The Maiden and the Maze

She watches over her garden from above.  From the window of an impressive, twisted tower, one that is made out of marble, roofed in slate, its window frames coppered, and the high windows glazed and colour-tinted.  There are rainbows in the rubble; and the winding of the coppered stairs that lead up the full empty length of it into the only one room that matters.

She didn’t build her castle.  She grew it.

She remembers the very day.

She remembers her name.

#

Princess Ansilde was what they called her in those days.  A fine creature of deep, dark colours, whose lips were heart’s blood red, whose eyes were a dark violet that verged on the very precipice of midnight black.  Suitable for only the best, strongest, most worthy of suitors.  And such a suitor is all she would take.

So, she called the tower forth out of the mire.  She stood amongst the brambles and thistles and sang to the earth, beckoning, intoxicating, coaxing it out of its home beneath the muck, convincing it to be.  An impressive thing: half-melted stone, impossible angles.  And around it she called up a maze, a thicket of thistles and daggers, a tangle of vines and subtle poisons, leaves blackened and purpled, more than capable of tricking its contenders, sending them into dead ends where creatures of sorcery waited to devour them.

She was good.  Her talents in wizardry were second-to-none.  When this barbed garden was done, it was magnificent.  Ansilde shrouded it in mist, she impregnated it with sinkholes and traps, with horrors and temptations and cruel tricks.  She smiled upon her work, and then she sent out a call.  She threw her words into the north wind, into the beaks of migrating birds, into the burbling sound of small rivers, and the roar of much larger ones, into the sound that the earth makes when it settles.

Let the world know.

Let them come.

#

And she watches as these proud men come to test their mettle.  Word spreads of her beauty, of her inheritance – which is after-all a kingdom – and of the test she will put men through.  So, her hand must be worth it?  Surely.  And the man who rides back from her maze with such a prize, surely he’s a man of legend, a warrior and adventurer like no other man.  One who can be worshipped and praised and admired amongst his peers.

Their egos.  Their libidos, drag them forth.

Ansilde watches from the window as they ride or stride in amongst the hedges. They have armour that gleams, that is silvered and enchanted, infused with platinum and wolfsbane, with star-iron and deep-silver.  And they carry swords that are glowing, that are stuffed full of spells.  Some which are alive.  These she feels sorry for – broken on the altar of another’s virility, sacrificed to his failure. 

For they fail indeed.  The ground might open up and take them, or the vines might reach and strangle, or a madness might seize upon them and leave them coiled on the ground, tearing at their own eyes.  Or maybe the maze will herd them into a dead end, and there will be a creature, something so horrid their eyes can barely see it, and the creature will devour them without pity.

They are fools.

And Ansilde will not mourn them.  They come here of their own volition and break themselves against her walls.  If they’d been worthy, they would not have perished out there.  The blame is theirs.

#

Prince Lothgan is such a fool.

He’s heard the full catalogue of stories about the princess, ensconced in her tower, awaiting the one man worthy of claiming her.

“Well, isn’t she just full of herself?” says his sister, Tylitha.

“She’s the ultimate prize, sister.”

“Why?  Because she proclaimed herself as much?”

“The legends back her claims.”

“The legends are old.”

“A thousand men have failed.”

“The thousand and first will not.”

“Brother, all those men died.”

“And when I don’t, when I bring her back and wed her, my glory will live on forever, I’ll be sung about, I’ll become a legend.  My portrait will be painted with her at my side.  What man could compete with that?”

“A lonely grave, brother.”

“A glittering throne.  A transcendent bride.”

Tears form in her eyes, because she knows he will never listen.  She wishes she could take this princess and drown her in the fountain.  How many idiots like her brother has she lured to such a waste of a death?  And for what?  Is her limber little body truly worth such loss?

#

Lothgan has no time for his sister’s wisdom – the wailing of a weak girl.  He knows the location of the tower, and though it might be a far, hard ride, he knows he has the strength to reach it.  And once inside he’ll have the courage, and the skill, the luck, the fortitude and the intelligence to best that maze.

And then…

His heart aches for it.

And the maze, when he finds it, tests him to his limit.  He fights against the sinkholes that would drag him down into the suffocating earth; with his sword he lops off the heads of vines that would entangle, then strangle; he sees illusions both terrifying and enticing, but he steels his heart against either.  When the maze tugs him one way he knows to go another.  And when a beast rises up from the earth at the foot of the tower, he merely roars it a challenge and goes at it with his sword.  He is fast, strong, sharp-witted and highly trained.  The blood of the most ancient houses, the finest princes and princesses, make him who he is.  He draws on that ancestry and he hacks the beast into howling submission; further: into death.  He paints himself with its blood and walks boldly towards the door.

For him, it is unlocked.

And he steps inside.

#

Ansilde watches from the window.  A soft smile plays across her lips.

At last.

She swishes her fine skirt around her and walks to the furred bed, she sits on the edge, and she waits for him to come.

#

Lothgan climbs the stairs, he steps into the rounded chamber, and sees her sitting there, encased in all this finery.  A headdress of heavy gold, with red silk pulled through it, feathers and beads sown over it; and dress of deep purple, its embroidery in reds and golds and silvers, padded and frilled, layered, and sheathed in such fine, sheer lace that the outer layer is barely visible.

He gasps, “But you are old!”

She smiles.  “Why shouldn’t I be?  I have waited centuries for one such as you.”

“But I’ve come to marry you!”

“And now you won’t?”

“My wife must be young and beautiful.  She will need to give me heirs.  Princes.”

She only beckons.  “Come closer.”

“This can’t be.”

“Oh, but it can.  Come.”  And she knows when she beckons that her gesture is like a chain, that she will reel him in and he won’t resist.

“But I was going to marry you!”  He is aghast.  Confused.

“That is how you thought this would play out?  That I have waited all this time for a mere husband?”

“I-  Yes-  Of course-  The bravest and… strongest… the…”

He stands before her, and she reaches to take his hand.  “You are indeed strong, brave, determined.  You have a fine body, and a disciplined mind.  No more of a fool than all the others who have come here.  But I have no use for a husband.  This body is withered, it has waited so long.  But not for bedsport, not for a mate.  I sought a vessel.”

His eyes widen.  The trap is sprung.  He sees it too late.  She leans in for what seems like it might be a kiss.  But when her mouth finds his it is poisonous, full of barbs and edges, and it won’t let him go.  He can feel her, sliding inside him.  As her body sags and wilts, as dust appears upon the wrinkles, he can feel her becoming him, pouring into him like molten iron, and he feels himself pour out, making room for her.

#

Ansilde stands.

There is nothing but dust on the bed where her old vessel sat.  This new one is strong.  It brings out her male side.  And that side requires its turn.  Healthy.  Vigorous.  She’ll live a long time in this.  And she has herself a kingdom to return to.  A future.

She’ll need a wife though.  The one she – he – came questing for has turned out not to live up to her expectations.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work