Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback

? Tanith Lee ?

soot and coal and frost and ice and candle beams and sparks, she went. And somehow then she was dancing with the amber prince who had partnered the amber eldest princess. So then Yannis went forward, and took the princess’s hand. While his spirit’s sister danced with the prince, Yannis danced with Amber, who seemed then to see, if not to remember him.

“How lightly you step,” he said.

“How strongly you lead,” she answered.

After this, one by one, he danced with each of them, twelve to one, as his feminine aspect engaged their princes.

“How strongly you lead,” said each princess, seeing him, too.

Until he came to the youngest princess, Gold-as-Gold Evira.

“How strongly you step,” said she.

“How lightly you lead,” said he.

And he looked into her eyes and saw there, even on that curious dancing floor, a color and a depth he had met seldom. And Yannis thought, This after all, the very youngest, soul-wise is the eldest— And she said, “By a ribbon of air.”

And he said, “But I must follow you.”

“You,” she said, “and no other.”

“Are you so sure?” he said. He thought, What am I saying? But he knew.

And she smiled, as his soul-sister had, and he knew also her smile. And then his inner woman returned, and coming up to him she kissed his cheek, and vanished, and he, if he had grown visible, vanished also.

From high up he watched the princesses and the princes fly towards the doorway and hurry down to the boats. As they ran he saw the naked soles of their feet, and they were worn and bruised and in some parts bloody from so much dancing, and streaked with shines and spangles.

Yannis ran before them over the lake. He ran before them up the land beyond, missing the tender farewells. He bolted across the orchards of the Otherwhere, and behind him he heard them say, ? 85 ?

? Below the Sun Beneath ?

“Look, is that a hare that runs so fast it moves the grasses?” One thought it must be a wolf, or wildcat.

Then he fled to the mystic entry to the world, and unmistakenly rushed in like a west wind, and found instantly the silver spirit-cord flowing away through the mausoleum, and on. So out over the graveyard hill, and in at the secret corridor, and up inside the palace walls. Straight through the stone he dived. And stood sentry behind his body, sleeping tranced as death in the chair, until they came in.

“Look at him!”

Eleven sisters scorned and pinched him and made out he snored, the fool.

By then the Earth’s own dawn was rising like a scarlet sea along the windows. It showed their dresses were plain again, and how weary they were, having danced in their physical bodies all night. But the body of Yannis the soldier had slept with profound relaxation. So in he stepped to wake it up at once.

“Never a hare, nor a cat, running. I ran before you, exactly as I followed you all night, my twelve dancing ladies.” Just this said Yannis, standing lion-strong on his legs of flesh and wood, eyes bright and expression fierce. And he showed them leaves of silver, and of gold, and a diamond, taken now from his physical pocket. He told them all he had seen, and all they had done, every step and smile and sip and sigh. And he added he had not needed three nights to do this, only one. “Meanwhile, I will remind your highnesses, also, of mockery, pinches, blows—and a twisted pin.”

Their faces whitened, or reddened.

But Evira Gold-as-Gold only stood back in the shadows, her cat and dogs and most of her birds about her.

“What will you do?” Eleven voices cried.

“Why, tell the king. And he will make me his heir, and you he will curb. Whatever that word means, to him.”

Then some of them began to weep. And he said, “Hush now.

Listen. What you do harms nobody. More, I believe you do good by ? 86 ?