The Diamond Tree (3 page)

“What riddle?” the Prince of Rage hissed. He leaned forward so far on his throne that his chin almost touched his scarlet knees.

“Actually,” said the prince, “I have three. I will tell them to you unless, of course, you decide first to feed me to Slither. But if you can’t solve them all you must grant me one request.”

“Bugs and nonsense!” bellowed Y’ruf. “Next thing you’ll be wanting me to do is set you some sort of ridiculous, heroic, princely task to perform so you can claim my diamonds.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” mused Prince Dall. “It’s not such a bad idea.”

“If I thought of it, it’s a marvelous idea,” sneered the Prince of Rage. “But that’s beside the point. We were speaking of riddles.”

“Then we have an agreement?” asked Prince Dall.

“I will think about it,” said the Prince of Rage. He leaned back so far that his head nearly disappeared behind his stomach. “Put him,” he rumbled, “in the basement.”

Prince Dall spent a long, cold night shackled to the wall of a cell, listening to things of various size, shape and consistency scurry about him in the darkness of the castle dungeon. Water from the murky moat seeped though the rough stones around him and dripped onto the stone floor, and every now and then something quite large struck against the wall from the other side with such force that it shook the entire dungeon.

At dawn Prince Dall was marched through passageways, up stairs, along halls, under archways and finally through a great iron door into a room ablaze with the light from an immense pile of diamonds. In the center of the pile sat the Prince of Rage. Beside the pile and against one wall was a desk where a man in a gray robe sat marking sums on a role of parchment.

“One trillion, four hundred and six,” said Y’ruf. “One trillion, four hundred and seven, one trillion, four hundred and eight. I have decided,” he said, looking up, “to accept your challenge. But with this change. If I can’t guess the answers to your riddles, I will give you a handful of diamonds and your life. If I solve all of them you must solve a riddle I give you and perform a task I name. Fail and I will feed you to Slither or drop you through a crack in the castle floor into never-ending darkness. Where was I?” he demanded of the man in the gray robe.

The man checked his parchment. “One trillion, four hundred and eight, sire.”

“And if I solve your riddle and perform the task you set?” asked Prince Dall.

“Fat chance,” said Y’ruf. “But if you do, you may have as many diamonds as you and three horses can carry.”

“Make it six horses,” said Dall.

“Fah!” snorted the Prince of Rage. “Make it a dozen if you wish. It won’t matter. Now ask your riddles.”

“Done,” said Prince Dall. “Riddle number one is this:
‘Sit in it, jump in it, you cannot dig a hole in it.’”

“Sit, jump, dig. Ha!” yelled the Prince of Rage. He threw two handfuls of diamonds into the air. “That’s easy. The answer is water.”

“Right,” said Prince Dall. He put his tongue in his cheek. “Riddle number two is this:
‘As round as a basket, each end is an out. Not even a dragon can turn it about.’”

“Hmmmm,” said the Prince of Rage. “That’s better.” He put a diamond in his mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully.

“Round, two ends, can’t turn it. Ho!” he shouted and flopped over onto his back. “It’s a tunnel.”

“Right again,” admitted Prince Dall. He cocked one eyebrow. “Let’s try number three.
‘You’ll find it cross but never mad. It can divide but never add. You see it runs but never walks. You know it lies but never talks.’”

“Ahhh! Exquisite,” sighed the Prince of Rage. He rolled over onto his stomach and covered his head with diamonds. “Cross, divide, runs, lies. Is it…? No.” He took one shoe off and filled it with diamonds. “Whoop!” he shouted and bounced the shoe off the wall, narrowly missing the man in the gray robe. “Of course! It’s a fence!”

“So much,” said Prince Dall, “for riddles.” He sat down next to the man in the gray robe and waited for the Prince of Rage who was running around the room giggling and throwing diamonds at the ceiling.

When he was out of breath at last, Y’ruf plopped down in front of Prince Dall, giggled once or twice more and said, “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose,” said Prince Dall.

“Very well,” said the Prince of Rage with an especially wicked smile. “You have twenty-four hours to bring me laughter in a sack and to solve this riddle
: ‘A million coins fall gold as hair, at twelve less two to form a square. Beneath the snow she feels no cold, nor do the seasons make her old. Within her circled spell she
sleeps
,
while Bone collects the tears she weeps.’
Do you want a copy to take with you?”

“It might be easier that way,” admitted Prince Dall. “What sort of sack would you like the laughter in?”

“Anything that doesn’t leak,” said Y’ruf. He handed Prince Dall two copies of the riddle and a pen. “Sign the top copy to show you received your riddle and leave it with the accountant.” He waved one hand toward the man in the gray robe. “Where was I?” he demanded.

The man in the gray robe checked his last entry. “One trillion, four hundred and eight, sire,” he said.

The Prince of Rage nodded and turned back to the pile of diamonds. “Don’t just stand there like a ninny,” he said. “You have only twenty-three hours and fifty minutes left.”

Part Four

Time, since it spends many of its hours darting aimlessly between can and cannot, is rarely a dependable ally in princely quests. If you have very little time, for example, as Prince Dall had, and you want time to move slowly, you can practically count on it to be of no help at all.

Thus it was that Prince Dall found himself sitting at a wooden table outside an inn in the village below Y’ruf’s castle. It was past noon and for the better part of an hour he had been looking at his copy of the Prince of Rage’s riddle, first this way and then that, without measurable success.

He had just concluded for the second, or perhaps it was the third time, that he was in serious trouble when he was joined by a short, heavily bearded man dressed from cap to boot in a thick brown robe. The robe was tied at the waist with a simple rope of the sort monks frequently use for that purpose, and the man carried a large blue book with a faded silver pattern of stars and crescents on its covers.

“Hi ho,” said the short, heavily bearded man.

“Don’t tell me,” Prince Dall held up his hand. “You have just bought the concession rights for this village and you are going to offer me lucky charms, mugs and souvenir tankards at bargain prices.”

The short, heavily bearded man shook his head so vigorously his teeth rattled. He sat down opposite Prince Dall. “Actually,” he said. “I’ve given all that up. The concession business is not what it used to be.” He tapped the blue book with one finger and leaned across the table knowingly. “The real money today is in wizardry. I’m taking a course in it now, in fact. All the way up to lesson four: ‘Rhymes, Rhythms, Riddles, Runes and Basic Incantations.’”

“Perhaps, then” said Prince Dall, perceiving a gleam of light in his otherwise gloomy day, “you can make some sense of this.” He checked the paper to make sure it was wrong side up and pushed it across the table.

“Well, of course, we’re not supposed to practice until we’ve been certified,” the short, heavily bearded man said. He fixed his gaze on a distant point somewhere above and beyond Prince Dall’s head and squinted one eye as though he were trying to see something in the cloudless sky. “Nonetheless,” he added quickly, “since we’re practically old friends, I might be of service for two gold sovereigns.”

Prince Dall sighed but gave him the two gold sovereigns anyway. The short, heavily bearded man picked up the riddle and studied it. “Ha!” he said. And then, “I thought as much.”

“Thought as much what?” asked Prince Dall.

“It’s the standard, old Prince of Rage riddle. He gives it to every prince he doesn’t feed immediately to Slither or drop through a crack in the castle floor into never-ending darkness.” The short, heavily bearded man waved the riddle in the air. “He must have enough of these things to wallpaper half the village.”

“Aside from that,” said Prince Dall peevishly, what does it mean?”

“It means that the tree is a princess. Everyone knows that. She was enchanted by an evil sorceress years ago. The tears she weeps turn to diamonds and every October her leaves turn to gold sovereigns and fall all over the place.” He couldn’t quite keep a note of envy from his voice as he added, “Terrible chore sweeping them up, I understand.”

“I can see,” said Prince Dall, “the old woman who told me the story left out one or two details. What about Bone?”

“Bone is her father. Good King Bone, he was. The sorceress got him with the same enchantment. Took away his voice and his kingdom,” the short, heavily bearded man snapped his fingers, “just like that. Some disagreement over rose bushes started the whole thing, I think. Or was it a grape vine? Anyway, now he tends the tree and waits for the spell to be broken.”

The short, heavily bearded man leaned back against the wall of the inn. He pulled a pipe from one sleeve of his robe. Casually, but with one eye on Prince Dall, he filled his pipe, tamped it down carefully and fumbled in his other sleeve for a match.

“But if everyone knows the tree is a princess, what good is the riddle?” asked Prince Dall.

“Ah!” happily puffed the short, heavily bearded man. “The riddle is good because there is more to it. Four more lines, in fact. Whoever learns those lines solves the riddle and breaks the spell. Everyone knows that, too.”

“Everyone seems to know an awful lot,” sniffed Prince Dall. “Does everyone also know where to find the four lines?”

“Now, now,” said the short, heavily bearded man. “No need to be testy.” He looked right and left quickly to see that no one was within earshot, then leaned across the table once again. “Since we’re practically old friends…”

Prince Dall sighed. He pulled his purse from his belt and set it down on the table, noting that it had grown considerably lighter since he had first met the short, heavily bearded man. “If you can tell me how to find the four lines,” he said, “the rest of my gold is yours.”

“Done and done again,” said the man. He whisked the purse off the table and dropped it into one sleeve faster than a gambler could palm an ace. “I will do better than tell you. I will show you. But we had best hurry. You have considerably less than your original twenty-four hours left.”

The short, heavily bearded man was off his bench and off down the road in a wink and at such a pace that Prince Dall, for all his advantage in height, had to trot to keep up.

“Where are we going?” asked Prince Dall. “And how did you know about the twenty-four hours?”

“Twenty-four hours is standard in these matters,” shrugged the short, heavily bearded man. “As to where we’re going, we are going to check the book. Every incantation, curse, riddle and spell has to be registered, you see.” He thumped his book so hard it almost fell out of his hand. “It’s the rule. The wizard who keeps the registry for this kingdom lives in a wonderfully wild woods not too distant from here. If you can persuade him to look up the Prince of Rage’s riddle, your problem is solved.”

“Not entirely,” said Dall, still struggling to keep up. “I also have to find a sack full of laughter. I don’t suppose your wizard can help with that, too, can he?”

The short, heavily bearded man shrugged again. “Who knows? We will cross that bridge when we come to it. Or it comes to us,” he reflected. “One can never be sure with wizards.”

The road climbed out of the valley onto a plateau of rolling fields, which soon turned to scattered trees and then to woods. The daylight folded itself in half and then divided again to become a faint mystical glow that hung about them like a gray and gloomy net. Strange, unseeable creatures flitted and scurried along dark branches overhead or darted furtively from dim moldering log to shadowy trunk, always at that exact moment when the two travelers were looking somewhere else and could only catch some sudden movement out of the corner of an eye. A glimpse of fur. The flash of a yellow eye.

At one point in their journey the trees seemed to close ranks before them to block their progress. At another, the forest appeared to invert itself so they were walking with their feet in leaves and their heads toward the ground. At still another, the path turned to water and they were threatened with drowning. At each of these obstacles, the short, heavily bearded man waved his hand and repeated a strange phrase three times and the way was immediately cleared.

“Chapter three,” he said smugly each time. “’Apparitions, Hallucinations and Other Impedimenta.’”

At last they arrived at a large cave in the densest and dimmest part of the woods. The entrance to the cave was sealed by massive wooden doors on which hung iron rings. Above the doors, carved in the rock, was a legend which, even if it hadn’t been overgrown with four-hundred years of moss, would have been impossible to read, since it was written in a language everyone except wizards had long forgotten.