Let Slip The Princesses of War (12 page)

She grabbed his arm and her hand passed clear through him.

“Seems kind of insubstantial.” She commented. “Let’s just walk through him.”

I nodded my agreement and we walked forward only to find that as soon as we crossed the threshold we were right back in the same spot, looking at the smiling man.

He shuffled the cards and waved his hand.  A chair appeared on our side of the table and he gestured.  “Please take a seat and we can get started.” His stomach gurgled loudly and he clapped a hand over it and looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I haven’t eaten lately.  Ok, here’s the deal.  My name is Dayton Mako, I’m a gambler.  We play one game of cards.  You win you can pass over, you lose, I eat you.  Simple really.  Or, I suppose, you can turn around and go home.  Your call.  So, what’s it going to be?”  He smiled broadly.

Beauty hesitated, killing things is her forte.  Once killing isn’t required she’s a bit out of her element. That’s not a criticism, it’s just an observation.  I moved to sit in the chair, but she stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Are you really going to play cards with a man named after both a city and a shark?”

I shrugged.  “It’s that or go home.  Besides, I got this.” I sat in the chair.  I reached for the deck of cards.  Dayton Mako moved to stop me but simply smiled and moved his hand to indicate I could shuffle.

“Dealers choice?” I asked.

He looked uncertain for a moment, “Sure, why not?”

“You don’t seem to have the procedures set in stone.” I’m just making small talk.

“Well to be honest, you’re the first players I’ve had, so I’m making it up as I go along.”

I motioned to Beauty.  “Blow on the deck for good luck.”  I’ll admit it, as Beauty leaned forward to blow on the deck, I moved my hand down so she had to bend lower.  It was a silly little trick.

“Ok,” I slapped the deck on the table.  “Simple cut for high card.”

Mako smiled, but his eyes were all on Beauty.  “Wouldn’t you rather play something requiring more skill?  Draw out your last moments of life?”

“Just cut.” I snapped.

His smile faded, he moved his hand so quickly that his wrist made a sharp sound and held up his card.  Queen of Moss.  “How apt.” His smile returned.

I reached out carefully and cut the remaining cards, then without looking, held my card to show him. His face fell.  “What!” he sputtered. “That’s not possible!”

I let my card drop.  King of Glass.

“Come on Beauty, let’s go.”

“Wait!” He wailed.  “Best two out of three?  You win and I’ll throw in this magic lantern. Barely used.  Come on! Waddaya say?”

I took Beauty’s hand and we stepped forward over the threshold. “Sorry. I’m not much of a gambler.”

We found ourselves in a long hallway.  Mako was nowhere to be seen.  The hallway stretched to the horizon and was lined with uncountable doors.

“That was pretty impressive.” Said Beauty.  “How’d you do it?”

I looked at her.  “A gambler never tells.  Nah, I’m just fucking with you.” Her hand moved to her sword, apparently she hates jokey fuckers.  So, I continued, “After my King was killed, I was kind of lost.  My court jester tried everything to cheer me up. Only card tricks worked.  Eventually he taught me everything he knew.  The secret is all in misdirection.  While ol’ sharky back there was looking down your armor, I fixed the deck.”

She clapped her hand to her chest.  “I feel so used!”

“That’s because I used you.  Now…,”

“Wait a minute!” Beauty interrupted.  “Did you have an affair? With your court jester?!”

“Of course not!” I said shocked by her insinuation.  “I am a Queen!  I would never have an affair with a jester!  Besides, I was a widow.  It would be more like an assignation, or an event, or an occurrence, not an affair.  Now,” I gestured at the many many doors, “where shall we begin?”

“It sounds like an affair to me.” Beauty reached out for the closest knob. “I’m guessing we start at door number one.”  And she pulled it open.

Normally when you open a door in an interior hallway, you expect a room.  Expectation: broken.  The door opened into the great outdoors, but like no great outdoors I’ve ever seen.  Through the doorway we saw giant flowers (or maybe we were still small?) and giant butterflies with multicolored mirrored wings.  The sky was greenish and distant storm clouds flashed silent lightning.  Hand in hand we walked in.  We walked a few steps and turned to see the door, still open, set into the open air. 

“Mystery Prince!” Beauty shouted with her hands cupped around her mouth.  The sound faded and there was no response.

“What should we do?” I asked her. “I mean, who knows how far this goes.  Maybe it’s a whole world.  We could spend days or weeks or, maybe, forever looking.”

“And this is just the first door.” She reminded me.

“Ok, let’s check a few more doors and see if we can come up with a search plan.”

She agreed and we headed back into the hallway.  

The next door revealed a wall of water, held in place by some unknown force.  On the inside there were dozens of jeweled seahorses.  I easily pushed my hand through the barrier and pulled it back wet.  We decided not to go in. 

One door held a frozen wasteland, another an erupting volcano, one a city teeming with people who spoke no language we knew, none held a sleeping mystery prince. 

As we opened more doors, Beauty became angrier and angrier.  “What’s the matter Beauty?”

“I don’t get!  All this trouble for the Mystery Prince?  Why?!  I mean, I was just sleeping in the fucking tower.  You were just in the fucking tower, not even asleep!  Why did she go through all this trouble for the Mystery Prince?”

I gave her a puzzled look.  “Let me get this straight. You’re jealous that Mallory didn’t make it harder for you to be rescued?  Would you rather that your prince was battling giant butterflies while you’re still asleep guarded by those pretty seahorses?”

“I would.” She said softly. “At least he’d still be alive.”

And there it was again.  That dammed humanity.  It was easy to think of Beauty as a fighting, killing automaton, and easy to forget that she’s had her share of loss.  Just like all of us.  I put my hand on her shoulder.  “I know.”

She shrugged me off.  Human moment gone.  “What should we do? Every door seems to lead to a fully formed world, we can’t search them all.”

But, since we had no better plan, search them all was what we decided to do.  Hours later, we had opened hundreds of doors, and the end of the hallway was nowhere in sight.  We sat in the middle of the hallway.  Exhausted.  Frustrated.  We ate some hard cheese.  And drank a little water.  After a few minutes, I got up, brushed the cheese crumbs off my clothes and reached for the next door.

“Wait!” Beauty shouted. 

I waited.  But nothing happened.  She didn’t say anything or do anything.  She was just staring at the floor. 

“Look.” She said finally, pointing at the floor where some of my cheese crumbs lay scattered. 

“I’m looking.  Oh the cheese crumbs.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to make a mess in your palace.  I wasn’t thinking.”  I felt like a rude guest.

“No, look closer.”

I looked closer and saw an ant carrying away a good sized crumb.  “Oh, I’m so sorry.  I know that spilled food attracts ants.  I’ll clean it up.” I dug into my pack for a rag or something and moved my foot to kill the ant, but Beauty’s hand shot out and grabbed my ankle.

Then she knelt down and put her face almost to the floor where the ant was.  After a moment, she sat back and put out her hand and let the ant climb up onto her finger.  She held the ant in front of her face and spoke “I, Princess Beauty of the Royal House of Schenckwitz-Roseite send greetings to Queen Petunia of the Royal House of Hymenoptera and petition Her Highness to attend me here in, er, this hallway, in person, oh in ant, um face to face or by means of an ambassador or envoy.”

Then she put her hand on the ground and let the ant off.  The ant dropped its crumb and hurried away.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

“That.” She replied, “Just may be the solution to this nightmare.”

“Um, I don’t think so.  It was just an ant.”

“Well Rae, as Cinderella likes to say, everybody’s got something.  Well, I’ve got this sleeping spell resistance and I’m friends with an ant queen.”

“Well, bully for you!  How the fuck’s that going to help?  Is she coming for tea?”

“Wait and see.”  She smiled at me.

I sat back down. “Ok, I’ll wait and see, but only because the thought of opening another door makes me want to vomit!”

We waited a long time and I got so bored that I opened a few more doors without any luck, finally Beauty pointed down the hallway and in the dim light I could see a flood of ants.  The army is so vast that they stretch as far as I can see into the distance.  At the head of the army, carried by a squad of fierce warrior ants, was a miniature golden throne and on it sat the Ant Queen. 

The soldiers placed the throne, and the Queen, directly in front of Beauty, who knelt down to better see the Queen.  The Ant Queen stood and addressed Beauty.  “Greetings Princess Beauty.  We come to fulfil the terms of our ancient debt.  We have kept faith, even in your absence we harass your enemies.  We place our army at your disposal.”

Beauty bowed her head.  “Greetings oh Queen, you have my thanks for your faithfulness.  My companion Queen Rapunzel and I have great need of your assistance.” She indicted me.

“Excuse me.” I broke in (never being one for protocol and such), “But why aren’t you asleep, like the rest of the castle?”

The Ant Queen looked at me as if she had never encountered such rudeness.  “We are ants.” She told me, as if that explained everything.  I guess she saw my continued confusion so she added, “We don’t sleep.  Always working, the Ant and the grasshopper. Have you never observed an Ant?  Do you know nothing of our kind?”

I nodded and she turned back to Beauty. “How can we aid you Princess.”

“Oh Great Queen, we seek a man in one of the worlds behind these doors, we know not which.  Can your scouts help us in our search?”

The Queen nodded “Certainly Princess.  Our army is yours to command.  How will we know this man?”

“We know him not, oh Queen.  Only that he is a man and he will not belong where you find him. More than that we cannot say.”

The Queen beckoned one of her attendants and conversed with him for several moments then turned back to Beauty.  “Our scouts will scour the worlds behind the doors.  If your man is there, we will find him.  Whether they will recognize him from your description remains to be seen.” She motioned to her attendants, “Come, and take refreshment with us while we wait.” And the Queen’s attendants produced a tiny table and proceeded to lay it out with tiny trays of sandwiches and pies and tiny flagons of wine.  And so we became, perhaps, the first humans to eat from an ant picnic.

“What is this Ancient Debt?” I asked Beauty when we had a moment alone.

“Oh, nothing really.  Just before my big sleep, I was playing in the gardens and I saw a gardener about to dig up an ant hill and I stopped him.  I didn’t want him to kill the ants and then I gave them the rest of a muffin I had.  The Ant Queen, herself, came out and swore to repay my kindness, and blah blah, we’ve got an ant army!”

As we waited, Beauty and the Queen played several games of chess.  The Ant Queen was a master and her frequent shouts of “Jacque Mate!” echoed in the narrow hallway.  Beauty turned out to be a surprisingly good loser and eager student.  Although it surprised me, in retrospect, it makes sense.  She didn’t become a master warrior by quitting easily and refusing to learn from others.    

I must have dozed a little, because Beauty woke me with the news that several of the ant scouts had returned with suspicious doorways.  As I worked the cricks out of my neck, we searched for the first door.  We walked past dozens of doors, until we came to one that was marked by a circle of slowly rotating ants.

We opened the door and saw only the sands of an endless desert.  We followed our ant guides and they led us to the man who didn’t belong.  But it was the wrong man.  I can see why they were confused, I mean they were ants and he was kind of a man, but it was just a giant statue, broken and half buried in the sand, with an inscription that simply read ‘Shelley’.  

We opened several more doors that the ants picked out, without success, before we finally lay down on the floor of the hallway to sleep.  But, of course, the ants didn’t sleep and when we woke up they had more doors for us to check.

We were on the 18
th
or 19
th
door when we found him.  It was an odd world, with things just floating in the air, not like clouds and birds and stuff, but odd things like tables and cows.  I was afraid that we would float away, but for whatever reason, we stayed on the ground just like always.  The ants led us a little ways into the world and there he was, sitting on a chair, upside down, floating in the air and smoking a pipe.  It was clear from the moment we saw him that we had our man, and Beauty and I shared a moment of surprise and, well, disappointment.  This was no prince!  This was a dwarf!

He looked down (although, because he was upside down, he had to move his head up, away from his chest) at us and blew a stream of smoke which drifted downward and settled in a hazy layer about 5 feet over our heads. “
She
sent you, I’m guesssin’.  Snow White?”