The Rainbow Bridge and the Shadow of the Serpent: The Rainbow Bridge and the Shadow of the Serpent
Page 16
It was then that they all heard the voice of the Fairy Queen of Music. It was occupying all the nooks and crannies of the Castle and extending into the valley. From the top of the C tower, from the minor scale sequence, an imposing eagle had the Fairy Queen of Occidental Music as its rider.
- Let this stupid war wait! Let us talk before any insane carnage.
Heard in the same way due to the magic and sound power of her voice, the Tyrant Fairy Queen pronounced:
- If you wish to talk, come alone and unarmed.
- No, majesty! No, majesty!
That was the immediate chorus of more than one thousand voices.
- Alright. Let us talk then, just the two of us, separated from our forces.
- Just the two of us be damned! The three of us – retorted the Fairy Queen of Easy Fame.
- Very well, let it be so.
The Tyrant Fairy Queen turned to the Fairy Queen of Easy Fame and ordered her, whispering:
- No, you stay. I want your seduction focussed on my army. Promise them fame and eternal glamorous glory. Stupefy them tirelessly. Have the tanks at the ready for my signal and take over conducting my orchestra.
Her expression of frustration was immediate.
- As you order, Your Majesty. But I so want to participate! If she’s not prepared, the two of us can beat her.
- Shut up, stupid! Do you think everything is always easy? I see now why the girl beat you.
She was going to retort “but she also beat you”.
She didn’t dare. The Tyrant Fairy Queen read her thoughts. Her eyes turned red and flaming. The Fairy Queen of Easy Fame controlled her impulse and so the only words pronounced from her full lips were:
- Of course, my Lady. Fame is something I understand. There will never be an army more famous than yours.
- Obey, and that’s final!
With their dialogue over, the Tyrant Fairy Queen had her dragon advance with a few broad, but slow, steps. The Fairy Queen on the eagle flew and landed one hundred metres from her enemy.
In this interlude, Violet and Joaquina left the unconscious Stefanie in the care of the doctors at the Castle hospital. They ran as fast as they could, heading for one of the C watch-tower windows. It took fifteen anxious minutes for them to arrive. Meanwhile the eagle and the dragon eyed each other.
The Tyrant Fairy Queen broke the silence.
- We are not going to be heard by the others. Let there be no voice propagation magic. This is our conversation.
- That’s not what’s important. But I agree.
- Important! You will see what is important!
- Have you gone insane? Have you lost your reason? You will not succeed, but if you do, your Karma will be infinite. You have violated all the laws.
- Laws...! Don’t talk to me about laws. Haven’t you used any tricks yourself?
- Tricks, no. I have made plans and strategies, as you always do.
- Damn you! You brought that meddling Girl back here. You warned no one and gave her power. You gave her magic.
- And are you the only one who can make plans?
- She and the apprentice ballerina cannot be here. Not without my knowledge!
- And you should never have created that dungeon for operas. It is not fair to take from humanity what it already has.
- What humanity already has?
The tone of disdain in her voice became more intense:
- Humanity! What is the point of stupid missionaries being born from time to time? Our allies and I almost always pervert their creations.
- That’s not entirely true.
- How is it not? Are planes not used for war and death? Don’t we take up posts in many religions? Don’t we happen to have corrupt judges, scientists, engineers, advertising executives, journalists, lawyers, politicians and more politicians working for us?
- That’s not exactly the way it is.
- No? Aren’t we turning Planet Earth into the empire of drugs? And there’s more, the great media is practically ours. We dominate mass culture and almost everything is pure
rubbish. And don’t think this classical music of yours is immune, either.
- God give me patience! Why do you always insist on dividing and polemicising in order to conquer? I`ve already said it a million times. It’s not the style of music but your proposal and truth that count.
“When the creator is original by nature, the means used to fix his thoughts matter little.”
Heitor Villa-Lobos
- Count be damned. We are the legion. The Kingdom of the Blue Earth is under our control. It’s already ours. In fact, it always has been.
- Idiot! There is no such thing as power for ever. You know that even we are not forever.
-Ah hah!
- Has the Eye of Time taught you nothing? Even we will no longer exist one day. And in the end, we will have to answer for our deeds. You know very well to whom.
- Hahahaha! I am eternal and in chaos I will reign! Tell me I’m wrong! Humanity is worth nothing. It is pure garbage.
- You are wrong again. Even two girls can try to make it worth something. Not everything in the Kingdom of the Blue Earth is corrupted. There are people with little or much power, with much or little fame who are making a difference. The legions of darkness can delay evolution but they will never stop it.
- Don’t irritate me even more!
- Wonderful music has already been born and died. Have you seen the number of young people of all social classes who are now interested in more elevated music?
- For each one of yours, I have one thousand of mine.
- That account is not correct.
- How come? Look at the thousands of the enthralled and maddened that my empire of the senses dominates every day. Go to one of my raves, to one of my loud funk parties, and then we’ll talk.
- Nothing is forever. I have already said that you can delay the natural flow of the universe but you cannot stop it.
- No? So, look up. I’m going to consolidate my dominion throughout your own kingdom. And you, you poor idiot, will always be remembered as the loser.
- You are completely insane. If you succeed, you and your army will also be eliminated.
- Not me! My army yes. It’s here simply to help in the tragedy. Assembling another after you’re finished will be easy.
- You really have lost your reason.
- Enough! Bend the knee. Declare your kingdom to be mine and it really will not end.
- I give up. May God have mercy on you when your judgement begins.
- Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Kill her! - roared all the forces of the Tyrant Fairy Queen. Her dragon flew some distance back. At the same time, the Fairy Queen of Easy Fame gave a command signal to the war tanks. A shower of two thousand well-aimed shots from the canon crossed the one thousand two hundred metres in one and two tenths of a second.
With less than a millisecond between the arrival of each one, all the bullets hit their targets with precision, creating a clearing worthy of a nuclear explosion.
The shock wave was so overwhelming that even one of the siege towers fell and was smashed to pieces on the ground.
The silence that followed was the inverse of the explosion that preceded it. As soon as the light and dust of the explosion disappeared, a ball of incredibly blue strong light was seen. In the centre, the Fairy Queen of Music and her eagle were intact.
The eagle took flight, taking the Fairy Queen back to the Castle limits.
- Hurrah! Long live the Queen!
Thus resounded the jubilant roar of the Fairy Queen of Occidental Music’s army.
The battle was beginning. The siege tower and wagon operators turned their equipment up to top volume. The pianolas and all the others also began their plan of attack.
The maddened bulls, freed from the wagons, and the giants ran screaming towards the walls, which now became the new target for the war tank artillery. The worms were waiting.
The baboon sound operators turned on their equipment. Each one played
music particular to different genres. However, the most preponderant styles were like those played at rave parties and funk gatherings. The lyrics, when there were lyrics, were full of messages of violence and vulgar sexuality.
The pianolas went into combat, vomiting notes and music in such a way that it was impossible to describe them correctly.
The music from the castle counter-attacked with equal potency. Twelve of the twenty-four Guardians of the Towers altered the magic and the way they hammered their tuning forks. With this, a protective energy shield was created around the castle. It did not afford the same level of protection as it would have if generated by the twenty-four tuning forks. However, as it was vital that the bubbles of light continued to be generated to prevent the total swallowing by darkness, the Guardians split their forces. In this manner, a third of the shots from the cannon and a ninth of the balls of pitch fired from the catapults penetrated the energy field and splintered against the walls. The other twelve Guardians of the Towers intensified the rhythm of their hammering to compensate in part for the depth of the darkness.
The valley had once again become a tormented battlefield of notes in fierce combat. Two minutes after the war started, the bulls and the giants reached the protective dome. They were not decimated, but repelled and hurled backwards. They sniffed more coorraína and once again threw themselves against the protective shield. At this rate, sooner or later, they would break it or die trying.
Violet and Joaquina were extremely worried about the situation, but in this battle they were under express orders to simply observe.
The Fairy Queen of Easy Fame began to conduct the tyrannised orchestra. A new, elaborate symphony, which would be known forever as the Twilight Symphony, was performed with mastery. It was sombre and convoked a perverse, powerful magic.
The protective shield was practically dismantled. Now the worms, bulls and giants were able to cross it with some effort. The Castle could now count only on its walls and valiant defenders. Hundreds of dragons ridden by baboons armed with horns appeared in two attack formations. They were ten thousand metres away and were approaching quickly from the east.
But the main objective of the symphony went far beyond that effect. It was heard in space by the Midgard Serpent. This was all that was needed for the snake to close its mouth and for the Kingdom of the Seven Moons to be swallowed.
CHAPTER XX
THE EPILOGUE OF A KINGDOM
- Let’s show this mob what rock and roll is.
Pedrão’s voice gave the command to the young butterfly squadron he captained. In less than a minute the darkened sky witnessed one hundred and forty giant butterflies taking off from a huge garden in the Castle, heading for the two squadrons that totalled seven hundred and twenty dragons.
As song well known in the Kingdom of the Blue Planet, by the band Led Zeppelin, could then be heard.
Immigrant Song
“Aaaaah
Aaaaah
We come from the land
Of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun
Where the hot springs blow
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, singing and crying
Valhalla, I am coming
On we sweep
With threshing oar
Our only goal
Will be the western shore
Aaaaah
Aaaaah
We come from the land
Of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun
Where the hot springs blow
How soft your fields so green
Can whisper tales of gore
Of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlords
On we sweep
With threshing oar
Our only goal
Will be the western shore
So now you'd better stop
And rebuild all your ruins
For peace and trust can win the day
Despite of all you're losing
Uh, uh, uh
Uh, uh, uh
Uh, uh, uh
Uh, uh, uh”
A second squadron of one hundred adult butterflies took off from the Castle’s central garden. With them, the epic music from the American film “Ben Hur”, from 1959 resonated in every nook and cranny. This music was composed by Miklós Rozsa, a Hungarian composer born in April 1907 in Budapest, who emigrated to the United States in 1940 and became one of the main composers in Hollywood at the time.
It was an impressive formation of butterflies, which, despite no longer having the same impulse of youth, did possess unique strength and determination.
It was clear to see that the self-confidence of the dragons and baboons had been shaken. Even so, they advanced.
The aerial battle was six thousand metres from beginning, when more than ten eagles and thirty winged horses emerged from the high mountains to the west. The Valkyries re-appeared, mounted on their horses and eagles, holding their magic lyres, from which flaming rays were emitted each time their owners plucked the strings. Wagner’s stirring music was heard once again. There was no music from the dark side that could stand up to “The Ride of the Valkyries.”
The baboon-mounted dragons made a curve of one hundred and eighty degrees and beat a retreat. However, the Tyrant Fairy Queen projected her own image, in giant proportions, in the darkened sky.
- Any coward that retreats will be boiled in oil for an epoch!
They feared her more than their own death. They returned to the attack, screeching like delusional maniacs.
The war in the skies became as or more violent than the one on earth.
- Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Continue, destroy them. Chew them up. Spit them out. Louder. I want the music louder!
At first, the Forces of Oppressive Music had had the advantage; however, this advantage had already been lost, but it would still take a lot of time and effort for the Forces of Occidental Music to revert the fight and put an end to it once and for all.
It was not that war that concerned the Tyrant Fairy Queen but the objectives of the Midgard Serpent. The more occupied the Queen was with the plane of visible combat, the more time and strength the serpent would have to finalise the epilogue of the Kingdom of the Seven Moons. The Machiavellian, vengeful plan of the Tyrant Fairy Queen was working.
Almost nothing of the blue sky of day or the stars and Seven Moons of night was visible any longer. The Serpent of evil was almost closing its gigantic, planetary mouth. The foetid breath from its entrails was already hovering in and filling the air. But for the dedication of everyone in the Castle, the digestive process of the Serpent would have begun.
The epilogue of a kingdom was near, like the last chords of a tragic symphony.
CHAPTER XXI
STEPS OF FIRE
While the body of the ballerina was in a painful sleep, Stefanie’s spirit broke away. Connected to the young body by the thread of life, it wandered, apparently aimlessly, and drifted over the Castle walls in the middle of the great battle.
It was not seen or observed by anyone because it was a wandering spirit or soul. It perceived almost nothing of what was happening because it was just a soul incarnated in a young body. Stefanie had no training or knowledge about the soul detachments and astral voyages that very few Tibetan monks developed after a lifetime of dedication. Thus, that was not a conscious voyage. Even so, the gravity of events guided it, without its knowing how, why or where it was going.
It arrived at a quay. A sailing vessel, like the old Portuguese caravels, was waiting. As soon as the soul boarded, the vessel set off, cutting through the huge waves of an immense ocean darkened by the lack of light, without one drop of water splashing. In the world of dreams, space and time are even more relative. Thus, almost no time was spent on the ocean crossing. The sailing vessel anchored on another quay.
A white swan much bigger than she was awaited her. Without ask
ing permission and already knowing what was to be done, she mounted the swan’s back. The bird took off and flew to the interior of the continent. Stefanie heard, playing inside her own mind, the thirteenth movement of the piece for two pianos and orchestra, “The Carnival of the Animals”, composed in 1886 by Camille Saint-Saëns.
Holding onto the swan’s neck, she heard and savoured the movement called “The Swan”. She had never felt such peace and nostalgia at the same time. Because of the darkness, she could make out almost nothing of the lovely landscape over which she was flying.
Soon a forest teeming with conifers and oaks appeared. In this forest, on another continent, the time difference with the Castle was ten hours. So, night would naturally be present, had it not been for the disastrous unfolding of events.
The swan landed in the centre of the forest, on the edge of a clearing. Stefanie, or rather her soul partially detached from her body, was then allowed to witness the fusion of two wonderful cultures.
Thirty fairies from a Kingdom called the Kingdom of the Free Spirit, also known as the Kingdom of Gypsy Music, had come to the aid of the Kingdom of the Seven Moons, without even being summoned. They loved justice and freedom. They could not bear to see any being or people subjugated. It was of their own free will that they had travelled through the forces and paths of the wind as only Gypsy Fairies can do. The Midgard Serpent had been no hindrance to them at all.
Without being fully aware of herself, Stefanie was enchanted by their beauty and sensuality. They were wearing what can be conceived of as the loveliest gypsy style of dress. They were haughty. Their chestnut hair was abundant and mingled with the veils of their clothes.
They quickly gathered pieces of fallen branches that were scattered around. They placed them in the centre of the clearing with dried leaves. They were preparing a huge bonfire.
They lit the fire. It was the light from the flames that illuminated the unusual site. Coming from the hollows of some oaks and several corners of the forest, a profusion of gnomes, carrying violins, violas, double basses, oboes, clarinets, horns, trumpets, tubas and percussion instruments appeared walking. As they stood approximately one third as tall as an adult human, the sizes of the instruments were adapted. However, in sound power and tuning, no instrument on Earth was a match for them. They put themselves into traditional orchestra formation and waited for the maestro to arrive.