3 Dead Princes: An Anarchist Fairy Tale Read online

  “I know it is. All power to your elbow!”

  “The Order be with you. Velocidad de siete estrellas!” smiled Geraldo.

  “Sevenstarspeed!” returned the King putting his fist over his own heart, and then opening his arms to hug his deputy.

  Walterbald carefully wrapped the wonderlook up in its protective layers and packed it with his other things in the saddlebag. He then sat down and wrote a note to the Queen. When he was done, he sealed it with wax, blew out the candles, and headed back upstairs.

  He stopped by the kitchen, fumbling around by the counter. Then he carried on up to the top floor to look in on Stormy, who was sound asleep and snoring in a most un-princessly way. Smiling, he crept down to the royal bedroom. Gwynmerelda was also sleeping. He went and sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at her. He brushed a few stray hairs from her face, gently kissing her on the lips.

  “Mmmmmm, I’ll miss you, too.” Without opening her eyes, the Queen mumbled something about him having a safe journey and fell back into deep sleep.

  Gwynmerelda had an ability, amazing to the King, to be sound asleep, but take in anything said around her, and remember it perfectly the next day as if she had been awake. If she were talking in her sleep, as she sometimes did, then Walterbald could have a conversation with her, and in the morning she would tell him how he had come into her dreams and done this or said that.

  He got up from the bed. “Trust me, Gwyn. It will all work out.” And though she did not reply, he felt sure she had got the message.

  Chapter 3

  DOES GOD GO TO THE TOILET?

  When Stormy had finally fallen asleep, it was mostly dreamless at the start of the night, completely peaceful in the deep-sleep middle, but then horrifically vivid in the darkest moments before dawn end.

  As happens in dreams, Stormy sort-of-knew the lay of the land. But it was all skewed. And then, as with the most vivid dreams, new realms opened up altogether.

  She was in the mountains, sort-of-familiar but slightly crookedy. And then the whole foreground lurched. She let out a shriek as she fell rumble tumble … into the old world.

  It was dark, not the dark of night, but a gray, cloying unilluminated dimness, like the sun was shut out by a thundercloud of dust. It was cold, and Stormy hugged herself. She was still on the mountain, breathing heavily, and dark shapes circled above in the gloom, out of sight, but close enough for her to hear the leathery beat of their wings. As the sound receded, she could hear her own heart pounding like she had just run up the mountain trail. Somehow, some way, she knew she had to follow the trail up, up, up.

  She knew she was looking for her father. Of course! He needed her help. Now she was half frantic, breaking into a run up the rocky path, her thoughts racing ahead of her, as they so often did, awake and in her dreams.

  It suddenly became obvious where she was, in the way that dream logic dawns like a big bang explosion of imagination. There is nothing, and then in a sliver of a moment there is everything. Now it happened just like that.

  All at once, Stormy simply knew she was inside The Beginning Story.

  The Beginning Story, also known as The Catastory, is the first chapter of the wangodmatist Book of Life; that is, the creation myth of Morainians and of all the western peoples. In a cracked nutshell it went like this:

  The Wan God created the earth in the beginning of Time, along with all the stars and planets. Many thousands of summers later when He came to visit, He exhaled from His divine lungs bringing the air and wind to earth. Rubbing His hands together, He made dirt and threw it high into the sky to be carried by the winds. Then, opening His hands skyward, fingers outstretched in a commanding god-like (what else?) gesture, He scattered seeds far and wide.

  Taking a flask that hung from His hip, He spun around in a circle showering the earth with rain. As He looked on in wonder, for He never ceased to be surprised by the beauty of creation, the sun appeared from behind a cloud, making a rainbow. In one final gesture, He cupped his gigantean hands in front of His lips, blew on them, and shook them for good measure once over each shoulder, like a celestion who had just won the Milky Way Marathon. He opened His palms skyward and allowed hosts of animals to hop, skip, and fly off into their new world.

  Some millions of summers later when the Wan God returned, He was surprised to find that the animals had grown wild, and changed their shapes. They had become ravenous, and what was worse, disrespectful. When the Wan God commanded them, some sneered and snarled; some even laughed. None knew him. He knew that the bad seed had come to earth and prospered like He had never seen before.

  Knowing what He must do, the Wan God brought down a punishment upon the animals of the earth. In His anger, He bellowed out loud and smashed His fists into the ground, causing volcanemons to spew forth, and earthquakes to rumble across the world. He commanded a firebolt from the stars that smashed into the earth with such force that the moon sprang from its shoulder. And with all the dust and dirt thrown into the air, a thousand-summer darkness reigned upon the earth. Speaking to the world as He departed, the Wan God said: “Know this darkness, beasts, and choke in it. But enjoy it while it lasts. For when the millennium is done, the Adaman will come and tame you and put you to work. And then you will know the wrath of the Wan God.”

  Heavy stuff.

  In her waking life, Stormy knew all about Adaman and the Ancient Ones who the Wan God put on the earth at the end of the dark times. She had heard the story a thousand times in church, and had read it herself from The Book of Life in the library.

  Of course not everywan believed in the Wan God. Some people, The Fool for instance, thought there was a god for every occasion.

  Stormy did not know what she believed when she was awake. Asleep she was completely adrift, and her more playful sleeping brain was having fun retelling the beginning story.

  In this version, The Wan God was doing His rounds in space and needed to stop for a bite. Taking an unusual route through the Milky Way on His way back home, He just happened upon the Earth, no more than a barren rock, really, sort-of-down-aback-alley. He thought nothing particularly of it, and took out His packed lunch of bread and fishes. He drank water from His empyreal flask, and rested a while. Before setting off on the long journey home, He took a dump. Then, feeling refreshed and relaxed, He went on his merry way and thought nothing more about the earth. Unbeknown to the Wan God, He had picked the wrong place to do His business, for though the Wan God knew everything, He was a very busy man. His mind was on other things.

  Well, after the Wan God had departed, His pee trickled away and formed the oceans. The seeds in His brown grew into plants and trees. And the worms (which the Wan God had been pretending to Himself that He did not have) crawled out of the brown and grew into the beasts.

  Many thousands of summers later, in a clearing in the Great Forest, the Giggle Monkeys had fallen out, arguing over the punch line to a joke. Adamonkey had gone off in a huff. And it just so happened at this instant, by pure cosmological chance, a hefty meteorite slammed into the far side of the Earth, and then the great darkness befell the whole planet. Adamonkey found himself lost and wandering in the changed forest, until the sun shone again countless many summers later. However, during the dark times, Adamonkey had become transkinked. And while he was not the only beast to change shape, he emerged as the Adaman … Adaman being in both of the comparative theologies, the father of men, the first of the family of Ancient Ones.

  In her dream Stormy knew all this in an instant. Remember, she was battling her way up the mountain, with unseen flying-reptile creatures flapping all around in the shadows, so recreating this whole story was a neat trick. She knew she was in The Catastory, the dark times, which is why the Giggle Monkey view of creation sort-of made dream sense to her. She was a girl, and she was looking for her father, and she and her dad were alive during the dark times. Then she realized this could not be. The way the Book of Life told it, the first people on the earth were born after the dark times had end
ed. They were the chosen people of the Wan God put upon the earth to bring calm to the chaos. To Stormy in her dream, the thought of living through the cataclysm was more shocking than the idea of the Wan God pushing cloth.

  Stormy stopped, her chest heaving. The swirling dust felt almost alive inside her, making her cough. Gasping for breath, she set off again, only able to see twenty-or-so feet ahead of her, just enough to realize that the mountain path now wound along a steep cliff. Around and around she went, spiralling up the wet and slippery path on a sort-of-fairy-tale mountain. Finally she saw the mountaintop castle above. But in that instant, the castle morphed into a gaping black cave. An ear-splitting roar came from within, which seemed to shake the whole mountain.

  Stormy stopped dead. She knew her father was inside.

  Another roar. And then the owner of the roar emerged from the cave.

  A huge black monster. A huge black cat.

  It was actually an ENORMOUS black cat, with horns and electric red eyes that pierced the graydark. On two occasions in her waking life Stormy had seen the sandy colored mountain lions in the high country above Morainia. But this creature was jet black and ten times the size, so in Stormy’s mind it definitely qualified as a monster. Face to face, it was even bigger than the tales mountain folk told of it in their night stories in the taverns.

  “I’ve come to rescue my father,” gasped Stormy. She was very afraid, but determined. She knew that she had to somehow get past the beast, go inside the cave, and rescue her dad. And she was going to do it, too. Just like you would for your dad. “You get out of my way,” she ordered.

  “Can’t,” rasped the beast. “Come back later. I’m busy.”

  “No, you’re not,” Stormy said. “What have you got to be busy about? If you’re anything like my cat, you eat, lie around, and sleep most of the time.”

  “Eating sounds like a good idea,” said the beast, flicking a pink tongue the width of a tree trunk across its lips.

  “Now you’re trying to scare me, you mean thing! What’s your name, anyway?”

  The Black Cat shrugged its head, and Stormy thought it looked momentarily ashamed. “Proton,” he murmured. And then, regaining his momentum, he boomed, “Girlchild, know me as Proton, King of all the Mountains. Precursor of all monkeys and men.”

  “Oh … ’er, I’m … I’m Stormy,” said Stormy. It seemed the right thing to say at the time. But, to Stormy’s surprise, it WAS the right thing to say.

  The Big Black Cat, aka Proton, King of the Mountains, Precursor of all monkeys and men, opened his electric red eyes wide.

  “Ah! So it is you.”

  Now it was time for Stormy to open her eyes wide. “It is me what?”

  “It is you who, in the stories of the Ancient Ones, brings the never ending storm to my mountains. For even though I rule here, in the absence of sunshine it seems like everyone’s got a monk on all the time, and no one pays me the proper attention anymore.”

  Well, in that case, thought Stormy, I’ll walk right on in and find my dad. She started making towards the cave in her determined way.

  “What? What? What? … What do you think you are doing?”

  “Out of my way, Cat, or whatever you’re called …”

  “Are you not forgetting something S-t-o-r-m-y, bringer of storms?”

  “What?”

  “If you wish to enter this cave, then you must bring the sunshine back to me.”

  Now it was Stormy’s turn to stop. She was very confused.

  “But I didn’t bring the storm,” she protested, concentrating hard. Had she brought the storm? “No! I just dreamed it and ...”

  “Ah you see! You admit it.” Proton laughed and began moving from foot to foot, for the entrance to the cave was not wide enough for him to pace back and forth. He looked as if he had just scored a point for the prosecution.

  “No!” Stormy sobbed. “What about my dad?”

  “He’s busy too. Digging. But we need sunshine. Come back with some sunshine.” The Cat turned to go.

  “Wait!” cried Stormy.

  Proton turned its head back to the girl and yawned a gaping yawn, showing stalactite and stalagmite teeth. And that curling red carpet of a tongue. “What?” he asked.

  “Where do I find sunshine?”

  The Cat looked mildly irritated now, like he really was being held up from having a snooze, which, as you know, all cats hate. Harrumphing, he said, “Very well! You must climb the highest mountain. And it’s not this one, I’ve already looked. Climb the highest mountain,” the Cat went on, “and you will know it at night by the constellation of the Mightor. Remember in your mind, the portion of the sky where the Mightor’s arse is marked by the stars, and in the morning the sun and life will shine forth from there.”

  “But that’s the kind of jokes that boys tell,” said Stormy, trying not to laugh.

  “Well I didn’t make it up. Go and ask the Giggle Monkeys if you don’t believe me.”

  In waking life, if had Stormy been able to remember these fine details of this dream, she would have first thought that if Proton was King of all the mountains, then why didn’t he get up off his cat ass and go and find the sunshine himself? And if she had to do it, then she would have despaired at the enormity of the task. However, in dreamtime logic it all seemed relatively straightforward and clear.

  She knew the highest mountains in the world lay to the north and the east of Morainia, and the highest mountain was self-evidently one of those. All she had to do was cross hundreds of miles of unexplored wilderness, climb mountains that were previously impenetrable to humankind, and then she could map the position of the sun by the Mightor’s arse, harness its energy, bring it back to Proton, and in so doing be reunited with her dad.

  And just as she felt the restorative resolution of having a clear plan, the cat and the cave dissolved. The morning sun shone, and Stormy did not remember anything about her quest for sunshine.

  Instead she found herself on the shore of an ocean.

  On a rock, a stone’s throw from the shore, sat a creature with her back to Stormy. From folk tales she knew the creature to be a Mermangel. The Mermangel seemed oblivious to Stormy, and was busy preening herself. A flutter of her wings, a swish of her tail as she combed her wet blonde locks.

  And then the Mermangel stopped what she was doing and began to turn her head. For a half moment Stormy was petrified, thinking the Mermangel would have the hideous look of a devil-beast. But she had a woman’s face. On closer inspection Stormy realized that the Mermangel was her own stepmother, Gwynmerelda.

  “Hello darling,” said the Gwynmerangel. It seemed to Stormy like the most natural thing in the world that she would be talking to her stepmother Mermangel, in a place she had never been, while inhaling the unmistakable smell of the ocean.

  “I was just coming to say goodbye,” said Stormy.

  “Darling child,” said Gwynmerangel. “I know I cannot stop you, but I wish you would know before you go careening off all over the place, that it will most definitely end in tears.”

  Then Stormy woke up just as the real sun was beginning to cast its warming rays through the gaps in the shutters of her real bedroom, making patterns of horizontal lines across the drapes. She pulled the curtains open with a swish, and the lingering fragments of her mad dreams disappeared.

  Chapter 4

  THE WILSONS AND THE GODLOVES

  Wance upon a time there was a beautiful princess, named Alexandra Stormybald Wilson. Stormy lived in a sort-of-castle on Bald Mountain, with her father the King Walterbald Wilson the Second, and her sort-of-ugly, sort-of-but-maybe-not-evil stepmother, Queen Gwynmerelda. Bald Mountain Castle was in the territory of Morainia, which was a small and fairly isolated part of a much larger and much unexplored world.

  Had Walterbald been writing the story, he would have begun it with the words Wance upon a World, for Time, as you and I know it, had not yet been invented in Morainia. And if we begin to dig, as we shall inevitably have to do
as we accompany a thirteen-year-old princess suddenly let loose, then we shall discover that there was something about this world that was not at all right. King Walterbald knew something of this, and that was why he was going on his expedition: to find out more.

  For Walterbald, in his quest for knowledge, had become aware in recent summers that there were certain ideas people knew and took for granted, which had always seemed to fit with the lore of this fairy tale world, but which increasingly, to a logically enquiring mind like his own, were all out of whack.

  The house on Bald Mountain was a sort-of-castle, because while it was certainly spacious by contemporary standards (it had to accommodate various members of the King and Queen’s extended families, and had to have a barn attached that was big enough for large gatherings of more than fifty people), this castle was made almost entirely of wood. And to the honest eye, it could reasonably be described as ramshackle. There were metal fixings, but these were always used wisely and sparingly, because workable metal was a rare commodity, even in Morainia. Although there were rumors …