Please do not repost this short story without permission. Comments welcome to Gerald Tarrant at lordofmerentha@yahoo.com.

The Gift

        The night is yet young and the glow of the sunset barely faded over the towers of the castle, but the feast has already begun. The great hall dances in the light of many fires, the aroma of roasted meat and rich wine rising to the beamed ceiling along with merry laughter and lighthearted music. The king occupies the raised dais to the far center wall, white teeth flashing as he laughs at a less-than-appropriate joke told by one of his more or less inebriated courtiers. His eyes, however, remain alert, focused at the darkened doorway as if waiting for...a man, perhaps? Or perhaps more than a man, so reverent is his gaze.
        A movement at the door and a figure appears, tall and lean, barely visible through the sea of retainers and wisps of white smoke from the fires. But the monarch's eyes flash as he spots the newcomer. He stands, raising a hand in greeting and also for silence. The courtiers quiet.
        The man makes his way to the raised dais and the people crowd in around him. From the murmured greetings he receives, it is obvious he is not a stranger to this land. He ascends the steps and kisses the king's hand. "My lord," he says simply. "I hope I have not arrived too late."
        "Certainly not!" The king dismisses this with a wave of his hand. "We are barely underway, my lord bard. Perchance you can sing once for us before you eat."
        "Yes!" The crowd catches the king's words. "A song! A song!"
        The bard hesitates for a moment, then unslings his harp and draws it out of its plain leather case. Firelight glistens on the dark carved wood and golden strings as he straightens to stand proudly. "No, not a song." He holds up a hand as the crowd begins to protest. "Not a song, but a tale. A new tale, one I came across in my travels that has stayed in my memory since I heard it. One that I feel should be the first told tonight."
        The crowd falls silent as the bard cradles his harp in his arm and draws his hand gently across the strings. The barely-heard notes fall softly down like wind-blown flower petals. "A tale, then," he says softly. "A tale unlike any other told before."

         Long ago, in a time almost forgotten, there existed once a beautiful country across the sea, so beautiful that any other land would be but barren desert in comparison. A king ruled this vast country of green pastures and rolling hills and deep lakes so blue that all the soul of heaven seemed to be drowned within. The king was just and virtuous and the people loved him and obeyed his commands with all their hearts.
        The queen his wife was very frail but beautiful, and the people loved her as well. Her beauty was not the kind that sent lovers' hearts palpitating wildly between golden glances or the kind that men dream of vividly at night. It was, rather, the kind of quiet beauty of a soft summer sunset or the barely-heard whisper of the wind on a spring evening. And the king and queen loved each other and the green land prospered under their reign.
        There was a tract of airy forest aways from the place where the king and his queen abided. And every day, in the balmy coolness of afternoon not yet become evening, they would walk hand-in-hand among the old and fragrant trees and the green moss and dark tendrils of vines draped like gossamer upon the branches. For although the queen was white and frail, the walks seemed to bring back a little of the brilliant girl the king had fallen in love with years before. So they would walk, not speaking, the pressure of their hands and the rustle of their feet through the old dry leaves speaking louder than any words could ever hope to speak. And in that time they were happy.
        The king's ministers counseled him softly and in whispers about the walks, about how the presence of humans in the old wood disturbed the sprites and nymphs and wood dryads, for this was a kingdom of magic and happenings that could not quite be explained by any science of man. But the king would not listen, saying that the creatures of magic would understand. The queen loved the walks, and anything that pleased her pleased him as well. For he loved his queen, loved her as much as his own life, perhaps, and as she grew frailer he became more protective, more withdrawn, more burdened.
        It happened that on one of these walks the queen, perhaps by some fairy's touch of magic, heard a faint cry from a little beyond the path. She hastened towards the sound, stooped, rose. Cradled in her arms was a bluebird. A pitiful bundle of feathers, it was, bedraggled, dirty, and weak with exhaustion. Upon examination, the queen found it had broken one wing.
        The king, seeing what she had discovered, suggested she bring it back with her and care for it till it was able to fly again. "'Tis a weak little thing," said he, softly. "But it may be that its strength will return in time." And as he uttered these words his gaze stole from the bird to the queen's drawn white face, and his hand moved to rest ever so slightly upon her thin arm.
        The queen met his gaze with tired eyes. "Ah," she said. "Were that I were a little bird. But I fear it is not to be."
        "Do not say those words," returned the king, perhaps more forcefully than was necessary. "There is yet hope."
        She did not answer, but looked down to the small bundle at her breast. Then slowly she looked up again to the troubled, handsome face of the king, perhaps remembering the rugged youth of long ago whom she had grown to love, the young man whose face was already like a distant shadow from the past. "I love you," she said, and the fading sunlight sparkled on the diamonds at her throat, lighting them with fiery white rays of crystal. "I will always love you. Remember this."
        And the king drew her to him, careful not to crush the tiny bird she held in her arms, and she reached up, tentatively, to stroke his hair, as the sun set and time stood still.

        Not long afterwards, the queen fell gravely ill. As the news spread through the region, there began a procession of physicians and medicine-men to the gates of the royal palace along with men of magic-sorcerers, magicians, wizards. And each would leave the distraught king with promises of quick healing in the room beyond the dark sickroom where the queen lay like a ghost between the sheets. But the king learned never to hope, for each one would emerge after a time from the chamber as pale as the queen herself, with the smell of death upon his clothes, shaking his head in sorrow. And the queen worsened day by day.
        The bird that the queen had rescued had indeed healed and regained strength. The palace servants, seeing as how the king lacked time and energy to attend to anything but the endless parade of healers, took the cage out into the brilliant sunshine one morning and released the bird to its own kind. When news reached his ears, the king was furious. For the bird to him had been a sign of hope, life, a chance that the queen might yet recover. Now, it seemed, that chance was as lost as the bird, flown away into the wide blue expanse that was the sky of forever.
        And the queen worsened and finally died.

        For days after the queen's death, the king knelt alone in the small room that had been her chamber, unmoving. The body had been taken for preparation of burial the hour after the queen's spirit had flown. But the king seemed not to care, kneeling beside the bed that had been her bed, silent tears coursing down his cheeks.
        His ministers shook their heads and said, We warned him not to venture into the wood, for the spirits of the forest are a vengeful sort, unlike the kindly sprites of the river or the sky. And they whispered but dared not speak aloud. So the king knelt by the bedside that had once been the queen's and heard not a word of that which had been spoken.
        The funeral was melancholy and joyless as thousands of the city's people lined the streets to watch the black-draped carriage pass by drawn by four ebony horses. A mounted guard of honor accompanied before and behind. There was much weeping, for the people had loved their queen as their own and many now broke from the crowd, hands reaching out to the crystal coffin in which the queen lay atop the carriage pulled by the four coal black steeds.
        The king sat apart on the seat of a similar black carriage, shrunk into his own private thoughts, his white face looking as dead as the dead queen herself. Now and then he would lift up his eyes to the gray-shrouded heavens, as if entreating for some answer he knew would never be given. Pity, murmured those who looked into his strong face and found the grief etched there. Pity him, and see how much he loved her.
        The procession drew nigh upon a gracefully rounded hill swelling from the ground like the gentle swell of the ocean's waves. The hill was crowned with blossoms of every hue and fantastic shape, their petals stretched out to catch the golden sun-rays that were absent on this mournful day. Here the people stopped, for there was the queen's grave to be, among the flowers and creatures she had loved so well in life.
        The damp earth was flung from the hilltop and into the gaping dark mouth the casket was lowered. A chill breeze blew upon the hill, rustling the petals of the flowers, and a shadow seemed to pass over the hill. There was a moment of stillness as if nature was watching, waiting, holding its breath. Then the last clods of earth were flung upon the grave and the spell was broken. The people murmured, paid their last homage to the queen and drifted slowly down the hill until only the king remained, standing silently before the fresh grave. And then a cry burst from him, so anguished his heart might have been torn asunder, and he fell forwards unto the grave and lay as if dead.
        There was a stir from among the flowers and a sparkling of air and sudden sunlight and where there had been naught but empty space before stood a beautiful young girl. Her rosy cheeks and warm red lips, her clear blue eyes and long golden tresses, her swirling gossamer gown and delicate mantle marked her as a spirit of the flowers, one of the ancients who had made their abode in the grasslands when the earth was yet young. Never aging, yet able to take on any appearance known and unknown to mankind, the spirits of trees, flowers, and grasses were wild and capricious, sometimes benign and kindly, other times malicious and cunning. There were many of them throughout nature, invisible, unreachable, unless they wished to reveal themselves, as this spirit did now.
        The young girl glided forward over the flowers and touched the fallen monarch with one soft hand. The king started violently, first ashamed that any should see him thus, and then frightened and wary of one who so clearly was a fairy of earth.
        "Forgive me, O king," the fairy spoke, and her words were like the sigh of wind upon flower petals. "I could not help but notice your plight and your sorrow. I grieve with you, for your wife the queen was kind to my flowers and my creatures. If I could repay her in kind, believe me that I would not hesitate to do so."
        "Alas, kind spirit," replied the king with great sadness, "such efforts would be in vain, for she is dead and death cannot be healed, even by one so powerful as you."
        The young girl shook her shining tresses. "That may be so," replied she, "before her untimely death the queen did me a great service unlike any that has ever been rendered to me before. I am indeed in her debt."
        "What service is this?" wondered the king, curiosity drawing him out of his grief.
        "I have a brother," said the fairy. "My brother delights in clothing himself in the forms of animals, for he is a spirit of beasts, not so fickle as those of the earth such as myself, but unpredictable nonetheless. One day my brother transformed himself into a bluebird and set out to share the skies with those of the feathered kind. By midday the next day there had been no word of him, and I was alarmed and requested the others of my kindred to search for him, but to no avail. Finally, my brother returned to me after many weeks. He told how he had been felled by a wolf and broken his wing. He was able to send the wolf away with what little magic remained to him, but he did not have enough to change himself to his true form. The queen your wife found him and nursed him to health until he was able to return. So as a token of goodwill, I will do what I can for you."
        "I thank you, good spirit," the king replied softly, "but nothing can ease my grief, for I loved my queen as much, perhaps greater, than I ever loved even myself, and I could not bear to live without her."
        The fairy smiled, and the wind swirled her gossamer gown about her. "Then," she said," I will give you a gift. To death indeed your wife has gone and from death she cannot return. But when this world was created each of my kind was given a great gift of life. This gift can be used only once during any spirit's existence, and we were instructed to guard it carefully, lest we waste it on some trivial matter we might later regret. I still have my gift to give and now I will repay in kind the gift your queen gave me."
        So speaking, the fairy knelt above the fresh earth and fell into deep concentration. A light began to glow above the grave, mingling with the fading glow of day. The light grew stronger, so bright that the king fell back and shielded his eyes from the glow. And then the glow vanished and once again the flower spirit stood there, holding something in her cupped hands.
        "Your wife has died a human death," she said, "but only human." She moved close and carefully slid the object from her hands to his. "Guard it carefully," the spirit said, and smiled, and then was gone.
        The king looked closely at the thing in his cupped hands. The seemingly fragile object was but, it seemed, a miniature replica of the crystal coffin in which the queen had been laid to rest. Not a sign of life stirred within. With shadows of doubt upon his mind, the king turned and moved down the hill towards the gray shades of night.

        The seasons passed from summer to autumn to winter. The snow lay like a blanket of sadness upon the kingdom as the king watched over the small crystal coffin day by day, hoping for change but seeing none.
        The spring came and the flowers bloomed in the forest, but the king seeing them was sad, and in his heart he doubted the fairy's words. For who did not know that the spirits of earth were quick to trickery and not to be trusted? But still he waited, keeping vigil over the coffin, hoping against hope itself that some ring of truth in the spirit's words might yet be revealed. And the ministers murmured among themselves but their words seemed to the king only the faint buzzing of the bees on a balmy morning.
        The long vigil was abruptly brought to an end. As the king kept his watch one evening, the coffin began to quiver. He strained his eyes, trying the suppress the hope surging within his heart. Another twitch, barely perceptible. The coffin was splitting, crack by crack, as something stirred within.
        The crystal coffin gave a final shudder and broke open in two halves as neatly as any egg. And from within emerged a dark creature unlike any the king had ever seen before, bedraggled, limp, and barely alive. He shuddered as the repressed hope died, and turned his face to the wall, feeling the pain of his grief afresh.
        A sliver of sunlight pierced the evening sky, thin but golden, dancing, alive, jeweled. It fell full upon the remnants of the crystal coffin, upon the creature that it had produced, caressing the chamber in rosy tones of rebirth. Light flashed, sparkling along the walls, the window, the floor, a gentle rain of dazzling silver to music that throbbed within the king's veins. He drew a deep breath, sensing a burden lifted from weary shoulders, taking a deep draught of the fresh joy and light that had been too long absent from this land. And then he turned and the light shimmered in his eyes so he could not see.
        But when his vision had cleared, there lay a marvel upon marvels. The creature which before had lain half-dead upon its crystal coffin now hovered, vibrant and alive, before the window. Delicate feelers moved to sense the wind. The facets on its two large wings played with the light, throwing it at will across the room. And before where it had seemed dark, almost black, the illumination revealed it to be a rich, royal blue which sparkled to reveal lighter diamonds of luminescence on its wings. The creature fluttered towards the king and then rose to his face, caressing it with one soft wing. And the king knew his wife was indeed embodied in this beautiful new creation, and that she still loved him, as she had said she always would.
        Butterfly, murmured a soft voice within his heart. She is called a butterfly.
        Then the creature turned and flew towards the open window, pausing in her beating of wings to catch a current of air passing by, and was gone. The king's heart clenched violently, and he ran to the window, crying, "Wait! Take me with you! Leave me not!" But she had long disappeared into the green distance. Then the king remembered the words of his ministers, and realized the double-edged gift given to him by the spirit of flowers. From the earth his wife had come, and to earth she must return, never again to live as common man or woman. He had borne the first loss, but could not bear this one, seeing her alive again but lost to him forever, and he wept bitterly, standing there at the window among twilight's shadows.
        Light again, and the fairy stood there beside him. He said nothing, nor did he acknowledge her, but instead gazed steadily away beyond the green hills with tears on his cheeks. Finally, he turned slightly and spoke.
        "You have betrayed me."
        The fairy shook her head to the music of tinkling bells. "Nay. It is you who have betrayed your own self."
        "You gave me hope when there was nothing left to hope for."
        "I gave you back your life, as you wanted me to."
        He gave a short bark of a laugh. "To be alive for a brief moment between periods of death is no life."
        The spirit was silent and when she spoke again her voice was cold as the winter's frost on the flowers of the field. "Accuse me not, O king, for I gave you nothing but the crystal coffin and a command for you to guard it well. I spoke not of what was to come, not did you request it of me."
        It was the king's turn to be silent. "That is true." He turned to look at her fully, her fair hair, ethereal beauty, and all deception, good and evil, that lay within her. "I had hoped for something less brief. But now that I have seen her for the last time, there is nothing I can do but to wait to die so I may prepare to greet her as she dies a second death."
        "Hold, my lord king," the spirit said mildly, yet with a tone of reproof. "You speak of death, yet I speak of life. My gift of life is but half complete. Will you take what remains, or will you reject my offer and brand me as untrue?"
        "What is this 'other half'?" the king asked warily.
        "I cannot speak until you consent."
        "That is the way of things?"
        "It is the way of my kind."
        He sighed, but the look in his eyes spoke of his despair. "Very well. It cannot be worse than the fate I had planned for myself."
        To this the fairy made no reply but shimmered and disappeared, to the king's great surprise and sudden anger. But as he spun to stride out of the room he found he could not stride, indeed that he could not move at all, for his legs had disappeared. He felt light, weightless as the air, floating free of the cumbersome duties of earthbound mortals.
        Light shimmered, sparkled on his blue wings with diamond facets reflecting it into a thousand crystal beams. The spirit's work was complete. She had indeed given him a chance to live, a second chance in the body of a creature the world had never seen.
        He thanked the spirit in the butterfly's way, then fluttered out the open window upon an updraft of a warm spring evening breeze, to begin life anew with the certainty that he would be together with his queen once more.

        Night settles outside the castle like a soft blanket over a newborn child, comforting, safe, warm. The sounds of music and feasting are small and far away. All is peaceful. The trees in the wood behind the castle bend their old boughs to the rhythm of the soft wind. A bird flashes behind the veil of budding leaves. Two blue butterflies dance softly along the worn dirt pathway, side by side.
        And the flowers by the side of the road bend their heads as they pass, as if a spirit somewhere is finally content to rest.
 

18 October 1999
for Brandon Camp