Julio Peralta-Paulino
Beguilement (part one) A Fable For Natalia Pages Solis The Jade Wanderer positioned himself to conjure an apparition before the fair court of the Soft Touch Lands. Magic was second nature to him and had provided a decent living as well as a good topic for conversation throughout his adult life. He concentrated on the incantation, meditating upon the result before uttering the words. The Princess watched and waited with alert eyes, and her maidens whispered among each other. When he said the words, nothing happened. The fair court gazed perplexed at the unchanged air and, turning their attention to the Jade Wanderer, waited for something. He trembled and tried again against the now growing insecurity that had settled on his arched shoulders. Nothing. He decided then to address the crowd.
“My good and fair court of the Soft Touch Lands, I beg your pardon for the ghost will not grace us with its presence today.”
The Princess motioned for someone behind the crimson curtains and pressed some message into the young man’s ear. He was, as it happened, the Button Keeper, and soon enough he announced himself to the Jade Wanderer: “Excellent magician; the princess herself has requested that the ceremony be carried out again tonight so that perhaps under the starry night your powers will be more at rest and the spirit shall convey itself to us.”
“Please express my gratitude to her royal highness, and you may relate that I will be more than pleased to attempt this performance in the evening.”
The Jade Wanderer bowed, and the fair court of the Soft Touch Lands slid away into the tall resplendent shelter of the castle. The Button Keeper led the magician into one of the visiting rooms.
“Here you may rest, and I will return in a few hours to let you know when her highness should be entertained.”
“I thank you for your kindness, mister?”
“I am known as the Button Keeper for her highness. I used to keep all the royal buttons, but now I am exclusive to her.”
“How, if I may ask, did you lose your position?”
“It is one manner of looking at it, but one might also well say that I grew into a higher position as her highness matured.”
“My apologies.”
“No need.” The Button Keeper grinned in remembrance of his journey with the Princess of the Soft Touch Lands, smiled at the Jade Wanderer, and concluded, “Now, I will let you rest. You should find all you require in the bedchamber.”
“I will see you in a few hours, then?”
“Indeed.”
The Jade Wanderer had been in many rooms, but none as lavish and pleasant as this one. The room was immense and held only a few items of furniture. There was one door, and when he turned the silver knob, it opened into the bedchamber. Aside from the bed, there was a full length mirror adorned with golden leaves, and there was a long French table filled with fruit, bread, and drink. He hoped, for a second, that the few hours might turn into a few days. Suddenly, he remembered the pressing issue of his failure to produce an apparition.
The hours went by as swiftly as Arabian horses across the sandy plateau of desperation. The magician, ignoring hunger and thirst, tried to corner his confidence and make the hum of tranquility resound about his being.
The knock on the door came as expected. The crowd was gathered and the Button Keeper announced, as he led the Jade Wanderer back to the Hall of Happenings.
He said the words and, almost before they clashed against the silent, hopeful crowd, and there arose from the ether a large thing with arms that waved. The magician fell on one knee and the large fluffy thing reached into the crowd. As heads turned and the Button Keeper rushed through the royal maidens to secure his mistress, the Princess vanished and so did the apparition. Frozen with fright, the Button Keeper changed direction and started chasing after the Jade Wanderer, who really didn’t have to be hunted for he was still down on one knee unmoved.
“Upon my life, I shall have your head if my Princess is harmed,” the Button Keeper cried at the magician, who just then must have finally understood all that had transpired.
“Dear Sir, I implore your patience. Give me a moment to concentrate and space to breath.”
The Button Keeper took a step back, but only one; the Jade Wanderer whirled, and all the air around him stirred. When his turns had ceased, there stood before him simply a unicorn. No apparition and no Princess. The small, pale creature said, “They are in the holding place.”
The magician turned to the excited Keeper and explained, “There is nothing we can do but wait.”
“There must be something to be done,” exclaimed the Keeper.
The Jade Wanderer looked up at the vaulted ceiling and sighed, “We can try to recapture her, but there is much risk. It is a wiser thing to wait. She will be returned.”
“I am willing to take that risk.”
“You do not understand. The spirit wants us to go after her, but if we do we go willingly into the holding place we might not be able to find our way back.”
“I will go.”
“I ask that you endure with me at least a ship’s bell before we proceed into the unknown.”
“Let it be so,” agreed the Keeper with a reluctant tone.
Faraway, in the holding place, the spirit danced the Princess of the Soft Touch Lands into a trance where she found herself content to float. She was only partly aware that she had been abducted by the apparition. It was, in a manner of speaking, like sleepwalking. The spirit knew that he had only a limited amount of time and prayed that some fool would venture into the holding place so that it could steal its life-force and adopt his body.
Back at the palace, the maidens collected themselves about the unicorn and asked its blessings. The Jade Wanderer kept silent and concentrated on the safe return of the captured Princess. The Button Keeper paced the floor, his hard steps flaunting his worry.
It was clear to anyone that cared to notice that he adored the Princess more than he would ever love himself.
(Part Two) Love is a great force. A whirlwind to be reckoned with, and as the Button Keeper slowed his frenzy a flurry of recollections stirred within his worried mind.
If one were to still the memories and distill them away from their drastic setting into a visible container, one would see that the hurry of thoughts had brought home early visions of his ancestors. Those days when buttons were still kept within unlocked rooms. As it was, he had learned his trade from his father just as his father before him had learned it from his when the Soft Touch lands were yet to be named.
There were no tears in his eyes, those eyes that searched for some way to save his fair and gentle Princess. Yet, if one were to look again into that visible container, one would witness without a doubt that the Button Keeper was weeping for his sleeping Highness. The tears as bright as emeralds breathed like a faraway soldier's prayer to be delivered safely back to his homeland in the quiet night before the narcosis of battle plundered the ground's purity with the spilt blood of the fallen.
He wondered, what his father or grandfather might do in a situation such as this, without knowing, for his thoughts were cluttered and his only impulse was to jump into the abyss even if its depths were as profound as the loyalty he felt for her.
Button Keepers were unique to the Soft Touch Lands and there was no history of their kind being heroic or suffering under the fate of martyrdom. It was in fact, a position that grew out of the extensive wealth of the kingdom… A byproduct of curiosity… The Third Queen during the nameless era had wondered why there was no specific servant for the item of clothing that held so much together and the Third King responded by appointing a sweet young man to the post that previously had been groomed to smith arrows for the royal bows.
Beaten by desperation, after not even an hour, the Button Keeper announced to the Jade Wanderer, "I cannot stand here in idleness. I cannot bear the thought of it. I could never dare gaze into her eyes again without feeling the cowardice of this moment if I do not seize the opportunity to act."
The Jade Wanderer, more than the words, heard the seriousness of his new friend's intention and refused himself the natural urge to argue against his unwise desire.
"If your wish is to make your way there, then take hold of the Unicorn's mouth and say the words 'Fire is not firm yet it blackens. Take me freely to the holding place now. Air is invisible yet it may displace the earth. Take me freely to the holding place now. Water is mild yet it may glaciate. Take me freely to the holding place now.'
Without hesitation, the Button Keeper bade the maidens away from the Unicorn. Reached for the magical horse's mouth and recited the incantation.
In the moment that it takes a heavenly star to twinkle in the sky, the Button Keeper vanished and the eyes that had looked upon him as he recited the magic words were startled by the swiftness of it all.
In the moment that it takes a heart to beat within its protective ribcage, the Button Keeper floated faraway into the holding place and the apparition grinned with evil intentions.
The spook allowed the Princess and her rescuer a parting glance, as he sent her back to her palace and proceeded to steal the very soul of the Button Keeper, the brave servant who in his final conscious act reached out his needle-pecked hand to save his beloved.
A unicorn evanesced. A Princess emerged. The maidens circled and comforted her. The Jade Wanderer breathed a deep and almost loud sigh.
The apparition sealed the Button Keeper's soul inside a silver jar and was contented by the goodness that he now would forever possess. The spook's laughter shook out in malefic shivers and as he released the ex-animated body of the Button Keeper a wild fire burst into life within the Hard Touch lands where flowers would no longer sing with life and no one would look up again to see the shooting stars from the brilliance of a stolen night. The land knew that the sacrifice the Button Keeper had made cost him the memory dearest to his heart and the earth wailed for his lost soul. 'It was foolish,' the flowers whispered to each other as they succumbed to the flame, 'but it was foolishness in love's name and so let us perish as proud fools and let this place be sacred to the memory of the Button Keeper and his fair Princess of the Soft Touch lands.'
When the Button Keeper appeared, the Jade Wanderer mused over how he had managed to find a way back. When he spied the lack of expression in the Button Keeper's eyes, it was clear that the apparition had not given a second thought to benevolence, to mercy, to compassion. Here was a man that was no longer himself. Here was a man whose spirit now resided in the shadows.
The Princess rushed - from her maidens talking of how everything had happened - to his side and the Button Keeper seemed to smile. She wanted to thank him, but tears came to her eyes as she realized that he was no longer who he had been. His look explained that he could have been gazing upon anyone or anything. Looking to the Jade Wanderer for help, she found that he could only bow his head in dishonor. "Neither I nor ten thousand others could have prevented him from trying to save you, your highness."
"Vow to me that you will make yourself the most powerful magician and that you will recapture his spirit from this apparition that you yourself have summoned here."
"I give you my word to become the most practiced sorcerer, but no one can take back what was given free in sacrifice."
Love is a great force. A whirlwind to be reckoned with, and as the Princess slowed her sorrow with the passing days a calm knowledge settled upon her and it spoke to her with the promise that the Button Keeper would be returned to her side and be as he had been always.
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