The Sleeper

The stories were changing.          Everyone knew it, though no one could say how they knew. For these were not just the stories they had told or heard. These were their own stories. The stories of their lives.
 The queen gave birth to a baby girl with hair of pale gold. She was so lovely and perfect that the king wept with joy. He ordered a great feast for the christening. He invited everyone in the kingdom, and he took care to include the nine fey sisters, so that they might bless the child. Messengers were sent out to the haunted places where the sisters were known to dwell, with invitations worded in the most polite and gracious style, for that was how one always addressed such beings.  The ninth fey sister was the oldest and most feared of all her kin, but it was not known where she lived, and no one greatly desired to find out. And so no invitation reached her.The feast was held with splendour and great joy, and when it was over, the eight fey sisters who had been invited came forward to bestow their gifts on the princess. A hush fell over the court as the strange women went one by one to the child's golden crib. The first sister, her face concealed by a mask of brambles, gave the child beauty. The second sister, her dark robe smoldering like embers, wished for the girl an angel's wit. The third, who was lame and dragging stones in her train, gave the gift of grace, so that the child should dance like a wave of the sea. And so it went, with the sisters bestowing everything a princess could wish for. When all but the youngest had given their gifts, the ninth fey sister suddenly appeared at the doors, unannounced and unwished for. Her robe was mottled like the skin of a plague victim, and she wore a necklace of finger-bones. The king and queen apologized to her, but she ignored them and walked without a word to the child's crib.       I too have a gift for the child, she said. The oldest gift of all.       She looked down at the sleeping princess, and in a soft voice said, Before her sixteenth year of life, this child will prick her finger on a spindle, and she will die.           Without another word the ninth sister turned and left the palace. Everyone was terrified, and they all began to weep, but then the youngest of the fey sisters, who still had her gift to bestow, came forward. Her robe was the color of moonlight, and in her hair spiders spun their webs.  -- My sister's enchantment cannot be wholly undone, she said, but I tell you that the princess shall not die. She shall but sleep, and all of you with her. --And only true love's kiss shall awaken her? the Queen asked, seeking some ray of hope in her distress. After all, the stories always said that true love's kiss worked on princesses who had fallen under enchantments. --It might have been so, once, said the youngest fey sister.      If she knew anything more, she did not reveal it. 

The child grew into a bright and happy girl, beloved by all who knew her. The only time she was troubled was at night, when she would often have frightening dreams of a great black cloud that came marching across the land and covered the palace in darkness. She would wake with cries of fear, and her mother would comfort her, though the terror of what her daughter had dreamed filled the queen with foreboding. But as the years passed, and no sorrow or danger visited the kingdom, the king and queen came to believe they had escaped the eldest sister's pronouncement. They did not lift the ban against spinning and weaving, but now and then they would allow their daughter out of their sight for a brief time. At last, when the princess turned fifteen, they had so forgotten their fear that they set out on a royal tour through the kingdom, leaving the princess at home to amuse herself as she wished. The girl had rarely been allowed such freedom, and she roamed eagerly through the palace, looking into every room. The king and queen had not got far on their way when the queen called for the coach to stop. The king asked her what was wrong, and she looked at him with terror.-- We must go back, she cried. What were we thinking? We have gone to sleep.As the coach thundered back to the palace, the princess was climbing to the top of the tallest tower, which she had never visited before. In the uppermost chamber she found an old woman bent over a spinning wheel, rocking back and forth and humming softly to herself as the wheel spun.         -- What's that you're doing? the girl asked.    -- Spinning the thread of a tale, the old woman said with a toothless grin, and she offered to show the girl how it was done.      -- That's not where tales come from, the girl said.    -- Oh, no? the old woman said. And where do they come from, girl?  -- They come from books, like the ones mother and father read to me at bedtime when I was little.     The old woman's black eyes glittered.    -- That may be so, she said, but they came first from a wheel like this, and an old woman like me. You don't believe it? Come here and I'll show you.     Intrigued, the princess drew closer and unknowingly set her finger upon the sharp point of the spindle. She gave a cry and fell down as if dead upon the bed that stood close by. At that moment the royal coach was pulling in through the gates, and in an instant the king and queen and the coach driver and the horses and everyone else in the palace fell into a slumber. Everything went silent and still. The dogs in the yard stopped barking, the flies on the window panes no longer buzzed, the spits in the kitchen ceased turning, and even the fire curled up and went to sleep. The breeze that fluttered the palace flags died, and no leaf on any tree stirred.Years went by, and a great tangled hedge of thorns grew up around the palace, concealing it from the world outside. The people of that kingdom, no longer protected by their king and his knights, moved away to other lands. The countryside about the palace grew silent and barren. 
  And still the princess and the court slept on. Many princes and brave knights came to the hedge, having heard the story of the sleeping beauty who lay within under an enchantment. They tried with all their might to get through the hedge, but when they had cut through part of the way, the thorns would close about them and hold them fast. One after another these brave young men died a lonely and miserable death.     The years passed. The thorn hedge withered and crumbled to dust, and the sleeping court turned to stone. 
Then a young traveler passed that way, a gatherer of stories and tales. He explored the silent palace, gazing in wonder at the stone statues of sleeping men and women. At last he climbed to the uppermost room in the tallest tower, where he found, beneath a thick canopy of cobwebs, the bed in which lay the sleeping princess. She alone in all the palace had not changed. Her skin was pale but glowed with life, her lips were red as ripe cherries, and her long, shining hair lay draped about her like a golden mantle. The traveler was moved to pity by the sight of this beautiful young woman alone in that desolate place. But he knew he was not the one meant to wake her. For he was a servant of the fathomless fire, and he saw that the young woman's story had been broken and devoured, like so many others, by the enemy he had pledged his life to defeat.      But he could not leave the girl there, so he brought her back with him to his own country, and in the city where he lived, which was called Fable, she was placed in a soft silken bed and tended with care, in the hope that a way would someday be found to wake her. After a time those who cared for her noticed that whenever danger threatened the city, the princess would stir uneasily in her slumber, and mumble vague words of distress. So it was that the people of that city discovered that they had no more vigilant guardian than this sleeping girl.
The young traveler's name was Nicholas Pendrake. It was said by many (not by him) that if and when the girl finally awoke, Fable would face its darkest hour.