by Jon Jacks
If the fool had said that only a few moments ago, Crystine would have believed he was just a little crazy. Now, looking at all the multiple Crystines looking eagerly back at her, she was enthralled by the challenge, the incredible potential of it all.
‘Where? Where do we go?’
‘Why,’ the fool replied, ‘where better than the palace of the Queen of The Fall?’
*
This time, Crystine was more prepared for the odd shifting sensation through so many multiple identities.
This time, she sensed that her progress, although remarkably rapid, involved a shifting from person to person, from one to the next.
It was as if she were being made aware of the various personalities she normally found herself having to present to the world. The characteristics she briefly adopted to at least have a chance of success in certain situations, in certain areas of her life.
Some were false identities, with characteristics her real self would hardly regard as being her.
Some were identities that even she believed represented her real self.
But which was the real her?
Where was her core, her heart?
Was she nothing more than all these layers that, onion-like, could be gradually stripped away; but only, in the end, to reveal that nothing substantial lay at the very centre of her being after all?
To reveal, in fact, that ultimately all these false layers were the real her?
Her confusion was enhanced all the more when, on the fool gleefully declaring ‘We’re here!’, she found herself standing in the very same grand hall of mirrors.
*
Chapter 29
As before, a third person walked amongst them; becoming, like them, one of what could be millions of perfectly identical people.
It was the knave again.
And yet, no; it wasn’t.
His livery was different – not the bright gold and silvers of the sparkling mirrors, but the darker shades of reflected shadows, of the dulled backing that lay hidden behind every silvered mirror.
The fool appeared every bit as surprised by the servant’s appearance as she was. He obviously hadn’t intended to announce his arrival to the queen, as he had at the April Queen’s palace.
‘Oh, er, I realise your queen is probably ever so busy…’ he began to explain hesitantly, hoping no doubt that they would be almost instantly dismissed and allowed to travel back to the younger queen’s mirrored hall.
The servant’s unamused grimace gave the fool hope that his ploy was about to work.
But then, catching sight of the glittering necklace draped around Crystine’s neck, his manner changed completely.
‘Not at all,’ he stated with a surprising hint of great joy, ‘the queen will be absolutely delighted to receive you!’
*
Before the fool had any chance to protest that they needed to leave, the queen’s servant ushered him and Cyrstine through a huge door lying hidden directly behind a nearby mirror.
Here the room was entirely different to the hall of mirrors; or rather, it had probably looked exactly like the brightly sparkling hall at one time, but now all the mirrors had been covered with dark veils of the various tones of brown.
A figure draped in similarly dark brown veils was seated with her back to them, garb that would have been regarded as funereal had it been of sheer black rather than these colours of trees about to shed the beauty of their leaves. The woman’s elbows were resting on a large table that dominated the room, her head bowed as if contemplating an interesting book lying open before her.
Hearing the opening of the door and the steps of their entrance, the queen whirled around, her anger at being disturbed plain even beneath the face veil.
But then, just as with her servant, her manner entirely changed as soon as she caught sight of the jewels adorning Crystine’s neck.
‘At last,’ she breathed with relief. ‘Here it is at last!’
*
Abruptly euphoric, the queen rose from her seat.
She stepped forward to excitedly greet Crystine, even as she dismissed the servant with a grateful recognition of his observance, his diligence in following her instructions.
‘I’d told him to look out for a girl beautiful beyond belief,’ she explained to Crystine, ignoring the fool but for the politest of nods, ‘and if she was wearing an equally gorgeous necklace, she was to be sent in to me immediately!’
She delicately caressed Crystine’s cheek, her long, elegant hands draped in the same dark veils as the rest of her.
‘Ah yes, yes; its effects are truly wondrous, aren’t they?’ she sighed blissfully.
Her hand, her long fingers, deftly dropped towards the glowing ruby of the necklace, embracing it in her palm.
‘And yet, so so deadly!’
She let it fall back against Crystine’s chest, almost as if it had suddenly burnt her, or at least become too hot to handle.
‘If you’d like your necklace back then–’
With the raising of a hand, the queen brought to a halt Crystine’s fruitless attempt to lift the necklace over her head.
‘No no; we both know you can’t remove it, darling. It’s now rightfully yours. And, I assure you, I don’t wish to have it back!’
‘But the beauty–’
‘The beauty it grants to its wearer?’ the queen chuckled grimly. ‘Are you hinting, darling, that I’m in dire need of “refurbishment”?’
Crystine was momentarily horrified that she had insulted the queen. Thankfully, however, the queen chuckled once more.
‘But that is exactly why I don’t wish to have it back,’ she added. ‘Why, indeed, I rid myself of it in the first place!’
‘We were told you’d traded it with the KingFisher,’ the fool said, speaking for the first time since they had entered the queen’s apartments.
‘The Hag Queen: she told us,’ Crystine explained, detecting a sudden air of confusion about the queen.
‘Did she now?’
The queen laughed bitterly.
‘Ah, all these tales, all spreading like wild fire, giving us no opportunity to point out their falseness, their lies.’
‘Then – it’s not true?’
‘Like many such stories, it contains a grain or two of truth: which, of course, is what makes them all so believable. And yes – please forgive me, I obviously can’t be sure which version of the tale you’ve heard – the Four Dark Elves did indeed appear before me once more, pointing out what they called “the flaws” in their creation. There was also a suggestion that I might wish to meet up with their master; but my brain wasn’t so addled that I didn’t realise the Hag Queen would be desperate to take it off my hands!’
‘The flaws?’ Crystine repeated worriedly.
‘Oh, naturally, I was rather remiss in bringing its flaws to the Hag Queen’s attention!’ the queen answered, misinterpreting Crystine’s concern. ‘Otherwise, even she would have refused to take the cursed thing!’
‘But how did you give it to her?’ Crystine asked, assuming that the flaw must be connected to the way you couldn’t remove the necklace once you’d accepted it.
‘Well, isn’t it obvious? Didn’t I already say? She was naturally desperate to obtain it; you must have seen how hideous she is! Not that I believe that even that remarkable necklace could have brought her even the briefest relief from her ugliness: she must have had so little inherent beauty to draw upon, don’t you think?’
‘That’s how it works? It draws on inherent beauty?’
Hearing this, Crystine experienced a relaxing sense of relief; if the beauty was inherent, didn’t that mean it had just been previously hidden? In which case, it wasn’t a false, imposed beauty. She could, indeed, say this was the real her; the real her unveiled and released from all those covering layers.
‘Why, of course!’ the queen replied gaily.
She once again reached forward and palmed the necklace’s ruby. This time, however, she peere
d more closely at it, carefully observing the fluctuating light patterns lying deep with it.
‘There you are, see?’ she declared enthusiastically, pointing out the image of the hideous queen lying at its heart.
‘No no!’ Crystine objected. ‘That’s the Hag Queen!’
The queen observed her with narrowed, doubtful eyes. She smiled with wry amusement.
‘Ah, that’s what you’ve told yourself is it, my poor darling?’
She stared intently into the blood red stone once more, her eyes still narrowed but this time with concentration.
‘No, definitely not the Hag Queen!’ she announced assuredly. ‘I know her well, of course; and that isn’t her!’
‘Then who is it?’ the fool asked anxiously, remembering the many times that his own love had vehemently declared that the hideous queen glaring out of the ruby must be the Hag Queen.
‘Why, it’s the poor girl who’s wearing it of course!’ the queen replied. ‘That’s what she’ll look like a few years from now; when all her beauty has been drained by her youth!’
*
Chapter 30
‘No, that can’t be!’
Crystine was naturally horrified by the queen’s revelation that the hideous woman portrayed within the ruby was none other than her future self.
She rudely snatched the ruby from the queen’s hands, determined to prove her wrong.
This hideous woman couldn’t be her! It had to be the Hag Queen!
But the more she looked into the ruby, searching for the details she hoped would prove beyond doubt that it could only be the hag queen, the more she had to admit that the similarities between this dreadful woman and herself were indeed quite startling.
Yes; it was how she would look years from now!
The fool couldn’t fail to notice the dawning of awareness in Crystine’s increasingly alarmed expression.
The queen grinned, amused by his own startled appearance.
Even so, it was to Crystine that she spoke.
‘Ah, it seems your love’s shocked by the revelation that you will one day age and lose your considerable beauty, my darling.’
‘Oh, er, she’s not – I mean, I’m not her love!’ the fool stammered in embarrassment, his face blushing so wildly it was obvious even in the dim light of the room.
The queen’s amusement reached new heights as she stared disbelieving at the angrily red fool.
‘It’s true; we’re not lovers,’Crystine confirmed.
The queen observed Crystine intently, briefly yet swiftly studying her, her eyes narrowed yet again as they probed for any signs hinting at lies or, maybe, even self-delusion.
‘Oh, yes, yes; I can see that you’re telling the truth, girl. But then, hasn’t it always been that way – that in a relationship, the more beautiful of the two will tend to dominate, to garner all the power?’
‘Your mistaken,’ the fool stated adamantly, the redness of his skin more pronounced than ever. ‘There’s no such relationship between us!’
‘But you wish it were otherwise, don’t you?’ the queen persisted.
‘Of course not!’
‘Please: the advantage of decorating a place with mirrors, even ones now veiled, is that they reveal to me odd glimpses of the things people hope to hide from others – even from themselves. I’ve seen in the reflections how you look at her, how you thrill at every word she speaks, every move she makes–’
‘This isn’t true!’ the fool snapped irately. ‘My love is the queen, the April Queen–’
The queen gasped, now looking rapidly between Crystine and the fool as if suddenly aware of something shocking.
‘Please please tell me you didn’t go to the April Queen’s palace; not together, at least, surely!’
‘Why yes, if you must know!’ the fool admitted, unable to understand why the queen appeared so dismayed by this. ‘Though I can’t see what it has to do with yo–’
‘But you don’t see, do you?’ the queen interrupted. ‘Weren’t you aware of how the queen’s beauty had faded? That she had already begun the covering up of mirrors within her apartments? And then you turn up to see her accompanying the realm’s newest beauty?’
‘She didn’t see us–’
‘Oh, and the servant? When he informed his queen that her lover was here, with a beautiful woman?’
‘Surely he wouldn’t–’
‘Most surely he would: for that’s the effect that the beauty of your friend has on men – addling their brains completely! So the poor queen, what else must she think but that she must somehow restore her beauty before seeing you? And that explains why I’ve heard that she’s gone seeking out the Four Dark Elves–’
‘The elves?’ The fool was aghast. ‘No!’
*
‘She wants a new necklace?’
The fool said it as if still hoping there might be some other explanation.
‘What else?’
‘But she didn’t need to go to the elves!’ Crystine pointed out, raising the ruby of the necklace up from her chest. ‘I don’t want this one!’
The queen shook her head sadly.
‘Oh, if only her servant had been as observant as mine; then you might have been shown through! Then she might have been able to take the necklace from you; being, of course my darling, far more desperate than you, and still obviously unaware of its flaw!’
‘She cannot have lost so much of her beauty that she’d need to beg the elves for help!’ the fool whimpered, perhaps hoping to persuade himself more than anyone else.
‘She’d begun to cover her mirrors, as I’ve already said; when you reach that stage, my darling,’ the queen said morosely, turning towards and addressing Crystine once more, ‘when you no longer take delight in seeing yourself, it’s like closing so many doors; like you’re leaving behind so many layers of the person you used to be. And with that, you’re also jettisoning all those years of joy you’ve had, such that your life seems empty, purposeless.’
She glanced off towards her own veiled mirrors, almost half a hundred of them just in this room.
She raised a handkerchief up beneath her face veil, towards her eyes, dabbing at them as if to absorb tears.
‘No matter; no matter,’ she said resolutely, ‘all these things will one day be resolved!’
She turned back towards Crystine.
‘Naturally, I’d heard the stories of how these dark elves appear before a naïve young girl, tricking her into accepting their necklace–’
‘I didn’t want–’
The queen airily waved aside Crystine’s protestation.
‘Of course, of course; you weren’t interested in being beautiful! Why in the world would any girl want to be beautiful beyond all imagination?’
‘But I really didn–’
She was brought to a halt by another casual wave of a hand as the queen interrupted her once more.
‘Please, my darling; I’m not accusing you of being in any way shallow or foolish! Isn’t that the way of the world, the way we’re expected to put on this false face simply to be accepted; a demand made by those who wouldn’t accept any such stipulation themselves? Aren’t we told, Oh you’re kind, you’re caring, you’re nurturing; and with these grains of truth, we swallow the whole lie that therefore we can’t possibly be anything but also weak and subservient, and in need of protection. And that is the beauty of the necklace’s subterfuge: for as it pays us compliments, supposedly granting us power, its wields its own power over us!’
*
Chapter 31
The Queen of Tears
A great many tales begin in a similar manner, with a young girl dreaming of being a princess or a fairytale queen. Or, at the very least, of obtaining some measure of success in their world.
And so this tale is different – for it begins with a queen dreaming of being a girl; of an impoverished girl, with little hope of achieving anything in her world.
And yes, that queen would love so dearly to be th
at girl, rather than being herself.
For the ridiculously poor girl is at least beautiful – whereas the incredibly wealthy queen is infamously ugly.
*
Of course, it hadn’t always been this way (even if, as far as the queen was concerned, it seemed as if it had).
She had once possessed a necklace envied by every other person; not only because it was the most beautiful one ever devised, but mainly because it also made its wearer irresistibly beautiful too.
Naturally, few people were aware of how it managed to do this. But equally few people didn’t know that it was an artefact created by the Four Dark Elves of the Mountains That Overlooked the World.
As with any item worthy of the elves’ darkest talents, it was wrought from a mix of precious metals, the gold of the sun and the silver of the moon, woven together in the very tightest of embraces. The pearls adorning it could have been bright, miniature moons, the emeralds the clear waters of the brightest streams, the amber the glow of trees before the autumn fall. Its centrepiece, however, was the crowning glory, a perfect sphere of what might have been freshly spilled blood, such that it glistened with the ebb and flow of life, the sparkle of purest energy.
And within the very midst of that blood there grimaces the most hideous hag imaginable, a reminder of what the necklace was capable of saving you from becoming.
The queen revelled in her unnatural beauty, adorning her palace with the most gigantic mirrors that could be constructed, the glass alone devouring whole beaches, the frames complete forests, the gilding whole mines: and the silvering of quicksilver stole the sensibilities of craftsmen, who succumbed to toxic fumes that made them as crazed as any March Hare.
Still, the queen’s palace, if not their minds, blazed with light.
The queen delighted in meeting herself afresh every day, no matter in which direction she looked.
Indeed, when the mirrors were positioned just so, she found herself in a crowd of equally beautiful people, all as equally enthralled with each other.