She turned the key with her heart in her throat. The gears and cogs within the ornate lock strained against the key, a stubborn attempt to bar her way. At last they resigned themselves, and the lock gave up a metallic clik.
She pushed against the ornate carvings of the massive door, pushed her weight against it, and at last it yawned inward. It's rusty hinges let out a squeal of metal on metal, so loud and shrill she looked about in a panic, half expecting the Queen's minions to be just behind her. Only the darkened stone stairway behind her, spiraling down into darkness.
Her mind whirled as she stood before the unlocked door. In the torchlight, she steadied herself as she looked about the landing, orange light flickering on the smooth stones.
At her feet stood the brazier where he had disappeared. His shape had fallen away, a mound of clean white sand into that gilded brazier. Her master, the golem, the royal inquisitor was a man-thing made flesh by will and magick. The princess recalled the tale of the golem in the writings of the King, and understood.
The Inquisitor's final words echoed in her thoughts.
"Your destiny lies within."
- - -
She pushed the great door open a bit further and slid inside, closing it behind her. As the door closed behind her, her torch guttered and went out, leaving her in darkness. It took many moments for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.
As she stood reigning in her fears, her eyes perceived there was indeed light in this room. From above, bright blue moonlight streamed in through cracks and holes in the wood-shingled roof.
The ceiling swept up into a spire's point high above, the undersides of the shingles creating a spiraling pattern of dark against dark. Between many of those tiles, moonlight and stars could be seen, and in several places, large chunks had fallen away, leaving ragged openings to the sky.
She stood on the outer edge of a large circular room, her hand still resting lightly upon the doorpull behind her. She realized at once this could only be the room at the peak of the dark tower, where she had once seen the strange blue light streaming forth in the night. As her eyes took in the room, she noticed that same blue light, only much softer and wan.
The light emanated from across the room, down behind some long, low uneven structure which she could not quite make out. The floor below her was bare stone, with a round rug in the room's center before her, threadbare, faded and aged from countless years of rain and wind streaming through the unattended roof of the spire.
At last, she summoned her courage and moved into the room, approaching the dark structure opposite her. As she drew closer, the bluish light grew stronger, and she understood what lay before her. There, on a low bed, loosely covered with an equally worn blanket, the skin of a black bear, lay the body of the King.
His hair was stark white, and streamed down over his shoulders, his arms folded across his chest, fingers entwined over his stomach. His beard was nearly just as long, streaming over his chest, under his arms and hands, nearly to his belt and scabbard stretched out along his side. Though shot through with greys and whites, his beard seemed somehow younger than the ivory mane of wavy locks streaming over him.
She could see he wore armour underneath all that hair, a silvery breastplate winked in the bluish light between wisps of stray hair. His thick arms were clad in light mail. In the dim light, she could barely make out they bore a reddish hue.
His eyes were closed, his face serene. She let out a gasp as she recognized the lips and nose hiding amongst the wild beard. They were the same as her master's, the Inquisitor.
Her mind reeled again as she comprehended. Here, in this forgotten chamber, the King had conjured him. A way to escape from his prison, to pass through the spell placed upon this place. With his very mind and will, he had forged a man-thing, and directed it's bidding in his stead.
She wondered about the brazier of clean, white sand on the landing outside, at last realizing her lost love Chrysanthemum must have been accomplice in the King's escape. She had brought the sand and brazier, unable to pass the enchantments and bindings laid upon the King's doorway. She had brought him what he needed, brought him the raw materials to shape himself, to walk about a free man, and plot his revenge upon the captor of his true body.
And she had paid the price for it, her evil sister draining her life away with an intimate kiss.
In the gloom of the King's chamber, the princess seethed. The taste of the wicked Queen was still upon her lips, and her smell still upon her flesh. A sly smile stretched across her lips as she recalled her enemy, the Queen, writhing upon her great bed, the life draining out of her, poisoned by lust and the magick she coveted. Crysanthemum was avenged.
A slight noise brought her attention back to the body of the King. The worn and patchy bear-skin was pulled up over his legs and feet, from his waist hung a great jeweled belt and scabbard over fendings of thick leather, studded at each pointed end with a large, round, yellow jewel, set with thick silver bands.
Again came the small noise. Low, muffled, so soft and slight the princess scarce believed she had heard anything at all. But then, there it was again.
[start italics]
Sh-thump..............shthump, shthump.
[End italics]
She drew close to the body, laid her ear upon his chest. From within, came the unmistakable beating of a heart. The princess shrank back in stunned surprise.
He was alive! All this time, locked within this room, he was alive in there. He slept an unnatural sleep, his body clenched in a dark spell. But the King had known a way to confound the spell, though his body could not move. He had forged himself a body, and breathed his will into it from within this imprisoned slumber.
What little magick the princess knew could not scratch the deep spell in which he lay. She tried words of healing, incantations remembered from long ago, but they availed her not.
