The Stone Princess - Part 6

News spread quickly around the forest that a man had arrived on a cloud-galloping horse with a lovebird upon his shoulder.

First a sharp-eyed owl spotted him; blinking twice just to make sure that it wasn’t dreaming, then the owl told a squirrel that dropped all the acorns it was carrying and scurried in a hurry down its tree to tell a long eared rabbit who then hopped off quickly to tell a badger who then trundled off slowly to tell the members of the secret council, those loyal subjects of the Stone Princess who, as was mentioned earlier, transformed themselves into furry woodland creatures and met secretly in an underground burrow to plot the overthrow of the evil queen.

And, before Gordo knew it, he was surrounded by badgers and squirrels and foxes and all sorts of small forest animals who had turned out to greet him.

“Mother Nature be praised”, said an elderly grey, haired rabbit named Humboldt who was in reality the elected head of the secret council, “We have waited so long for a hero to arrive. Someone who would finally deliver us from the cold-blooded tyranny of Ulcimea”.

Gordo said that it was a true honour to serve such a noble cause; that he had spoken to the Stone Princess in his dreams and had been enchanted by her beauty and the goodness of her heart and that he couldn’t wait to face the evil queen again, having once lopped off her hideous head.

Then he showed them his magical sword and shield and told them of all his adventures and the terrifying monsters he had slain and then they took him to the garden of the stone princess and he was amazed to see that it looked exactly as it had in his dreams.

Then his gaze fell upon the smiling face of the stone princess and he wept to finally see her and, kneeling below her pedestal, vowed that he would do anything to break the evil curse which the lightning queen had put upon her.

But, while he was in the garden and talking of his innermost feelings to the statue, a spy of the evil queen; a rotten, worm infested apple that was hanging from an otherwise pretty apple tree, looking out of its two worm holes, fell to the ground and rolled and bounced like a ball all the way to the queen to tell her about his arrival.

When the queen heard the news she immediately flew into a terrible rage; both her eyes bulging and blazing bright red; her tongue turning to flame and flames bursting from her ears and nostrils
then, munching upon the rotten apple and biting a wriggling worm in two, she thought of a seductress she had read about in some old fairytale who had tempted a man with an apple.

“Where beasts fail”, she said to herself, “Beauty may prevail”.

And then, into her large, bubbling black cauldron, the evil queen poured sweet smelling perfumes and make-ups; milk for fairest skin; roses for blushing cheeks; gold and silk for flaxen hair; rubies for lips and bluest sapphires for sparkling eyes and, as she added these ingredients and stirred them into her pot with a long dagger, she asked that the cauldron cook her up, “The most alluring of all women since Aphrodite made Helen. A born temptress” and then, pouring in three drops of the deadliest poison, added, “And let her kiss be as deadly as the most venomous of all serpents”.

Then, up out of the cauldron, rose a fountain that, pouring down became a beautiful, curvaceous, long-limbed woman with long, flowing hair and a flowing, frilly satin gown.

Everything about her seemed as fluid as the magical potion from which she had been conjured and then, when she had stepped out of the cauldron like an elegant lady stepping from a bathtub, the evil Ulcimea commanded her to fly to the garden of the Stone Princess; seduce Gordo with her magical charms and kiss him with her deadly, poisonous lips.

And, just like water as it flows out of a jug, the seductress seemed to pour up into the air and flow out of the window of Ulcimeas dark fortress.

But, as she was gliding along like a glistening stream through the air towards the garden of the stone princess, the Seductress thought, “The evil queen Ulcimea has made me wrong. She has given me poisonous lips but not the dark heart to use them. She has not made me evil like her and so how can I do something as cruel as making a man fall in love with me only to poison him?”.

Nonetheless, she didn’t want to be a disappointment to her creator and so, when she had reached and alighted within the garden of the Stone Princess, she attempted to do her best to seduce and kiss Gordo.

She found the squire kneeling at the feet of his stone princess with his arms wrapped around her pedestal and gazing up at her with adoring eyes.

“Why be in love with a stone statue when you can be with a real woman of warm flesh and blood?”, she asked, draping her long arms around him.

But Gordo had no interest in the charms of the Seductress.

“You’ve never seen her like I have; when she’s alive. Seen the sparkle in her eyes; the warmth and the light within her. You have never seen her smile. She is the only woman that I ever want to fall in love with”; he replied, dreamily.

The seductress wasn’t ready to give in, however and tried again.

“I bet that I could make you forget her”, she said, putting her arms around Gordo’s neck and pulling his face close to hers.

But Gordo just pushed her away.

“No”, he said, “No woman; no matter how beautiful she might look, could ever take the place of my princess within my heart because it is not her beauty that entrances me about her but the sweetness of her spirit; her kindness; her gentleness; her warmth. The beauty within. Somewhere there may be another who may resemble her in every small detail but no soul could ever be the exact likeness of hers”.

Hearing this and seeing the bright love in Gordo’s eyes, the Seductress now knew that she could never seduce him and was so moved by his love for his princess that she no longer wanted to.

Instead she wished him good luck upon his quest before flying off into the glittering twilight.

Now, witnessing within the misty waters of her cauldron how the seductress had betrayed her, the wicked Ulcimea summoned up her extreme opposite; a creature of the greatest ugliness; a vile medusa like creature; the very sight of which was terrifying enough to stop a man’s beating heart and then she ordered it to fly to the garden of the Stone Princess and kill Gordo and, flapping the large, bat-like wings upon its hunched back, the fatally hideous creature flew off into the darkness to do its creators bidding.

However, before it could reach the garden of the Stone Princess, it ran into the Seductress who was flying the other way.

Seeing her beauty it fell immediately in love with her but the sight of its ugliness struck her instantly dead. Saddened by her death, the ugly monster held her close and kissed her poisoned lips and then both fell dead, crashing into the moonlit ocean before changing back into the magic liquid out of which they had both been born.

But, while all that was happening, Gordo was getting back up on his horse, ready to attack the fortress of the evil queen and determined to defeat her.