Scorpion Soup (13 page)

‘Please hurry!’ whispered the princess. ‘Precious time is running out. In moments, I fear I shall be dead!’

Adam stood before the machine, his blood fortified with adrenalin. Although desperate to rescue the princess, he felt helpless. With her certain death a moment away, Adam knew he had to try something.

As he conjured up the courage to overcome his fear and destroy the machine, he felt his face and hands running with perspiration.

‘Fear,’ he thought, wiping his forehead dry. ‘
This
is Fear!’

Rinsing a hand over his brow once again, he collected a few drops of sweat, and dripped them into the left pan of the scale.

But what about Hope?

Drawing a deep breath, Adam was about to resign himself to failure, when he remembered the mango seed, still clutched in his hand.

‘
This
is Hope,’ he said. ‘The Hope of a mango tree.’

In a quick movement, he dropped the seed into the second pan.

The machine whirred and grunted, the scimitars flashing in the jungle light.

And, all of a sudden, the straps and bindings disintegrated.

Princess Leila was free.

Adam and the princess returned to the surface, and to the Land of Zilzilam.

Forty days of celebration were held, so overjoyed was Leila’s father that his favourite daughter had been saved.

When the festivities were at an end, Adam and the princess were married in a tumultuous marriage ceremony.

Another forty days of festivities followed.

And, with time, Adam ascended to the throne of Zilzilam, reigning as its king for many years. His wisdom and courage are still spoken of today, and his acts of kindness are the stuff of legend far beyond the ancient walls of Zilzilam.

As the years passed, King Adam devoted more and more of his time to improving the kingdom, and the living standards of its people. He made sure that everyone had enough food and a good education, and that every citizen had the opportunity to come to him directly with their problems. The gates to the palace were always open, and everyone knew that King Adam would see them if they needed his help.

One evening, when he had ruled for seventeen years, Adam was sitting in the durbar attending to some official papers. As he pressed his signet ring into a wax seal, a wizened old man staggered in. The man had a long white beard that reached down to his knees, and was wearing a jet-black cloak that covered his form in its entirety.

Rising from his throne, King Adam went to greet the stranger.

When they were both seated, and once tea had been served, the old man spoke:

‘O great King Adam of Zilzilam,’ he said, his words muffled with age, ‘I have waited seventy years to bring you a message, a message that will save your kingdom and your life.’

Adam looked into the old man’s dull eyes, and wondered whether he was unhinged. But before he could say a word, the stranger went on:

‘When I was a young man,’ he said, ‘I was a shepherd on a remote hillside a great distance from here. From dawn until dusk each day, I tended the family flocks. And, each night, I would bed down on the hay in a little stone barn, and I would sleep like the dead.

‘One night, while deep asleep, I walked from the barn, over the hills, until I came to a jagged rock face. There, in a cleft between the crags, an oracle spoke to me. It said that I was to be a messenger and that, one day many years hence, a good king would be saved by the message it was to impart.’

‘What was the message?’ asked Adam gently.

The old man held out a withered hand.

‘I shall tell you,’ he said. ‘Each night I would return to the crag as a dream-walker. And I would listen to the message of the oracle. And, little by little, the oracle passed on details of the message in a most unusual way. Only when the entire message had been entrusted to me did I awake to understand that I had been the confidant to an oracle.

‘As the messenger, I was instructed to keep the message with me at all times in a certain way, and to bring it to you on this day. The oracle said that you, King Adam, would understand the secret wisdom held within it, and that by doing so, your kingdom would endure until eternity.’

‘Could I have the message?’ asked Adam, growing a little impatient.

Again, the old man held out a hand.

‘I shall give it to you,’ he said solemnly.

Standing slowly to his feet, he unfastened the buttons of his jet-black cloak, and the robe fell to the floor. Beneath it, the ancient was naked.

Every inch of his skin was tattooed with words.

‘
This
is the message,’ he said.

And, with that, he expired.

Bending over the emaciated corpse, Adam began to read:

There was once a swordsmith in Shandong who devised a secret method by which to craft a blade that never grew blunt. The more lives his swords claimed in battle, the sharper and more deadly they became.

Word of his breakthrough spread and, as it did so, every knight there struggled to get his hands on such a weapon.

As a consequence, there were more wars, battles and duels than there had ever been – as knights, warriors, cavaliers, and ordinary soldiers, fought one another to get possession of the blades.

An entire generation of fighting men was slain.

Witnessing the carnage, the master swordsmith took his own life, so horrified was he that he should have been responsible for filling all the cemeteries of the land.

But the deaths continued.

Day in, day out, warriors lost their lives for no reason but to fight for the sake of fighting. And, with each death, the swords became ever sharper.

Then came the day when every knight in the land was dead.

All except for two.

The first was named Da Shun, and the second was called Fu Sheng.

They met on an isolated hilltop overlooking the sea, as the rain lashed down. Each clutched a blade that had slain a thousand men.

At the appointed moment they began swinging blows at one another.

For a full day and a night, they fought.

But so equally matched were they, that neither managed to inflict a mortal wound on the other. Collapsing at the same moment on the windswept knoll, they both understood the futility of going on.

Fu Sheng spoke first:

‘Neither of us can win at this,’ he gasped.

Da Shun cocked his head in agreement.

‘So what shall we do?’

Silence prevailed for a long while, and then Fu Sheng said:

‘Let the first person to pass here decide who is the victor.’

‘So be it,’ intoned Da Shun.

And so they waited.

For days, and weeks, they waited.

In that time the two knights became friends. They shared jokes and secrets, and still they waited.

Until, one morning, an old crone heading towards the town passed them.

‘I am going to sell my berries,’ she said, ‘please allow me to pass unhindered.’

Da Shun put down his sword.

‘We will not harm you, old woman,’ he said. ‘Rather we just ask that you settle a score, and decide which of us is the winner of our duel.’

The crone didn’t know much about duels and duelling, but she knew enough to know that duels took place to decide who the victor would be.

So she said:

‘Fight your duel, then, and that will decide.’

‘But we have done just that,’ sighed Fu Sheng. ‘We have fought and we have fought, and have fought, and have fought, but we are so equally matched that neither can win.’

‘I see,’ said the crone.

‘So,’ responded Da Shun, ‘which is the winner? You decide.’

The woman looked at both the knights, and she pitied them.

‘There is only one way to decide this,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ asked the knights both at the same time.

‘You must leave this hilltop,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and find a unicorn’s tear. The one of you who can bring it to me first will have won the duel.’

The knights looked down at the crone and they both frowned. As knights they expected a decision to be more immediate and simple.

‘Can you just choose one of us right now?’ asked Da Shun, ‘and the loser will have to fall on his sword.’

‘That’s the way it’s always been,’ added Fu Sheng.

‘I don’t care how it’s always been,’ said the old woman.

‘Very well,’ replied the knights in time with each other.

And, without another word, they left the hilltop.

Clambering onto his mare, Fu Sheng rode to the north. And, mounting his steed, Da Shun rode to the south.

Many kingdoms passed beneath the hooves of each horse. Both of the knights sought a unicorn for its tear, but neither had much luck at all.

Da Shun was directed to a cave in which a magician was crouched over an iron cauldron. When he asked where a unicorn might be found, the sorcerer pointed into the pot.

‘You are cooking unicorn?’ he asked in horror.

The magician nodded.

‘Well, where might I find a
live
unicorn?’

‘Up there,’ the sorcerer said softly, motioning to the sky.

‘Where?’

‘In the floating kingdom.’

Hastening outside, Da Shun cocked back his head and looked up into the clouds. Thousands of feet above, he spotted the outline of a city. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again.

But the floating kingdom was real.

There were soaring turrets, domes, spiralling towers, high trees, a citadel, and impenetrable ivory-white walls. Even though it was day, stars were glinting above the floating city, for it was always night in that realm.

‘How do I get to it?’ asked Da Shun.

The sorcerer rubbed his hands together until they were warm. Then, touching them to the knight’s shoulders, he moved his hands in circles.

Da Shun sensed something happening, something extraordinary.

Where his shoulders had been, wings were growing.

Great powerful golden wings.

‘Take to the wind and fly!’ cried the magician. ‘But beware. The wings will melt away as soon as you reach the floating kingdom.’

Clenching his leg muscles, Da Shun thrust himself into the air.

He flapped and he flapped, and was soon soaring high against the cobalt sky. Looking down, he spotted the sorcerer, no more than a pinhead far below. As he flapped, the skyline in the clouds came into sharp focus. Capping it was a night sky, a panoply of stars gleaming like grains of salt tossed across a dark shroud.

Da Shun rose high above the city walls, arcing to the east. But, as he turned, the golden wings seemed to lose their might.

All of a sudden, they broke apart, and Da Shun began to fall.

He fell, and fell, and fell, plunging down into the dark.

Fortunately for him, a deep mosaic pool in the palace grounds broke his fall. Before he knew it, Da Shun was being rescued from the water by a dozen maidens. Taking him to the guest quarters, they begged him to be at ease.

‘May I be presented to my host?’ Da Shun asked over and over.

The reply was always the same:

‘In time perhaps but, alas, our queen has left on a journey, from which we await her return.’

As Da Shun was reclining in great comfort, Fu Sheng was hacking his way through the red jungle of Salanaque.

A blind merchant had sold him a fragment of information at a distant caravanserai: that a unicorn was kept prisoner by a blue troll, a troll who lived where the red jungle bordered the eternal sea.

The merchant had declared that the troll, the most fearful of creatures, could frighten a man to death, by turning its face inside out.

Chopping his way through the jungle, Fu Sheng gained no more than a few inches a day. Each night as he slept, the undergrowth ahead doubled in its thickness, making progress impossible.

His strength sapped by leeches and sores, the knight vowed not to yield until he had presented the crone with a unicorn’s tear.

At last, one day, Fu Sheng noticed a breach in the radiant red light ahead. Chopping with his razor-sharp sword, he reached an expanse of empty land. In the middle of it stood a plain wooden shack.

Striding up to its door, Fu Sheng knocked hard with his fist.

The door swung inwards slowly.

A teal-blue creature was standing in its frame. He had short blue horns, a hairy blue brow, and a face so wart-ridden and foul that it sent a pang of raw fear down Fu Sheng’s spine.

‘I am on a quest for a unicorn’s tear,’ said the knight.

The blue troll took half a step backwards and turned his face inside out.

As a reflex to a sight so offensive, Fu Sheng whipped out his blade and separated the troll’s head from its shoulders.

Instantly, the plain wooden shack disappeared.

Where it had stood, a palace rose from out of the ground, its crenellated walls and towers fashioned from the whitest marble. All around, the forest melted away, and was replaced by a pristine city.

As Fu Sheng stood before the palace, wide-eyed in amazement, the troll’s bluish blood not yet wiped from his blade, a drawbridge lowered.

Under the portcullis rode a pair of royal guards.

‘Please come with us!’ one of them called out.

‘The queen awaits you,’ said the other.

Confused, and blathering questions, the knight was led into a vast reception hall. Illuminated by coloured crystal chandeliers, the room was carpeted in rose petals, and decorated with exquisite paintings of unicorns.

All of a sudden came the delicate sound of hooves on stone.

Fu Sheng turned, and found himself gazing at a sight more lovely than any other he had ever imagined.

A beautiful princess was riding towards him on a silvery-white unicorn. Her hair was tied back with peonies, her dress white lace. Smoothing a hand down the creature’s mane, she slipped easily off the animal’s back.

‘I am Queen Amberin,’ she said in a kindly voice. ‘And I have been returned to my kingdom as a consequence of your actions. It has been floating among the clouds, waiting for this day.’

‘The blue troll…’ stammered Fu Sheng.

‘Yes… he placed a spell on me from which I could only be freed by a blade wielded by the heart and not by the mind.’