Porcelain Princess (17 page)

‘
Hah,
I
thought
so!’

‘
In
fact, I
believe
she’s in this very palace…’

The Princess
gasped, her eyes opening wide in delight and
astonishment.

‘
Carey! You? This troubadour loves you!’

She tripped
swiftly across the floor, grasping Carey’s hands and forcing her
into a joyful dance.

‘
Oh
how
wonderful
Carey, how I envy you! We must
arrange–’

She halted in
mid-sentence, having realised that Carey was holding back from
dancing with her.

‘
Oh,
you don’t love him Carey?’

‘
Well…’

Carey
shrugged.

‘…
it’s not
me
he loves.’

‘
Not
you?’ The Princess frowned bemusedly.

Suddenly, the
Princess looked strangely horrified.

‘
It’s
me
?’ Now she was full of disbelief.

‘
Me?’
She grinned with wide-eyed delight.

‘
But
wait,’ she said dismissively. ‘He doesn’t know me at
all!’

‘
He
dreams of you every night, he says,’ Carey explained.

‘
Still; a
dream
.’ The Princess frowned thoughtfully.
‘In his
dream
, I could be
anybody
. I could be
some…some
dream
person, couldn’t I? Not a
real
girl!’

‘
He’s
read everything he can about you. And, of course, he’s seen all
your pictures; so he knows what you
look
like. He knows
you’re kind, wise…’

‘
Oh,
the poor poor man!’ The Princess shook her head sadly. ‘His idea of
me is all based on stories! As I said, it’s just a
dream
version of me he really loves. How could I ever live up to whatever
this dream woman of his?’

‘
He
also
said that, when he touched your pictures, he
seriously
believed that you came to him in his
dreams.’

The Princess
appeared to briefly freeze, she was so startled. Slowly, she
reached out towards Carey, gently touching her on her
arm.

‘
This
troubadour, Carey; does he have hair that’s as gold as the
sun?’

‘
Yes,
yes! He
did
!’

The Princess
beamed. She stepped away, waltzing excitedly around the room,
tipping her head back as if looking up into the eyes of the tall
troubadour she seemed to believe was already holding her in his
arms.

‘
He’s
real, he’s real, he’s real! The boy of my dreams is
real
!’

*

There was still
a small crowd gathered around the caravan and, although they
weren’t putting on an actual show, Carey’s friends were managing to
keep everyone entertained. As before, the crowd had split up into
groups surrounding their particular favourite, and they laughed,
giggled or clapped every now and again, though Carey couldn’t
really see who they were surrounding, let alone what they were
applauding.

Hearing the
approach of Carey’s carriage, people began to turn to look her way.
Grudo rose up from amongst them, children hanging off his arm.
Dougy was the next to appear, effortlessly running through or
between everyone’s legs to excitedly dash towards the oncoming
carriage.

‘
It’s
Carey! She’s back!’ Carey heard Peregun exultantly cry out as the
carriage drew to a halt and the door opened. ‘Sorry girls; I have
to leave you for the moment!’

There were sighs
of disappointment from everyone as Carey’s friends made their
apologies and, stepping outside of the crowd, started to head
towards her.

‘
How
did it go?’

‘
What’s going to happen?’

‘
When’s
it going to happen?’

‘
What’s the Princess like?’

‘
What
did the Illuminator say?’

They all grinned
expectantly. Carey felt terrible, knowing that she was going to
disappoint them all.

‘
Sorry everyone, not today;
tomorrow
! I’ll be seeing
him
tomorrow
!’

‘
Tomorrow’s fine!’ Grudo growled happily, placing a comforting
arm around Carey’s shoulders. ‘We’ve waited this long; what’s one
more day? And I never thought I’d be saying
that
, so that’s
an amazing achievement in itself girl!’

‘
That’s right, that’s right!’ Durndrin agreed, his face almost
splitting he was smiling so much. ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? Who’d
have thought we’d actually arrive here?’

‘
Hey,
are you saying you actually
doubted
Carey, Durndrin?’ Ferena
laughed.

Durndrin would
have blushed if puppets could blush.

‘
Well, I didn’t actually mean th–’

‘
That’s all right, Durndrin,’ Carey chuckled forgivingly.
‘Thing is, to be honest, I’d doubted it myself
sometimes!’

‘
And
I see you have yet
another
book?’ Neris said, raising her
eyes in mock admonishment as she indicated the sketchbook in
Carey’s hands with a nod of her head.

‘
Yes,
yes!’ Carey declared eagerly, realising that the new story given to
her might help allay any disappointment her friends might secretly
feel. ‘It’s a new story; a story I want to read to you all straight
away, to see if you think we can turn it into a play!’

*

The
Elemental Flaw

The men,
thousands of them, toiled in the earth, so far underground that
many of them feared they might break through at any moment into the
fires of Hell. And as they burrowed father and farther into the
earth, the men piled up behind them whole new mountain ranges,
transforming plains into a whole new landscape. Elsewhere, the
earth was dropped into the sea on the edges of a great bay,
creating the dam that would reclaim the land for man. And to create
the supports for the mines, and the framework for the dam, and the
carts that transported the rock and soil, whole forests were
steadily being felled.

The Earth was
outraged. Hadn’t she helped house and feed man since they had first
arrived here? And hadn’t she, when she was angry with their
behaviour, made them tremble with fear when she had quaked with
rage? And now here they were digging deep into her very body,
strewing her entrails out wherever they wished, robbing her of her
riches of iron and coal. Worse still, they had corralled her sister
and brothers into aiding her subjugation. How could they have
tunnelled so deeply without the help of her brother Air, who had
flowed along behind them, ensuring they retained the breath of
life? Fire had lit their way, as well as smelting her iron until it
also bent to man’s will. Then Water had hardened the iron in its
new form, tools the men used to hack away at her all the
more.

Air was incensed
by his sister’s claims that he had betrayed her. He, who had given
man the breath of life, and who could take it away by simply
withdrawing his gift, had now been made a slave of man with the
help of his sisters and brother. Earth had released her iron, which
Fire had smelted, and Water had hardened, aiding man in his
creation of the great bellows that now made him blow when they
wished.

Fire, who had
once prided himself on the way he could warm and comfort men or, if
he wished, terrorise them as he ran uncontrollably through their
homes and towns, was furious that his sisters and brother refused
to admit to their role in humiliating him. Hadn’t Earth given up
her coal to man, hadn’t she helped them make him captive in their
furnaces of stone? And even when he had tried to refuse to help
man, Air had blown through him to create the great heat needed to
melt the iron. As for Water, she had doused his best efforts to
ensure their tools remained weak and poorly formed.

Water was
perhaps angriest of them all. Where would man be without her to
slake their thirst or nurture their food? Yet, when in a rage, she
could smash anything they built, or remove them from this world by
simply enveloping them in her frightful embrace. Yet her brother
Fire had made her hiss with an anger and pain she had never
suffered before. Even worse, her sister Earth had held her back
from claiming what was rightfully hers, while Air had greedily
occupied space that had originally been part of her
realm.

And now, in that
space, they were all allowing man to create a ship intended to
conquer her.

It was already
rising up from what had been her seabed; reinforced with Earth’s
iron, that had been smelted by Fire, in temperatures enabled by
Air’s help.

*

At one time
there had been no universe, but only chaos. And just as order came
out of that chaos through the forming of the Elements, now a huge
ship begins to rise up out of the chaos of the shipyard, through
the forming of man into organisations such as ironsmiths,
carpenters and architects.

Man scampers
everywhere, small in size but large in imagination. He teeters
perilously on webs of creaking scaffolding. He tends vast furnaces
and cauldrons of molten metal that could burn him to the bone. He
tirelessly transports and painstakingly hauls into place timbers
the size of trees that could crush him to a pulp. He works the
treadmills of towering cranes, the whirling blades of sawmills, the
huge, pumping hammers that transform animal skins into hardest
leather.

Even in this
seeming chaos, however, there is order. All the materials are
checked for quality, all the workmanship has to be of the highest
standard. The very last nail to be hammered home, like all the
millions that have gone before it, is carefully inspected and –
found to be wanting, found to be suffering a weakness in the neck
between shaft and head – is discarded and replaced with a perfect
one.

And as that man
hammers home that nail, completing the sealing of the seams between
the great iron plates encasing the hull, another man is making a
last check of the inspection tunnel that runs along the inside of
the dam, holding his lamp high to ensure the soundness of the beams
holding everything in place.

And that man
drops his lamp and runs as it shatters amongst a pile of rags and
barrels of oil.

Fire leaps from
the lamp, eager to make amends to his offended sister. Swiftly
spreading through the rags, he envelops the barrels of oil. Gaining
in strength, he finally rushes towards the already trembling
timbers.

Air, stung by
his sister’s earlier reprimands, rushes into help. He fans the
flames, granting them his rich oxygen of life. Working together, he
and Fire rapidly eat away at the dam’s crumbling
supports.

Earth, realising
the injury she has caused her sister, begins to shrug free of the
last of the constraining timbers. She shifts and moves, allowing
Water to begin to seep through gaps between her rocks and wash away
the binding soil. With a rumble of apology, she turns and stands
aside.

Water
impatiently pushes aside her sister and brothers, rushing in to
claim what is rightfully hers once more. Besides, she needs to
punish man for his impertinence, and what better way could there be
than to dash this puny ship to pieces with a show of
rage?

‘
Where is it, where is it?’ she cries in irritation as she
rushes around the bay, seeking the ship.

All she can see
is a huge outcrop of land she can’t remember being there before,
colonised now by man’s odious castles, palaces, and a
town.

‘
Well, if I can’t find your ship,’ she thinks maliciously,
‘then I’ll wash over your new homes!’

But no matter
how high she tries to cast her waves, the land and its town
continue to curiously rise out of her reach. Too late, it dawns on
her; this is their ship, and she has been tricked into setting it
afloat!

They have
all
been tricked; tricked by man into doing his bidding once
more!

*

As man had
intended, his vast ship soon conquered the sea.

Even in her
worst spates of anger, Water failed to do it any harm, as she had
so easily achieved before with any other ship.

She asked her
brother Air to blow so hard it would send this impertinent ship
spinning out of control. But Air only wailed that they now
controlled him, with vast sails that captured and spun him around,
and even windmills that powered everything from workshops to
paddlewheels.

She asked her
sister Earth to shred the hull of this impudent ship with her
hidden rocks. But her sister only grumbled that they had used her
own iron to make it impervious to her sharpest stones.

She asked her
brother Fire to set aflame this imposition on her power. But Fire
only moaned that, far from being terrified of his power, they flung
him from their catapults at enemy ships.

They had all,
they had to forlornly admit, been belittled and tamed by
man.