The Music Box – Part 2

When the Wizards ship had docked at a harbour carved, magically, from mountain stone and as her trunks were being lifted from the ship by the wizards invisible crewmen, the Princess thought she heard the sound of the magical rainmaking music box that had flooded her father’s kingdom coming from inside the wizards castle and, knowing that Frederick was hiding in one of her trunks and might be listening, she asked the Wizard, “Is the music box kept within your castle?”.

“It is”, replied the wizard, not suspecting anything of his beautiful bride to be, “But it is quite safe for it is guarded by three of my most powerful magical servants; Thunder, Winterwind and Hail and they are more than a match for any man. Thunder is a giant, you see, with a roaring voice just like the bellowing thunder and a whip called lightning that will strike any man dead in a second and Winterwind, though invisible, is as quick as the Northern wind and carries a sharp cutlass made of unmelting ice while Hail is an artilleryman who fires a large, brass cannon filled with hailstones the size of cannonballs”.

Hearing what dreadful and deadly obstacles lay in front of poor Frederick, the Princess shivered, feeling that things seemed quite hopeless for them both.

And, inside the trunk, Frederick too was feeling hopeless.

“What am I supposed to do against such impossibly formidable gate keepers?”, he thought as the trunk was carried into the castle and up a flight of winding stairs that led to the room which the Wizard had intended to make the Princess’s bedchamber.

But, spurred on by love, that is often as good as hope, Frederick prepared himself to face any odds
and, when the sound of the music box was at its loudest, thinking that it must be close by, Frederick opened the lid of the trunk, that had been left unlocked, and leapt out.

Fortunately, the Wizards invisible servants seemed as blind as they were unseeable and paid no notice when he emerged from the trunk but then, following the eery tinkling sound of the music box
along a winding, torch-lit labyrinth of stone corridors, Frederick came to the chamber where the music box was kept and saw, standing in front of the first of three arched doorways, the giant whom the Wizard had called ‘Thunder’.

“Ahh!”, said the mountainous man, grinning when he saw Frederick and speaking in a voice like a roaring river echoing through an underground cavern, “A visitor at last. You do not know how long I have stood here with nothing to do but now it will be such fun tearing you to pieces”.

Terrified by the gigantic man, Frederick started to lose his nerve and backed out of the room and into the corridor; the giants mocking laughter echoing after him.

“Come back”, said the giant, cracking his whip of lightning; a sound that made Frederick jump when he heard it, “I promise not to murder you too much”.

Frederick found an open window and leant against it, breathing in some air and trying to steady his heart that was still throbbing with fear.

“He is worse than I imagined”, thought the young man, “Though I am no coward. My murder by such a thing as that would achieve nothing and my beloved Alicina would still be the Wizard’s slave”.

But, just then, in through the window, there shone a bright rainbow that made Frederick smile and buoyed up his heart and then, to the man’s utter astonishment, the seven colours of the rainbow started to transform into six little men and one little woman, each one wearing a different coloured costume and pointy hat.

“Do not fear, my friend”, said one of the men who was dressed all in green and had a long green beard, “You have a firm ally in Mother Nature. She does not like being exploited by the wizard and made to constantly weep upon the Earth and she has sent us to help you destroy the Wizards music box”.

Then the seven little brightly attired people introduced themselves; they were the seven colours of the rainbow Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

Frederick was happy to have the help of the 7 little people but he wasn’t sure what good they would be against a terrifying titan like Thunder and his lightning whip.

“Don’t let our size fool you”, said Red, “When we work together, I and my Brothers and my sister, there’s nothing that we can’t achieve”.

And then, taking off her pointy purple hat and reaching into it, the little woman, Violet, took out what looked like a long piece of metal.

“What you need”, said Violet, handing him the object, “Is a lightning rod”.

Frederick took the long metal bar gratefully but he still didn’t understand how it would protect him against the giant.

Nevertheless, Frederick felt a new courage surge through him and, followed by the seven little colours of the rainbow, he re-entered the room where Thunder was standing and prepared to face the stentorious giant in battle.

“I’m glad you decided to fight”, bellowed Thunder, cracking his whip on the ground and making a sound just like a streak of lightning hitting the earth, “I could do with a bit of sport”.

Then whirling his lightning whip high over his head, the giant lashed at Frederick with it.

But as the end of the whip came towards him, Frederick raised the lightning rod that violet had given him and the whip became entangled round the rod; then, seeing what had happened, Frederick yanked upon the rod as if it were a fishing rod and pulled the handle of the whip out of the giants hand.

Thunder was furious with anger; his face turning first bright red and then dark purple with rage
and, shouting so loudly that even the earth trembled with fear, he yelled, “How dare you! I’ll teach you to take away my lightning”.

And, his heavy feet pounding against the earth, the giant lumbered towards Frederick, gnashing his teeth and waving his arms about wildly like an angry bear.

And Frederick was again terrified and was sure that he would be torn limb from limb by the terrible goliath but then, suddenly, he found himself surrounded by the little colours of the rainbow and each of them had a small bow and arrow in their hands.

Then blue fired a blue arrow at Thunder and, struck in the head, the giant shrunk by at least a meter.

“You see”, said Blue, smiling up at Frederick, “That giants full of hot air and he just needs to be deflated”.

Then green struck the giant with a green arrow and yellow hit him with a yellow one and the thundering giant shrunk even more, this time by a mile.

Then the other little people fired their arrows, each of a different colour, and with each arrow that struck the giant it grew a little smaller until it was even smaller than one of them and spoke, not with a thunderous bellow anymore but a squeak like a little timid mouse.

Then, like a mouse, the shrunken Thunder scampered away and, seeing this, Frederick couldn’t help but roar with laughter.

But, as he was laughing, suddenly Frederick felt a chill in the air and something like a strong wind rush past him and then he felt something sharp scratch his cheek and touching his cheek he saw blood upon his fingers.

“That must be the other guardian that the Wizard spoke of”, said Frederick as a freezing wind rushed past him again, this time cutting off all of his shirt buttons so that his shirt flew open, “The one who is invisible and as fast as the Northern wind”.

“The Northern wind is fast indeed”, said Violet, “But lightning is faster. Now use the giants whip to catch that wicked Winterwind and trip him up”.

Frederick looked despairingly back at the little purple clad woman.

“Gladly, I would, my little friend”, he said, “If I could see him”.

But Fredericks little multi-coloured gang of helpers seemed to have an answer to that problem too;
for, all at once, they took out, from somewhere, little pots of paint, each pot a different colour and,
as that icy wind rushed towards him again, suddenly the little people hurled their paint towards it, splashing the invisible creature with brightly coloured paint so that now Frederick could see him clearly.

Then, raising the lightning whip over his head, Frederick lashed out towards Winterwind with it and the whip caught hold of one of the creatures legs, tripping it up and making it stumble forwards onto the ground; then raising his sword, Frederick drove it through Winterwinds evil heart, adding the creatures black blood to the colours that the little people had splashed upon it.

Frederick sighed with relief as he saw the paint splashed creature stop breathing and noticed that he was more reptilian than human.

“What sort of creature is that?”, he asked Violet.

“Oh, an unnatural one, indeed. Probably conjured up by the Wizard”, replied Violet, “But it was not that which made the creature so swift”.

And then, bending down and taking off an anklet that the creature was wearing, she handed it to Frederick.

“Here, now take this and put it on”, she said, “Because you may have need of it”.

Frederick fastened the anklet around his wrist like a bracelet and it was fortunate for him that he did so because, just at that moment, whizzing past his head came a hailstone as large as a cannonball and it might have taken off his head if he had not been able to move quickly out of its path.

Then, in front of them, all saw the third guardian of the music box appear; an artillery man with a steel helmet on his head and a large brass cannon in front of him into which he was loading more gigantic hailstones.

“Now, move quickly”, said Green, “And dodge the other hailstones as you did the first. The music box is almost yours”.

Frederick didn’t have time to reply because then a whole volley of hailstones as large as Halloween pumpkins flew towards him.

Fortunately, with Winterwind’s magical anklet upon his wrist, Frederick could move as swiftly as the wind and dodged the oncoming barrage of icy cannonballs with ease, then, raising up his sword he
flew at enormous speed towards the strange artilleryman, knocking off his steel helmet, trimming his bushy walrus moustache and scaring him so much that the third gatekeeper ran away screaming.

Now, before him; glistening and glimmering and tinkling its pretty but diabolical tune, Frederick saw the music box and, raising up his sword he plunged its blade into the machine jamming it between the whirring silver gears.

All of a sudden the rain, that had rained every day and night for many months, stopped and the bright sun came out, pouring in through a multi-coloured, stained glass window.

But then, hearing that the melody of his music box had stopped playing and seeing the sun streaming into his castle, the Wizard seized hold of Alicina by the wrist and suddenly they were
both standing in front of Frederick and The Colours of the Rainbow and there was a ferocious glare in the wizards eyes.

“So!”, cried the Wizard, angrily, turning his glaring eyes towards Alicine, “I have been deceived”.

Then, to Alicines horror, she saw the face of the Wizard change into that of an animal and then all saw Vlados transform himself into a large jet black stag with antlers of Lightning and pounding hooves of thunder and fire blazing in its eyes and then, without warning, the animal charged towards Frederick, intent upon skewering him on its jagged horns.

Fortunately for Frederick, he was still wearing the anklet that had been taken from Winterwind and swiftly moved out of the way and then, instead of charging into Frederick, the black stag went crashing through the stained glass window that had been behind Frederick and off of the side of the high black mountain into the deep waters below.

Alicine ran towards Frederick to embrace him and kiss him but, because he was wearing the magic anklet of swiftness, it only took him the blink of an eye to rush into her arms and kiss her deeply.

And then, linking their hands together, the little colours of the rainbow transformed themselves into a giant butterfly with rainbow coloured wings and, climbing onto its back, Frederick and the Princess were carried home to the palace of the King.

Though the Kingdom was still flooded, everyone in the palace was smiling and joyful that it had stopped raining and that the Princess had returned and the King was so happy that, sitting on his throne and splashing his feet, he said that, with Alicines consent, he would allow Frederick to marry her.

Then Alicine said that she would, gladly with her whole heart and, looking on with satisfaction, all the colours of the rainbow agreed, “Love has conquered all”.