Bensiabel's Second Tale: Poison

“Love, true love, is the most dangerous thing. It is a poison that flows in one’s veins, that pieces their heart like an arrow and fills them with infinite bliss and the pain of a thousand swords. Those who love the most are the most hurt. Pain is beautiful, tragedy is rapturous. That is why so many of the world’s greatest love stories end in sorrow, because passion and pain invariably go hand in hand. That is why solitude is safe, and there is no safer place to be than on one’s own.

There was a young man, alone in a distant corner of the world. Isolated. But he was striking, smart. So much so that he caught the attention of the servants of the Queen of Night, and was led by them to her kingdom, where nighttime reigned. Believing there was nothing to live for, he followed them.

The servants guided him across the world, to a point where the sun almost never reached. They led him through a grove of night blooming flowers, past creatures with glossy, black eyes. They brought him into a throne room, where upon a silver throne sat a woman of unspeakable beauty. A woman all of pallor and shadows, hidden by a veil of stars, with a gown cut from the night sky.

The servants bowed, and the youth followed suit, as the Queen of Night approached. She could not be real; she could not be more than a dream bound in silver and stars. She was a phantom of moonlight and darkness, eyes as silver as the moon, her gown fashioned from night sky. Around her, shadows deepened, the flames on the walls flickered silver.

The Queen, in a voice the soft velvet of night and the piercing edge of ice, placed before the youth a hero’s quest. Her daughter, the daughter of night, had been stolen away by the wicked of sorcerers and the king of the Sun. She had wept many nights, and storms had raged across the world with her pain, tempests of her tears. Yet she had hope, as fragile and delicate as the light of a faraway star that the youth could cross into the kingdom of the Sun King and save her daughter.

’Why can you not save her yourself?’ he asked the Queen.

‘Because I have not the strength. Day and Night will never overrule one another. We are each in our own power. While he is the fire that scorches the earth, I am the sea that floods it. I have no power against him.’

‘Why would you not rule alongside him? Your dominions do not cross one another.’

‘But they do. In the very rarest and most sacred of places, in the most unique of places, our kingdoms overlap. And they are the most dangerous of places, for we can never co-exist.’

As the Queen of Night spoke plumes of smoke, in tendrils like roots of the earth, illustrated her story with scrolling lines of symbols and scenes carved in mist and shadow. The young man saw the sorcerer’s fortress, a stronghold concealing a beautiful temple of tiles and fountains and alluringly beautiful mosaic myths. He saw the sky break into darkness and light, the moon winged by green clouds, the sun blazing like tiger’s eye. Lastly, he saw the Queen of Night’s daughter, and he was convinced he had never seen anything more beautiful.

The youth could barely respond. He had seen the Night Queen’s daughter and could not be more besotted. He had only one request preluding his journey, and his heart beat so loudly he barely heard himself ask it.

’Your majesty, I will undertake this task without doubt, if you would grant me one thing.’

The Queen of Night’s eyes sparkled like starlight as she waved a hand to the young man. ‘I would ask you the boon of your daughter’s hand in marriage.’

The Queen of Night regarded the striking young man with the eyes of all nocturnal beings. Despite his fear, he did not back down. Finally she bowed her head and proclaimed her daughter’s hand in marriage if he returned her daughter to her.

For his journey the Queen of Night bestowed upon the young man the gift of music. ‘It can change the hearts of men,’ she cautioned him.

He rode the Queen’s stallion as far as it could carry him, until the heat and light of the sun were too much, and it could not move for fear of being burned. The young man went onward, unaffected by the sun’s fire and brilliance.

The sorcerer resided in he centre of a huge gilded temple, a dome of gold surrounded by spires and towers with carved cupola’s of crystal, ablaze as though lit from within. The young man entered cautiously, surprised there was no guard. He was surprised even further when he proceeded through the winding hallways, without direction or navigation, to a large circular room filled with sunlight.

There was no sound in the room, for a moment, like the calm before a storm when the air is alive with electricity. Suddenly he heard a voice. The young man tried to run, but his feet were rooted to the floor, as though he had grown from it like a tree. And he did not want to move; the voice was intoxicating.

The voice belonged to a lady, a girl he knew only from a nighttime illusion. She was as diaphanous as that dream he had first glimpsed in the Night Queen’s palace.

The Queen of Night’s daughter saw the youth as she entered the room and she froze. Their eyes locked.

The air was filled with fire, it burned and swept through the temple, like a roll of thunder before a storm. His skin tingled, her lungs burned as though filled with crisp winter air. The feeling was intimate, whispers in the dark, spreading to the tips of their fingers, the depths of their chests, and farther, deeper.

To him there was no one else in the world. The sky above them and the ground beneath they’re feet disappeared.

She could not remove her gaze from his. It was the first time she had seen him, and the reaction was immediate, delicate and astral, flaring across the room as though reflected by a multitude of mirrors.

But they spoke few words to each other, for the Queen of Night’s daughter was whisked away by the spirits of the sun, down the long passages of the temple into the heart of the sorcerer’s kingdom, and he was brought to the sorcerer’s presence chamber. He was forced to his knees before a man so brilliant it was as though the youth was gazing at the sun, and white dots danced before his eyes. He was filled with the sudden heat of a hundred summers, so intense it burned him.

The sorcerer of the Sun pronounced himself the Sun King, and indeed all the plants around him bowed their heads, like flowers bobbing in the wind. His power did not ebb, but the young man’s skin felt no longer scorched and when the heat in his lungs did not ravage him, he drew to stand.

’I come from the Queen of Night, who wishes to reclaim her daughter. You have no right to hold her prisoner, you must let her go!’

’The sorcerer smiled wolfishly. ‘Why must I? She is my daughter as well, and I would not trust her in the land of night. Night has no power. The moon itself is as weak as a child in battle, playing with their father’s sword. It is a mirror of the sun’s power. I would not entrust my daughter to such an existence.’

’Would you not let her choose herself?’ the young man asked.

But the sorcerer did not answer. Instead he asked ‘What is your purpose? Has the Queen of Night become so desperate as to send a child to do her work?’

’I am promised your daughter’s hand in marriage if I bring her back.’

The sorcerer roared with laughter, and the walls shook, the flames casting dancing shadows around them. ‘You believe you love her.’

’I do love her,’ the young man said as his hands began to shake.

’Then prove it. If you complete three tasks, I will bestow her, not to the Night Queen, but to you.’

The youth agreed without hearing of the three tasks. He was lost in the memory of the Night Queen’s daughter. He remembered everything about her: her lotus blossom perfume, her subtle smile, the radiance of her white skin and dark eyes. Yet he wanted to know everything about her; how she spent her time, what she liked to read, how soft her skin was. He could not bring himself to ask the sorcerer, so he waited for his next chance, the moment he would next see her. No matter how brief the moment, he could not forget it.

The sorcerer wasted no time in presenting the first task. He smiled, and the trees in his sacred grove wilted in the heat. ‘Temptation is among those killers of faith. And it is a very rare man who is impervious to it. For my daughter you must show nothing but the purest and strongest fidelity.’

The young man was led to a temple within the temple, where all of his trials would take place. It was a place of moonlight and incense, of swaying lanterns and lovers’ velvet words. H was left alone.

The young man waited in silence, still as a statue, for so long her believed to wonder if the sorcerer had forgotten him. He was prepared to leave when the door opened, only a slip. Red smoke, as vivid as rubies, trickled into the chamber. It had a cloying scent, like too many lilies or roses, but it was spicy like cinnamon, dark like wine, and coppery. The smoke took the shape of three women, swathed in scarlet silk, who moved with the grace of snakes toward the young man. They whispered words of love, desire and longing in his ears.

The youth did not glance at the beautiful women, at their wine red lips and sphinx eyes, while they circled him like the eye of a storm. They faded as easily as sylphs, like smoke whisked away by the breeze.

So the first test was passed and the young man was left alone, to his own devices, whilst the sorcerer debated his next trial. The young man explored the temple around him, unaware of the Queen of Night’s daughter watching him from an alcove hidden by a fig tree.

She had thought him handsome from afar, yet up close he was beautiful.

She could not bear to reveal herself to him, her heart was not delicate and fluttering like a small bird, but like the tribal drums of a foreign tribe and the pounding of an animal’s hooves on earth. Her fear did not matter, for when she moved she knocked over a crystal lantern and the young man swung to see her.

From there on there is no history, no record or diary, of what was spoken. Their words are a mystery, but her must have asked her to sit with him for they made their way to the fountain and sat.

They sipped wine in the fractured twilight, and ate fresh berries from the late summer.

He held her close, as closely as he could, and told her stories. He savoured the warmth of her skin in the candlelight, the smell of her perfume. She captured the sounds of his voice in her memory, stroked his hair as she shared her own tales and legends.

When daylight came and bathed the temple in coin-golden light, they rose together from their makeshift bed and she wrapped up his flute in its silk bag and he held it to his heart.

Sadly, he left her presence, returning to his chambers, though not before promising to return to their hidden meeting spot. The Queen of Night’s daughter returned to her own rooms.

She waited impatiently to see him again. His face burned behind her eyelids. The girl pined for him steadfastedly, awaiting a time she could see him again.

And at this time, the young hero was awaiting his second trial.

His next task was silence, to remain quiet and voiceless until the sorcerer bid him worthy to speak.

Once again he was to enter the inner temple, the sanctum. This time, however, he was not alone. He held him tongue, silent and solemn, as countless servants and spirits passed him by, speaking to him, presenting him with riddles and jokes, hoping for a laugh or an outcry. Guards threatened him with curved daggers and stone arrowheads. He did not speak.

Finally the Queen of Night’s daughter, unable to rest from a mind disquiet with infatuation, appeared. She rushed to his side to bid him hello.

Yet he did not speak to her. She implored him, begged for his voice and his words. Her voice cut into him more than the sharpest knife in the temple guard, but he could not talk. Night’s daughter felt her heart break a thousand times. She turned away before he could see her tears. He held his silence, long after she fled his presence.

He wanted to chase her, to find her and beg for her forgiveness. Instead he returned to the sorcerer for his verdict. The sorcerer smiled benevolently, and approved of the young man’s silence. He had passed the second test.

‘Was it worth it?’ The sorcerer asked.

The young man had no reply.

He waited impatiently in the inner temple for his third trial, and for Night’s daughter. When she did appear, her eyes rimmed with the red of someone who has shed tears, he crossed to her, his arms outstretched to hold her, but she would not come near.

’I love you,’ he told her.

’You would not speak to me,’ she said.

‘I wanted to. I wanted to promise I love you. I do,’ he told her.

She was silent, and the air seemed to still before she spoke. ‘I cannot love you.’

The young man did not realize he was falling to his knees. He caught her hand, touching his thumb to the inside of her wrist. ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

She knelt before him and touched her fingertips to his cheek. ‘I cannot live without you. I could not even stand the idea you do not love me. I never shall. But I cannot live with you,’ she told him, stroking his hair back. ‘I promise you I will not suffer this way. I hope you will not.’

‘Do you not know how I feel for you? I had thought I could not be happy without you, but I cannot live without you. Please believe me.’

Tears began to roll down her cheeks, glistening like diamonds in the moonlight. ‘I cannot endure this pain. I will not suffer. You are my weakness and-‘

‘And you are mine.’

‘-and I am not strong enough for it. If I must endure a life without you, then I will do it.’

She pulled her hand back, slipping from his grasp like air. Her reached for her again but she stepped away. ‘I cannot stay here. I will go to my mother. The night must be the safest place to seek comfort. Nothing can touch you there. No one.’

‘No, you cannot mean that. Please, do not leave me.’

She did not answer; she could not. Her tears were choking her; she could not look at him. She turned away.

‘I love you,’ he said, struggling to stand, reaching for her again.

‘And I you,’ she whispered, turning to face him. She gazed at him for a moment, capturing his face in her memory, before turning away.”

Suddenly there seemed no greater place to either lover than the cover of night, than the darkness and refuge of stars. He could not call her back, not even with the power of music. He could not change her heart, and he would not if he could."

Text by Lucie MacAulay