Princess Aravo Part 1

14

The servants bowed to him, the girl stood up and only Tobro stayed lying in his position. It was the prince...

At first Irbis didn't recognise him and only when servants greeted him in such way she understood who was in front of her. He wasn't in his showy clothes but in plain ones that showed what he really was. Before she saw him in such gowns that added him volume and concealed his body entirely showing only the face.

He was very tall but his figure was oblong. He was thin and his shoulders were narrow. His head was funnily small relatively his whole body. His limbs were porrect and his posture was a bit stooping. Irbis saw his hands and feet, which before had been in special gloves and boots. He had unusually long fingers and his feet too were such. Before he wore striped brocade cloth on which was his crown (its look was somehow between a pharaoh's one and a samurai's helmet) and then his thin yellow hair a bit shorter than his face were revealed. There was nothing catchy about his face and it seemed to be some solid pale spot. Over his lip a thin thread of moustache was hardly seen. His eyes too were not noticeable at all. Perhaps the people that knew him for years would be embarrassed as not to remember of what colour they actually were. Were they green? No, grey... No, they seemed after all to be green... There were only two things in his whole personality that hinted to his majesty: the long height and the voice. Irbis wondered whether it was the man that organised the mutiny and seized the throne.

The prince quietly entered and looked at Tobro lying on the carpet. The fool noticed it and said that he had euphoria. The monarch soon left him as if his jester didn't exist at all and came up to the girl.

"Have you been examining me enough?" he said in his way.

"You should be glad that somebody examines you at all! Very likely that your Dilarita took you blindly," Tobro's comment was heard.

"It seemed to me that you have euphoria."

"All right, I am silent..."

"Forgive me, Your Highness..." the girl said and bowed to him.

"Sit here," he pointed to one chair and sat on the seat at the window.

The girl sat before him and her face was lighted completely. They sat for some moment silent.

"Well?" the prince asked at last.

"Sire, I am ready to answer all your questions."

"Let's see... As you may have understood it is just amazing that you actually passed through the whole Sirvantame. I and Tobro made it up to see of what people are capable for great money. Are you so greedy?"

"Your Highness, I played not for money... I fought to survive. I am completely alone in this world and I have no money and I needed them much. I was controlled not by greed."

He looked at her attentively.

"At first I wish to know how exactly you managed it."

"How did I manage? I just tried to use my head and not to lose myself."

"And yet I want to hear a more specific answer. For example, nobody would ever pass through the first room. How did you manage it?"

"The one with the Cuttlegnat? Thus I call that thing there."

"Cuttlegnat? Interesting..." Tobro was heard.

"And yet how?" the prince asked again persistently.

"You see, Your Highness... At first I really got afraid of it but soon I plucked my spirit again. For all my former life I had to deal with wild animals and was taught to hunting since I had been little. Everything has its weaknesses. For example that monster was too big and had only one eye and I tried to take an advantage of it. The only thing was that substance with which it shot. I came to myself in its den but I didn't want to surrender to it. I was surprised that there were no stones at all to throw in it. And then when the falling stones didn't hit I had a thought. You see, my father, the man that brought me up, was educated well in sciences and once told me that people are able to create parallel realities, the things that look very real and with which you can cooperate but they don't really exist and touching them you touch nothing. I imagined that all these things disappeared and thus I went through everything."

"Who was your father?" the prince asked alertly.

"Whenever I asked him he used to answer that he wasn't the one he had used to be and that then he was just my father. I never knew it..."

Tears appeared in her eyes and the prince ordered Tobro to give her some handkerchief.

"Is he dead?"

The girl nodded.

"So go on..."

"What more can I tell? I understood that all those things were mere deception and I tried to ignore them all. The only thing is the Cuttlegnat's substance..."

"It too didn't exist. You were pricked from the wall and you had a blackout for a couple of minutes."

"I see... And also I wonder what would have happened if I had opened a seashell with a venomous animal in the second room."

"Those animals (or rather their models) secreted not poison but soporific. You would have been just out of the game. What is about a piranha, it would have just given you an electric shock."

"The mere delusions... To tell you the truth, Sire, I wouldn't be surprised if those three rooms and four labyrinths were just two rooms: one with the labyrinth the other to play."

"You guessed right."

The prince came up to the mirror made operations with it and it showed the playing room.

"There were eyes and we watched almost all your actions, Miss Irbis. Don't worry they were not absolutely everywhere. There is a special system that creates all those creatures. Only some objects were changed while you were in the labyrinth. But I should tell you that you a bit complicated your goal by understanding the system. For example, in the second room in the underground world there was hidden a special flashlight with which you could easily get rid of those insects."

"I suspected something about it but when it was late..."

"I should congratulate you. It is not easy to trick you. Now you have one million of wers. It should be declared that Sirvantame is closed. Only you should remember not to tell anyone in the world what you saw there. But also I would like to know what do you want to do with your reward?"