Unconquered Sun (10 page)

The prince, having hardly risen from the earth, stiffened as paralyzed, and the Fairy, having directed to it the stick, pronounced words of a paternoster. The snake flashed a magic blue-green flame and at the very same time turned into an ashes handful.

The face of the Prince in a deathlike way turned pale. It began to tremble all over. The fairy with a fright ran up to the husband, embraced him and kissed on a forehead on which big bruise already flaunted:

- Well, darling, you did not hurt? With you everything is all right? Forgive me, it was just necessary to work quickly, and that it would sting you …

The prince kneelt and, having hidden the face in hands, zaprichitat:

- Oh, the Creator, I nearly ruined you, my beloved Fairy! I nearly ruined you! What I settled!

- More silent-is more very silent, darling, everything well, I am living, isn't that so? - the Fairy consoled him, lifting from knees and tenderly ironing him on the head. - It is so easy not to kill me, I have an intuition … I feel everything …

The prince, having a little calmed down, sat down at a table on a verandah. And the Fairy, indifferently, told gentle and at the same time, as usual, preceptive tone of the teacher:

- The prince, my dear, on the future, know that even the most at first sight usual objects and bagatelles can be magic. And magic objects can possess absolutely unpredictable, and sometimes and dangerous properties, especially for people who are so vulnerable for any sorcery! And therefore I strongly recommend you: Or at once to show ANY suspicious objects to me if you found them somewhere or rather they "jumped" to you in hands, or it is better not to touch IN GENERAL them until I come and I will examine them. You understand?

The prince, scaredly looking in its serious and such acute, such executed by inhuman wisdom and intimate knowledge of an eye, only silently nodded in agreement.

- ANY objects, understood? ANY. And IN GENERAL do not touch them, IN GENERAL, you hear? - The fairy several times repeated these words as spells, attentively looking in eyes to Prinze so that he not in forces was to look away.

- Yes, my dear Fairy, I will not touch IN GENERAL ANY suspicious objects, the word of honor any more, - slowly, dreamily, Prinze repeated.

As soon as he told it how the person Fei was in a flash changed. Gravity and mysterious knowledge disappeared somewhere, her face became young, cheerful and womanly again. She smiled and playfully frayed Prinze for an ear:

- Well, here and remarkably, darling, everything is good. You did not suffer - and it for me the most important!

At this moment at Prinze by itself the somnolence was gone, and he smiled in reply.

- You understand, darling, I am afraid for you, but not for myself! We, fairies, for mile feel danger. We have an intuition, we have analyzers, - having concerned a celestial-blue stone on a rim, the Fairy told. - You, people, such fragile, such defenseless, so easily give in to suggestion and sorcery … - on her fine eyes tears seemed. - You are threatened first of all by danger! Present if you pressed that rychazhok before me what would be? This snake would bite you, and your poor wife would die of a cardiac rupture!. - and the Fairy quietly began to cry.

Then Prinze once again swore nevermore - to upset to himself the Fairy, to stop all the feats, to collect suspicious objects and in general, more rare to leave the house. And the Fairy, having wiped the eyes a silk kerchief, smiled and told:

- I had one similar case. Perhaps, - having thoughtfully squinted eyes, - years so passed couple of thousands since then … One traveler in we wash to the wood
absolutely incidentally
found a gold horseshoe. Then he fell asleep, and woke up already … Imagine, darling, whom? Donkey! Until he slept, in a full moon the horseshoe showed, so to speak, the magic properties. It is good still that I whereas time did round of the territory and saw this "donkey". Then it seemed to me suspicious that the pet in such solitude can do!

- And … what you made? - with curiosity Prinze asked.

- I scanned the Analyzer an animal and saw that soul at it - human! It was necessary then with this "donkey" to tinker, of course, because transformation of one look into another is an aerobatics in magic. Called to the aid all sisters with the district, even the Senior Keeper …

- And?

- Well, to a nasil removed a spell then from it, of course … - the Fairy thoughtfully looked somewhere afar, and then burst out laughing.

- You represent, darling, this poor creature with fear could not tell then couple more of days properly and tried to eat a grass! Amusing the odd fellow was such … We with sisters accustomed him several days to food, learned to speak.

The prince felt somehow awkwardly. In his soul the wave of acute jealousy began to rise.

- And what became then with that … nu-u-u-u … with that, the person?

- And - and-and, you are jealous … - having cunning looked at it, with a smile the Fairy told and tenderly frayed Prinze for a cheek. - He married then my neigbour, from sector No. 1. Fell in love its with one of all sisters - by the way, all unmarried …

- Yes … Interesting story … Listen, the Fairy, and if you could remove a spell from it one, it, turns out, lived then at you and can be would marry then you … You did not think of it? - Prinze was not appeased.

- Silly! We, fairies, unlike you, people, know that everything always occurs as has to occur. You had to become my husband, and I am your wife, and he is a husband Hranitelnitsy of the Limit No. 1. Trade of the Creator such is, and we are just his humble attendants who we submit to this Trade …

Vision was gone. The prince realized again that he sits on hemp in the middle of the wood, and the hand feels it in a jacket pocket a gold pocket mirror. But in the head of it there was a persistent mental order of the Fairy: "Not to touch! AT ALL to touch nothing! ANY objects! Not to touch!". Arose a fancy in his head: strict eyes of the Fairy with the pupils expanded almost on all iris of the eye, his souls getting into depth. And invariable mental order: "Not to touch! AT ALL to touch nothing! ANY objects! Not to touch!"

At once felt better the prince. For some time ceased to pull it to look in a mirror, but he decided to carry him the Fairy by all means.

However this state lasted not for long. Then persuasive burning has an effect on a breast and than further again, that it became stronger. Arguments of the Fairy receded further and further in consciousness depths until disappeared at all. Mysterious treasure was stronger than magic of the Beautiful Fairy.

And still it was somehow inconvenient to recognize the defeat before desire to Prinze, and therefore he pretended that he really just wants to have a rest and put in order the hairdress a little bit. For this purpose he even got the comb made of a nacreous sink from the breast pocket and put near himself. And only after that he after all got a mirror and began to look in it...

1.

At first Prinze saw nothing in a mirror, except own reflection, and already wanted was to set aside disappointedly a precious knickknack aside as suddenly the flat golden surface trembled, like a water smooth surface into which threw a stone. On it scraps of images, exactly as in a kaleidoscope lens, only much quicker chaotically started gleaming. Some unfamiliar persons, parts of the cities, some unknown landscapes, animals and plants, novel sun and constellations … From all this at Prinze the head began to spin. But here suddenly chaotic movement stopped and as it happens at a kaleidoscope pipe stop, before his look the one and only image was created.

The prince saw a peaked tower at top of the abrupt rock which brightly shone against is dazzling the blue sky as if it would be entirely made of gold. A tower the observation platform in the form of a disk on which someone was crowned. But who - the Prince could not sort: some small it is also dazzling a bright yellow point.

Suddenly Prinze's consciousness sharply pulled in its party and so that he could not oppose to this inclination just as iron cannot oppose to a magnet attraction. The prince wanted to cease to look in a mirror, but he was unable to take away the look from its sparkling surface. The soul it was captured by such intolerable burning as though in it poured in the melted gold. The prince felt that attractions, and burnings that small light point at tower top was a source and. She mentally called him, imperiously ordered to come to her, - and Prinze's consciousness right there responded to silent call of the new hostess.

In process of approach the point increased in sizes until Prinze did not see before himself rather accurately issued figure, in appearance reminding female, but all as if made of gold. However most of all Prinze struck not it, but the fact that the figure reminded the ghost rather, than the living being. Everything in it was - from features to details of clothes - some unreal, thin, air, transparent.

It was dressed in gold, kingly magnificent, clothes: a long dress with the cloak attached to shoulders by fasteners in the form of solar disks, the shoes decorated with diamonds on a high heel. On her head the diadem shining with a scattering of blood-red rubies reminding something a nimbus of some ancient pagan deity flaunted. Ideally roundish oval of her face reminded something a solar disk, and gold streams of its straight lines sparkling more brightly than the sun of hair, waves falling on shoulders, - a stream of sunshine. Also her skin was gold, even her eyes were gold …

Or rather, in usual sense of this word it had no eyes. There were empty eye-sockets, as on a theatrical mask from which the sunlight streamed bright bunches. Eye-sockets, thus, reminded the bright windows of houses lit at the night through which on streets light splashes. Only light streaming from THESE eyes was absolutely intolerable. It burned down soul, hurting it still big, than eyes are hurt by light of the visible sun, and at the same time it pulled it to itself(himself) as a next world that attracts to itself moths that then to ruin them. At the same time the face of this gold illusive woman was absolute not movably, passionlessly, is kingly majestic and … is ruthless as ruthlessly perfectly and perniciously there is a sun in the lifeless desert.

When Prinze appeared on the disk-shaped platform, a solar being attentively looked at him approximately the same as people usually look at the insect flying around them - with the mixed share of curiosity, feeling of own superiority and fastidiousness.

"From where you have my mirror? Who gave it to you?", - there was in Prinze's consciousness a mental question.

Control over own consciousness was given to Prinze by incredible effort of will, approximately with the same work as though he conceived to hold in hand a glass with boiled water. But, despite these torments, he nevertheless drove as he could, from the head of reminiscence of the dwarf Hnum, he promised it not to give out, and Prinze got used to keep the promise …

"Ah, you are silent, a cadaveric worm!" - after some pause spoke a silent Voice in his consciousness again. - "Well and, all right, it is unimportant now. Know, mortal that if earlier
you
owned my mirror, then now
my
mirror will own you!" From bright flash of gold light of an eye of Prinze rezanut as a knife. At it intercepted breath, for an instant he absolutely went blind. And then his soul plunged into the fiery abyss in which the last remains of consciousness drowned …

2.

He regained consciousness lying flatwise directly on a grass. In both hands it convulsively squeezed a gold mirror.

The prince did not understand at all what happens to him. He just felt that some other, alien beginning lodged in his soul since some moment, and this other beginning burned down his soul with insatiable and passionate desire - still at least once to look in empty gold eye-sockets of that stranger, to feel intolerably burning delightful touch of her solar look to the heart. The heavy melancholy shrouded in a black cover Prinze's soul, but how many he peered into a metal surface of a mirror again and again, he saw in is mute only the reflection …

The prince did not remember how he came home.

The beautiful Fairy met him, as always, joyfully. She embraced and kissed him, having thanked for collected herbs. The little son and the daughter came running and rushed directly on hands to the father, showing what beautiful wreaths they weaved today, walking on a meadow under the vigilant guide of Oslenk, and the Kitten and the Puppy and curled at his legs nearby, expecting when he pats them on a soft skin.

Soon all happy family, as usual, already sat at a dining table. The hostess put all new and new dishes on a table. Here were both the sweet and useful porridge from pink pollen giving health and eternal youth, and to children - forces for growth, and soup from pink dandelions from which there was always a wish to sing cheerful songs, and cotton candy from pink clouds, - the most favourite delicacy of children and Prinze. Besides the main, "pink", dishes there were numerous vegetables and fruit, and also sweet and fragrant milk from dairy trees.

All were cheerful and ready for communication. Really, the most cheerful talk usually was at dinner carried on, and after it songs were sung and fairy tales were told. The fairy preferred to sing fairy tales under a lute, and Oslyonok carefully wrote down them as he dreamed to publish sometime them the separate collection. The prince told them prose, but it is very interesting as he loved any sharp subject turns which captured imagination. And the Puppy and the Kitten liked to tell jokes - where they them were only gathered in such solitude? - accompanying them with almost circus numbers so all laughed to exhaustion.

But what surprise all when this time the habitual order was broken had. The prince was silent, did not look at the Fairy and in general was some stranger lost as the raincoat forgotten by someone on a chair. He saw before himself only two is dazzling sparkling solar a sphere and heard only a metal heartless voice in the head: "Come, come to Me, melt in the Stream, become absolutely gold, become the Sun!". And from these images Prinze wanted nothing. He did not see the Fairy, did not see plush friends and the food did not climb to him in a throat.

At first the Fairy understood nothing.

"Probably", - the Fairy thought with alarm, - "has again a longing him for deeds. Probably, the feat offered by me appeared to it not on temper. It is necessary to feed him with pink food - it drives away any melancholy, and then we together will decide what other feat he will be able to make to return self-confidence and fine mood".

Having thought so, the Fairy decided to apply the same method, as usually: she sat down near Prinze who was persistently looking somewhere under a table and told:

- You something at all eat nothing darling and do not drink. You so will remain absolutely flat-out! On, bitterns at least a glass of pink juice: it is such tasty, such nutritious, such invigorating … Here you will see, at once it will become easier for you! - And the Fairy, having taken a glass of juice in one hand, as usual in such cases, another tenderly stroke-oared Prinze on the head. Earlier it always brought it to the pacified state and did obedient as a lamb. Touching Prinze's hair, the Fairy mentally read special spells which started invisible beams of the Analyzer in action. They also made impact on certain centers of a brain.

But this time nothing similar occurred: she felt some strange and very strong barrier which, like
a mirror
, reflected Analyzer beams in Prinze's consciousness, without allowing to get them into his brain. On the contrary, at the Fairy the head strongly ached. And Prinze did not begin to drink pink juice.

The fairy understood nothing and clung to a straw.

"Perhaps, everything can be explained more simply", - she thought. - "The prince caught a cold in the wood and was unwell or walk tired him. Or perhaps he just met on the way some misfortune: you never know, suddenly these irrepressible dwarfs cut down the whole grove of young growth or a monster which escaped today because of the Limit, bit to death on the way some animal - everyone happens!".

The fairy carefully touched Prinze's forehead. It turned out such hot that it was wrinkled from pain.

"But the person can have no such temperature!" - the Fairy thought - and it strengthened her in thought even more that something here not so.

- My dear Prinze, what is with you? - anxiously the Fairy asked it. - You some lost today, do not listen to me at all and eat nothing also on kids and do not watch Animals at all … Something happened to you in the wood? To you nobody happened there?

- In the wood … - an echo Prinze responded, keeping the eyes glued on the knees. - In the wood … It …

- Who such "it"? - the voice of the Fairy foully trembled, and inside at her everything contracted and grew cold. - I do not understand you, the road at all!

- Supernal loveliness … Perfection … Mirrors … It is a lot of mirrors … It is a lot of gold … Stream … Pleasure … Infinite perfection and beauty … It … Infinite perfection … - various combinations of these words the Prince said everything again and again as though he sat not at a table, and lay seriously ill in a bed and raved. The prince did not react to surrounding at all. His unblinking eyes glazed over, as at a doll.

And the Fairy quietly began to cry. And everything it became sad.

The fairy felt that someone stole Prinze's heart and before her the empty cover sits. But she did not understand at all who and as was able to do it. The intuition prompted to it that something here not so. Probably, the Fairy would find some trace, but the word "it", in combination with "beauty" and "perfection" worked on her, as well as on any other woman.

The person Fei was filled in by bright paint, eyes became muddy from filled them got down, and on heart a heavy stone the offense laid down: "it" … "beauty" … "perfection" … What else the Fairy from these words could draw a conclusion? Well, of course, the same that would be made also by any other wife on her place! The fire of jealousy, offense and just anger captured all its being, eyes were lit by furious fire, cheeks flared a flush, and fingers by itself clenched in the cams which were not foretelling to Prinze anything good …

Of course, keep the Fairy the usual self-control, she would bring the magic book and would try to investigate more in details Prinze's consciousness regarding magical influence, to find sorcery traces … But the jealousy and offense absolutely saddened her reason and for the first time in the life it did not restrain. When Prinze once again said "It … - infinite perfection and beauty", the Fairy closed up to him such slap in the face that Prinze swept from a chair directly on a floor and only then his eyes accepted intelligent expression.

- What happens to me? Where I? - Prinze by the shivering voice said, hardly rising to the feet. His face expressed feeling of perfect confusion what is at the person who after a violent wine party woke up in absolutely unfamiliar place.

-
I
have to ask you that happens
to you
, the husband! - not in forces to constrain anger, the Fairy hissed.

The rough family scene became ripe.

The animals who before got sad put in a tight situation the plush ears now and were afraid to move. They were horrified: never for all the long life they saw the Fairy
such
and now did not even know that to do - quietly to leave or rather to escape, or to help, besides, unclear to whom - to the Fairy or Prinze.

Situation was saved by kids which suddenly howled unanimously as two small sirens so Animals, without waiting for team, seized both and rushed away from the house on a lawn. In soul Animals were even grateful to this case, having received a plausible excuse to be washed away from this the volcano muzzles threatening with fast eruption. However a curious Kitten, having provided children to Oslenk and the Puppy, remained to stand under a window to learn what will occur further.

And at this time Prinze, appear, recovered a little.

- Darling I do not understand what happens to me. I should be alone. To me it is very sad and I cannot speak with you now … - Prinze confusedly spoke, without looking in eyes of the Fairy, reddening more and more. He really wanted to leave as it is possible further from the wife and alone, alone with itself, once again to remember a fiery look of the solntseoky stranger which so painfully and so delightfully pierced his soul and to try to understand itself.