by Tanith Lee
You need never see me, never look at me. Of course, of course, I love you. I always have. It is the selfish love that finds in another its own self. But I ask nothing of you, only that you will let me set you free. That you will let me set free the one I might have been, the one I was, the one you are.
There is everything I can say. I will put down my pen. The groom takes this to the girl, the girl gives this to you. And now, through the hours of the silent night, I will wait, wondering if you are on the road, flying at midnight, leaving not only a provocative shoe of glass, but all the false and empty dreams behind you, the dreams which became nightmares. Or, since I hid you in cold cinders, have you thrown my letter in your burning fire?
Midnight
ABOVE THE GLITTERING ballroom, the gilded clock hung like a baleful planet. The hands on the face of it showed ten minutes to midnight.
Only ten minutes more. Then, she must be gone. But the girl—how could she bear to leave? She looked away from the clock, back at the face of the young prince who was dancing with her, over the marble floor.
They fitted together like hand and glove. Both so young, so beautiful, and so wonderfully dressed. For not only the prince was clad as one would expect, in garments of silk and velvet, so was the girl. She too looked like royalty.
How strange it had been. The old woman the girl had sometimes helped, giving her scraps from the kitchen, nice things when possible, though the girl herself got little enough. Then suddenly, this very night, when the evil, tyrannical women of the house had flounced away to the ball, the old woman entered—not by the door, but out of the fireplace—shedding her rags, her old age, becoming a shining creature. “Bathe yourself,” the being had said to the astonished girl, “wash the soot from your hair. Then you will find there are garments for you, and everything else, to show your beauty as it truly is.”
Bemused, indeed under a spell, the girl obeyed. Stepping from the tub, she found herself at once both dry and scented, and she was next instant dressed, in the whitest silks, whiter than new-polished stars—her hair plaited with diamonds. And on her feet two shoes of such lovely peculiarity, she stood gazing at them.
Then the being was beside her again. “They are not made of glass—you will be well-able to dance in them.”
The girl saw then the shoes were only stitched over, each of them, with a hundred or so tiny sparkling crystals. And taking a step, found she was already gliding—dancing as if in a dream.
“Outside,” said her benefactor, “a carriage awaits you. I made it”—a little, perhaps boastful, laugh—“from a pumpkin—but now it is formed of gold. The six white horses are mice, but no one will know—not even they. Go to the palace, and win the heart of the handsome prince. You will find it quite easy, as now you are.”
The girl—who in her recent awful years of ill-treated slavery, had been called in mockery, Ashy—murmured, “But these are faery gifts. They will vanish away at morning.”
“True. The very first moment of morning, which comes when night turns back to day—at midnight. Thus, before the in rags fatal hour strikes, you must depart or be seen in rags and ruin.”
“But then,” whispered Ashy, turning ashen under all her beauty, “what use is any of this?”
“He will love you. You must trust in that. Love is never blind. He will find you, even after midnight has struck. Do you understand?”
“No, Lady,” said Ashy. But her own real name came back to her at that second. It was Elvira. She bowed to the one who had been an old beggar woman, and who could walk out of a fire. “But I thank you. Even if this night ends for me in tragedy, to taste the joy of it will be worth any later pain.”
Then Elvira went out and found the incredible golden carriage and the white horses, and stepping inside the vehicle, was carried faster almost than light—which she now resembled—to the palace of the prince.
Through all the crowds, he saw her at once. As she saw him.
Like two magnets, one of stellar silver, one of flame-lit steel, they flew together.
“I thought the moon had fallen on the terrace,” he said, as he led her out across the gleaming floor. “But it was you.”
What had they said to each other, after that? Beginning with courtly phrases, presently the passionate desire, the deep tenderness each had at once conceived for the other, spangled in their brains, more vital than champagne, and sprang from their lips like arrows. There among the host of other dancers, they spoke of love—shameless, precipitous, sincere.
But, for all their bond of truth, Elvira told him nothing of who she was, of what had happened to her, the jealous wickedness of false family. Nothing of her station now in life, that of a girl smudged with filth and living among gray cinders.
She could not bring herself to do it. She was afraid. Love is never blind? Yet he saw her now in a gown of moonlight, with diamonds in her hair and shoes that seemed magically made of glass. He thought her the daughter of a king, just as he was the son of a king.
And so she had arrived with him at ten minutes to midnight.
Yet now—oh now—the hands of the gilded clock had leaped forward impossibly. Eight minutes were gone. Only two minutes were left. She must fly—she must run away for her very life.
Let me stay one minute more. Only one—
For after this—no, he would never find her. How could he? She would be hidden again in darkness. And then he would forget her completely. Or else his heart would break as her heart already broke, thinking of the empty desert of despair beyond this night.
A single minute now, all that was left. How slowly the hands of the clock crept—how swiftly.
If only Elvira might freeze time. One half minute all that remained—to make that half minute last another night—another hour—at least . . . at least another ten minutes—
“My love,” Elvira said to the prince. There on the gleaming floor, among the crowds, they ceased to dance. Seeing this, the other dancers also stopped dancing. The orchestra fell silent in a sudden phantasmal flowing away of sound.
“My love—I must—”
The clock struck. The first stroke of the terrible twelve—an ax-blade that cracked asunder the pane of night.
Elvira stared up into the face of her, lover. She saw how his laughing delight was altering to bewilderment—dismay.
She drew her hand from his. She drew away from him.
The clock struck. The second stroke. Already smashed, the night scattered in bits like black and golden snow.
“I—” she said.
“Never leave me,” he said.
“I—”
The clock struck. The third stroke. The palace and the city reeled.
Elvira’s feet in the shoes of glass—were lead. She must gather up her glimmer of skirts and run—run—before the glory of the spell of illusion deserted her.
Four, struck the clock, five, six, seven—
Like a statue, Elvira. Turned to stone.
Already it was too late.
The crashing ax-blows had become a thin honed sword, which sliced away the imagery of enchantment. Eviscerated, the white gown, foaming up like feathers, melted—the diamonds, shed like rain, dried—even the peerless shoes—for how could they remain, when all else that was sorcerous vanished? The shoes were two puddles of mirror. Then a mirror’s double shadow. Then—nothing at all.
Eight, nine, ten, eleven.
Twelve, roared the clock, the voice of judgment: Twelve-twelve-twelve. The echo continued forever. But after forever, silence returned.
Elvira had not run away. She stood there in the midst of strangers, three of whom—though she could not see them—she knew to be the enemies from her own house. These people had not lost their finery. They bloomed in it, and bloomed also with eyes stretched wide with shock, disgust, or fear.
And there before her, he—her lover, her prince,
also changed at last to expressionless pale stone.
The girl wore only her dirty shift. Her hair hung down her back, thick with kitchen grease and cinders. She smelled no more of flowers and essences, but of sweat and toil, ash and agony.
Love is not blind. No, love sees too much. Love sees and becomes a whip with thorns in it. Oh, she had already learned as much, when her stepmother and stepsisters first turned upon her like starving rats.
Elvira waited, her head still raised, too shamed to be ashamed, her tears now the only jewels she wore.
And he, the prince, stretched out one hand, as if to push her away.
Instead, his hand clasped hers. He looked into her face, and suddenly the sun rose behind his eyes. He smiled at her gravely. “Now I understand,” he said.
“But,” she faltered, “do you still know me—even now?”
“Just as I knew you at first sight,” he said. “It is still you. And how courageous you are, to have stayed. How you must love me, Elvira—perhaps even as much as I love you. Ladies and gentlemen,” said the prince, turning to his astounded court, Elvira’s dirt-blackened hand clasped firmly in his own, “Here is my future wife.”
Empire of Glass
ONE DAY THE Prince decided he must choose a wife. The prospect filled him neither with interest or pleasure. There was no shortage of appealing women available when he was in the mood for them, and his daily life, he felt, went on perfectly well without irrevocably attaching a female human to it. Generally he preferred hunting, and liked the company of horses, strong and spirited, bloodhounds, swift and acutely-nosed, and quantities of other animals freshly killed and ready to be cooked.
The Prince’s princedom, lying southeast in Europe, and landlocked but for a single seagoing river, was one of those Ruritanian ones. For the sake of convenience it will, therefore, be known in this account as Turitrania. In some respects it was an idyllic place, especially for the Prince. However, as the century drew to its close, he had found himself increasingly worried by those events which swept the outer world—revolutions, wars, the rise to eminence of commoners, and establishment of empires. There was, too, the fast progress of science, which had already accessed the military potential of the hot-air balloon. Not to mention awful rumors of enclosed ships, that might travel below the waters, and so pass, unseen and crammed with invaders, into any harbor.
The Prince’s marriage plan was accordingly based on the idea of a very rich wife, having extremely powerful connections. In return she would gain status, for his line was historically ancient and noble; plus the prize of himself. He was, in his looks, not so bad as princes went, and reasonably amiable as they went, too.
A ball was arranged. It was to be magnificent, and invitations were sent far and wide. Late summer decorated the forests of Turitrania in silk foliage, and elaborately velvety flowers; and the mountains, visible from all the terraces of the palace, gilded themselves obligingly early in crests of silver snow.
Similarly overdressed, the Prince pulled the ears of his favorite bloodhound, Snouter, one last pre-betrothal time. Then strode manfully to the ballroom.
• • •
Between the hours of eight and ten-thirty, an evening passed which was both glamorous and loud. A huge orchestra bellowed dance music, dancing feet pranced; champagne fountains erupted and crystal goblets fragilely clinked. Young women flung themselves, or were flung by eager sponsors, upon the Prince. He greeted them, danced with them (as princes also went, he was not too bad a dancer), and questioned them intently. Many were rich, several absurdly so, most had connections, some even powerful ones. Some chattered, some were deliberately enigmatic, some were tongue-tied. Some were even beautiful—but the Prince tended to prefer prettiness to beauty, and besides, looks were not the prime objective.
By a quarter to eleven he was feeling rather tired. He yearned to leave the ball, have a swig of brandy, and go to bed—alone. To make a decision was, he began to think, beyond him. He could no longer see the wife for the women, as it were. As for their credentials—none of them had, he found, quite what he had hoped for: some whiff of true difference—the means whereby to make Turitrania omniscient, the foundation not only of security, but an empire of the Prince’s very own.
The ballroom clock struck eleven.
Exactly then, through the vast doors, came stalking a tall female figure in a beaded white gown.
There was at that moment a brief interval without music, and so the exclamations of the crowd became particularly notable. The Prince peered the length of the room at the bold young woman. What had excited everybody so? An aide presently informed him. The newcomer was not only uninvited, she was quite unknown. And she had arrived, it seemed, in an extraordinary vehicle—a coach of glass. “But I have a glass coach,” replied the Prince. Ah, hers was not the same. The Prince’s coach, a relic which had been in the royal family for a hundred years, only had large glass windows, and these were cracked. The young woman’s coach was entirely formed of glass. It was quite transparent, and sound as a bell.
Just then she reached the Prince, and addressed him directly. “Perhaps you should ask me to dance,” she said. “You’ll note, I have put on my dancing shoes.” She was not unattractive, if rather tall and slender for the Prince’s personal taste, but when he looked at her feet, his heart bolted into a mad gallop. Without a word, he held out his arm. The orchestra struck up a waltz, and they took the floor.
“You dance well,” said the Prince. “How is that feasible, in those?”
“They’re perfectly comfortable,” said the young woman, and whirled him round—she had already taken the lead—so his head echoed.
“Where did you come by them then?” the Prince asked, when he had regained his bearings.
“My godmother. The same as the coach. She makes things, you see.”
Evidently both the godmother and her charge were cast in a modern mode.
The waltz, itself a modern dance that no one was quite yet used to, ended. The Prince and the woman in white stood alone on the floor, while everyone else stared from the sidelines, with their mouths open like those of horses after a stiff ride.
“But I suppose,” said the Prince, attempting to be jocular and casual, “if you were to dance really quickly, or, say—jump about somewhat—they might . . . break?”
“Of course not,” snapped the young woman. “I’ll show you.” And signaling audaciously to the conductor, she shouted, “A tarantella, if you please!”
The Prince understood why, though uninvited, she had been admitted to the ball, and his wildly thudding heart was sinking in inevitable resignation. Such was her aura of command, the orchestra meanwhile did as bidden. And in another second, she was dancing boisterously, spinning around, kicking her heels, leaping and stamping, and all the time the light of the chandeliers splintered and exploded like white fire, from her high-heeled slippers of transparent glass.
When the tarantella was done, the ballroom applauded to a man (if not always to a woman), the air ringing to screams of Brava! and Encore! But the girl only bent and took off her shoes. One she left lying, the other she grasped firmly in her hand. “I shall be going now,” she said. “If you should want to look me up, that’s for you to see to.”
“But I don’t even know your name,” cried the Prince.
“Cindy,” said the young woman carelessly. And the clock struck midnight. And then—and then a swirling seemed to surround her, her garments vanished and she with them in what appeared to be a fall of glass leaves caught in a tornado. This next dazzled away through the room, the alarmed crowd parting before it. She was gone. And soon after, from far across the regal park, there came the strange tinkling sprinting noise of a speeding coach of glass.
• • •
“You see,” said the Prince to his ministers, “at all costs, she must be mine. Take note,” and here he flung the single glass slipper with great forc
e against a marble pillar of the parliament building. The slipper slipped to the ground, immaculate. The marble showed a thin injurious crack. “With such a material,” the Prince continued, “Turitrania need fear no aggressor by land, sea, or air. With, also, such affiliated secret weapons as my future wife’s device for swirling concealment, we will be the most mighty power on earth!”
The ministers, pale with savage greed, nodded like puppets. Until at last, one ventured: “But how, sir, seeing the young lady has vanished, and no one knows her, or from whence she came—how is she ever again to be found?”
The Prince uttered a bark of laughter. “How do you think? I’ve got her shoe. Go and fetch me Snouter, my best bloodhound.”
Rapunzel
NOT FOR THE first time, a son knew himself to be older than his father.
Urlenn was thinking about this, their disparate maturities, as he rode down through the forests. It was May-Month, and the trees were drenched in fresh young green. If he had been coming from anywhere but a war, he might have felt instinctively alert, and anticipatory; happy, nearly. But killing others was not a favorite pastime. Also, the two slices he had got in return were still raw, probably inflamed. He was mostly disgusted.
It was the prospect of going home. The castle, despite its luxuries, did not appeal. For there would be his father (a king), the two elder sons, and all the noble cronies. They would sit Urlenn up past midnight, less to hear of his exploits than to go over their own or their ancestors’: the capture of a fabulous city, a hundred men dispatched by ten, the wonderful prophecy of some ancient crone, even, once, a dragon. There may have been dragons centuries ago, Urlenn judiciously concluded, but if so they were thin on the ground by now. One more horror besides was there in the castle. His betrothed, the inescapable Princess Madzia. The king had chosen Madzia for Urlenn, not for her fine blood, but since her grandmother had been (so they said) a fairy. Madzia had thick black hair to her waist, and threw thick black tempers.