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                               Sangrelysia

                          by Vivian Darkbloom

The Princess Reveals Some Disturbing News

   That night, the commotion in the secret passageway woke me up
   long before they arrived. Don't worry about anybody hearing,
   since it's been magically protected against eavesdroppers. I
   rolled my eyes, and rolled out of bed wondering what she had
   cooked up this evening. I swear, sometimes she's such a little
   princess. Actually, all the time.

   The stone bricks in the wall dematerialized, turning to misty
   vapor in order to let the three giggling little girls through.
   First came two girls who I only vaguely recognized as being among
   Sylvia's ladies in waiting (`ladies' being a somewhat figurative
   term, given that they were about her own age, 10 years old or
   so). They arrived carrying a large case containing the Princess'
   harp, followed by the Princess herself.

   "Set it down there," Sylvia commanded, familiar with ease of
   authority.

   "Ooph." I heard the faint singing of the strings from inside as
   they placed the encased instrument on the floor, upright, then
   set about opening the latches, still giggling about something.

   "Shannon, Meredith, meet the wizard," Sylvia introduced them. "No
   name, sorry."

   "Sylvia," I protested, "We can't have music in here, it's the
   middle of the night."

   "So?" She was going through the stuff on my workbench.

   "What are you looking for?" I asked.

   "I can't find my drawing pad. I thought I might have left it
   here."

   "No, I would have seen it. Maybe the ghost took it."

   "Ghost?"

   "The wizard who lived here before told me the place was haunted.
   Strangers would occasionally appear out of thin air, only to
   vanish as quickly as they had come."

   "Oh." She turned and wrapped her arms around me, burying her head
   in my nightshirt, and began sobbing.

   I ran my fingers through the silky smoothness of her long black
   hair. "What's wrong?" I asked.

   "They tried to poison me again."

   "What do you mean, again?!" Adrenaline had jolted me into
   alertness.

   "Last time they were really stupid, and put it in the cauliflower
   soup, which I hate anyway so I just didn't eat it. This time they
   put it in my favorite peach cobbler. And there wasn't much for
   dinner, so I was really hungry."

   I was skeptical. "How can you be sure? Why didn't you tell me
   about this before?"

   "I could feel it. I knew something wasn't right. So I offered to
   trade with the King but then he decided he wasn't having any
   dessert. Then I pretended I wasn't hungry, and fed some to
   Rover."

   Everyone in the castle was familiar with the King's yapping
   pestilence of a dog, Rover, and its reputation for being greedy
   and mean, just like its owner.

   The girls-in-waiting were setting up Sylvia's harp and stool.

   "I heard the dog wasn't feeling well," I mused.

   Sylvia looked up at me and laughed faintly, face moist with
   tears. "You should have seen the King's face when I offered some
   to the dog. Like, the pesky thing eats better than half the
   subjects in the kingdom, and it still's always begging for table
   scraps. So, like, I fed it some of the cobbler, and about half a
   minute later it started getting these terrible spasms, and then
   it sort of keeled over, unconscious-like, and they took it away."

   "You didn't eat the cobbler."

   She snorted. "Let's see. Eating poisoned cobbler equals `dead.'
   Not eating cobbler equals `alive.' Do I look like a ghost?"

   I frowned. I couldn't stand the thought of losing her. "Sylvia,
   this is really awful. We've got to get you out of here."

   She looked sad. "I know. Plus, I'm starving, do you have anything
   to eat?"

   "A half a tray of lasagne, left over from dinner. Will that do?"

   Her eyes widened. Her favorite, I happened to know. "Sure.
   Thanks."

   I went over to the stillbox and opened it, pulling out the tray
   still warm from having been suspended in time, and set it on the
   table, scooping a generous helping onto a plate.

   Rumple, a flurry of orange feline furriness, jumped up on the
   table and stuck her nose in my face, tail switching over (and
   into) the food. I ejected her back onto the carpet, where she
   landed with a "clump" and "miao" of protest. The princess sat
   down and devoured voraciously, and I sat down beside her.

   "Would you girls like anything?" I called out.

   "No, thanks. We're fine."

   Sylvia rolled her eyes. "They got to eat alright."

   After a while, hunger satisfied, she set down her utensils and
   she crawled into my lap. I clung to her, rocking her in my arms.
   "Sylvia, we've got to get you out of here," I said.

   "You said that before. How?" she asked faintly.

   I pondered.

   "Would you like to play some music?" I suggested.

   Her face lit up. "Sure," she exclaimed, and leapt out of my arms
   over to the harp, landing on the stool with a thud, and sending
   forth graceful elegant swirls of arpeggios. "I can sing you the
   song I just learned," she said, still playing. "Getting ready for
   my recital in the spring."

   "Perfect, just what we need: something to cheer us up. Let's hear
   it!" I said, sitting on the couch next to the two entwined
   girls-in-waiting, who seemed rather, um, fond of each other.
   Watching them embrace and kiss caused some perkiness in my
   libidinal members.

   Rumple the Orange, still fluffily miffed by the table episode,
   jumped up on the couch between us, placing one paw on my thigh. I
   lifted her onto my lap to scratch her back, and she commenced to
   purr loudly.

   The princess has a lovely voice. I could hardly wait to feel my
   mood lifted by her gift of subtle lyricism.

   Then she began -- her song filled the air with happily dancing
   melodic lines caressed by delicate strumming. I still remember
   the way Sylvia's music filled the room that night with beauty,
   drama, and joyous melancholy.

   The Lady of Wan, such a piteous sight
   bumped off by a bodkin in the dark dread of night

   Drenched in the life blood that coursed through her veins
   and cruelly tossed in a ditch in the rain

   Her hard-hearted lover with wicked deceit
   plundered her wealth leaving her naught to eat

   And he was unfaithful: a mistress he found
   with whom he conspired to lay the Lady in the ground.

   One night she was brooding, forlorn, filled with strife
   when they tricked the sad Lady and ended her life.

   The Lady of Wan, such a piteous sight
   Her shade, still it lingers from dusk until light.

   The song ended, and we all applauded vigorously.

   "Thank you," she said.

   "Do you know any, um, happy ballads?" I asked.

   "Let me think."

   She thought.

   "No."

   I sighed. "Ok, let's have another one then."

   "It's supposed to make you think how fortunate you are, not to be
   the person the song is about," she explained.

   "Right," I said. "Always cheers me up, imagining how much worse
   things could be." I braced myself. "Well then. Have at it!"

   It was then that they faded in from nowhere, in sepia tones. A
   man and a woman, life-sized, stepping backwards through the room
   speaking in some strange tongue. The lady was dressed in some
   outlandish garb, of a variety I had never seen before. It was an
   odd anachronistic combination of futuristic and old-fashioned.
   They seemed to co-exist with the other material objects in the
   room, stepping through chairs and tables, until they reached
   Sylvia, and the lady handed her a drawing pad -- which Sylvia
   took, astonished.

   Then they stepped backwards through the solid stone wall -- and
   were gone.

   "My drawing pad! Only, it's --"

   "What?"

   "Look! It was empty before."

   Startled from our daze, we gathered behind her and watched over
   her shoulder as she flipped through the pages, every single one
   filled with colorful artwork. The drawing style looked familiar
   somehow.

   She stopped on one that caught her eye -- that showed her being
   led down a slope underwater by a parade of fish. The surface of
   the water appeared as a wavy line at the top, and Sylvia -- it
   was unmistakably her, was walking along the bottom, with a big
   smile. The fish were all of different colors, including one that
   seemed to be clear, led by a giant golden koi.

   "Hm," I said, recognizing the style.

   "What?" she said. "Who were those people?"

   "I think I know," I mused.

   "Who?" she repeated.

   "Us. From the future."

   Sylvia blinked, pointing back and forth between me and her.
   Wheels were churning. "And if they were traveling backwards in
   time, they would have seemed to have been walking backwards."

   "And talking backwards."

   "But how -- ?" a million unsolved mysteries remained.

   She searched the picture in front of her for answers, but it
   replied only with inscrutable silence.

                                                           Chapter 5

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