Chapter the 22nd
The howling wind ran through Prince Moroch's blood. The dim glow of the setting sun showed him the ship breaking apart in the waves just off the rocky coast.
“That will teach those pirates to try and steal your light,” said the older man.
“And you are free of that ship,” said the woman.
“They will never sail that ship again,” said the younger man.
“My father always wanted to get rid of those pirates and that choir,” said Prince Moroch. “I have succeeded where he has failed.”
“You should be proud of yourself,” said the older man.
Moroch watched the scattered figures of ship’s crew make their way to shore and gather themselves into a tight group.
“As you can see,” said the woman, “they are planning to storm the lighthouse and steal your light.”
“I suggest that you blind them with darkness so that they lose their way and never find you,” said the younger man.
“They might be friends who need shelter from the chilling winds,” said the prince, surprised that he even thought such a thing.
“They need shelter from the chilling winds in order to steal your light,” said the older man.
“Surely you don’t think they could be your friends?” asked the woman.
“I thought you said you were proud to have rid the kingdom of the pirates and choirboys when your father could not accomplish that feat,” said the younger man.
Prince Moroch opened his mouth to say how proud he was of himself when he saw a dark cloud rise up out of the sea.
“What darkness is this?” Moroch cried.
As he raised his sword in the direction of the dark cloud, two bright yellow eyes pierced through the darkness and fixed their gaze on the prince.
“Who—who are you?” Moroch asked.
“Never trust a sea monster drawn by a friend of pirates and choirboys,” said the woman.
“I won’t,” Moroch promised.
The monster opened its mouth, revealing many rows of white sharp teeth and two human figures who were riding on the monster’s tongue that was hanging out of its mouth.
“You’d better stop them,” the younger man suggested.
“I, Moroch, the Crown Prince of Carelin, order you—“
The prince did not get any more words out before the taller of the two boys threw a luminous purple thread like a lasso that wrapped itself about the lighthouse. Moroch screamed and grabbed a hold of the light's base to steady himself as the lighthouse tilted so badly that the prince feared it would fall into the ocean.
“Now those two evil singers turned pirates have bound you to the island,” said the older man.
Prince Moroch looked down in amazement as the monster let the two boys climb out on its paw and then set them down on the rocky shore.
“I assume you know what to do with the thread that binds you,” said the woman.
“There is no time to lose,” the older man urged.
The prince took a deep breath and raised his sword to cut the thread and free himself once again from the spider his father had once declared to be one of his greatest enemies. But before he could make his slashing cut, a harp melody began to sound in the prince's ear again. He whirled around and thrust his sword at the imaginary harpist before him, but the music persisted.
“The static will stop if you cut the thread,” said the older man.
Moroch concentrated on the sound and realized that the older man in black was right.
“I didn’t invite those sounds,” said the prince.
“Cutting the thread will drive them out,” the woman urged
Moroch aimed the sword at the thread once again but somehow, the music itself repelled the sword. As soon as Moroch dropped his arm and let his sword dangle, he realized he did not want to cut the thread spun by Melanie the Web Spinner.
“You missed a golden opportunity,” said the younger man.
“I know,” said Moroch.
“You still have a chance to redeem yourself before the melodies twist your thoughts out of shape,” said the older man.
The music became stronger inside of Moroch until, being more than a memory, it became a living musical presence within him.
“The music is twisting your heart into knots,” said the woman.
“What would your father say?” asked the younger man.
“He’d never appreciate it in a million years,” Moroch replied.
Anger at his father for causing the blizzard that almost destroyed Carelin spurred Moroch into action. He turned around and slashed his father’s head off with the sword, only his father was not in the lighthouse tower with him.
“Now is the time to cut the thread,” the older man urged.
“If you don’t cut the thread,” said the woman, “a spider will control your destiny.”
“And you will have failed where your father has failed,” said the younger man.
But a strange voice inside him made Moroch too afraid of what would happen if he cut the lighthouse free, and the music inclined him to trust Melanie the Web Spinner to bring the lighthouse to the right place. But when the lighthouse made a jarring landing that knocked him against the wall behind him and he heard a crunching sound underneath followed by a crash against the base of the lighthouse followed by yet another crash, the prince was not so sure. Perhaps Melanie the Web Spinner needed more than one thread to draw the lighthouse to the place where it belonged. The sound of many confused voices bubbled up from down below. Shaken, Prince Moroch staggered over to the window and looked down. A huge spray of water filled with all the colors in the rainbow exploded before his eyes. Intermixed with the water were colored bubbles of all shapes floating up from a fountain that Moroch recognized very well. Under a heavily overcast daytime sky, the fountain was surrounded by children blowing bubbles in many different shapes and pointing to the lighthouse with excitement. Three smashed-up cars leaned up against the lighthouse, and their drivers staggered out, looking very unhappy.
“Carelin!” Moroch cried when he recognized Morley’s Toy Store just up the street.
“Look again,” the older man suggested.
Already, Moroch was beginning to realize that the town did not look right. He recognized only a few of the children and the stores along the street were all wrong except for Morley’s Toy Store. No question about it. The town was wrong.
“No,” said Moroch, “this isn’t Carelin. It—it—looks like Milton.”
“Yes, the good people of Milton have stolen your fountain,” said the woman.
“And they have stolen Morley’s Toy Store,” added the younger man.
“Next, they will steal the light that you are storing here,” said the older man.
“How dare they do that to me!” Prince Moroch cried as he waved his sword at the ruined light bulb. A blinding darkness poured out of the empty socket and into the town below.
“Now you are giving them what they deserve,” said the woman.
“Now they will never find the lighthouse to invade it,” said the younger man.
But as the darkness engulfed the fountain, the harp music that Moroch heard inside his head told him that something was going wrong.
“My grandmother lived in this town!” cried Moroch.
“She lives no longer,” said the older man.
“I suggest you forget her,” said the younger man.
“She is not a worthy memory,” said the woman.
But the harp was playing his grandmother’s favorite song and another voice was reminding him of his grandmother’s hidden acts of generosity.
“How dare you talk about my grandmother like that?” Moroch yelled at the three dark people.
“Whatever is stirring up your anger against us?” asked the older man.
“We are only trying to guide you in the way you want to go,” said the woman.
---------------------------
For an endless time, the spark bounced up and down in the palm of the king’s hand. Some of his bounces took him as high as the tip of the king’s golden crown and some of his plunges missed the king’s palm and took him deep into the darkness. When that happened, he dropped so far that he thought he would fall forever, but each time he landed on a thread of Melanie’s Web and bounced back to the king’s hand.
“I’m not getting anywhere,” the king grumbled.
“It is time that you noticed,” Melanie the Web Spinner taunted him.
“It is not proper to make fun of the king!” Perezvon XXVI bellowed.
“Yelling at me will not help you find your way,” Melanie reminded him.
“I suppose you are still trying to pressure me into speaking nicely to this puny spark in my hand,” said King Perezvon XXVI.
“I am only waiting for you to say something sensible and the do something sensible,” said the spider.
The spark continuously bounced up and around and off the king’s hand on for what seemed another eternity. The only thing that broke the monotony of the futile journey and the silence for the spark was the gradual winding of a purplish thread around the king, unknown to him, which was surely the doing of Melanie the Web Spinner. Not until the spark had given up all hope that the king would give up his aimless wandering in the dark, did he finally stop walking steady his hand enough for the spark to sit still in his palm.
“Uh—Spark.” said Perezvon. “Please tell me who you are.”
The spark did not wish to answer, but he was so impatient for something to happen that his name flickered and spilled out on a tongue of flame.
“Shawn.”
“Shawn? That's a rather nice name. Shawn. Not a royal name, of course. No king in the History of Carelin has ever had that name.
“It’s a royal name now,” Shawn replied, flaming up a bit in his peevishness.
“Shawn has never been a royal name,” Perezvon repeated. “And that means it never will be a royal name.”
“And I suppose you think you have a royal name to end all royal names,” said Shawn.
“I most certainly do,” said the king. “I am Perezvon XXVI. That means that I am the twenty-sixth king to bear that name and that proves my point. You can’t be a king if you don’t bear a name of a previous king.”
“What about Perezvon the First?” Shawn retorted.
The king frowned so fiercely that the spark feared he might be crushed in the palm of the king’s hand. At the same time, the spark noticed that the web was winding itself ever tighter around the king and was pulling him in a certain direction.
“You are not displaying the proper attitude to a king,” said Perezvon.
“Who cares?”
“I care,” the king spluttered.
The spark smouldered.
“Who cares if I care if you care?”
“Who are you that you dare speak to his majesty king perezvon xxvi in this fashion?”
“I am King Shawn the First, King of Correlee, that’s who.”
“Ah! So you are the king who is stealing the light from my kingdom.”
“Why should I care about your light?” asked the spark who was Shawn. “Besides, you said I can’t be a king if my name is Shawn.”
“I suggest you care about the fact that I have you in my power and that I can squeeze you out of you existence whenever I wish.”
“I’ll burn your little pinky if you try that,” said the spark.
“OW!” cried the king as the spark proved his point by bouncing hard on the king’s little finger.
“What’s your next threat, you little baby with a crown?” asked the spark.
“How dare you make fun of me!”
“How dare you threaten a little spark like me!” the spark yelled in return, small as his voice was.
“Yelling at each other will get both of you nowhere,” Melanie the Web Spinner interjected.
“You keep out of this!” King Perezvon XXVI snapped at her.
“Yelling at Melanie the Web Spinner will get you nowhere,” said the spider.
“Yes it will!”
“How far has yelling at me gotten you so far?” Melanie the Web Spinner asked him.
“Nowhere as far as I can tell,” said the spark.
“All right!” roared the king, “where do you think we should go, you little spark?”
“I want to go to the luxury car in my train set.”
The words had poured out before the spark could stop them. If his cheeks were showing, they would have turned red. He certainly did not want the king to know about his passion for his toy train set.
“Why that's wonderful!” cried the king. “I would love to have a luxury car in a train set myself.”
“So, you do like me just for my train set,” said the spark.
“Well, now that you mention it, I must admit that I care about having a luxury car in a train a lot more than I care about you. After all, it is rather hard to worked up about a little spark like you. Besides. isn’t this train set of yours all you care about?”
“Why should I care about anything else?” asked the spark.
“Well, if you are a king,” said King Perezvon XXVI, “you have responsibilities to your kingdom that you have to care about.”
“My train set is my kingdom,” said Shawn.
“Ah! Now I have it out of your own mouth!” cried the king. “You are a rebel against your lawful and rightful king! You have made yourself a king!”
“You are trying to take over a kingdom that does not belong to you,” the spark retorted.
“There is no kingdom that does not already belong to me!”
“Melanie the Web Spinner does not think that disputes over kingship will help you find the train car you are looking for,” said the spider.
“Then what will help me find the train?” Perezvon thundered.
“Following the threads of Melanie the Web Spinner’s Web will do nicely,” the spider replied.
“Big help,” said the spark.
By this time, it was clear to the spark that Melanie’s Web had complete control of the king’s movements. He would have laughed up his sleeve if he had a sleeve.
“Melanie the Web Spinner is glad that you realize what a big help it is to follow the threads,” said the spider.
“Don’t you know sarcasm when you hear it?” asked the king.
“Melanie the Web Spinner has no time for sarcasm,” the spider replied. “Melanie the Web Spinner has much too much spinning to do thanks to people like you and a crown prince who persists in trying to cut a lighthouse away from my web to have any time for sarcasm.”
“Hey!” cried the spark. “That sounds like my lighthouse!”
“Melanie the Web Spinner is of the belief that if you cared very much for the lighthouse which you claim is yours,” said the spider, “you would not have allowed the lighthouse to fall so far away from me as to make it so seriously difficult for me to place it somewhere in my Web before it fell into the Dark Lake where it would have been lost forever. Likewise, all hope of returning the light to your world would have been lost as well.”
“I can do what I want with my toys,” the spark muttered.
“Melanie the Web Spinner must take responsibility for everything that everybody does with all things,” the spider’s soft but firm voice thundered.
Just then, a soft rumbling sound reached the spark’s ears and grew gradually louder.
“My, that’s the loveliest caboose I’ve ever seen!” exclaimed King Perezvon XXVI.
“What caboose?” the spark cried, fearing that the king was about to steal his train car.
To his surprise, Shawn suddenly exploded to his full body and found himself standing on a purplish thread that ran parallel to a thread the king was standing on. As Shawn suspected, it was his caboose that was rolling toward him, using the two threads as a pair of tracks.
------------
“What do you think I have done this time?” Scott asked Mona.
“If we dig into these pine needles, you will find out,” said Mona with a smug knowing look.
The blackbirds still circled overhead in the twilit sky and sang a song that sounded almost human to Scott. When Mona gently thrust her hands into the needles, Scott followed suit and dug into the pine needles that were strangely warm. The deeper Scott and Mona dug, the warmer the pine needles became. Then Scott’s fingers ran into something solid.
“I think there's something here,” said Scott.
“What?” asked Mona.
“I can’t see, but something feels funny. Feel it yourself.”
Mona delicately brought her fingers over the where Scott’s were.
“Yes,” said Mona, “I think you’ve found what we’re looking for.”
“What is it?” asked Scott.
“Wait and see,” said Mona, her knowing smile more irritating than ever.
“What ever it is, it smells good,” Scott observed.
“Of course it smells good,” said Mona.
“Kind of like cinnamon,” added Scott.
Mona screamed and jumped up.
“What happened?” asked Scott.
Mona wiped the pine needles off her hands.
“I got burnt, you stupid rhinoceros pretending to be a unicorn.”
“Don’t take it out on me,” said Scott. “You’re the one who thinks she knows what we’re digging for.”
“A princess is entitled to take anything out on anybody else she pleases,” said Mona haughtily.
Scott carefully put his hands back into the needles where Mona had been digging and explored the area. The further in he went, the warmer it got until he closed in on a glowing ember. The birds' song grew louder and reached a strange climax.
“You probably burned yourself on this,” suggested Scott as he lifted the ember to the surface. “This should have burnt up everything. These needles are dry as bones.”
“Actually, this is a special fire,” said Mona.
“Hey! Look at this!” Scott exclaimed. “It looks like somebody cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving and then didn’t eat it!”
Scott looked at the burnt bird, puzzled as to what it could be.
“Of course nobody ate it, Limp Brain,” said Mona. “And it isn’t a turkey, either.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop being sorry about your brains and watch me.”
Mona bent over and blew over the fire. Nothing happened. Mona frowned and looked at Scott.
“You do it.” she urged him.
“I thought I was too stupid to help out,” said Scott.
“This is your chance to prove me wrong, Sparrow Head. Just blow on the fire.”
Scott shrugged his shoulders, stooped down and blew on the fire. His efforts raised a few sparks, but they weren’t enough to accomplish anything.
“That's better,” said Mona. “Now let me try it.”
Mona blew again, hard, but with no result. She sat up, her hands on her hips.
“You'd think a princess would be the one to bring it back to life,” said a disgusted Mona. Then she looked at Scott. “I guess you’ll have to do it.”
“With my harmonica?” asked Scott.
“I suppose so,” said Mona irritably.
Scott took out his harmonica and played a brief tune that the birds overhead immediately took up. The fire flickered, and then a flame sprang up and caught on to a few pine needles. Scott jumped back. The fire was strong enough to light up Mona’s face but it did not spread the way Scott thought it would.
“My turn,” said Mona.
She blew again and almost put the fire out.
“I don't know why it doesn't like me,” Mona complained.
“I'm sorry it won't work for you,” said Scott, a bit perplexed.
“The least you can do is get the fire going yourself.”
“If you say so,” said Scott.
“As the Princess of Carelin, I so command you to get the fire going,” said Mona.
Scott picked up where he had left off in the song he was playing. To his surprise, a large flame jumped on the blackbird's carcass.
“Is that enough?” asked Scott.
“I think so. I shouldn’t have called you Sparrow Brain.”
The smell of spices filled the air like a cloud. Scott moved back, feeling almost too warm now. The blackbirds' song above him sounded like an Alleluia although Scott didn't see how birds could sing as much as one word.
“What's happening?” asked Scott.
“You'll see. Move back a little more.”
In another moment a full bonfire exploded into flames of many different colors.
“Looks like the end of what was left of that bird,” said Scott.
“Yes and no,” said Mona with mounting excitement. “Just watch.”
The fire swelled to a roaring heat that made the children move back yet more. The birds’ singing grew louder and more agitated. A dark shadow appeared in the midst of the flames. One more explosion of flame and the shadow moved. Slowly, the flames died down as the shadow flexed its wings The blackbirds flew down and made a circle around the burning bird as it gradually took on the look of a multi-colored swan. The strange bird flexed its wings a second time and absorbed the rest of the fire. Then it stood before Scott and Mona with its feathers burning as if they studded with fiery jewels. The blackbirds cried out with joy and flew off to other adventures, their work finished.
“Now do you know what it is?” Mona asked.
“It's a phoenix,” said an almost speechless Scott. “In our world, everybody thinks it’s a legend.”
“What a bunch of sparrow brains you have in your world,” said Mona. “I hope you appreciate what a privilege it is to see a bird burn itself up and get reborn out of its ashes.”
The phoenix looked askance at the children, as if suspicious of their intentions. There was something in the bird's eyes that looked familiar to Scott, but he didn’t know what that could be. The twilight was almost gone and the only light remaining was the fire still smouldering in the bird’s feathers.
“Can it fly us away from this mountain?” asked Scott.
The bird glared at him and Scott swallowed guiltily.
“That would be beneath its dignity,” said Mona, “but I don’t see how else we can get away from here, especially with your foot. Maybe it will show us a little gratitude at the expense of a little humility if we ask it nicely.”
The phoenix glared at Mona so sharply it appeared that it was about to peck at Mona with its beak, but it seemed to think better of it, and it pecked at the pine needles instead. Scott continued to have the weird sensation that he had seen those eyes before. He almost knew who the phoenix was, but not quite.
“Try playing your harmonica,” Mona suggested.
“You don’t like my harmonica playing.”
“Look, Sparrow Brain, I’ll put up with your harmonica if the phoenix will listen to it and give us a ride off this mountain as a reward.”
The phoenix gave Mona another sharp look, then turned to Scott expectantly. Scott took the harmonica out of his pocket and played “Danny Boy” as best he could. Scott couldn’t tell if the phoenix liked the song or not, but after the last note had died away, the bird rustled its feathers and put itself in a position convenient for mounting it.
“Good job,” said Mona, Let’s get on.”
Mona carefully hopped on to the phoenix’s back, but Scott, held back.
“I shouldn’t have called you Sparrow Brain and I should not have spoken badly about your harmonica playing,” Mona admitted. Now, get on the phoenix or we’ll fly away without you, and then where will you be?”
Something in the phoenix’s eyes made the bird look like a friend of Scott. That was just enough to strengthen his resolve to climb onto the phoenix behind Mona. The feathers tingled in his hands but he held on when the phoenix flapped its wings and took off. The canyons yawned before the children as the phoenix winged its way between the mountain peaks. The wind blew hard, but the bird's fire kept its passengers warm.