The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

Croydee crept to the gates and edged his miniature husk-clothed frame through the gilded bars, only to start at the sound of an urgent voice.

  A faerie of the lilac was calling out to him. ‘They will see you! They have ways of illuminating your presence with certain objects in the walls.’

  ‘You mustn’t do this to yourself, elf,’ called another sprite, a poppy faerie wreathed in pink. ‘Think first of the peril you invite. Wicked bewitchers cast spells on sprites!’

  Acknowledging the flower sprites with his promise to be careful, and advising them to return to their slumber, Croydee continued to wriggle his way through the locked gate. He would be quick. He might well be mortally ended, but he could no longer ignore the disappearance of his cousin and his animal friend knowing they were more than likely trapped by body kings.

  He felt certain his life task was to free Sluken’s spirit and to rescue Pieter and Fripso. Hopefully this life he was leading wouldn’t perish before all was achieved. If it were to end earlier than hoped, then perhaps one of the other Brumlynds would take over the task, and triumph where he had failed.

  Croydee kept low and out of sight of the guards. He had not the Kindness Merits to enable invisibility. Most of his beauty-creation had been used two evenings earlier when he’d hidden from dark magicians.

  He wended his way around an open double doorway and found himself within a great hall where fire-luminaries dangled from the ceilings.

  No-one was present in this hall. Well aware of the terrible risk he was taking, Croydee tried not to dwell on the idea that the spying lights the faeries had warned him of meant his secret visit might be detected.

  He climbed the stairs Maleika told him about, the stairs that branched westward from the great hall, and turned to the doorway at the top. Looking either side of him, he shuffled across to the door, which he presumed was the princess’s chamber, for it aligned with the flag-adorned balcony he'd seen from the dragon cave. He was now within eye level of a jagged gap in the timber. Beneath the handle a torn-out piece of the door was stuffed with a knot of tapestried fabric. Part of this fabric had sunk to the base of the gap and allowed Croydee a clear view of the room’s interior.

  Ah, there she was, the gold-skin lady. The chamber therefore was hers. She was pacing the floor and talking delightedly to someone. To whom was she speaking? Croydee could not hear her gabbled words, but he could see the lady waving her hands about and, at intervals, leaning forward into giggles. She was dressed in a gown the colour of sunshine and moved about blissfully with the grace of a butterfly. She was perhaps of seven-and-ten or eight-and-ten season-cycles and despite the peculiar gold tone of her skin and hair, had a faerie-like prettiness about her.

  She was speaking to someone tucked away in a large alcove. The alcove was sealed off with gates similar to the golden ones Croydee had slipped through to enter the palace grounds. The bars on these gates were more decorative than the ones marking the entry of the Grudellan Palace. These were encrusted with a coiling line of diamonds and rubies. From this limited aspect, Croydee could not make out where the alcove, whose far end was crowded out with gowns in the colours that spring blossoms were, began or ended.

  And then he saw it. Saw something twitching, alive and familiar that made him smile: an ear that protruded from the barred room, an ear that was elongated, velveteen and white.

  The maiden was speaking to Fripso! Pieter might then be nearby.

  Chapter Twelve

  <><> XXXIV <><>

  Croydee contemplated wielding his beauty-creation powers to dissolve himself through the solidity of the locked door.

  While invisibility took up a great amount of Kindness Merits, walking through walls did not. Would he have enough Kindness Merits available? All being well with his magic, he would then creep to the nearest hiding place until he felt safe enough to emerge. It was probable the girl had been taunting the rabbit. Croydee would be of no help if he found himself, against his will, alongside Fripso in the cage-like wardrobe and drained of his magic.

  His merits, fortunately, were not diminished. He had just enough to perform his last modest miracle for the moon’s phase of Pisces. It enabled him an unnoticed intrusion into the chamber. He hid behind a bronze urn by the door.

  ‘And what is your opinion of it, Pieter of the Brumlynds?’ the golden lady was saying.

  Pieter was there in the chamber! Where in the chamber was Pieter though?

  And then Croydee saw a Pieter he barely recognised. It was not a boy that met Croydee’s astonished gaze, but a youth, equal in age to the maiden whose wardrobe he was companionably languishing in. He was seated: long lower limbs stretched out comfortably; clearly enraptured by the girl as he watched her from the other side of the expansive alcove’s bars. The space this wardrobe occupied, with its collection of a lady’s finery at one end, was akin to a sizeable chamber and furnished with a table, three chairs, including a chaise for reclining, and mountains of spun-gold cushions, which looked as though they they might be slept upon. Flowers, leaves and grasses were scattered across its floor.

  Flowers, leaves and grasses were scattered across its floor.

  ‘I think you are to be the jewel of this ball,’ was all Pieter said.

  ‘But do you not like its colour and the way the sleeves trail here at the wrists, and what of the skirt?’ It was as though asking an elf for advice on the frippery she chose for decadent gatherings was a perfectly normal occurrence. She twirled. The skirt of her trailing gown was bell-like, reminding Croydee of the attire lily-of-the-valley faeries wore. Lily-of-the-valley garments, however, were the colour of snowflakes, pristine and unembellished, free of the sparkles, tassels and flounces that graced this one. ‘The Prince of Ehypte will be there. The ladies at court believe he will ask for my hand in marriage should I appear pleasing enough.’

  Fripso spoke then. ‘Well as I said before, dear Eidred, you look very pleasing indeed.’

  Eidred? Dear Eidred? A phenomenon! No gold-skin had ever won the trust of animals enough to communicate with them. And none had befriended sprites. Feeling suspicious now, Croydee thought it wise to wait further before introducing himself. This Eidred might be trapping her guests by willing them to believe she was harmless.

  ‘And I must dance for him!’ the princess said joyfully.

  ‘Will you carry out the dance of the goddess?’ asked a playful Fripso.

  ‘Yes, I shall! And it will be as this.’

  The rabbit, Croydee noted, was leaping about the wardrobe, carrying out his own impression of a dance. Beside Fripso, Pieter looked especially still. His face had taken on the seriousness of a bewildered child. He had not taken his eyes off the girl—who had begun to tiptoe and glide as daintily as a moon glade sprite would—but those eyes had taken on a mournful quality that Croydee had rarely witnessed.

  He’s utterly miserable, Croydee thought in alarm, a sobering contrast to the smiles Pieter had thrown Eidred moments earlier.

  At that moment Croydee heard a terrible squeal. The squeal propelled all three into frantic motion. Pieter rose and drew himself to his full height, then threw a rug over a quivering Fripso. Eidred ran to one side of her wardrobe to retrieve a cloak, a dark hooded cloak, and flung it over her gown, which had the effect of a thundercloud extinguishing the night sky’s stars. Her previously elegant carriage, with head held high, became stooped. The door rasped open. The girl’s hair, the only thing bright about her appearance now, fell forward from under the hood as she sank into a subservient bow.

  ‘Come see us at once! You have not yet told the Solen of your answer.’

  Four pterodactyls—a species Croydee had seen in his earlier years and was therefore familiar with, yet only slightly less fearful of now that he experienced their horrific proximity—stomped savagely towards their princess and kicked at the statues and urns that decorated her retreat.

  ‘Good minders, what answer is this?’ said the girl in a voice that had become soft and lacking in melody.

  �
�That you will join in marriage with the Prince of Ehypte.’

  ‘How very sudden. I have not yet met the prince. And to my knowledge he has not proposed to me.’

  Glancing at Pieter, Croydee noted that the elf had taken on a look of relieved surprise.

  Ah, thought Croydee. Pieter believes Eidred is already acquainted with the prince. I fancy he might be a silent adorer of this involuntary bride-to-be.

  Both elf and princess calmly accepted that remaining unhidden did not compromise the youth’s safety. Pieter, although visible to Croydee, had, as expected of non-seeing gold-skins, gone undetected by Eidred’s minders. It made sense now, the reason he dwelt inside a wardrobe. He had found refuge there from the spy-lights that would have detected his moving about and, fortunate for him, his captor—or was she an ally?—was blessed with a generous heart and the gift of faerie sight.

  ‘Come at once to the Solen’s court,’ they said in a scream and, with synchronicity, turned upon their heels.

  Eidred trailed meekly behind the monstrous creatures. Before quitting the room, she turned once to gaze upon Pieter, her face concealed by shadow.

  Now to present myself to the two, Croydee thought, clasping his hands together in anticipation.

  He stepped from behind the urn and said, ‘Cousin Pieter and Fripso, it is I, Croydee, here to help release you so that you may return to the forest.’

  Pieter and Fripso did not stir. Instead, they remained as they were. Fripso’s eyes were closed in meditation, and Pieter was staring at the floor in glum consternation.

  They had not heard him! He tried again, this time by repeating his announcement in a louder voice.

  Still they did not stir. Fripso, of course, could well have been asleep, but what of Pieter? Pieter must have been terribly unhappy. Too unhappy to notice what was going on around him. Croydee immediately felt sympathy for the lovelorn elf.

  He hurried to the wardrobe’s decorative gates and waved. Pieter stared impassively at the walls. ‘Pieter of the Brumlynds!’ There was no reply. ‘Fripso!’ The rabbit did not move a whisker, even though his eyes were now opened and alert.

  It then occurred to Croydee that he was in fact visible to no-one in the Grudellan Palace. Had not the pterodactyls ignored his precarious flit beneath the spy-lights?

  Why, after all, had he believed this was the present-time palace and not a hologram? He ran to the nearest urn, one that had not been knocked by the pterodactyls, and went to lift it. Alas, his hand slid through the object just as Maleika had predicted concerning the presence of a projection. ‘It has occurred, somewhere in time,’ he told himself, ‘this scene I am witnessing, but whether it has already happened or is yet to happen, I have no way of fathoming.’

  Never one to give in to challenges, he pondered his dilemma. ‘I am perfectly safe,’ he reasoned, for his observation of this hologram was simply like an individual from a future timeframe walking into a picture palace and wading through image beams. This was not his cousin’s current reality. It was only the capture of a timeframe. As a viewer of this, he was at will to explore the entire residence armed with the knowledge that all he saw was safe to see. No players in this gilded charade were tangible!

  He would seek out the princess’s meeting with her minders, first of all.

  As he retreated from the room, laughing at having used his magic to walk through a solid locked door when none was needed, he heard Pieter say, ‘Do you think, Fripso, that she will agree to marry this Prince of Ehypte?’

  ‘Cannot see why not,’ answered the rabbit. This was said flippantly. ‘It seems she is in love with him already. She has seen his portrait in the Solen’s gallery, remember, and she says he is handsome in the way you supposedly are. I have never seen her so happy about attending a dance.’

  ‘Nor have I,’ said a crestfallen Pieter. ‘And he’s sure to love her in return from the moment he sees her.’

  The two fell into contemplative silence.

  Croydee ventured out to seek the object of Pieter’s affection. After much stair climbing and peering into many various rooms, he found her. She was standing at a gilt table, wielding a quill across a document. Before her stood a gold-skin whose strands of gleaming hair fell in ringlets over bony shoulders, and whose ragged golden beard almost reached the floor. The colours of the jewels that adorned his fingers and toes were corrupted and thus made ghastly with encasements of gold that resembled the rising sun’s rays. The expression on his face was twisted into what could only be described as cruel.

  ‘You have signed your agreement to marry Prince Adahmos of Ehypte?’ he roared.

  ‘Yes, Father,’ said the girl. She presented him with a document that one of the servants had rolled and tied with ribbon.

  The Solen snatched the scroll from her. ‘To think you dared question me on this subject! But I am sure you would rather marry than be dead.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘He has amassed many riches from where he hails. Your minders will educate you of his land. You will learn more of our origins, for Ehypte is where your ancestors originated. I should like the majority of my kin to return to this land to assist in repopulating the area. Our blood there has thinned over the past few centuries. We must rise again in the land of triangles.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘You must bewitch this man. Understand? If you do not, your life will not be worth living.’

  ‘I understand, Father.’

  ‘Now be away with you.’

  Eidred turned mechanically. Her lips quivered and her eyes of blue greyed with tears. Croydee followed her to the door, then into the darkened staircase and looked helplessly on as she wept. He trailed behind her as she moved—with shoulders hunched—down a hallway lit by torch flames. She was sobbing. More than once he heard her utter Pieter’s name to herself. Thrice in fact.

  The pterodactyls who stood like statues in the stark over-bright room she’d entered, conducted a torturous amount of lectures. When interrogating their student on comprehension, they punished her, and not only for her errors. Her accuracies, also, were treated with contempt. According to these contrary educators, right equalled wrong. The unfortunate princess would forever be taunted for her inability to please them.

  At the end of these lessons, which were enough to make even gentle-natured Croydee heated with a kind of anger he’d never before felt, Princess Eidred thanked her perpetrators kindly and exited her school-room.

  In the gloominess of a corridor, Eidred knelt low. As she did so, she spoke to a god. Nay, not a god. It was a goddess. A godmother. But who was this godmother? Croydee listened with interest.

  ‘Dear Faerie Godmother,’ she said. ‘It is true that the only one I could ever…respect…is Pieter. This is awful of me, I understand, for I feel sure Pieter would be shocked if I told him as much. I suspect he does not…respect…me in return, yet please, Faerie Godmother, should there be any way of escaping this permanent commitment and of being able to win Pieter’s loyalty, and to live quite freely with Pieter for the duration of my life, then please show me the way. Show me the way, dear Godmother!’

  Croydee regarded the princess with both amazement and compassion. She had fallen in love with one of devic origin. How would Pieter and Eidred escape the consequences of a forbidden entanglement?

  She continued onward with her prayer. ‘But if I find Pieter is not amenable to me in this way, I promise to be courageous. I shall marry the prince in the hope that he will help me to protect Fripso and Pieter. If he is not good-hearted, I ask that he never learns of their existence and that I may ferry them to safety before I depart this land. And please, Faerie Godmother, if Pieter does not return my respectful devotion, please allow me adequate power to bewitch the Ehyptian prince I am soon to meet.’

  Croydee frowned. He had already remained in this hologram longer than intended, although he would feel better about leaving once certain the princess had returned safely to her chamber. He returned there first and waited by the
wardrobe. Shortly after, the young lady arrived back and looked in on Fripso, already lost in slumber. Pieter was awake, however, and addressed her almost abrasively Croydee thought. ‘Ah it is Eidred,’ he said, ‘who I suppose is as good as married now?’

  ‘What nonsense,’ Eidred snapped. She then turned away from the elf and said, ‘I told my father I would only agree to marriage with Prince Adahmos if he makes a favourable impression on me at the ball. But this is five-and-ten suns away yet.’ The princess had not told Pieter the truth!

  Pieter nodded shakily.

  ‘Contrary to what you may think, Pieter,’ she added, ‘I do have a say in some matters. And what is important to me is that I marry for love, even if my father cares only for the riches I return to our empire.’

  Pieter said nothing.

  ‘Goodnight, my Pieter,’ she said.

  ‘Goodnight, friend Eidred,’ said Pieter.

  Sorry for the two confused admirers, Croydee slipped away from the hologram and galloped through Elysium’s forest, eager to reach the glades and tell the Brumlynds of his discovery.

  <><> <><><> <><>

  Dette settled back against her beach towel, reached out to Adam beside her and ran a hand over his left arm. The filmy cheesecloth of his unbuttoned shirt chafed coolly against her fingers. ‘Why don’t you take this off?’

  ‘I’m already brown enough,’ he said, clutching at the cuffs. ‘Don’t want to overdo it.’

  ‘But...oh...um...never mind.’ She didn’t like to point out that this was only their second stint in the sun, or that Double Bay His ‘n’ Hers Day Spa had been the reason for his wonderfully even tan, or that he’d already asked to borrow her sunscreen. He’d slapped on heaps of it after his shower. Adam had his reasons for keeping his shirt on over his swim-shorts. One of those reasons might have been Dette’s comment that it gave him the look of a guy in an ’80s cigarette ad who she’d secretly resolved, at the age of fourteen, to marry someday.