His hand still throbbed, though the cold water had alleviated the pain of the whip-wounds a little. He fastened his sword to his belt. At least he had not disgraced that weapon as he had disgraced the flute entrusted to him. He looked at it, wondering if it would bring Pamina back; it had helped them earlier, but that had been before he had so grossly violated the trust placed in him. If only he had had the sense to play the flute and ask the magical Messengers to help bring Pamina back to him. If only he had Papageno's innocence !
He lay on the grassy bank, castigating himself over and over. Time crawled by, and he heard the otter-woman's furry babies splashing and chittering heedlessly in the pool, but he paid no attention to them. He remembered the otter-creatures who had bathed him in the Starqueen's palace, and that seemed very long ago, as if he had been then only a boy, a long ago innocence.
To go so far along the Ordeals, and fail at the end, on the very level of Earth where once he had triumphed! Pride and overconfidence had brought him low. Had he failed forever? Was that why he could not recall Pamina to his side even with his newfound and unwanted powers of sorcery?
He lay there for a long time until, in the burning sun, a shadow crossed his vision and lay dark on the grass. Had Monostatos returned to taunt him further? He opened his eyes and saw the Starqueen standing beside him.
There was now no touch of majesty or grandeur, no thunder, no train of stars. She was only a small, stooped, aging woman, shrouded in a misty gray mantle the color of raincloud, a veil covering her graying hair as was seemly for a matron no longer young. He scrambled warily to his feet, backing away and bowing to her.
"Are you afraid of me, my son?" she asked reproachfully.
He had not the faintest idea what he ought to say to her. There was a long silence.
"So you too have betrayed me," she said at last. "Did I not beg you to rescue my daughter Pamina? And did you not swear to me faithfully that you would do so, even if it should cause your death?"
Tamino bowed his head. "I did," he said, stifled.
"I believed you my friend. Did I not have reason to believe you were sworn to be my friend, Prince Tamino?"
What could he say to her? He had indeed promised, and no sooner had he reached Sarastro's realms than he had been won over by the priest-king. He no longer knew just why he had come to mistrust her, or why he had been false to his promise to rescue her daughter. Why had he not rescued Pamina? Why had he suddenly decided that she did not need rescuing?
He could no longer remember.
"You were seduced by Sarastro, as all my friends have been seduced by that wicked man," she said. "All this land of Atlas-Alamesios lies under his tyranny, a tyranny which perverts and seduces the very mind, which would set up the rule of the Halflings over us, and throw down all the wisdom of the Makers. But it is not yet too late, my son, to renounce your allegiance to this greatest of tyrants. Do you not yet see how he has lied to you, used you, bribed you with the thought of Pamina's hand in marriage? But it can be set right. Renounce Sarastro, and I shall be your friend."
Tamino's eyes suddenly strayed to the magic flute where it lay on the grass. He had not had the heart to tie it again to his belt. But it was as if a voice he could not recognize—Pamina's voice? he could not tell— was crying to him in the darkness:
"The flute, Tamino. Play the flute. It is the magical weapon of truth, and no lies can be spoken in its presence "
He looked away from the Starqueen. How could he account for interrupting what she was saying by bending down to pick up the flute? What made him think that it was very important to get it into his hands, to play it, before she saw it?
"Tamino, look at me, my son. Listen to my voice. Sarastro has bewitched you, worked upon your pride. Pamina has returned to me; she knows the truth now, and knows how Sarastro has lied to you both."
"Tamino. Get the flute. Play the flute."
It was surely Pamina's voice. He made a little sidestep, bent down and snatched it up, but he could not interrupt her by suddenly beginning to play the flute. Nevertheless, he felt better with it in his hand.
"Well, Tamino, have you nothing to say to me? Will you not come with me to my palace, where Pamina is awaiting you? Sarastro cannot now give you her hand; she has renounced him," the Queen said gently. "But
if you will come with me, you shall be reunited. Here are her sisters; they shall take you to her. Did you not know they were Pamina's sisters, my dear son?"
Now he saw them in the shadows behind her, the three women—he remembered their names now, he thought with wild irrelevance: Disa, Zeshi, and Kamala, who had told him as a warrior that the flute was a weapon for which she would give sword and spear and bow. Why did Kamala have her spear poised? They wore dark garments like stormclouds, darker than the Starqueen's.
"Come with me, my dear son. I have promised you Pamina's hand, and you and my daughter shall reign with me over all this land, and in the end throw Sarastro down."
"I would want to hear that from Pamina's own lips," said Tamino.
"But do you not know," said the Starqueen's soft cajoling voice, "that I am Pamina, as I am all women?" And before his amazed eyes, the bent and shrouded figure straightened, the dark hair silvered with gray became pale gold, just waving, and Pamina's lovely face smiled up into his.
"My beloved," she whispered, "I am with you again, you see, and together we will throw down that great tyrant. Come, take my hand, my only love, and together we will conquer."
She stretched out her hand to him. "Take my hand," she said. "Forget the wiles of other sorcerers. We are together again."
Could he believe this? Pamina had appeared to him before this, altered beyond recognition by her magical arts, and he had believed that. What was the truth? Was it all a magical charade, playing upon his innocence, his credulity?
"Take my hand," she commanded, a little more harshly this time, "and once again we shall be united—"
Tamino started to stretch out his hand to her. Surely it was Pamina. Had it been the Starqueen all along? He began to stretch out his hand to her. But then he discovered that in his hand, he already held the magic flute.
"In every Ordeal before this, I have asked you to play it, to bring us aid and comfort in our difficulties. Tamino, play the flute."
He looked at Pamina before him. He did not think she had spoken. But surely it had been her voice. He hesitated, and Pamina said in a rage, "Make haste! Take my hand, while I can still avert your fate!"
Behind her it seemed that stormclouds raced across the sky, that darkness was about to fall.
Then there was a thunderclap, followed by a flash of lightning.
"Who speaks of betrayal?" It was the voice of Monostatos. "It was to me you promised Pamina! To me! And now you are again making overtures to this wretched outlander from the west, this plaything of Sarastro! Pamina is mine, so you swore to me, and now again you have lied, as you lied to my father's self—"
Pamina's body flickered, her face faded; it was the Starqueen, towering high in majesty over them both.
"You, Monostatos? You—Halfling?" She said it, and spat disdainfully into his face.
Monostatos wiped his face deliberately. His sallow features were pale with rage.
"Lady," he said, "not even the Starqueen can play these games with the son of the Great Serpent!"
The Starqueen shrugged disdainfully. And at that moment there was a great roar and where Monostatos had stood, the dragon once again reared upward, and the breath of flame swept over them. Tamino had seen the transformation before. This time it did not terrify him; but the Starqueen reacted with rage and dismay. She gestured at the three ladies hovering in the background.
"Kill him!" she cried. "Kill him, quickly!"
There was a great cry of anguish and despair from Disa.
"She betrayed us too! Our father! Our father, and we never knew!" And suddenly it flashed upon Tamino just what were the depths of the Starqueen's treachery.
Not once,
but twice before Tamino had seen this man-to-dragon metamorphosis, this terrifying transformation. Once it had been Monostatos; but the time before that, when he had first come into this country, he had battled a dragon and the three ladies, he now knew, had killed it to save his life
That had not been Monostatos, but the Great Dragon. For reasons of her own, the Starqueen had bidden her daughters to slay the one who had been her consort, who had fathered those daughters. In doubled rage now, Monostatos in dragon-form loomed over the Queen; but Tamino still saw some trace of Pamina's features there, and threw himself, sword in hand, between the Starqueen and the dragon.
"Monostatos," he shouted, "don't fight with women! I have enough of a quarrel with you that I will not spare you to fight with the Starqueen; turn on me, I tell you, and I will fight you!"
He raised his sword and heard behind him the laughter of the Starqueen.
"Ah, gallantry! What a fool! As if I feared him, in dragon- or human-form, Halflingl" Again the word was a searing whip of sarcasm. She turned on her three daughters. "What are you waiting for? Your spears are mine, foolish girls: kill him!"
Yet they hung back, and Disa cried out in pain.
"For you we slew our father. Should we kill our father's son as well, Lady?"
"Tamino! Play the flute! For the last time, I implore you!"
Tamino put it to his lips and began to play.
The Starqueen cried out, "Take it from him! Take it, it was stolen from me, it is mine—" But Tamino played on. This had power over Halflings and for all his dragon-form, for all his sorceries, Monostatos was Halfling. The music of the flute stole through the Changing Lands. From the pool the otter-woman crawled up again, her small fuzzy rounded-headed babies behind her, but this time Tamino did not even look at her. Monostatos, rearing up in dragon-form, slowly dwindled till he stood no higher than the Queen.
Then Pamina was standing beside the Queen, covering her eyes as if the light hurt them. It was the real Pamina this time, in the sand-grimed tunic, the braided cord he had himself untied.
She pointed her finger at Monostatos.
"Son of the Serpent," she cried out, "in the sound of Truth, be now what you truly are! I command you!"
For a moment Monostatos the man stood before them, his face contorted in a grimace of terror. Then he began to dwindle down and down, shrinking further and further. No longer a man, no longer a dragon, he slumped forward on all fours, grew smaller, smaller still. The scales grew rougher, larger as he grew smaller, until before them a little lizard scampered in circles, and while they watched, climbed on another lizard, briefly copulated, climbed down, ran away and began to fight with another lizard.
Pamina's face was pale with horror, but she looked up at Tamino, tearless.
"He has found his true shape," she whispered. "As was his soul, now so is his body."
Tamino shuddered. So swiftly had Monostatos's fate come on him that the Starqueen still stood motionless.
At last she said to Pamina, "I would never have let him harm you." But the words rang hollow, and Pamina looked at her mother with a face like stone.
"You lied to me and you lied to Tamino. Have you ever told the truth?"
The Starqueen's voice was scornful. "Truth? You are a fool, Pamina. I have done what I must, and I make no apology. Shall it be war between us too, then, Pamina?" She gestured to the three ladies.
"Take her to the palace, while I deal with this fool!"
But they stood motionless.
"You have lied to us too," said Zeshi at last. "All our lives you have lied to us. We have served you loyally; and all your love and care has been for Pamina. To you we are no more than servants to be exploited for the sake of our sister."
"How can you say so? You have stood always at my right hand and shared my power," said the Starqueen. "And as for this futile fool with her dreams, I renounce her too. Kamala! Your weapons have been always ready to serve me—"
"But never again," whispered Kamala. "Pamina— sister—I have not been a good sister to you, but I beseech you, help me."
Pamina whispered, "Sister, be what you would be— "
For a moment Kamala was still. Then, as Pamina watched in horror, Kamala began to shrink downward. Her clothes slid to the ground, empty; her legs were already half sunken in the sand, and Pamina, remembering the moment when she had put out roots, shuddered in sympathy. Kamala's arms, very tiny now, stretched out, grew green, thrust out the vicious spines of a desert cactus. She shivered once and was forever still, surrounded with the useless weapons she had forsworn.
Only a moment the paralysis of horror lasted. Then there was a thunderclap, a cry of fury, and the Star-queen, in all her rage, bent over them, ready to destroy.
"You at least are still in my power!" she cried. Frozen, Tamino watched her stoop down from a giant height, and her hands were a giant's hands, ready to crush them like dust.
But Pamina gestured, and cried out in a voice that seemed to fill the whole sky, the whole universe. "No! Let the Makers judge between us! Once you were mistress of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, as I am now. Tamino! Play the flute!" And as Tamino put it to his lips and began to play again, Pamina cried out, "In the name of Truth! You too, Lady, show us your true form. Be what you are!"
For a moment gray wings hovered, huge, terrible, great claws swooping down to snatch, and Tamino quailed. Then a wind ruffled the Changing Lands, and an owl rose and flapped away in the dusk, hooting a mournful, repetitious tone. Pamina swallowed, but to Tamino the sound was a muffled sob.
"Bird of Night," Pamina whispered, sobbing, "fly in the dark, cry out your lies to any who will listen, until some greater predator comes along Oh, Tamino,
Tamino, she' s gone!" She collapsed, sobbing, in his arms. "It's over, and she's gone, and she was the Starqueen ... and she was my mother, and I loved her, and if she had ever loved me, if she had ever loved anyone —"
Tamino held her in his arms, with no word to say that could ease her pain. After a time he began to play on the flute again, knowing that this time it would bring the Messengers who would take them back to the city in triumph. But for Pamina, as well as for him, the triumph would be bitter and barren for a long time.
As he played, he could see, with a curious double-sight, what would happen afterward. He could see Pamina reclaiming from Papageno the magical bells, and could even hear what Papageno would say when she begged his pardon for taking them from him.
"That's all right, Lady, I'd rather have my birdcall, magical things aren't for the likes of me. Papagena and me, we don't need such things."
He could see the magical procession through the Starqueen's city, he playing on the flute and Pamina playing on the magical bells, to proclaim to the Half-lings that the sacrifices were at an end forever. Some of them would fiee the city and find homes for themselves in the wilderness, where they would live, free of all men, till Atlas-Alamesios sank beneath the waves in a final earthquake. Others would remain, dependent on Mankind to shelter and care for them, a burden Man must bear, and he, Tamino, would bear that burden when Sarastro was gone.
The Messengers were before them with their sweet musical magical song. They were hailing him as Master of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. As Pamina gravely saluted them, he managed to find a smile for Pamina. After all, it was their wedding day.
"But what are we to do?" Zeshi demanded. "I do not want to die, like Kamala—"
Pamina said gravely, "You are free to do as you will, sister."
Disa looked up in horror at the sky where the Star-queen had gone, and threw herself at Pamina's feet.
"Sister! Sister! Don't change me into a bird or anything terrible, please, oh, please—"
"I will not hurt you." Pamina sighed. "What do you want to do?"
"You— you have become so powerful—" Disa whispered. "If I come to Sarastro's temple, may I enter upon the Ordeals?"
Pamina looked helplessly at the Messengers.
"I don't know. May she?"
The Messengers spoke as one. "The Ordeals are open to all who will undertake them. Not since the Great Dragon has any Halfling passed through all four of the Ordeals in triumph; but so far as she may go, she will. Enter, Halfling woman, where Papageno entered before you."
Pamina reached out silently and took her sister's hand. She knew that if Disa entered upon the Ordeals seeking power, she would not get very far, no further than Monostatos. Yet how did she know? Disa might prove stronger than Pamina guessed; she was, after all, eldest daughter of the Starqueen.
Pamina looked around the Changing Lands, and wondered if she would ever come here again. Her heart was empty of the old adoration, and there was a raw and gaping wound where her mother had once been. But on this day of triumph she would not take away from Tamino's joy.
She took his hand and awaited the Messengers to bear them back in triumph to the Temple of Sarastro, there to inherit the reign as priest-king and queen of Atlas-Alamesios.
"We have not been through the volcano, dearest," she whispered, "but your clothes are as burned as if you had been set on fire. What do you think the guide will say to that?"
And with great thankfulness, she heard him laugh.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
On Night's Daughter and Mozart'd The Magic Flute:
Jfirst performance of the opera The Magic Flute was in 1791, a collaboration between the composer and his librettist, a popular clown and performer in the "Kasperl" tradition of comedy in Vienna. From the time of the first performance it was recognized that into the fairy-tale scenario a serious meaning and allegory had been inserted. Ever since then, for the last two hundred years, thoughtful people have been asking, "What does it mean?"
I fell under the spell of the magic flute when still a child. (In fact, as a teenage science-fiction writer, I adopted for a short time the pen name of Astrafiam-mante, after the Queen of the Night, and though I soon outgrew it, first abridging it simply to Astra and then dropping it entirely, no one who was a fan at that time has ever let me forget it. I still get teased about it at science-fiction conventions.)
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