by JK Ensley
“Yes, it has been far too long, Your Majesty.” He bowed slightly. “I trust all is well in your lovely kingdom.”
“Oh, yes, yes.” She smiled, revealing hundreds of needle-sharp teeth. “So peaceful, it’s very nearly boring.”
Uriel smiled. “You should never become so at ease with peace that you become bored of it, Your Highness. The alternative is a terrifying thing.”
“Of course, of course. It is as you say.” She took his proffered arm and smiled again. “To what do we owe such a rare pleasure, Angel? The heavens do not simply dump a treasure such as you in our laps, minus purpose.”
“You are too kind, Your Majesty. There are scarce few creatures who actually look upon my face… and smile.”
“Surely you jest, Angel. Your beauty is without equal, even among the heavens.”
Uriel chuckled softly. “And you are a needed leaven to my ego, fair lady. Take heed, lest you make my head swell to bursting.”
“I will not.” She tipped up her tiny nose. “It is true, every word of it. I will not take heed, nor will I rein in my deserved praise. Now, come, beautiful Angel. Let us share in private the secret of your cherished visit. What is it you desire of my kind, Milord?”
“Ahh, yes. Well, Your Grace, I came to entrust with you the rarest of all heaven’s treasures. Entrust it to you until the appointed time in which it will be needed.”
“Speak on, Angel. I am ever here to do your bidding.”
“As you say, Milady.”
Uriel withdrew a fist-sized stone from the folds of his tunic.
“And what is this, my good man? A stone?” She chuckled softly. “If there is one thing we are blessed with here at the bottom of the sea, it is stones.”
“Not a stone like this one, Your Highness.”
He lightly ran his angelic finger across the ordinary looking stone and an ornate circle appeared, glowing with the light of heaven. The Queen’s bulbous eyes grew ever larger.
“This is no mere stone, Milady. It holds a powerful secret. One which will not be revealed until the time is fulfilled.”
“And what time might that be?” she whispered, amazed.
Uriel smiled softly. “Many years from now, a maiden will stroll upon your shoreline.”
“A maiden? Of which clan?”
“Of no clan which calls this layer home. No, she will come from another place and at another time.”
“But… how will I know her?”
“She will be human, Your Majesty. Thus you will know her.”
“That’s all you will tell me—that she is human? You must do better than that, Angel. What if I bestow it upon the wrong maiden, unawares?”
Uriel chuckled. “Throughout the countless eons that you have ruled the sea, how many humans have passed by your pearls?”
“Well… none. At least, not yet. But who knows what will come to pass over the centuries. Tell me something else about the maid. Is she fat or thin? Tall or short? Fair or dark? What color are her eyes, her hair? What does her voice sound like?”
“Calm yourself, dear Queen.” He gently patted her hand. “I cannot answer your questions, for she is not yet born. As I said, it will be many years from now—hundreds even.”
“But… what if something happens to me, Angel? What if my end finds me before the maiden does?”
“Still thy nerves, Your Grace. The beings of Lyra are not restrained by the laws of time. This you know. Barring some horrible, unforeseeable accident, your lovely heart will go right on beating until the end of all things. Fret not. You will meet the maiden.”
The Mermaid Queen began to nervously twiddle her fingers, a crease now furrowing her noble brow. Uriel placed his hands over hers, squeezing gently.
“Be calm, little one. Let me ease your fears. I cannot tell you what her wrapper will look like, no, for I do not know myself. Yet she will carry a rare soul within her. You will sense her approach from afar. You will know her by her enormous heart. Trust me in this, Your Grace. Her uncommon capacity to love and hope and dream… it will be an unhideable thing for her. She will skip along your shoreline with an open mind and an open heart. Believe me… you will know her. You won’t be able to miss her.”
The Queen visibly relaxed, but her furrowed brow remained. Uriel smiled at the amusing sight.
“Very well, Your Highness. One thing more I can tell you—the seal, the one you just witnessed glowing with the ethereal light of heaven—it will reveal itself when the time is right. This rarest of all treasures will remain as a common stone from this day until the moment of her arrival. When her steps lead her to your sea and her joyous thoughts invade your realm… only then will the seal reappear. On that day, Your Grace, it will be unmistakable to you. On that day, the seal will not only glow, it will break and reveal the heavenly secret hidden within.”
Her smile widened with his words. She squeezed his hands, waiting.
“Then the time will be at hand, Your Majesty. When the seal glows and the stone opens, deliver the treasure within to the maiden of prophesy.”
The Queen almost squealed with laughter. “Oh, I cannot wait, Uriel. I will simply be on pins and needles until her arrival.”
He chuckled. “Did you not hear me, little one? It may be hundreds of years from now. Will you hold to your excitement throughout the centuries?”
“What? Are you mad, Angel? Of course I will. The fact that such an honorable responsibility was bestowed upon me… I can scarce contain myself. Here.” She reached for the plain looking stone. “I will sit it here upon my dressing table so that I may gaze upon it daily… praying for the seal to glow.”
Uriel only smiled.
Shaemon paused in his recitation, gazing then upon the distant look now on Jenevier’s face. When their eyes met, he smiled.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Me?”
He nodded his head. “You were the maiden of prophesy.”
“Yes. I guess I was.”
“I knew it. I mean, I didn’t know it when first we met, no. Heh. In truth, I didn’t know what you were. But when that Death Angel kept coming around looking for you all the time, and now this indescribable warmth I feel as I lay within your arms… Uriel could only have been describing you.”
She blushed.
“What was it?”
“Huh?” She furrowed her brow, staring down at the tiny Fairy-man. “What was what?”
“What was the treasure hidden within the stone?”
“Oh… it was a shell.”
He sat up. “What? Just a seashell? That’s all? I thought it’d be a jewel beyond value.”
“It is beyond value, Shae.” She tenderly stroked his hair, gazing up at the slowly passing clouds. “Upon that shell… was miraculously inscribed a clandestine message. A heavenly lexis—one once disentangled, afforded me the ability to rescue my dearest friend in the whole world… and many others since. Yes, Shae, it is truly a treasure beyond value.”
He raised a single brow, gazing at her skeptically.
She lightly touched his forehead. “You tell me, Shaemon Green. Think about it. What can be counted more valuable than a life, than your life, than a friend’s life? What jewel, what kingly treasure could possibly be comparable to an immortal soul? Your Queen weighed Garoth’s life and found it to be equivalent to a stone. A powerful stone, yes… but a stone nonetheless. What say you, Shaemon? What would you freely exchange for the miracle that is… a life?”
Tears filled his eyes. He rested back against her, fighting with everything he had to cease the bitter flow. When Jenevier wrapped her arm around his tiny shoulders and squeezed him, he gave up his futile battle and let the tears come. She held him until his sobs eventually gave way to intermittent sniffs.
“Can you go on, little brother? Do you wish to continue with your story?”
He only nodded his head.
“So… you got the Water Stone,” she prodded.
He gave her just a tiny smile. “You already
know I got the Water Stone, Angel. You know what became of it as well.”
“Yes, I know you got the Water Stone, Shae. But I wish to hear of the adventure you had in obtaining it.”
He smiled again. “Very well.” He sighed. “You are aware of how those jittering little Mermaids speak inside your head, are you not?”
She nodded.
“Underwater… you cannot fight their siren voices. That’s how I knew the exact words the Mermaid Queen and the Angel shared. That is also how I knew the incessant jabbering of her attendants was driving her every bit as mad as it was driving me.”
“You are extremely lucky such a rare visitor showed up at the same time as you.”
“Extremely lucky indeed. Perhaps… divinely lucky.”
They shared a small laugh.
“Anyway, they took no note of me because of Uriel, this is true. So I hid myself in her chambers. Once she had declared the onset of a killer migraine and shooed away all those twittering little she-fishies, I only had to wait until she had fallen asleep. It didn’t take long.”
“How much time did you have left with the potion?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but it wasn’t long. Lady Luck found me once again in the fact that I was dealing with Mermaids.”
“What do you mean?”
“As I told you before, they aren’t real worried about intruders or thieves. My Queen wears the Earth Stone around her neck constantly—never takes it off. Not so with the Mermaid Queen. I found the Water Stone hanging with a bunch of other necklaces on a hook beside her dressing mirror. I snatched it from the chain and hurriedly scrambled back to dry land. Just as I thought my lungs would surely collapse, I broke through the surface. And I’m not too proud to tell you… I grabbed hold of the muddy bank, crawled out of that sea, and collapsed there on the shore. Air had never tasted so good. I lay there for a good long while—breathing in deep, filling breaths. When my panic had ebbed and I was certain I would no longer die, I rolled onto my side and gazed back out across those rippling little waves. And do you know what I saw?”
She shook her head. “What?”
“Four sets of bulbous eyes bobbing not far from where I lay upon the beach.”
“What did you do?”
He snorted. “What do you think I did? I jumped to my feet and took off as fast as my tiny wings would go. I vowed never to near that sea again… no matter what.”
“Oh yeah… I forgot you used to have wings.”
Shaemon rolled his eyes. “Of course I had wings. Well, for the moment, anyway. But that would soon change. Damn Death Angel,” he mumbled. “Here’s precisely how that all played out.”
Jenevier could guess almost exactly what he was about to say, but she stayed silent as his trembling voice filled her ears—sorrowful scenes playing out vividly in her mind…
“Whew… that was close,” Shaemon mumbled as he rubbed his brow. “A few more seconds and I’d have been a goner for sure.” He pulled his tiny fist to his lips, kissing where the stone was securely hidden. “Now, to save Garoth. If that old Bat laid a single finger upon him, I swear I will—”
“Swear ye’ll what?”
Shaemon pulled up short, quickly searching for the strangely accented voice he was certain he had just heard. No one was around. He quickly dropped to the ground, hiding deep inside the tall grass. He held his breath, frantically scanning the area. Ducking his head as he slumped over, the terrified Fairy ran wildly across the flowing field.
“Now then, just where do ye think yer going, wee Fairy-man?”
Shaemon didn’t even stop to look that time. He hurriedly darted from the tall grass and into the dense forest.
“There’s nae sense in trying tae hide, Fairy. A summons came down for ye. Ye’ll nae be getting away from me. Run as fast as ye can. I’ll still be there tae exact yer punishment when yer breath an’ those wee legs of yers gives oot.”
The man’s threatening words did nothing to deter the frantic Fairy. Shaemon panted loudly as he climbed up the steep mountainside, pain now shooting mercilessly through his aching side. When he crested the peak, his foot caught in some thick vines and sent him tumbling toward the valley below. He yelled out as he bounced off what seemed like every single rock and tree on the way down. Pain shot through his back, the likes of which he had never known. He shrieked loudly just before he landed atop a waterfall, and was quickly tossed over the side. The battered little Fairy’s ungraceful belly-flop echoed painfully across the magical hidden valley, as he landed in the pristine pool with a loud splash.
Vittorio reached in, pulling the tiny floating man out by his now limp arm.
“That’ll do, wee Fairy-lad. Enough running. Hand it over.”
Shaemon didn’t speak. He felt like his body had been the sole target of a raging stampede, and having the wind knocked completely out of him was a more painful thing than he had imagined it would be. He made a strange wheezing noise as he tried to suck in a breath.
“All that pain, an’ the ending is still the same. Give me the stone, Shaemon Green. Cough it up before I have tae wring it from what’s left of yer scrawny hide.”
The Fairy only wheezed again as he opened his palms, showing them to be covered in scratches and cuts, but completely empty.
“Dropped it, did ye? Well, the punishment’s still the same, stone or nae. Ye took it. There’s nae denying that. Stand up, Fairy. Take it like a man.”
Jenevier quickly clamped her hand over her mouth, trying to hold in the giggle threatening to escape.
“Yeah… I thought you’d enjoy that part,” he huffed. “You like that damn Death Angel as much as he likes you, don’t you?”
“I love Vittorio, yes. And although I do not love what happened to you, Shae, you have to admit… you brought it on yourself. But the way you told the story…” She chuckled. “…I could just see Vittorio doing that very thing, saying those exact words.”
“Well, I’m happy I could be your entertainment.”
“Apologies, Shae,” she said through another laugh.
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Looking back on it now… I could almost laugh myself.” He sighed. “And that’s the story of how I obtained, and then lost, the Water Stone of power.”
“So… what happened? What did your Queen do to you?”
Tears filled his eyes once more. “It’s not what she did to me… it’s what she did to Garoth that will always grieve me—tore my heart asunder. I loathe her. I prayed that the demons who invaded our realm would tear her into tiny pieces… but that she didn’t die until the very last moment, that she felt every wretched drop of it. Alas… she was well-hidden during that gruesome apocalypse.”
Jenevier didn’t say anything. She only held him—stroking his hair, keeping his breathing in-tune with hers, wiping away his tiny bitter tears. When he lifted his trembling hand, Jenevier thought he was going to touch her cheek. Yet he reached past her, placing his palm on the rough bark of the tree trunk they were resting against.
“She came looking for me,” he whispered. “After the Death Angel had claimed my wings… I laid here for what must have been hours. I was beaten, broken… shamed. I couldn’t have climbed out of this valley if God Himself had demanded it.”
She lightly kissed the top of his head, blinking away her own tears.
“I was lying right here when they found me.” He ran his hand atop the soft grass. “In this very spot. I know that because of this tree.”
“It is a lovely tree,” she whispered.
“More lovely than you know.” He sniffed and then shuddered. “When I didn’t return, the Queen woke Garoth and together they came looking for me. And when they found me… she was furious. Furious that I had lost the stone, yes, but even more so that a Dwarf Prince now knew of her intended treachery. When Garoth saw what kind of shape I was in, he ran to my side. That’s when the vile woman cast her unforgivable spell.” He gently stroked the rough bark again. “He lifted me in his arms before the pain hit him. H
e tried to hold on to me… but it was simply too much. When I fell from his arms, I looked back up to find my beloved friend twisting and writhing as the Queen’s witch-work transformed that beautiful man into what we now rest beneath.”
“What we now rest benea—” She glanced up, her eyes widening with realization. “You mean… this tree?”
He nodded. “That’s why this side of Princess Falls must always be mine. It’s where the only person I have ever loved now rests. I lie beneath his swaying branches… and pray for the end of all things to finally come.”
Chapter 6
Vittorio
(vit-TOR-ee-oh)
When he saw the sun dancing off her golden curls, his chest tightened.
“Aye, Lass. I knew if I came here every day, I’d eventually find ye sitting right where ye are now. I am blessed beyond my worth. So, my wee rabbit, were ye waiting here just for me? Or are ye hiding oot with yer Dragon up there?”
He pointed to Nilakanta’s resting spot high atop the mountain.
“Both.” She half giggled. “In truth, I came here to think. But the heartbreaking story Shaemon Green just shared with me…”
“Aye. It was as tragic a tale as I’ve ever heard… until I met ye. Yer sorrow ootweighs them all, Lass.”
His accented voice brought a smile to her forlorn face. It was her favorite voice in the whole of the universe.
“Ahh, Vittorio.” She sighed. “I have missed you, Brother. More than words can say.”
He sat down, letting his feet dangle in the pristine pool alongside hers.
“Aye, have ye now?” He took her hand in his, squeezing it. “An’ I’ve missed ye more, my wee darlin’.” He tucked her hair back behind her ear. “Yer lovely eyes still shine, Lass. Yet they nae longer sparkle with the joy they once held. Now, they seem tae glisten with the flame of rage. Tell me, wee lamb. From whence comes this fire?”
“My current fire…” She blinked the burning tears away. “…is the distant reflection of my dead husband’s pyre.”