The Two Princes – Part Four

Then the prince and his strange retinue returned to the forest of the Fairy Queen and she led them to a nearby lake where, she said, there was a bridge that they must cross.

“Where is the bridge?”, asked Sir Halsome, looking out across the lake when they had reached its edge, “All I see is water”.

“Ahh”, said the fool, speaking with the voice of the queen, “It is not a bridge over the lake but a bridge that spans the gap between your world and the world of dreams”.

Then the queen stirred the lake with one of her fingers and the water grew bright as a golden ring
around it and then she asked Sir Halsome and the others, “What now do you see upon the surface of the lake?”.

And gazing upon the water, Lord Halsome could only see the moon and the stars in the evening sky above reflected in the lake and he said this to the Queen.

And so the queen told him, “Put your hand deep inside the water, all knowing Sir Halsome”.

Sir Halsome was reluctant at first, his hand trembling because he knew that there was strange magic in the waters and feared that his hand may somehow burn or become deformed, but then the little girl that was the fairy queen seized Sir Halsome, as firmly as a titan, by the wrist and drew his hand towards the surface of the water and, as she did so, Sir Halsome felt his fingers dip deep; not deep below the surface of the lake but deep among the reflected stars until, laughing in wonderment, Sir Halsome realized that he could feel the curved, golden blade of a crescent moon against his fingers.

“Be careful now, Sir Knight”, said the queen, “That you do not prick your fingers upon the horns
of the moon”.

And then, one by one, they all stepped upon the stars and sank high into the depths of dreamland.

It was like nothing that a mind as small as the human mind could ever imagine. Stars moved like living creatures all about them, soaring and swooping, swimming and splashing, crawling and climbing
round their astonished heads.

“It is the living light of the dreamworld”, said the Queen now seeming to speak from her own lips, as a fluttering star perched upon her shoulder, “It is only one of the trillion wonders you may see in this world”.

And then, as if to prove the queens point, a towering palace of polished starlight rose up from
the earth infront of them, built by fairy labourers with hands as swift as lightning and, beneath it, a tall, sloping silver hill that looked to all as if it were formed from moonlit water.

“Your desires have brought the palace of the evil dream lord nearer”, the queen told Prince Happ, smiling.

“My desires did that?”, asked the Prince, dumbfounded.

“Love is a powerful force here”, the queen informed him, “And the man who loves wisely is like a wizard in this world”.

But, though the Palace stood, almost, before them, there was still a towering hill
to climb and only a narrow, winding road to follow.

“My dreams feel more heavy in this place”, said the fool, laying down his dream filled sack with a loud clunk and opening it up only to be poked in the eye by the bow of a flying fiddle and struck in the face by a leaping concertina that then bounded off into the distance, making merry music with the fiddle as it went.

“Who would ever dream of such oddness. A flying fiddle and a leaping concertina?”, laughed Sir Halsome.

“Who can fathom the mind of a fool?”, asked the prince, joining Sir Halsome in laughter.

But then all heard another, much louder sound coming from the palace high upon the hill.

“What is that magic music I hear?”, asked the blind man, cocking his old head to one side and smiling broadly as he listened, “Like the sound of a trillion angels filling my ears with voices of ringing crystal”.

“That is no happy sound”, said the Fairy Queen, beginning to frown, “That is the peeling of magical bells within the chapel of the dream lords palace, summoning all from dreamland to attend his wedding. If we make haste then we may reach the palace before the bells stop ringing and we must, for
when the ringing stops, then the marriage ceremony shall begin”.