Antarica’s chronicles E-Book

The Daz

• Herausgeber: The Daz
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Tales of Antarica are composed of five stories: The Queen Of The Mirror, Lion's Heart, The Magic Compass, The Legendary Song, The magic fish. These stories are a part of series that are structured like a matryoshka doll. Every tale is the follow up to the previous one; every new tale constantly gives the reader new elements and points of view and slowly becomes a complete story of its own. Following the traditional rules of tale-writing structure, these five stories are connected between each other with its magic and ever so important morale.

Leseprobe

Antarica’s Chronicles

Young adults’ story

The Daz

Antarica’s Chronicles

The Daz

Illustrations by Davide Cassetta ©

Edizione digitale: luglio 2013

ISBN: 9788868552527

Edizione digitale realizzata da Simplicissimus Book Farm srl

This is the story of a fabulous land named Antarica where a bonny queen, a fearless knight, an eccentric king, a young wandering minstrel and a wizard with magic powers crisscrossed their destinies thanks to a weird talking fish.

and they all lived happily ever after

or almost like that.

Tale number one

The queen of the mirror

Once upon a time there was an always feting kingdom. There wasn’t night in which lanterns or fireworks wouldn’t floodlight the royal palace gardens.

Any reason was good for a banquet, a ball, a parade and any sort of feast. The night was an uninterrupted rejoicing and the day just an interlude for arranging the following party. This kingdom was Antarica, a land girdled by many lakes and rivers and one of which passed by the castle and cut the city off. Often mills or other contraptions were assembled to pipe the abundant water up to the gardens so their lawns were always tidy and perfect. Water and light shows were always a part of wonderful court nights. The fountains were plentiful and each one with a different statue spurting in a different, fanciful way. A drinking fountain stood on every corner of the manor, where every thirsty guest could drink, but it wasn’t water the most popular drink especially in the long sleepless nights. The organizer and creator, as well as the centre of all attention in any party was she, the gorgeous and charming Queen Isadora.

Her beauty was such a legend spreading along the whole valley that people named her Isabella.

She was the youngest Queen, ever sitting on Antarica’s throne. There wasn’t a day or better night that she wouldn’t appear in her perfect beauty. She wore her long dark ruby-coloured hear sometimes perfectly straight, some others wavy as a stormy sea, or high and backcombed on top of her head as if a sculpture.

Her hear had a special glow under the moonlight and not in the sunshine when the most foolish ones would mistake it for a simple black. The skin on her face, like all the rest of her body, was fresh and flawless. As all the young girls of her age, she needed no treatment to get that shine and softness.

That was not good enough of a reason for Queen Isadora to stop her from using every beauty product that could be possibly imported. She spent hours in rubbing creams on and face packs, masks or ointments of any sort of smell or density and often of dubious benefit.

However these beauty treatments gave her complexion that widely known silvery brightness which everybody coveted. As a matter of fact few people had ever seen her laughing as for the most part she wouldn’t and limited herself with a smile, afraid to ruin her perfect smooth lines with some wrinkles. Yet many declared they had been mesmerized when she looked at them with her jade eyes and then got completely lost in the unique shine of her magenta hair.

She used to change her dress every night, passing from the most glitzy andrienne-styled attire to a puffy robe-a-la-polonaise garment. Rumour had it that a whole team of tailors attended upon her wardrobe to make every cloth unique and special. Mirrors of all kinds of shape hung from every wall in the castle. They vary from the simple, just framed by a golden rim to the most elaborate, differently engraved and designed, many flapped ones where one could see oneself from any angle. Every time the queen passed by them, she couldn’t but stop and admire the look of her face and this caused her to be always late due to the endless time she spent to move around the palace aisles.

Since she widowed, two bulky slobbering Great Danes as black as the darkest and moonless night, escorted her. She liked to pet and cuddle them as if they were the offspring she never had the time to procreate. She used to talk to them in a subtle, high-pitched voice, with her lips pouting and sending them a kiss every two words. There were actually looked after and taken care by two young lackeys. They would chase these two beasts everywhere to keep them constantly combed and shiny.

There were two human beings who spent the most time with her. The first one was a terrific storyteller, straw-clad who had to follow her everywhere and when she was in the bad mood or just wanted to hear a compliment he had to praise her beauty for her ears only. The other one was Sir Persival The Second.

The man was one of the five knights titled as the bravest in the kingdom.

He was a bulky, muscular fellow whose task was to safeguard the queen’s safety. She favoured him among the others and he would please her at any cost. She entrusted him with the tasks she deemed extremely urgent and important for her figure as, for example, the royal purges.

That was how the people called all the punishments Sir Persival carried out under the secret order of the queen. Once he made the royal fruit supplier swallow some lemons because the strawberries, which were out of season, weren’t sweet enough.

Another time he had him gorged on chocolate cakes for two days, without drinking, because this time the strawberries were too tantalizing and they jeopardized the royal shape.

In short, for a man, who had to serve the court in many ways, it was really like trying his luck.

However, everybody was ready to run the risk as this was the only way to make ends meet. The incomes from Antarica’s lands were high but taxation was higher. Indeed parties were not low on budget at all, and the poor population, far from court life, was really badly affected by these policies.

Isabella had arranged that party in every single detail. She had worked out everything and even more so it could be remembered as the most regal masquerade party of all times.

The white and violet colours of Antarica’s flag dangled from the palace towers. Ruffled by the wind those drapes were scrawled like the forked tongues of snakes and wrapped up the castle. The torches, scattered about the garden, were made of huge fruit and vegetable spikes and their burning wicks spread sweetish scents throughout the country.

All the horses were dressed up in trousers and shirts as if they were big waiters turned into animals. The servants wore the old ostrich shaped armours the former king wanted to be forged like the royal emblem now replaced by a light Aubergine-coloured stylized crown.

In the middle of the park there were three fountains, set up for the occasion.

The first fountain was shaped as a roaring lion spouting water into the second fountain where a gazelle heaved up the rear legs as after a sudden stop, just from there, water spouted on a horde of mice chiselled in the last one. Overlooking this horde there was a helmed bowman-rat standing out with his bow shooting an arrow gush of silvery water against the bust of the forest king.

The party theme was “animals” and all the party-goers, strictly top-rank, had to wear a mask portraying one. The queen announced that, apart from the usual balls and exhibitions, that evening there would be a special surprise for everyone.

In fact she hired the famous painter, Ron de la Cruar to depict a secular event: all the guests dancing according to the moves Queen Isadora had invented for the occasion.

The party began in the heart of the night as planned, and hundreds of two legged animals packed the yard. They ate, laughed and danced with the music of the talented storyteller and the most famous violinists from abroad when the queen decided to make her royal entry.

The big, studded garden door slowly wide opened while four hefty guards pushed it.

They lit two large bonfires and stirred them up so to fully enlighten the catwalk.

Sir Persival The Second, who wore a large, engraved wood helm in the shape of a tiger head, came in.

His whole suit of armour had been painted with yellow and black stripes and he held a very long halberd in his hand. He neared the big door with his mantle wrapped as if it was a tail waving in the wind and announced:

« Lords, Sirs and gentle Ladies, please pay attention: here you will have the chance to admire the most graceful and beautiful creature of the animal kingdom. Queen Isadora».

Thunderously clapped by the audience, entered the most gorgeous and colourful royal peacock of ever. A light blue bustier squeezed her wasp’s waist to push up her breast. Her shoulders were naked and her skin was painted cobalt and cerulean blue.

She was painted like that up to her face where her mouth, enlarged by the lip-gloss, was shining, lemon-coloured like a beak.

Her eyes shone with silver downs in the same shade of her bangles and her diamond inlaid necklace. Her hair was upwardly glued with its tips bent downwards and wrapped in reflecting paper-mache to form a bottle neck.

Her white-and-blue striped skirt was bulging in the back thanks to a hidden horsehair bustle making it look larger. A fan of glorious, highly elongated and iridescent feathers that copied the animal’s gaudy tail, came out from the bulging on the back of her skirt.

She gracefully walked down the stairway to join the jubilant crowd. Her skirt brushed the ground and covered her feet so the queen seemed to hover on the grass. She walked her way through the nobility letting them admire her beauty and everything was according to her original plans until hereafter.

She focused everybody’s attention, as usual, when Antarica’s doors opened for a latecomer guest.

Eight guards in brown armours and armed with powerful axes, bringing two persons in. At a first glance, only a bulky silhouette could be told apart and another slenderer at its side, prickly eared and graceful, then the light struck them. They were Lord and Lady Ferrington. They both wore pig costumes, a peculiar and unusual choice this one, well matching the Lord’s bulky body indeed. His pink painted armour was rounded and made lighter for the event and it was clinking at every move he made. His helm was perfectly alike a pork’s head but the queen didn’t even realize it and maybe neither did the other guests. But it was his wife who captured and charmed Everybody’s glances. She wore a peach-colour underwear, lace-embellished around the breast and thighs.

She shod high heeled boots, knee high and made of real pork skin. They were spread all over with glittering powder and looked like real jewels. Real, varnished hooves spiked out the heels like spurs. Though little dressed, she didn’t look vulgar at all. She was no longer in her prime, but due to the small pig nose she had on, nobody could tell. Sumptuous locks were falling down her shoulders. They were gold-dusted and shining like the sun.

An emerald diadem, pig ear shaped enlightened her smile, but the little tail curled and golden was the cherry on top. In a moment the attention moved from Queen Isadora to Lord Ferrington’s wife.

At first sight, the party went on smoothly but in her deep Isabella was struggling between her duties to behave as a queen and her impulse to order that damned woman who dared steal her scene an immediate death by hanging, and as it that wasn’t enough, with such a filthy animal! She was really upset and kept on looking around for Sir Persival when, all of a sudden, he was standing beside her.

«My Queen, this is Ron de la Cruar’s moment» He whispered in her ear «Would you like to announce your surprise yourself?».

The queen was drawn deep breaths in and out: she was panicked. She looked around and caught everybody’s eye admiring that she piglet.

«The pig... that pig... the hog...». She was mulling over «That filthy hog...». Then she had a flash of inspiration.

«Yes, I will make the announcement, it’s high time!» she sneered.

She whispered an order into her trusted man ear and then she climbed the tribune and cried out.

«Ladies and Gentlemen, as you were made known, this evening we will have a huge surprise for you» the audience rejoiced «This will go down in history as the best masquerade ever. Which masquerade can be better than the one where...». The painter was about to come in when the queen’s words froze him. «The masked persons will pair with the very animal they portray!».

In a moment the yard was flooded with hordes of rabbits, goats, hens, peacocks and hogs. The guards were showing each guest to its place.

At the beginning, everyone was confused and puzzled, Lord Ferringtons’soldiers were about to react but the couple took it quite well and took the joke by wallowing in the mire of that peculiar party.

The night went by in laughter and jokes and everybody had a great fun.

The queen focused everybody’s attention again by strolling among royal peacocks in perfect conditions. Nobody was paying any longer attention to that mudded she piglet and the painter portrayed the whole scene perfectly.

The queen was an envious lady, or better, extremely jealous of everything and everyone, not only of other women.

One morning she was admiring her gorgeous rose garden when she spotted a snail. It wasn’t a simple, ordinary snail. It had an incredibly developed shell with big, pointed spikes made it look like a bronze crown, too big for such a small creature. The queen, in fear that her most royal jewel could be belittled, ordered to Sir Persival The Second to catch all the snails of the castle and have the crowns filed out of their shells as they were not entitled to wear them.

The good knight had to see to this job for a whole week and had to creep under any bush and plant getting dirty up to the neck. The same time the royal blacksmiths needed to forge a bigger crown.

Otherwise, on the contrary, the royal animals couldn’t be considered just like common creatures. Once she asked to visit the stables just to fondle some little horse. While the young queen was having fun in braiding a horse’s tail into many tresses, the poor one pooped on her hands. It was a disaster.

The queen ordered Sir Persival to administer purges to the royal horses on a regular basis.

«My horses must be the cleanest and most refined in the entire valley» she went on crying.

(From this episode, her people invented the term royal purges).

She paid regular and unexpected visits to the stable to personally make sure of their cleanliness.

The horses lost weight as never before. They were very clean and sanitized but shouldn’t she drop that fixation, in ten days there would no longer be horses to saddle in Antarica.

The queen had been perching motionless on her massive granite throne for hours. She was waiting for a new delivery of cosmetics that had to arrive that very morning. She wouldn’t move from there until she would get hold of it.

The magnificent midnight party for her cousin’s birthday, The Duke of Sorrenton, was planned for that night.

Of course she had organized the party herself and wanted something new to draw everybody’s attention as usual. It could possibly be a lotion, making her hair shine in the moonlight or a scented lipstick.

She then ordered a la [...]