great doors were closed behind him, it seemed to the prince that here nothing but darkness could ever reign.
A darkness so intense, he sensed it was penetrating deeply into his very soul.
At last, he saw the slightest sliver of dim light, snaking down though that darkness from a slit somewhere high up in the room’s far off and unseen ceiling. Within its eventually diffused, fragmented glow, the prince caught the dull glimmer of minute, brightly coloured orbs, of shards of light reflected within a heavily shattered mirror.
The shield, he breathed inwardly; it had to be.
He stepped confidently through this apparently solid darkness, keeping his sight purely on his goal of the unlit, unmoving planets. As he arrived at the shield, he touched the stone of lapis lazuli set into his breastplate: and immediately, an exact copy of the gem appeared within the shield’s very centre.
The slit in the ceiling widened, the burst of light increased in strength and purpose – and the room was abruptly a universe of sparkling stars, of constellations, of spiralling galaxies.
He walked in awe amongst these glittering spheres, these endlessly revolving balls of flame, these coils of eternity.
And there, just ahead of him, as the knight had spoken off, was an ass burdened with the moon and seven stars.
*
Chapter 33
Rushing over towards the overburdened ass, the prince asked if there were any way in which he could help lessen the load.
‘No one should be cursed with carrying such a great burden on their own!’ he added, observing the wondrously glowing sphere, the dazzling stars, each throwing out its own bright ray into the darkness as a writhing stream of light.
‘It’s not a curse, as some might easily believe, but a blessing in disguise,’ the ass replied, ‘though I thank you for your offer of help.’
The gate the ass was ever so slowly attempting to approach wasn’t how the prince had imagined it when he had heard the knight’s tale.
He had thought of it glowing every bit as gloriously as the moon being carried upon the poor ass’s back. Yet the white orb of the gate only glowed brightly towards its very base, as if lit mainly from below, the whole effect being one of brightly lit curling horns, as when we see the partially veiled moon: which, admittedly, made it appear more gate-like than ever, with the glowing crescent of the almost circularly curling horns serving as supporting pillars.
But yes, as the knight had claimed, as it was such an obviously circular crescent, it was easy to imagine it as a fragment of the greater sphere, with the darker, veiled areas merely waiting to be more fully illuminated.
‘I think,’ the ass continued casually, ‘that you should have more concern for your own burden.’
‘I’ve returned your jewel: and I only have one more to return.’
‘Ah yes, the brightly glistening peridot I see there embedded within your breastplate: taken from the Sword of Simeon, if I’m not much mistaken?’
The prince was surprised that the ass had managed to spot the breastplate’s glistening gem, for he hardly seemed to take his eyes off his goal of the gate.
‘You seem to me to see far more than anyone would give you credit for,’ the prince chuckled good naturedly, recalling the way his father’s knight had spoken so disrespectfully of this poor ass.
‘That’s my role, for as long as I’m confined here.’
‘You’re imprisoned?’ The prince stared about himself worriedly. ‘Yet I thought all this was nothing but an illusion! I can help you es–’
‘I’ve heard it said that when we live, our souls are dead. While when we die, our souls revive and live.’
‘It seems wrong, I think, to be so dismissive of our time here on Earth.’
The ass nodded.
‘Good, good: I see you have eyes to hear, and ears to see.’
‘Don’t you mean–’
‘I see you heard me correctly.’
Was this ass playing him for the ass? the prince wondered. If so, it was working, for at best the ass was obviously hoping to impart some secret knowledge to him that he remained incapable of grasping.
‘Weren’t you told a tale earlier,’ the ass added helpfully, ‘by the Seeing Stone who heard the sword, the sword with the stone who hears and therefore perceives?’
‘The sword unfortunately no longer either hears or perceives; not, at least, until I return this final stone.’
‘Ah, how simple our lives would be, if our only burden was to make amends for the faults of others.’
‘Then this isn’t my burden? So is it my burden to gain the pearl, after all? Yet I believe – having listened carefully to the tale I was once told – that the pearl isn’t one of the twelve stones my breastplate requires; because a pearl, of course, isn’t a precious stone.’
‘Ah, it’s so rewarding isn’t it, to flatter ourselves we have worked out the answer? But how rewarding is it in reality if it brings our quest to an untimely end?’
‘But isn’t it the tear, the tear of god? Falling into the abyss, falling to the earth like the crown?’
‘And what happened to that heavenly crown after its precipitous fall, from one sphere into another? Why, it shattered of course!’
‘Surely the pearl–’
‘Shattered just as surely, scattering its many splinters everywhere about the earth!’
‘Then – it’s lost! How can anyone possibly find something scattered into innumerable pieces?’
‘Perhaps you should be thankful, then, that finding this pearl is not your ultimate burden?’
The prince sighed with relief – then immediately realised it was misplaced relief.
‘I can’t think what my burden could be!’
Now it was the ass’s time to sigh, only sadly.
‘What greater burden could there be, than to fail to recognise it and thereby deny yourself your goal?’
He groaned, as if finally made aware of the weight of his own great burden.
‘I see I must make some effort to help you hear the whispers lying within your own heart.’
*
Chapter 34
The Great Helm of Phanes
How many people realise that, as they dream of being kings and queens, many kings and queens actually wish they could be released from their burdens?
The
wearing of a royal crown brings with it many pleasures and benefits, yet set against these pleasant jewels of kingship there also comes responsibility, obligation and loneliness.
Loneliness?
With an entire court, an entire people, constantly surrounding them?
But let’s, for a brief moment at least, enter the mind and thoughts of a queen who indeed feels lonely, cut off completely from those around her, even those who – when she was younger – were her closest friends.
‘Oh, to be as I was when I was just a princess: to have no more cares, to have time to myself, to run through meadows and bathe innocently in pools! To know that when people speak to me, they speak the truth – rather than flattering me in the hope of favours; or of keeping their heads! No one can even offer me the morning’s greetings without first carefully weighing their every word. They no longer see a woman, with the needs of any other woman, and see instead only this damn crown I’ve been fated to wear until I die!’
Now at first sight it may seem strange, but the only person who could speak freely with the queen was her maid and seamstress, Kalligeneia.
For Kalligeneia, of course, was more aware than anyone else of the queen’s secret longings to regain those things she had lost with the passing of her youth: ‘Please tuck my dress in here, Kalligeneia!’ ‘Give me more lift here!’ ‘Give me something regal, yet also something graceful, feminine…’
The queen, Kalligeneia realised, was tired of being forever held responsible for the wellbeing, wealth and safety of everybody throughout the body of her realm. In the rare privacy of the royal apartments, where the queen could at last exhaustedly set aside her crown, Kalligeneia was privileged to have revealed to her the overwhelmed young lady who wore it.
‘Just as you have been inescapably born to wear the crown, my lady,’ Kalligeneia observed one day, ‘the preordained role of your subjects is to bow in subservience before it: and so I believe you require a crown that shows when you wish the woman to be seen as separate from the queen.’
The overburdened young lady sighed in appreciation, as if this were indeed the most perfect of dreams.