This is Episode 5-17 of a serial urban fantasy & paranormal story.

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Part 5-17: Veilbound

I looked at Fergus, and we shared a shrug.

“If you recall, the Prince spent much of his time asleep,” began The Minder, closing his eyes and smiling. “Unwillingly so, but this condition was thought necessary to tame his rather incendiary tendencies. Over the years, he overcame the enchantment, hour by hour. Those erstwhile caretakers needed more elaborate and intricate stories to distract the hunter’s mind. An—is something wrong Alena?”

I had taken a seat, sitting cross-legged, with my back to The Minder. I circled my finger above my head.

“No no,” I said. “Keep going. Just need to keep an eye on the one with the ginormous super sword, you know?”

He sighed, and winked into existence in front of me, standing in front of the cell. He carefully folded himself down into a similar position on the ground.

“As I was saying. The need to keep The Prince occupied was a growing concern. Thus, the tale of the Veilbound Princess was born. The King and Queen spoke of a bride of untold beauty, who lived in an impermeable world, which existed on the other side of the stars. Beyond the veil, as you might surmise. It was told to the Prince that she’d only consider visiting kingdoms which were kept orderly, safe and clean.”

“Right,” I said. “Be good and you get presents.”

“More or less. What is your experience with such warm promises, Alena Bisk?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Life was never without some grit, sneaky shortcuts, love firing off in unfair directions, and bad decisions that rewarded you tenfold more than good ones.

“The Prince’s cynicism,” said The Minder, “was fast to rise. But instead of perhaps satiating him with a caricature of a princess or some similar carnal prize, the royal pseudofamily doubled down on their illusion. They began to seed the Prince’s dreams—the flighty ones, the deep ones and all in between—with visions of the enigmatic Veilbound Princess, with messages from her, with chancy feelings from her so-called heart. The hope was to stabilize her veracity within his crumbling psyche. And wouldn’t you know it, this rather intrusive technique did in fact work for a time. Another era of peace was borrowed from fate’s wheel, and thus the debt of deceit compounded.”

I opened my mouth, about to ask just where the hell the Prince and King and Queen even came from in the first place, but at that moment the walls behind The Minder shimmered with a hazy checkerboard pattern, fast and subtle, like there was a thin curtain of reflective beads hung in front of them and a gentle breeze had sent it twisting.

I heard a voice, motherly, gentle, reassuring. Her words were lost, but the tone was obvious enough: patience, patience, love. Then heartache singed my chest, fast again. Had it lingered I would have called it heartburn, but it was a snappy pang, followed by a sneering thought, not my own, but one in response to the voice I’d heard a moment ago. Again, no words, but I knew what it was anyway: She will never find me.

I knew the feeling, I knew it well. It wasn’t a princess I sought; I suppose you could call it a path. I didn’t even have a good way to articulate it until Deluxe and I moved (fled) away from the city to try and start something new. Decades I’d spent, like most of my friends had too, waiting for our own Veilbound Princes or Princesses to materialize out of thin air, in response to keeping life tidy, ordered, and as others expected it to be. One day we’d wake up, and there it’d be! Life’s reward. Here’s your happiness, your fulfillment, now bask in comfort and joy until it’s time to slip peacefully away.

That’s all bullshit, obviously. A lesson I’m glad I learned early, before I was too old or ingrained in status quo to feel I could do anything about it. I smiled, though I mostly felt a tired sadness. The distant sounds of a slamming door and a cocking shotgun rattled through my senses—reminding me of a fateful afternoon, a few days after I’d met Deluxe for the first time. I felt a presence, and I knew (in that kind of situational certainty afforded mainly to the dreaming) that the long lost Prince from The Minder’s tale was listening to me—or at least a phantom of his thoughts were.

You’re right, I said, my voice floating, semi-conscious, unspoken to either Fergus or The Minder. She will never find you. So that’s why you have to go find her.

A feeling like freshly eaten pop-rocks sparked and bit at my finger, and I opened my eyes to find that the Queen’s Band was spitting little bolts of lightning and party sparkler flares. Yellow, red, green. I held my hand up in surprise, and Lobster squawked and flapped his wings from the ground.

“Might I continue?” asked The Minder, watching my ring’s show with his lips pursed in a strange, satisfied manner.

The little lights died away, and I nodded at him, wondering what might have happened. My gut stirred in a way that made me more than nervous.

“Thank you. As I was saying, peace reigned for a good while, now that the Princess was once again a feasible reality amid the young Prince’s manipulated dreamscrapes and worldview. And during this time, it must be said that efforts were indeed made to find some sort of alternative route. The former keepers of the court knew that their manifestation of control was finite. You and Fergus join us near to the event horizon of that idea, isn’t it exciting?”

“A blast,” I said.

“So like, there were only like three people kickin’ it way back whenever?” asked Fergus. “Where’d you and that black cat come from?” He pointed up at The Keeper, who’d not so much as shifted her weight since assuming the sentinel position above us. She creaked her helm down towards The Minder at Fergus’ inquiry though. I forced myself not to tense, and a reedy exhale escaped me instead.

The Minder looked up over his shoulder at The Keeper, then returned his gaze to Fergus, smiling. “King, Queen, Jailer. So four entities, actually, counting the Prince. Five, if you believe the Princess was real.”

“I thought she was made up,” I said.

“Well, you see, after the dream infusion really set in, the Prince became deeply convinced of her reality. And his power was accumulating as the systems and forces of the King and Queen slowly eroded. The Prince had power to make in here. Who do you think made The Collector? The Keeper? Or, ahem, The Minder?”

He bowed, a seated namaste.

“So you’re saying he might have made the Princess too?” I said.

“He became obsessed with her,” said The Minder, climbing out of his seat to stand once again. “No longer convinced that she was waiting for him to maintain the kingdom, but rather she was really waiting for him to destroy it. And that she wanted to help him do so. I am not sure if he ever created her in the same way he did myself, but at the end of the King’s and Queen’s rule, she was very much real to him.”

“Why didn’t The Jailer mention this, then?” I said. I stood up. Story time was coming to a close.

“Why? I suspect he simply ran out of time. Back when we were less agreeable adversaries, our zeal to disrupt your progress was rather pronounced, as you may recall.”

“Yeah, we had fun, didn’t we,” I said, and took a step forward. “One more question before we get this show on the road. If Mr. Prince made you merry band of murderous ghosts, where is he now?”

“I also have a question!” said Fergus. “But hers is pretty good… I’d answer that one first.”

I rolled my eyes and The Minder got his opportunity to chuckle. He said, “The Prince hasn’t spoken to me since time immemorial, dear Alena. But he is a master of taking many forms and I am certain you’ve already met him. What do you wish to know, sir Fergus?”

“Is Dack okay? Did you melt his brain with infinite time? Can we see him?”

“That’s three questions, by my count. I’ll give you two answers in return, as you were all so generous with your time on this visit.”

“First two,” I said, not wanting to bear seeing Dack if the answer to either of them wasn’t favourable.

“Your friend is alive, functional, and psychologically stable. I’ve taken the courtesy of, how to say, dulling his perception during his visit. Should you pass the coming test and the next two lessons, you’ll receive him more or less as he was taken.”

“Thank you,” I said, before something more sniping could race out.

“As has become my routine, I wish to reinforce the notion that our exchange is and can continue to be chiefly diplomatic from this point forward, Alena.” He shrugged. “With exception to The Collector’s out-world exploits, of course. Your impending disruption will stall him for what I would estimate as at least eight of your hours, but I’d urge you not to dally. He has inserted a frightful amount of footholds ever since your first spar. Fortune and fair weather to you both!”

With that, both The Minder and The Keeper vanished, leaving us alone with a parrot, a booger blob and fifty-eight silent, tormented souls.

 

 

Continued in Part 5-18

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