Porcelain Princess (14 page)

‘
So,
why do you hunger and go without when you can kill two birds with
one stone?’ the man reasonably asked the crowd. ‘For the whale
itself is the equivalent of a vast catch of fish, with meat and
blubber and oil to keep the whole village fed for a
year!

‘
You
can feed your horses, so you can plough the fields.

‘
You
can feed your dogs, so your hunting’s a success.

‘
You
can feed your cats, so rats and mice won’t steal your
supplies.

‘
You
can feed your land, so all your corn grows so high.’

‘
The
shoals will return to us!’ the fishermen merrily
predicted.

‘
The
men will have done us proud again!’ the women reassured
themselves.

‘
Our
mothers will never let us go hungry!’ the children
believed.

So the fishermen
trimmed their sails, and set to their oars, and eased on their
rudders, and the fleet set sail. They cast their nets aside, they
drew out their harpoons. And soon the whale appeared amongst
them.

‘
See
how its spout bursts forth like a poisoned spring!’ the men cried.
‘It’s an omen! An ill omen! Follow the whale, else it will lead our
souls to their doom!’

Following the
whale across the sea, they came to fishing grounds the likes of
which they had never seen. But they ignored the fish. They didn’t
draw them in. They cast their harpoons.

In their anger,
they cast them again and again. But not one hit its mark, for the
great whale at last dived down and down, seeking safe harbour in
the depths of the sea.

And the whale,
like the great shoals of fish, was never seen again.

And what of the
Devil?

Well, that very
night he stole away from the village, laughing at the fisher folk
and their stupidity.

*

At the other end
of the great room, a large set of doors silently opened.

When the
Porcelain Princess stepped through the doors, she sparkled in the
colour-saturated air as if she were the most glorious thing in
existence.

Never, ever, had
Carey seen so many brilliant tones and shades all in one place. The
reds of robin breasts, the greens of butterfly wings, the blues of
warm seas, the silver of flashing swords, the golds of endless
wheat fields, and a glorious magenta that swirled and eddied as if
drawn from the midst of the cosmos itself. A treasure hoard would
have seemed dull and uninteresting by comparison.

The Princess
glided across the floor. She smiled at Carey – and then she
stopped, and she stared, and her eyes opened wide in
amazement.

Carey wasn’t
sure, but as she was also completely amazed, she guessed she must
look the same.

Exactly
the same.

They studied
each other as if catching themselves by surprise in a mirror and,
suddenly realising that the image was more real than they had
previously imagined, reaching out as if to touch this semblance of
their hair, this perfect copy of their face; but then swiftly
withdrawing their hand back, as if thinking that fulfilling the
touch would somehow either destroy the magic or, worse, draw them
ever deeper into its grip.

‘
I…I
can’t believe it…’

‘
I
was expecting…but not this…’

‘…
told it was true, yet…’

‘…
the
pictures, they showed that…’

They circled
each other, each swapping one place for the other, then swapping
back again as they moved positions once more.

The Princess
giggled.

Carey
chuckled.

Then they both
laughed together, as if they could have been long lost sisters
reunited again at long last.

‘
I
would have invited you here earlier,’ the Princess finally
admitted, indicating with a wave of her hand that she wanted Carey
to walk with her back towards the doors leading deeper into the
palace, ‘but I wanted to give you time to put on one of your shows.
I’m sorry I missed it; but I heard your puppets were
remarkable!’

As the Princess
spoke and walked alongside her, Carey noticed that her movements
weren’t at all puppet-like, as she’d come to expect living with her
friends.

‘
And
that’s why you’re here of course; to give your friends
life?’

The Princess
said it in such a way that it came across as a question, as if she
were giving Carey the chance to ask herself if that were the real
reason why she was here.

‘
I
realise it seems odd, even a little greedy,’ Carey admitted. ‘I
mean, it’s already incredible that my friends can move and talk, as
if alive. But as you know – well, I
suppose
you know, seeing
that everyone here already seems to know so much about me! – it’s
not a real life, but all thanks to these ingenious mechanism
developed by my grandfathers and what have you. The trouble is, as
my friends can
think
, they
know
it’s not a
real
life. They realise what they have, but also what
they’re
missing
.’

‘
Hah,
so you’re saying they want to be
really
alive; like me, you
mean?’

The Princess
smiled as she observed Carey curiously.

Carey sighed
with relief. She had begun to wonder how she would phrase the many
questions she wanted to ask the Princess.

‘
Er,
yes,’ Carey said, still a little nervous about how she would ask
her next question. It seemed a rude, intrusive question to ask; yet
she had travelled so far, and for so long, she
had
to ask it
now. ‘How did it happen?
How
did you suddenly come to
life?’

‘
Well, as it seemed to
me
, Carey, I
did
just
“suddenly” come to life! Like anyone else, I can’t remember a time
when I
wasn’t
here; at some point, I just became aware that
I was
here
. Strange as it seems, when it comes to explaining
why and how I’m here, just like anyone else I only have the stories
about me to go on. Are you saying you don’t believe those stories,
Carey?’

‘
Imagination? You believe it really is the power of everyone’s
imagination that gives you life?’

The Princess
stopped in the doorway, turning to look back into the room they had
just stepped out of. The air swam with colour, flowing, undulating
and glistening like a captive aurora borealis.

‘
See
all this quite wonderful magenta?’ the Princess asked, pointing out
the areas where the purplish-pink tones were most
evident.

‘
How
could I miss it? It’s beautiful.’

‘
Well, take a look at the windows themselves; then tell me
what you see there.’

Carey looked up
towards the windows, taking in the incredible beauty of the stained
glass images, the bright yet surprisingly dark reds, greens, blues
and yellows, the sparkling, misty silver.

And then it
struck her what the Princess wanted her to see; or, rather,
not
see.

‘
There’s no magenta in the windows themselves; not even any
purples or pinks. But doesn’t that just mean that the colours are
blending in the air to create the magenta?’

‘
Yes;
and no. For, as our finest alchemists and natural philosophers can
verify, magenta is a colour that shouldn’t exist.’

‘
Shouldn’t exist?’ Carey was confused. ‘But it’s
there
;
we can
see
it.’

Turning back to
face the way they had originally been heading, the Princess started
walking once more.

‘
Yes,
yet according to those who know of spectrums and rays of light,
magenta exists in space already occupied by other
types
of
rays; rays that can transfer messages over great distances, or even
damage our bodies.’

‘
The
colour magenta can
harm
us?’ Carey said, horrified, as she
walked alongside the Princess.

‘
No,
no, thankfully not,’ the Princess chuckled. ‘I simply used it as an
example of how things we take for granted aren’t always what they
seem. Take yourself for instance Carey; how old are
you?’

They were moving
through the rooms much quicker than they were walking, as if the
carpet beneath their feet were also swiftly moving, taking them
along at great speed through hallways and larger, multi-mirrored
areas.

‘
Oh,
well, I…I’ve never really thought of it before,’ Carey replied, a
little surprised that she couldn’t give a more definite answer.
‘I’ve been so busy travelling, trying to find your kingdom or
arranging shows, it never seemed important to me.’

It was true, she
suddenly realised; she had never given her age much if any thought.
There had always seemed to be so many more important things to
think about.

‘
Ah
yes; I take it you’ve been searching for a
very
long time.
For how long, do you think? Months? Years?’

Just as the
carpets in the rooms seemed to be carrying them smoothly along,
whenever they reached and stepped onto one of the long, gracefully
curving staircases, these too carried them upwards at dizzying
speed.

‘
Oh
years and year, I think,’ Carey answered the Princess doubtfully.
She couldn’t really remember how long it had been. ‘Well, no – I
suppose it must just
seem
like years and years, of course. I
stopped counting long ago; so long ago in fact, I can’t even
remember when I stopped counting!’

‘
Well, to
look
at you,’ the Princess said, looking
Carey up and down, ‘I’d say you were around fourteen or sixteen.
And me? Even though I look very much the same age as you, I suppose
you have
some
idea of
my
age, yes?’

‘
Oh,
almost a hundred years at least, maybe,’ Carey said casually before
realising it might sound like an insult to the Princess. ‘Oh, er,
sorry! Not that you look anything
like
it, of
course!’

The Princess
laughed good naturedly.

‘
Like
you, I gave up counting
long
ago!’

*

‘
From
here, you can see where the Illuminator works,’ the Princess
declared proudly, casually waving a hand towards the incredibly
tall windows running the entire length of a corridor they had
entered at the top of a long, graciously rising flight of
stairs.

Their walking
now was unhurried and back to normal, as neither the carpet nor the
floor moved in this particular room. So Carey excitedly skipped
over towards one of the windows, leaning closely against the glass
and peering up towards the slim, high tower she could see jutting
out from the wall at the farthest end of the corridor.

At its top, the
towered flared out into what could have been a ball of glass, it
had so many windows. On one side, however, this ball extended out
into yet another but stubbier tower, this one completely windowless
and topped with a gloriously white dome. The dome was split down
its centre, with what looked like a gigantic telescope protruding
from it.

Behind her,
Carey heard an odd clanking, a shiver of metal over
metal.

Turning, she
found herself surrounded by the strangest and smallest knights she
had ever seen, every one of which had a long, sharp spear pointed
directly at her.

‘
Captain!’ the Princess barked from slightly higher up the
corridor.

As Carey had
peered out of the window, the Princess had continued to walk along
the hallway, and now – hearing the same metallic clinks Carey had
heard – she had turned back to see what was going on. In response
to her call, one of the armoured soldiers spun around on his heels,
giving her a smart salute. There wasn’t really anything to
differentiate him from his men for, just like them, he was an
amalgam of wood, leather and iron plates. He was hardly much taller
than Peregun, and moved just as jerkily.

‘
She’s with me, Captain,’ the Princess calmly
explained.

The armoured men
immediately stepped back away from Carey, smartly raising their
spears in the same, easy movement and bringing them tightly up
against their sides.

‘
You
can stand your men down; and thank you for your and their
alertness.’

The men stepped
farther back, spinning sharply on their feet. Then each one headed
towards an alcove in the wall. As soon as one of them reached an
alcove, his constituent parts moved and flowed over each other
until he had blended into the wall, a flame and oil reservoir
smoothly slipping out from within his back to become an innocent
looking wall lamp.

‘
Sorry, Carey,’ the Princess apologised. ‘They’re here to
protect the Illuminator’s privacy; because you’d dropped back
behind me, they took you as a threat.’

At the farthest
end of the corridor, they turned into the doorway that lead into
the base of the Illuminator’s tower. Spiral stairs ran up through
the tower’s interior, much as steps run up the inside of a
lighthouse, although these were a beautifully elaborate mix of
wrought iron and stone.