The Magic Pearl and its Careless Watchman

This is a fairy tale and so it starts with a King once upon a time. Once upon a time there ruled a King in the land of dreams. His kingdom was made of dreams…Dream clouds floating in a dream sky that was lit up with the gossamer rays of a dream sun. The dream lawns and dream woods stood beside the dream rivers and dream lakes while beautiful dream flowers blossomed in dream gardens and dream parks. The soft dreamy breeze rustled through the ripe golden dream corn fields and the dream cattle grazed peacefully in the dream pastures with brass bells clanging and jingling at their necks. However, the people who lived in this Dreamland were real and so were their lives, their joys and their sorrows.

Now this King had a very beautiful Queen and together they were the proud parents of a brave and bright little son. The Prince was as good at heart as he was in his looks and at his books. Hence he was adored by all the people of the kingdom. The King made the best arrangements for his education and grooming and he learned about various sciences, arts and literature from the most competent masters and gained skills in various kinds of athletics and martial arts from their experts. The Queen looked after the moral and social upbringing of her son and instilled a deep faith in God and a sense of duty and honor in him by narrating inspiring stories and taking him out with her on her errands of social work among the subjects. Thus time passed and slowly Prince Valiant grew up into a fine lad indeed.

When Prince Valiant was about sixteen years old, the Rainbow Fairies who lived in the castle in the clouds invited him to participate in the royal tournament that they held every twenty years to select the most brave and skilled Prince and the most beautiful and talented Princess of the generation. So Prince Valiant went to attend the tournament in the castle in the clouds and found that many young princes from all over the world had gathered there. Here under the fair and just scrutiny of the Rainbow Fairies and the huge throng of onlookers, they competed with each other in various sporting events like archery, horse riding, fencing, wrestling, swimming, rock climbing and track athletics. They also contended in mind games like chess, puzzles and riddles. In all these events and games, Prince Valiant emerged as the undisputed victor and was crowned as the most brave and skilled Prince of the gathering. Similarly, the young princesses contested with each other in events on fine arts like singing, dancing, painting, embroidery, cooking and finally on the overall impression of their beauty and grace. In these events, Princess Lovely from the kingdom of Memory-foams was crowned the winner and was named as the most beautiful and talented Princess of the generation. The seven rainbow fairies – Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red, blessed the winning prince and princess with various virtues and gave them two magic gifts. They gave Prince Valiant a set of golden bow and arrows that would never miss their mark and the arrows would return back to their quiver-case after hitting the target. To Princess Lovely the fairies gave a crystal mirror that would truthfully show her anything that she wished to see…any place, person, thing, even feelings. After the tournament all the princes and the princesses bade their farewells and returned back to their homes.

However, even after reaching home Prince Valiant kept thinking of Princess Lovely and her beautiful deep blue eyes. He kept seeing his face reflected in those eyes and wondered if she thought of him too. Thus when a year had passed, he approached his mother, the Queen, and told her that he wished to invite all the princes and the princesses who had participated in the tournament to a grand Ball of Reunion. The Queen gladly assented and the invitations were duly sent out. Huge preparations were made and everything was just splendid and gay when the princes and the princesses arrived for the Ball. Prince Valiant cheerfully welcomed everybody and saw that they were made comfortable. However, he danced the whole evening only with Princess Lovely and during the last dance he declared his love to her. At this, the Princess blushed shyly and acknowledged her feelings in return. They pledged devoted commitment to each other and exchanged their rings symbolically. Prince Valiant promised to approach her parents for her hand in marriage once they had reached the age of twenty and become grownups in their own rights. In the meanwhile the party was drawing to an end and they tearfully bade each other farewell and agreed to stay in touch through letters sent by a pair of trained white doves. After everybody had left the Prince told his mother about his engagement to Princess Lovely and the Queen hugged him in joy. She approved of his choice as everybody present at the Ball had been taken in by the charming personality of Princess Lovely and had admired the pair in wonder as they had danced through the evening. And thus a couple more of years went by with the Prince Valiant and Princess Lovely writing to each other and growing to like each other even more each day.

However, life has its share of fortunes and misfortunes. And misfortune made its appearance in the form of a wicked witch called Pandora. She looked very young and bewitching and ruled tyrannically over the dark forests of Gloom. She could not bear happiness and sunshine around her and was always plotting to sow discord and misery among people. For a long time she had been troubled by the growing happiness in the kingdom of Dreamland as people there prospered and rejoiced in their bright prospects under an able future ruler in Prince Valiant. Their happiness grew even more when the rumors of the informal engagement of Prince Valiant and Princess Lovely spread out. Everybody felt sure that this alliance would match one of the bravest with one of the most beautiful that would result in peace and progress in the kingdoms of Dreamland and Memory-Foams. This was too much for Pandora and she decided to do something to end it all. Now, in Dreamland, the people worshipped a magic pearl that was kept in the temple of life. This pearl was a large round iridescent sphere that reflected the light falling on it in rainbow colors and the dreams drew their colors from it. Thus this pearl maintained the balance of life in Dreamland by filling the dreams with different colors of love, hope, courage, growth, peace and serenity. This pearl was cherished by everybody in Dreamland and the King had appointed a watchman to look after and guard it. However, though the King paid him well for his services, this watchman who was called Ramen was basically a lazy man and resented his lack of freedom to enjoy his life due to his duties when other people around him freely moved around. He stayed at his job somehow but was careless and negligent in his duties. But as the temple of life was situated in the midst of the city square of Dreamland, there never had been any serious threat to its security due to the continuous flow of traffic in the area. So the careless Ramen had been able to continue with his negligent ways without getting into trouble. And this was the weak point that Pandora targeted.

On the day of the Spring Festival when the people of Dreamland were out on the streets celebrating the onset of the season with garlands and bouquets of flowers and merrymaking, Pandora covered herself in a black cloak and slipped unnoticed through the back alleys of the city into the Temple of Life. There she approached the watchman Ramen and asked him in pitying tones as to why he was sitting all alone in the temple while the people rejoiced in the streets. Ramen could not control his resentment in Pandora’s presence and vented his woes to her. She readily sympathized with him and gave him a glass bottle containing a dull yellow liquid and asked him to take a swig. Ramen did so and was immediately drugged and fell into a deep stupor. Pandora then stole the Pearl and hiding it in her cloak, slipped out of the temple just as quietly as she had entered it. However, as soon as Pandora smuggled the pearl out of the borders of Dreamland than the dark clouds of nightmares started gathering over the kingdom. The balance of life and colors was disturbed and people became confused and irrational. The perpetual joy and gaiety that had occupied their hearts vanished suddenly while fear, anger and other evil passions took their place. They started fighting with each other and ransacking the city. The news soon reached the King and after sending out his soldiers to enforce law and order, he sent his royal priest to offer prayers to the magic pearl in order to restore the balance of life forces. Imagine his surprise then when the royal priest soon returned and reported the theft. As Ramen was the only person who had seen Pandora, nobody knew anything about her and Ramen had sunk into an everlasting magic stupor after drinking what Pandora had given him from which nobody was able to wake him up. The King was totally perplexed and knew not what to do.

The situation gradually worsened and by the end of the day, nearly the whole of Dreamland was sunk in utter despair and gloom. Standing in a watch tower in her castle deep in the forest of gloom, Pandora cackled in evil glee as she watched the smoke of suffering and nightmare rise from the direction of Dreamland. In his palace the King paced to and fro, in his royal chamber, fretting about his inability to rectify the situation while the Queen sat quietly in a corner, silently wiping away her tears. Prince Valiant had been out cruising on a yacht in the dream sea and when he returned he was very surprised indeed to see the sudden devastating change and destruction on his way back to the palace. Entering the palace, he went straight to see his father, the King, and was then informed about the events of the day by the latter. He immediately fell on his knees in front of the King and begged his permission to set out for the Kingdom of Memory-Foams as the Princess Lovely had been gifted a magic mirror by the Rainbow Fairies that reflected the truth and could help in finding out the whereabouts of the magic pearl. The King and Queen felt concerned for the safety of their son, who they felt was still quite young in the ways of the world, but gave their permission nonetheless as they knew that their first duty was to serve their country and its people.

The prince took his magic bow and arrows and mounted the finest steed of the kingdom and immediately set off to meet Princess Lovely. But before starting his journey, he wrote about everything that had happened and sent the message to the Princess with his dove so that she could be informed well before his arrival thus being prepared to meet and help him. After a long and arduous journey of about a week, Prince Valiant arrived at the gates of the Kingdom of Memory-Foams and was immediately taken by the city guards to meet their King. The King, who had already heard of everything from Princess Lovely, politely heard the Prince out and called for the Princess. She arrived at the court bringing the magic mirror with her as she was the only person who could use it being its rightful owner. On looking into it she divined that the magic pearl had been stolen by Pandora through guile and deceit and was now in the forest of Gloom. It was decided that Prince Valiant would refresh himself and rest for the night in the palace and then in morning both Prince Valiant and Princess Lovely would set out to rescue the pearl from Pandora’s lair in the forest of Gloom. The King and Queen of the land of Memory-foams had at first been hesitant to allow their daughter to leave on such a dangerous errand but reluctantly gave their permission as they realized that both the mirror and the bow and arrows were required to defeat Pandora’s black magic and to rescue the pearl. They also realized that if Dreamland was destroyed by Pandora then she would target the kingdom of Memory-Foams in future as she was against all happiness and prosperity. And since both the kingdoms of Dreamland and Memory-foams had derived joy and happiness out of the victories of their Prince and Princess that had been further strengthened by their loving relationship, Pandora would not rest till she had destroyed both these kingdoms. Hence, Princess Lovely decided to accompany Prince Valiant on his errand of rescue.

The next day both the Prince and the Princess started off for the forests of Gloom on their horses. Valiant rode a sleek black horse with his brows set in a determined frown while Lovely floated closely behind him on her snow white steed. Their magic gifts were tied to the sides of their horses, along with some refreshments packed for the way. They journeyed for three days, stopping only at nights under roadside trees where they refreshed themselves and rested with Prince Valiant being always on guard and staying alert. They kept looking into the magic mirror to find their way as nobody travelled to the forest of Gloom who could provide directions. Finally, when they reached the gates of Pandora’s castle, the magic mirror showed that Pandora carried the magic pearl in a red velvet pouch hidden in the pockets of her black cloak. The Prince called loudly out to Pandora to surrender the pearl, but she only came out and stood in her turret, laughing loud and long. The mistress of Gloom lived in her huge castle all by herself without any friends with only servants and slaves to serve her who were bound in her clutches through fear and depression. She gloated at the Prince and Princess and dared them to come and get the pearl from her as nobody could touch the castle gates. Anybody who did immediately went mad under the influence of the shadows of the kingdom of Gloom due to excessive anger, fear or depression. Princess Lovely looked at Prince Valiant in anxiousness. The Prince took his magic golden bow and a magic golden arrow and took aim even as Pandora stood screaming with laughter in the turret. With a resounding twang the arrow flew, dived into Pandora’s pocket and flew back to Prince Valiant carrying the red velvet pouch containing the magic pearl. The arrow dropped the pouch at the feet of the Prince and came to rest in the golden quiver-case containing the other arrows. Immediately, the Prince and the Princess got on their horses and turned back for their homes. Pandora shrieked in hoarse rage, tearing at her hair but did not try to follow after them as she knew that she could not face the magic arrows of Prince Valiant.

Peace and harmony was once again restored to the kingdom of Dreamland when Prince Valiant returned with the magic pearl. It was anointed with holy waters by the royal priest and restored back to its place in the temple. The people celebrated the return of the pearl and the victory of their Prince in the streets and the watchman Ramen slowly woke up from his stupor. He then realized the folly of his ways and in repentance resigned from his job and went to live an honest life toiling hard in his fields. The King appointed a new watchman who was competent, alert and conscientious of his duty especially now that the consequences of losing the magic pearl had been widely felt and known. And after a year, Prince Valiant married Princess Lovely with everybody’s blessings and the people of the two kingdoms celebrated the wedding together and made merry for one whole month.