“Please lift the curse!” shouted the princess. “Or at least, tell me how to lift it! The prince of the desert has suffered since birth because of his father’s wrongdoing. For the sake of his unborn children, the future king will never start a war. I give you my word. Please lift the curse!”
The master of the golden ship sighed. Again, the princess felt the golden planks beneath her feet tremble.
“All right,” he said, slowly. “When the rains fall on the desert, release a blind fish into the sea. Then the curse shall be lifted from the prince.” Before the princess could ask him what he meant, the master added a word of warning. “The true nature of man is different from what the princess understands. Even when the curse is lifted, the princess shall not wed the prince.”
And the master of the golden ship lifted his only hand and made a light, flicking gesture.
The next moment, the princess was in the air. As softly as a feather, she swayed in the air before lightly landing on her feet.
10
The princess wandered the desert for a long time.
The place where the golden ship had put her down was not where she had first climbed the ladder. As she had been born and raised on the grassy plains, she had learned from an early age how to read the sun, moon, and stars to discern her position, which was how she could tell with some assurance where she was. But she was surrounded by sand as far as the eye could see, and the dunes shifted whenever the winds blew. No matter how the winds had blown on the grassy plains of her homeland, the land had never shifted shape nor had the trees and grass ever changed their positions. It was unfamiliar terrain to her, and she had no way of predicting how long it would take, walking across the dunes. All she could do was determine where southwest was by the sun and walk in that direction toward the palace.
What he had meant by the blind fish and how she was to find a sea in the middle of the desert—these were mysteries she could not fathom. And as she exhausted herself walking, the princess began to forget about any talk of fish.
She had brought with her some water and dried fruit when she set out from the palace, but that had been long finished by the time she reached the golden ship. The sandy dunes continued to change their shapes, endlessly appearing and reappearing before her. The princess was certain she would meet her death in the desert before she reached the palace.
11
The desert nights were cold. The same winds from the day blew during the night. If she tried to rest, sitting for a moment on the sands, the dune next to her would slowly but threateningly move toward her. If she did not want to get buried, she would have to get up and keep walking.
All feeling left her body as her legs mechanically propelled her forward. Each time she made a step, her foot sank into the sand.
She missed the grassy plains. She missed the flat and wide horizon uninterrupted by high sand dunes. She missed the hard and arid land, the grasses and tumbleweeds that thrived on it. Riding horses over that hard and wide earth, the hoofs striking against the firmness …
The princess tripped over something firm and hard.
She sank into the sand. Quickly, she managed to raise herself out of danger, and she shook herself off and spat the sand out of her mouth before turning around to see what it was that had tripped her.
It was a large, bulky object protruding from beneath the sand.
In the time she had walked to the golden ship and then from it after disembarking, the princess had never felt anything hard about her feet. She crouched before the object and began to dig it out.
The night deepened. The princess, not even knowing what she was excavating, moved her hands without feeling anything. Other than thirst, hunger, and the cold. The thirst … More than anything else, she was thirsty. Her arid homeland also had precious little water, but because she had been a princess, she never had to know how terrible thirst could be. The princess was thirsty enough to want to drink the sand she was shoveling away with her bare hands. Drink the sand …
Just before she was about to drink in the sand she had scooped up in her palms, she quickly came to her senses.
12
The princess wept. Her throat was so dry that it felt like it was splitting into pieces and there was not a drop of liquid in her body, but amazingly there were still tears coming out of her eyes. Leaning against the huge thing she had been digging out, the princess let her tears flow. She was scared, cold, and unbelievably thirsty. I’m going to die in the desert, she thought. She would never see the morning again. Or the sunrise. Never again would she behold the blind prince desperately waiting for her in the palace, the grassy plains she had been born and raised on, her parents. She would die, sink into the sand, and her body would never be found. The thought made her cry even harder. Her tears became wails, and the princess threw herself upon the mysterious object in the middle of the desert, screaming her grief out into the desert night underneath the stars.