Porcelain Princess (7 page)

‘
Hmn,
maybe you’re right,’ Carey sternly declared, to Grudo’s pleasant
surprise. ‘He
was
handsome and charming, wasn’t he?’ she
added with a sigh and a dreamy face.

Grudo was
horrified.

‘
Carey, he would only–’

He stopped,
having at last noticed Carey’s mischievous smirk.

‘
But
nay, he ne’er had eyes for me,’ she said with a theatrical
sadness.

Grudo
smiled.

‘
Get
thee back to work girl,’ he chuckled, starting up the
caravan.

*

A landscape of
pleasant homesteads and well-tended fields soon gave way to thick
forest. The track remained straight but narrow, yet it stretched
ahead of them as if it were endless, such that the trees appeared
to be closing in on it and cutting it off.

Even as night
fell, they still hadn’t cleared the forest, and still had a long
way to go. Everyone had taken up watch around the caravan, on the
lookout for any signs of wolves, bears or any other wild creatures
that might inhabit the wood. They hoped the caravan’s cacophony of
noises, its clouds of smoke and steam, and the fiery glow of its
furnace, would be enough to scare off any unwanted
attention.

Although they
had hoped to leave the forest far behind them before setting up
camp for the night, they began to realise this would be impossible.
Even Grudo and the others required sleep, and everyone was
exhausted after a day of constant and fruitless travel. Everyone
had begun to doubt that they had chosen the right path to travel.
The forest seemed endless, and it felt like it would be days before
they reached a town or even a village where they could put on a
show.

‘
We’ll build a large fire; that should keep any animals away,’
Grudo reassured Carey.

‘
No,
not too big,’ Carey insisted, realising that Grudo and the others
were putting her safety above theirs. Any fire, even the caravan’s
furnace, had to be treated with absolute care by the wooden
puppets. ‘And we’ll collect any large stones we can find to
surround it.’

‘
A
rehearsal; we must have a rehearsal for tomorrow’s show,’ Neris
declared brightly, hoping she could cheer up her disheartened
friends by implying that there
would
be a show
tomorrow.

‘
Yes,
yes,’ Ferena agreed excitedly. ‘And it must be
everybody’s
favourite;
The Porcelain Kingdom
!’

*

The
Porcelain Kingdom

Our tale begins,
of course, before the arrival of the Princess in the
kingdom.

It was an
unhappy kingdom.

A dark
kingdom.

A dark kingdom
in as much as that, although the sun shone here as much as anywhere
else, the people sensed only the darkness in their
lives.

They noticed the
rain storms, or when the sky seemed endlessly dull and dispiriting,
but not the bright and breezy days, which they saw as fleeting and
few and far between.

They were aware
of the months when their crops were flattened, yet took for granted
the years when the fields produced all they could want.

They complained
of the market sellers who cheated them, the customers who expected
too much. They couldn’t tolerate the rudeness of others, which
drove them to distraction, such that they had little time for the
problems of others. They raged at selfishness, at ignorance, at
stupidity, at arrogance, wondering why everyone couldn’t be more
like them.

They walked
through the streets of their town keeping to the shadows, their
heads hanging low, their voices stilled or nothing more than a
whisper, forever nervous of the edgy, unfriendly people that
crossed their paths.

And over
everything there loomed the high tower, its vast shadow moving
steadily across the town like a cloak of watchful darkness, its
steady progression like a clock ticking away at and devouring the
hours of their lives.

Then, at night,
when everything else was dark, the tower’s windows blazed with
light, a hellish inferno of illicit, demonic activity.

No one with any
sense would be around at this time of night. No one would draw
attention to their homes by lighting a candle, or curiously drawing
aside their curtains.

When the town’s
darkness was at its most complete, the gates within the high walls
surrounding the tower would briefly open. From directly inside the
walls, there would come a clatter of iron wheels on cobbles, the
snorts or neighing of hellish horses readying for the
off.

They were the
last warnings for any fool still abroad to run for home.

As the great
gates closed behind it, the black carriage would career through the
streets, the hooves of its equally black horses thundering as they
pumped against the hard stone, the wheels roaring like great
windmills spinning in the most terrifying hurricane.

Some said that,
as they cowered in their beds, they could hear the crack of the
driver’s whip. But if that were true, then the driver was
invisible. Others swore that they had seen the horses snorting
flames, but most people who had been unfortunate enough to have
encountered them simply refused to relive their
experience.

The carriage
carried no passenger, everyone knew. Unless you counted the souls
who were about to be given over to the Fading.

On the seats and
floor, there lay only stacked strongboxes containing books. The
most beautiful books money could buy, with the most wonderful
illustrations imaginable. But these were the works of the
Illuminator, and so they were illustrations that you hoped, you
prayed, didn’t feature you in any shape, or form, or
way.

For that simple
portrayal would suck the very life out of you. And you would become
just one more victim of the Fading.

As the carriage
finally headed out of town on one of the many roads leading to
other lands, where the books would be published and sold, another
carriage would enter the town on one of the other roads, its
strongboxes empty and light. Even so, this empty carriage thundered
through the streets, aiming to reach the gates while the town was
still at its darkest.

Even the arrival
of the morning wouldn’t bring any relief from the townspeople’s
fear. For most frightening of all was news that copies of the
illustrations had appeared on their side of the tower’s wall. Then,
no matter what other tasks they had set themselves to accomplish
that morning, they would fearfully make their way towards the wall.
Here they would even more fearfully view the illustrations,
carefully checking them for any sign of themselves or anyone they
cared for.

Every now and
again, their fear of the tower and its demonic works became so
great (or perhaps it was that they actually
overcame
their
fear; no one was quite sure) that a courageous man or woman would
rise up from amongst them, calling on everyone to attack it.
Brandishing old swords, pitchforks, scythes and flaming torches,
they would storm the walls. They would break down the tower’s great
doors, they would rush through its marbled rooms, its mirrored
halls, expecting at any moment to be faced by the cohorts of demons
and devils they believed helped the Illuminator complete his evil
tasks.

But the tower
was always empty. There weren’t any demons. There weren’t any
soldiers, any staff either. And there was nothing to say the
Illuminator had ever lived here. There wasn’t even any sign of the
dark horses that drew the carriages.

It was as if
everyone in the tower had been magically spirited away. Which only
added to the people’s awe and fear.

‘
Burn
it! Burn this evil place down to the ground!’ the cry would go
up.

They would torch
the velvet curtains, set fire to chairs they had deliberately piled
up, rush through the rooms once more with blazing blankets and
sheet trailing behind them, such that they would set everything
they touched ablaze.

Then, from the
safety of the town, they would gleefully watch as the whole tower
blazed, cheering as whole sections broke off to tumble to the
ground in vast showers of sparks.

‘
That’s it, go ahead and enjoy yourselves while you can,’
older men and women who refused to join the attack would grumble
knowingly. ‘You’ll see, you’ll see,’ they would add
ominously.

And in the
morning, they did see; they saw the tower completely restored, as
if the attack had been nothing more than an exhilarating
dream.

‘
It’s…it’s not
possible
!’ the previous night’s
attackers would groan in disbelief. ‘I saw it burning! It lit up
the whole town! I felt the heat of the flames, even standing here,
in the town square!’

Eventually, the
attacks ceased. What was the point, when the tower appeared
indestructible? It never even suffered the Fading, even though it
had appeared in far more illustrations than any other building, any
person.

The mysterious,
black carriages continued to hurtle dangerously through the town’s
darkened streets. Copies of the illustrations would still appear
outside the tower’s high walls.

People and
buildings still succumbed to the Fading.

It was just
something they had to live with, the townspeople had realised. Even
moving to another town wouldn’t save them; the illustrations had as
much affect beyond the surrounding forests as they did in their own
lands. The Illuminator could see and picture, it seemed, anyone he
chose, even if they lived on the edges of the world.

It was said that
the Illuminator had, long ago, tried to explain his
actions.

His
illustrations – or illuminations, as he preferred to call them,
hence his name – were mere devices to bring the characters of his
stories to life in his readers’ imaginations, he had
insisted.

But no one was
prepared to believe such a simplistic explanation. Everyone knew
that his ‘illuminations’ were responsible for the
Fading.

The Illuminator
never again showed himself (if, indeed, he had ever revealed
himself in the first place) to offer any further explanation. The
tower included a large balcony that overlooked the town, where he
was said to have appeared on the day he had spoken to them. But if
any townspeople still looked up to the balcony with any expectation
that he might appear there again, they did so in vain. If he did
ever appear there, some said, it would only be to announce that he
had decide to bring the world to an end.

One day,
however, someone did appear on the balcony; but it wasn’t anyone
they were expecting.

No matter where
you were in the town on that day, you couldn’t fail to hear the
unexpectedly joyful fanfare of trumpets that had abruptly erupted
from the tower. Blacksmiths stilled the ringing of their anvils,
tavern keepers halted the rolling of their heavy barrels down in
the cellars, maids stopped the whirl of their spinning wheels or
looms, the squishing of their milking, and children brought their
play to an end in the middle of an excited yell.

‘
Who’s playing the music?’ they anxiously asked each other as
they all wormed their way through the streets towards the beckoning
tower. ‘Why?’ asked others. ‘What on earth can it mean?’

‘
The
end
of the Earth!’ answered some as they nervously grasped
the hands of their children.

Even as they all
gathered beneath the balcony, the curtains behind the immense
French windows were seen to move, to be disturbed. Then they
opened, flowing smoothly to either side.

As the doors
themselves opened, everyone gasped. Some fell to their knees,
weeping.

The fanfare of
trumpets came to an abrupt halt, letting an awed silence quickly
ripple across the crowd.

In the darkness
of the tower’s interior, there was a flash of purest white,
growing, increasing in size as it drew nearer to the doors leading
onto the balcony.

The most
beautiful girl anyone had ever seen stepped out into the
sun.

Her dress, the
dress of a princess, glistened as if decorated with the finest
pearls, the most expensive lace. Her hair shone as if made of the
richest silk. Her face was flawless, her skin as pure as the
world’s most painstakingly made porcelain.

She gave off an
angelic light (as everyone would later agree in awed
tones).

She continued
walking until she was standing on the very edge of the balcony. She
looked down on them all, her head moving slightly as she took in
(as they each believed) each and every one of the assembled
crowd.

She
smiled.

Even though they
were all too far away to see clearly, each and every one of them
knew that she had smiled. They knew this because they suddenly felt
flooded with her happiness, her benevolence, her own remarkable
wonder of the world and everything that was in it.

She
waved.