Chapter 27
THE TALE OF THE THREE SISTERS
The three women stood in a row, The Queen, The Baroness and The Princess, their hands clasped. The man stood before them, his edges blurring as he prowled, his face in shadow, his expression unreadable.
‘You are on a quest,’ he stated.
‘Yes,’ replied The Queen.
‘We search for answers,’ said The Baroness.
‘But we do not know the question,’ said The Princess.
‘Then I shall tell you both,’ said the man, his voice low; cruel laughter twinkling in his words. ‘You search, you quest, yet you never leave this castle.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When the adventure ends, you ride the white path again, you return, you repeat. You’re not free, you don’t travel, you are here for eternity.’
‘No,’ said the sisters together.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘You are bound to me forever because of your fears.’
Behind him was a door, aged and solid, with heavy iron studs and hinges. He turned the huge key in the lock and opened it to reveal a stone staircase, spiralling upwards, out of view.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Do you dare break the pattern?’
He sneered, before running up the stairs on silent feet and disappearing from view.
‘Shall we?’ asked The Queen.
‘No,’ said The Baroness, fearful of the man.
They turned to The Princess and as the word ‘no’ began to form, she saw them again, the two women. They were either side of the doorway and they beckoned her forward before vanishing.
‘Yes,’ said The Princess. ‘Or we shall never know.’
The women felt the ground shift under their feet, as though thunder had roared underground. They reached for each other and, with a nervous glance, the three sisters mounted the stairs.
The man was waiting as they rounded the final bend of the steep tower and when he saw them, his smile of contempt transformed to incandescent rage.
‘You have dared to follow?’ he hissed. ‘You dare to challenge my game?’
The three sisters stood resolute, their hands clasped.
‘Very well,’ said the man through gritted teeth. ‘You have chosen to challenge me, then behold.’
He clapped his hands and a raised dais appeared in the centre of the room. It held a vast four-poster bed with heavy lawn curtains drawn all around it, hiding the figure within.
Masked attendants, their faces obscured but their voices clear as they chanted, moved in an endless trudging circle around the bed. ‘One becomes two; two becomes three; and out of the third comes the fourth, the One. The fourth is the Charmed One who will heal the curse.’
‘The trinity,’ said the man, pointing to the three women.
‘The triple-aspect goddess, the triple-aspect god, the power of the triskele.
Three is known by wise men to be the perfect number.
The number of harmony, wisdom and understanding.
The number of time – past, present, future; of birth, life, death; the beginning, the middle and the end. It is the number of the divine.
‘The triple goddess of the bees cursed your line with pain. Three by three by three by three by three, the third daughter of the third daughter of the third daughter from the time of shadows and fear, until one shall come, a youngest child of a youngest child of a youngest child who is both third and fourth. She shall have the power to heal this curse.’
The women did not speak, they barely breathed.
‘Come forward, my dears,’ said the man, pulling back the curtains. ‘Meet your father and understand the depth of your trouble.’