«Don’t drink the wine!» He whispered to the king. «She will poison you! She will bewitch you! Enchant you!»
But Conrad ignored the advice and drank. And he didn’t die! The counselor bit his tongue.
However, besides poison, there might be other reasons to feel fear.
The fruit on the plates turned out to be alive. One peach slipped from his hands and rolled on the floor, laughing. A ruddy apple rolled over in his fingers, smiled at him with a woman’s face as if painted on the rind and winked. The same faces appeared on the unfamiliar tropical fruit. The mouths on the peels opened and sang in unfamiliar languages.
«And these creatures we ate!» The counselor jumped up from the table. The knights felt sick, but not from fear. It seemed that the fruit was already stirring and singing in their bellies.
«They will vomit, but they will survive,» Medea Shai accompanied them with a glance as they fled.
«Now we are alone!» Conrad was glad he hadn’t eaten anything, or he would be sick now, too.
The living fruit at the feast, the statues that came to life, the flowers with talking mouths – it was enough to drive even a strong wrestler mad. But he proved to be a tough nut to crack, and he got the prize. The mistress of the castle ushered him into her bedroom.
A black salamander flew in front of them, posing as a candelabra lighting the way. There was lighter from its scales than from real candles.
Medea Shai’s bed appeared to be made of black flowers. Only the canopy and silk bedspread stood out in bright purple. But a dragon, coiled in rings around the bed, would have alarmed anyone. He glared so fiercely at his guest that the king instinctively drew his sword.
«He’s not jealous,» Medea Shai gently stroked the dragon’s scaly spine.
«Should he be jealous?»
She only smiled enigmatically.
«People are so innocent!»
I’ve had many women before, Conrad wanted to say, but realized that by innocence she meant something else. Was it naivety? Was it people’s ignorance of enchantments and magic? Was it a mystery that united only her and the dragon? And it was a secret Conrad shouldn’t have poked his nose into. He felt as if he were standing under a keyhole watching Medea Shai make love to a dragon. And in fact it would be the dragon who would be watching their coitus. Even an experienced womanizer would be uncomfortable here. Conrad already was. The dragon’s eyes were staring right at him as Medea Shai unbuttoned his sash.
The white and red fairies were already fighting under the window in the dizzying height above the wasteland. The red fairy was winning.
Passion is strongest! The black moths that had fluttered out of the gloom were lacing Medea Shai’s corset, trying not to catch her wings. Conrad looked at the half-naked fairies’ queen and realized he didn’t care. Let the dragon watch as much as he wanted. It was as long as he didn’t interrupt them.
Thorns in the heart
When Conrad awoke, Medea Shai was not there. Even the bed was not crumpled where she lay. Her black dragon was gone, too. But the other two, the white one and the amber one, sat unobtrusively in the doorway. They did not interfere with Conrad as he left the bedroom.
Going through the castle in search of the queen was not the smartest thing to do. The enfilades of the hall resembled a labyrinth. After ten minutes, Conrad realized that he would not be able to find his way back to the bedroom on his own. Servants were nowhere to be seen, and the wattles of black roses that abundantly braided the walls and columns proved biting. Conrad almost lost an arm when he caught them.
All that remained was to turn down a dark corridor where there were no roses. True, he had to find his way through it as well. The chandeliers and chandeliers which had previously gnawed at him through the eyes of salamanders were gone. But the keyholes in the many doors let out a measured glow, now azure, now pink and emerald. Behind the doors one might have thought they had locked a rainbow. All of the doors were different shapes and sizes.
The end of the corridor spiraled into darkness and was lost in infinity. Closed doors of fanciful shapes stretched across the entire corridor.
«Let me out! Let me out! I already regret not obeying you.»
«Who are you?» Conrad leaned toward the door, pushing it open, but it was locked.
«Who are you?» Out of the keyhole flashed a frightened, bright red eye.
«I am a man!» The prisoner howled, either enthusiastically or disapprovingly. It was impossible to tell from his tone. «Bend your ear to me! I will whisper something secret to you.»
Probably out of curiosity, Conrad bent down, and immediately a sharp black claw nimbly peeked out of the crevice and nearly pierced his ear.
«Don’t listen to him! Come to me!»
This time the king did not yield, though the summons came from behind a very different door. It was of black metal, and its shape was that of a great sheaf of ears.
«The queen has us locked in here. She forbids you, too. Get out of here!»
He wondered if this was a dream. Conrad even pinched himself. The voice moaned in different ways, as if a whole regiment of different creatures were lurking behind the same door.
«Let us out! And we will tear the villainess to shreds!» The voices of all sorts of tones croaked and muttered.
And only one squeaky voice warned:
«Run for your life! Get away from her! Or you will be imprisoned, as we have been, for all eternity!»
Conrad looked at the fancy door. Were it not for the keyhole, it might have been a bas-relief of black spikes. In any case, it was too small to hold many prisoners, and he could hear a chorus of voices. One hoarse bass in the chorus was surely that of a giant. No more, no less!
Except that it was unbelievable that a crowd of creatures could fit into such a narrow space at once. Behind the door was probably a tiny storeroom, not a room. Conrad tapped the wall, checking by the sound to see if the interior was hollow. There was no echo. The door seemed to have a blank wall.
«Hey, mortal!» That same squeaky voice, apparently belonging to the dwarf, called. «The fairies’ queen has a soft spot. I can tell you where it is.»
Conrad already knew.
«It’s her heart,» he suggested, remembering the night before with Medea Shai. If she hadn’t fallen in love with him, there would have been a bloody battle between them.
«No, it would not!» Someone jumped at the door. «It is Honeydew!»
«What is it?»
«Not what is it, who is it!»
«And who is it?» Conrad scolded himself for having conversations with someone he couldn’t even see. But he was torn by curiosity.
«Honeydew is a living black flower. It can strangle you with its stems if you get close, or it can give you the key to a secret if you ask very hard. Speaking of keys…Medea Shai has a bunch of keys, each with a head the same shape as these doors. You couldn’t steal her key to the door where I’m languishing! It’s the one with the black sheaf notch.»
«Are you alone in there?» Why is the polyphonic chorus here? «It seemed to me that there were many of you inside.»
There was a wheezing laugh in reply.
«How stupid mortals are!»
Conrad took offense, reached for his sword, and realized he did not have his sword with him. If one of the fairies’ queen’s monsters attacked him now, he would not be able to fight back.
«It is at your service!» A voice at the door insisted. «I told you how to overpower her, and you get me the key!»
Conrad wanted to blurt out that he wasn’t a thief, but it would have been nice to ask something first:
