| LIZARD | Ah, you came back. How nice, how gracious, how kind. Now, where did we leave off, where was I, let me see, ah, yes, yes indeed. The Princess. Lost in the forest, in the forest wandering wither we did not know. The forest was large in those days, large and mighty, a vast ocean of green on green and easy, so easy to be lost in. But during the day it was not a bad place, oh no, not bad, not during the day. We needed to find her before Night did, Night whose hooves are of polished lightening. But where to look? The forest is large.
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | How can a forest be so big? How can it have so very many trees? I have walked for hours and hours and yet can find no way out, I walk in circles, I am lost. And alone.
| ||
| VOICE | (from offstage, a tiny voice) Help me!
| ||
| CATHERINE | What? Who's that?
| ||
| VOICE | (as before) Help me!
| ||
| CATHERINE | Who's there?
| ||
| |||
| DEER | Help me!
| ||
| CATHERINE | Oh!
| ||
| |||
| The Royal Huntsman's trap! He boasts that no animal has escaped it!
| |||
| DEER | Help me!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Dear deer, if I'm to help you, you must hold still.
| ||
| DEER | (stops struggling) Help me?
| ||
| CATHERINE | I will try.
| ||
| |||
| It will not budge! Curse the Huntsman and his traps!
| |||
| DEER | Help me?
| ||
| CATHERINE | My ring! Please Ring, I wish this deer free!
| ||
| |||
| It worked! And look, your leg is as good as new!
| |||
| |||
| DEER | Thank you!
| ||
| CATHERINE | You're welcome, deer. Now go, and run, and step in no more traps.
| ||
| DEER | Thank you! Thank you!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Thank you, Ring.
| ||
| |||
| ALDRIC | Begone thou twisted shadows! Begone you voices who whisper fearful things into the dreams of sleeping children! Tis I, Prince Aldric, descended from a long line of Aldric's sworn to destroy your wicked kind. Begone, or taste of my blade!
| ||
| |||
| ALDRIC | Begone, I say!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Oh, Aldric, I am so very glad, I'm... hug me!
| ||
| |||
| Why did you scare me?
| |||
| ALDRIC | My disguise. Thinking me to be some relative of theirs the monsters even helped me find you.
| ||
| CATHERINE | You spoke to monsters?
| ||
| ALDRIC | I've no fear of them. I would have slain them, but for the information I needed to find you.
| ||
| |||
| Rain!
| |||
| CATHERINE | This forest doesn't like us.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Lets hid under that big tree.
| ||
| FOREST | Yyyesss.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Wait! Not all trees are good trees in this forest. But we need only find one tree whose heart is not yet rotten.
| ||
| |||
| ALDRIC | This tree.
| ||
| CATHERINE | But it is so small!
| ||
| ALDRIC | There is room enough for you. I will... stand guard.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Perhaps if we run further...
| ||
| ALDRIC | We are lucky to find even one good tree.
| ||
| CATHERINE | But it's not fair! I won't.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Cathy, our both being miserable does not make things better.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Wait. Little Ring, let me once more impose upon your good graces. Let Aldric be dry as well.
| ||
| ALDRIC | It rains, but not on us!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | A fire!
| ||
| ALDRIC | And, like us, no rain falls on it! A magic fire from the magic ring.
| ||
| CATHERINE | It was a gift from my father.
| ||
| ALDRIC | A gift of love. Cathy... I love you too.
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | 'I love you too.' How sweet.
| ||
| |||
| Now I have you both. No thanks to this stupid useless forest!
| |||
| FOREST | We are sorry, oh great and mighty Zama Kor, We thought he was monster and nothing more. Then his sword was terrible to behold, 'Twould make any forest thing something less than bold.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | Silence! I will have no excuses! For your failure, you great and stupid forest, one hundred trees shall this moment die!
| ||
| FOREST | Nooooo!
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | Tis done! Fail me again and a thousand of your children shall burn! Think on it!
| ||
| FOREST | We shall, mighty Zama Kor, we shall, we shall.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Aunt Wilhelmina! You really are a witch!
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | You'd better believe it, Sunshine.
| ||
| |||
| ALDRIC | Prepare to meet thy evil end, oh wickedest of witches. Behold and tremble, I hold the sword my people call 'Witch's Bane'. With this sword did King Aldric the Seventh slay 13 times 13 witches and cleansed all our land of their wicked magic! Thou shalt make it eight score and ten!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Run, Aldric, run!
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | Ah, how easily are these little mice caught! That is the penalty of power, it all becomes so easy. What can I not do?
| ||
| ALDRIC | Love. It there was just one spark of love in your cold heart you could not be so cruel.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | Oh? And tell me, what would you know of love, princeling?
| ||
| ALDRIC | More than you who never loved.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | I loved once.
| ||
| ALDRIC | And only once.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | It was enough. More than enough, far more. And more than that, who knows of love better, who knows more of its warmth and belonging and sharing than those who have it not?
I walk the world round, and all seems like it's winter,
A gatherer for frozen tears, the icy gems of love,
What of those who want to be loved but are not?
I look into your eyes at your face with all its answers,
What of those who want to be loved but are not? | ||
| CATHERINE | Perhaps if you were kinder, less cruel, you might find love.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | Silence! Speak no more of it! 'Tis better left to the weak who need it for a crutch. I need it not, I want it not, for I am strong!
| ||
| |||
| Aldric, you die first.
| |||
| ALDRIC | I care not for my own life, take it, it is yours, but spare Catherine.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | I think not. She is essential to a spell that shall restore to me my long lost beauty. But for your resemblance to Aldric you gain this much ~ a speedy death. A dagger to the heart and not just any dagger, no, this was to have been a gift to your ancestor, the match to his great sword, but alas, that sword bit me before I could match it to its mate, and now this dagger sleeps in a casket of living stone deep in a mountain's stomach. I must fetch it.
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | What shall we do?
| ||
| ALDRIC | I can think of nothing. I have failed.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Think harder.
| ||
| ALDRIC | My faith was in my sword, and now it is gone.
| ||
| CATHERINE | There is one wish left by my ring.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Wish us free!
| ||
| CATHERINE | I fear to wish too much lest all be lost. It is but a Ring of Little Wishes. I will wish you free.
| ||
| ALDRIC | No, if only one may go then let it be you.
| ||
| CATHERINE | My fate is sealed. It will find me wherever I am.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Then let me die with you!
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | Then die, Aldric!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Send Aldric to safety!
| ||
| |||
| KING | Catherine! Cathy!
| ||
| ALDRIC | King!
| ||
| KING | Prince Aldric! Where is Cathy?
| ||
| ALDRIC | She is imprisoned in the lair of Zama Kor!
| ||
| KING | Quickly, which is the way?
| ||
| ALDRIC | I know not, for I am brought here by magic.
| ||
| KING | We could search this forest for a year and still not find it.
| ||
| ALDRIC | We must! Cathy!
| ||
| CATHERINE | (from offstage, lots of reverb, whispered) Aldric.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Did you hear that?
| ||
| KING | I heard nothing.
| ||
| ALDRIC | My heart's ear has heard her heart's voice. That direction! Run!
| ||
| |||
| ALDRIC | And so we ran.
| ||
| KING | And we ran.
| ||
| ALDRIC | And we ran.
| ||
| KING | And we ran some more, but still we came not to the witch's lair.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Cathy!
| ||
| CATHERINE | (as before) Aldric.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Still she is before us, but we have run almost to the edge of the forest.
| ||
| KING | We should have reached there by now. The witch knows we are coming and moves her lair by magic.
| ||
| ALDRIC | We cannot out run such power.
| ||
| KING | I did overcome the witch's spell on me by pure force of will. Next to that sorcery this elusive lair is nothing. There is a way to defeat it.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Perhaps. But I cannot think of it.
| ||
| KING | I have it!
| ||
| |||
| Sword, take us to your previous mistress, your one time scabbard, Zama Kor.
| |||
| |||
| Defy me not, oh sword, for now it is I that command thee.
| |||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Father!
| ||
| KING | Cathy!
| ||
| ALDRIC | Cathy!
| ||
| CATHERINE | Aldric!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | I am still imprisoned.
| ||
| KING | Would that we could all be together once more.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | (offstage voice) Consider it done!
| ||
| |||
| KING | We can touch! Has she set you free?
| ||
| ALDRIC | Waste no words, lets leave while the opportunity is ours.
| ||
| |||
| KING | It is not your freedom that brings us together, but all our bondage!
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | So right, so very right. To keep you from my lair I tried to keep my lair from you. But what a clever king you are! Clever to the end.
| ||
| KING | I am ready. And am right honoured that you do fear me so.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | Fear you? I fear no one!
| ||
| CATHERINE | Then why do you keep us penned up?
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | Convenience!
| ||
| KING | You fear to do battle with me.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | You are free!
| ||
| |||
| KING | This shall be the second time this sword has bit you. There will not be a third!
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | Ha! I am much mightier than I was then, and you are not half the man that Aldric was.
| ||
| KING | Prattle on, weary thy breath with words. For myself my sword shall speak!
| ||
| |||
| KING | Blow after blow I dealt to her.
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | And blow after blow I blocked with ease.
| ||
| KING | Until I was sore and tired and could strike no more.
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | I win! You win the booby-prize and the booby-prize is death. But I am thirsty. I will imprison you whilst I take refreshment from a magic waterfall near here that flows with nothing but the finest imported beer.
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | We must escape ere she returns!
| ||
| ALDRIC | But how?
| ||
| KING | She will be back soon.
| ||
| |||
| Lizard!
| |||
| LIZARD | King.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Can you get us out?
| ||
| LIZARD | I did serve a witch and serving her I watched. If I had not learned some lore at least I could not say I was too smart.
| ||
| KING | And can you use your knowledge to help us?
| ||
| LIZARD | My great knowledge tells me that there is nothing you can do. There is no magic that may free you, no magic but one, and that is scarce indeed, for they were made by ancient powers, powers older even than my erstwhile mistress Zama Kor, and the secret of their making passed with those great powers long, long ago.
| ||
| ALDRIC | What were these things the ancient powers made?
| ||
| LIZARD | Wish rings. The great rings are all hidden or used up, but even a minor ring would be enough to break this spell, tis not the power of the magic, but the kind. Tis odd, princess, but methinks I see just such a ring upon your finger. Can it be so?
| ||
| CATHERINE | Aye, tis so, but it is depleted of its power, its wishes are all gone.
| ||
| LIZARD | But it is still gold. Such rings do turn to lead when their power is no more.
| ||
| CATHERINE | But I had three wishes of it, I know.
| ||
| KING | What did you wish?
| ||
| CATHERINE | I wished a trapped deer free, I wished for Aldric to be dry when it rained and for him to be free when we were caught.
| ||
| LIZARD | The selfless nature of your wishes are what causes your ring to still shine gold. You have been granted one more wish. A wish for you.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Could I wish you all back to the castle?
| ||
| LIZARD | For you, Catherine, yourself as well.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Would that not be too hard for it?
| ||
| LIZARD | You can but try and see.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Little ring, with whatever you have left, please, let us all be safe back at the castle!
| ||
| |||
| KING | Guards! Pull up tight the drawbridge! Secure the castle from attack! We'll lock ourselves in as tight as we can. It will take her some time to get at us now.
| ||
| LIZARD | Yes. Perhaps all of thirty seconds. Thirty-five if she encounters a head wind.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Speak not so gloomily, we shall find a way to defeat this witch. We have until your birthday tomorrow to plan.
| ||
| LIZARD | What time is it?
| ||
| KING | Past midnight I think.
| ||
| LIZARD | Then tis already the Princess's birthday. Tomorrow is today!
| ||
| ALDRIC | We need a plan.
| ||
| KING | A mighty force. A great army! I could withdraw all my legions from around the world and mount a massive defense!
| ||
| LIZARD | Oh King, no earthly power however great will ever defeat the power of Zama Kor.
| ||
| ALDRIC | There are other witches in the world, are there not?
| ||
| LIZARD | None as great.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Perhaps we could get a band of ten...
| ||
| LIZARD | Not enough.
| ||
| ALDRIC | A hundred then, a hundred witch's all plying their power against her.
| ||
| LIZARD | For the descendant of a king who hunted down and killed their kind? I think not.
| ||
| ALDRIC | They need not know about me. You have the connections, you yourself are weird in their way. You could find a hundred witches for us.
| ||
| LIZARD | I am flattered that you think I have such influence with the weird, but they do not work well together in groups, certainly not in groups larger than thirteen. Put a hundred witches in a room together and shortly thereafter all you would have would be one great black and smoking crater.
| ||
| KING | Then what shall we do?
| ||
| |||
| LIZARD | We thought and we thought.
| ||
| ALDRIC | And we thought and we thought.
| ||
| KING | And we thought and we thought some more.
| ||
| LIZARD | But for all our thinking there was but one thing we thought that we could do.
| ||
| KING | We gave the Princess Catherine a birthday party.
| ||
| |||
| K&J&L |
Happy Birthday, Catherine Happy Birthday, Catherine Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday...
| ||
| |||
| CHOIR |
Shillum illum killum, akabar roo, Okus horus modious, scaborous droo, Hilter kilter calander, gumpcious lie, Pan piston, pan plato, pan portious pie.
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | She's coming! She's coming! I can feel it in my heart! It is bursting from my body!
| ||
| KING | No, Cathy, no, it will not happen!
| ||
| CATHERINE | I can feel it father! She's coming!
| ||
| KING | She cannot take you! I will not let her!
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | So, mighty king, lord emperor of the world's greatest empire, tis time to pay the price!
| ||
| KING | No! You cannot! Please, take it all back, I don't want it anymore, take even my little Apple Kingdom, but leave me my daughter!
| ||
| ZAMA KOR | Such a ransom for one little girl! Has ever in all of history there been a woman bought for more? It is not enough. She is mine by force of contract, a contract governed by powers far greater than mortal law. She will spend her last moments as a bluebird! Oho kalimar altkas gree, Wagman transpan, holopsi bree!
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | Now! To work on my great spell! And then I will come back and finish all of you! Your last vision on this earth will be of my beautiful face, my beautiful form, and you shall know that thy daughter...
| ||
| |||
| ... is dead.
| |||
| |||
| ALDRIC | What can I do? What can I do? There the mightiest monarch in all the world sits crying like an infant, powerless, how much more so me? We stand against an unbeatable foe, who wields such evil and power that there is nothing in the world that may stop her. Nothing.
| ||
| LIZARD | One thing.
| ||
| ALDRIC | What?
| ||
| LIZARD | Love.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Lizard, toss no words at me, we need something mighty, not words for poetry, not idealistic cloud fancies wielding vapor swords.
| ||
| LIZARD | Dismiss it not so quickly, it is more than a word, it is a power in the world. True, we must give it form, we need a manifestation. Do you love Cathy?
| ||
| ALDRIC | Yes.
| ||
| LIZARD | And she you?
| ||
| KING | Yes, she did ask my permission to marry Aldric, but I could not give it.
| ||
| LIZARD | Then this is what you must do. You and Cathy must marry.
| ||
| ALDRIC | How?
| ||
| LIZARD | There is no way to reverse the Witch's spell, but I do know that spell, the spell of the bluebird. I could turn you into a bluebird, and you could fly to her.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Fly? Like a bird?
| ||
| LIZARD | You would be a bird. One thing though.
| ||
| ALDRIC | What?
| ||
| LIZARD | I'm terrified of magic. I've never done it before.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Never?
| ||
| LIZARD | Never. And another thing.
| ||
| ALDRIC | A good thing I hope?
| ||
| LIZARD | I could not change you back. Ever.
| ||
| ALDRIC | In my dreams I have soared above the world, above a single canvas without seams, and I laughed as the planet rolled beneath my wings, but that was only in my dreams.
| ||
| LIZARD | In my dreams I have carved, with forces mighty, massive mountains flanked by chasms deep. Laughing, I've pulled wheat fields from the desert, but that was only in my sleep....
| ||
| A & L | When the time comes to make my dreams come true, when the time comes to do more than just cry, when the time comes to take a chance, to do it all for real...
| ||
| LIZARD | I'm afraid of magic.
| ||
| ALDRIC | And I'm afraid to fly.
| ||
| LIZARD | Spells can twist your heart until you're heartless.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Those who dare to fly must surely fear to fall.
| ||
| LIZARD | Magic moving mountains makes for a faithless world.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Far safer on the ground, to run, to walk, to crawl.
| ||
| LIZARD | Yet with magic I could help you find your joy.
| ||
| ALDRIC | If I could I'd fly to her right now.
| ||
| LIZARD | Just one bit of magic so much good could do.
| ||
| ALDRIC | And most frightening of all, we know how. .
| ||
| A & L | When the time comes to make my dreams come true, when the time comes to do more than just cry, when the time comes to take a chance, to do it all for real...
| ||
| LIZARD | I'm afraid of magic.
| ||
| ALDRIC | And I'm afraid to fly.
| ||
| LIZARD | I'm afraid of magic.
| ||
| ALDRIC | And I'm afraid to fly.
| ||
| KING | But if you have the means then you must! You cannot let Cathy die at the hands of that sorceress. You can't! Think of Cathy!
| ||
| LIZARD | Yes. I will find the courage. Prince, can you?
| ||
| ALDRIC | I do not always think of the answers, I have no wish rings, no wisdom nor lore, I no longer even have my sword, but I can see what is right. And I can do what is right. Do it. I am ready.
| ||
| LIZARD | I can never change you back.
| ||
| ALDRIC | I know.
| ||
| LIZARD | Very well. All my life I have seen magic used for evil and I have grown to fear it, but this once let magic be done for good, let your love aid the magic. Let it be done.
| ||
| LIZARD | Oho Kalimar altkas gree, Wagman transpan holopsi bree!
| ||
| |||
| (shouting over the wind) See her in your mind! See her in your heart! Think of her!
Oho Kalimar altkas gree,
| |||
| |||
| Now fly! Fly! She may yet have a little time, but you must use all the speed your wings will give you! Fly!
| |||
| |||
| Wipe your eyes. The day may yet be ours once night is done.
| |||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | It's simmering, it's simmering! Come morning it will be aboiling, a sticky precious goo in which I'll cook your heart, and then we shall make a beauty cream such as the world has never seen! I must tend the coals, for they are made from the heart of a living mountain and need watching lest they burn too hot. Come morning, come morning! Time has never passed so slowly!
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Aldric! Have you been changed too? Has she caught you?
| ||
| ALDRIC | No, Cathy, I've been changed of mine own free will. I have not been caught.
| ||
| |||
| I have come to rescue you.
| |||
| CATHERINE | I am tied and the knot is cunning.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Let me try.
| ||
| |||
| CATHERINE | Aldric! Watch out!
| ||
| |||
| It cannot be opened from the inside. Now you are trapped too, and because of me.
| |||
| ALDRIC | Cathy, listen, there is a way to defeat the witch.
| ||
| CATHERINE | What way?
| ||
| ALDRIC | Love.
| ||
| CATHERINE | I have always believed so, but my faith has never been so tested.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Marry me, Cathy. Do not wait upon your father's permission.
| ||
| CATHERINE | It seems so long ago I asked him. His voice said 'no', but his heart was saying yes.
| ||
| |||
| ALDRIC | Cathy, when you have given your heart to me it will not be for the witch, and she will be defeated.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Who will marry us?
| ||
| ALDRIC | The fish of the sea, the animals of the land, the birds of the air, they need no priest to marry them.
| ||
| CATHERINE | It's true. Yes.
| ||
| |||
| ZAMA KOR | Tis time! Tis time! The rooster crows and the cauldron bubbles! Tis time! What's this? Two bluebirds. Tis the Prince! NOOOO! All is ruined! All these years for naught! A married princess is no good to me! I need a maiden princess, a maiden princess! I have been cheated!
| ||
| |||
| I am sickened. Perhaps I should just die, just die, once and finally. Life is so unkind and I have breathed so much of it. It has worn away my soul and left cancer, nothing more. What is left to do? Vengeance, I suppose. Simple, bloody, exterminating vengeance.
| |||
| |||
| I am freeing you. Does that surprise you? Be not surprised. Fly back to the castle of the King. Tell him to prepare for the extermination of this world, my personal Armageddon. If I must die then all must die! Go!
| |||
| |||
| KING | She cannot mean it.
| ||
| |||
| She has not the power.
| |||
| LIZARD | She has, my lord. Zama Kor has lived for time measured in millenniums and every year has made her mightier. I fear she intends to wipe out all life on this world, all life but mine, I must forever live in this world after she has done, and I envy you your fate. She comes.
| ||
| ALDRIC | But we hear no thunder, see no angry clouds.
| ||
| CATHERINE | There is no raging wind rolling boulders on the plains.
| ||
| LIZARD | No, there is none of that. But the farmers cry out that their animals are dying, their children are sick, and their crops have withered and dried. The sun blazes and rivers are dry to their beds.
| ||
| KING | There has been sickness before, there have been droughts, why do you put Nature's tragedies to the credit of the witch?
| ||
| LIZARD | Because, my lord, they spread like a black and bloody bulls-eye from the lair of Zama Kor.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Is there nothing we can do?
| ||
| |||
| Lizard?
| |||
| LIZARD | Probably not. No. I don't think so.
| ||
| ALDRIC | 'Probably' not? What do you mean?
| ||
| LIZARD | Not at all. Highly doubtful. All right, yes, there is a way, there is something I have long feared to do, a spell, a spell that could for a mere instant render Zama Kor powerless, a mere mortal.
| ||
| KING | Why have you not made this spell long before this great threat to us?
| ||
| LIZARD | It is not a trifling magic. The power it demands is greater than that which I possess. It would have killed me.
| ||
| CATHERINE | Then we dare not do it.
| ||
| LIZARD | Yes, Princess, we can, for now I cannot die. That fear is gone.
| ||
| ALDRIC | Then let us do it!
| ||
| LIZARD | No, let us not, for I could only make it last a moment. In that time she would have to be slain.
| ||
| ALDRIC | That is as it should be! Let her die as she should have died millenniums ago when the sword of my ancestor bit her flesh!
| ||
| LIZARD | You forget, Prince, that she has fed me and taught me, she protected me from great birds that sought my flesh, she gave to me the gift of words, the power of speech. Is not my betrayal of her great desire enough? I will not betray her to death.
| ||
| ALDRIC | If you do not help us with your spell all the world will perish.
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| KING | It would seem, gentle Lizard, that a terrible decision is thrust upon you. If you choose to spare your mistress you will condemn all the world to die.
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| LIZARD | Ah, were it not so! It is too much for a poor reptile. What do you think, Catherine? What should I do?
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| CATHERINE | I cannot say. I do not want to die, but the decision is not mine, it is yours.
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| LIZARD | Only to save a world. Only for that.
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| ALDRIC | Then you will do it?
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| LIZARD | Yes.
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| KING | Come, let us meet her then. To the garden from whence it all began so many years ago, beneath the Apple Tree.
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| ZAMA KOR | Good-bye. I have come to say that. Good-bye. That is all. It is finished.
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| CATHERINE | You cannot do this!
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| ZAMA KOR | No? And yet it is so. It is going. Do not fly from it, Prince Bluebird, do not try. When you returned to earth as all flying things must, you would find no seed to feed upon, no blade of grass, no insects. You would not die of hunger. Long before that your little heart would shatter to see the desolation.
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| CATHERINE | No!
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| ZAMA KOR | The last thing to go will be this tree. I will wrap my arms around it, and it will cease to breath. It will fall, and I with it, never again to rise, or kill, or hate, or weep, or be alone.
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| KING | You must not do this to the world! It should not be punished to appease your anger! It is unjust! It is unfair!
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| ZAMA KOR | You would know, you who cheated me of the one thing I desired. You who robbed me of what was mine, given me of your own free will all those years ago. This is how it ends. This is the only way it could ever be. Endings are final.
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| LIZARD | Please, leave the world be. Go in peace.
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| ZAMA KOR | You, Lizard, friend and betrayer, you always were a lover of the sunlight. You've escaped my night and become my enemy.
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| LIZARD | We are not your enemies. You have no enemies.
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| ZAMA KOR | What you say will be true soon. Once vengeance is done.
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| KING | Vengeance! Your vengeance is not important!
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| ZAMA KOR | What is important, King? Do you know? Did a golden horn protrude from the bashed-in head of your last victim and proclaim to you the truth?
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| KING | Yes. Something like.
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| ZAMA KOR | What did it say? Tell me, I would like to hear.
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| KING | We've got to stop the killing. We must cease the destruction and the senseless breaking of things. We must love one another and stop the hurting, end the pain, and simply be.
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| ZAMA KOR | 'Be'? Be what?
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| KING | We must be nice to each other!
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| LIZARD | Atbar salamar yokah at!
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| ZAMA KOR | Aaahhhh!
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| ALDRIC | Quick! Slay her now while she is powerless!
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| ZAMA KOR | What is happening!
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| ALDRIC | What are you waiting for! Hurry!
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| LIZARD | (through his teeth) P... please, I... I can't hold this... I...
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| KING | No.
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| ALDRIC | What!
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| KING | No. The words I spoke were not empty. My time of killing is done.
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| SWORD | FEEEED MEEE! FEEED MEEEEEEEEEEE!
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| KING | The time of blood is over, the time of killing done. You'll drink no more, my love, with your shining plunging tongue. Don't tell me what you gave me as you moved beneath my hand, spilling souls from the guts of men, with dying eyes they damned me. Yes, I know, I loved you as you gave me what you wanted, and oh, how through thin air you sailed, my phantom bride. How brilliantly you struck like some avenging fury, and you whispered you were mine for all of time. I didn't have to think, action came before decision. I thought I served myself, but I served your only mission. Now I see the light that shows your truth as lies, and my bloody soul is pierced by all our victims' cries.
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| SWORD | FEEEED MEEE! FEEED MEEEEEEEEEEE!
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| KING | NO!
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| LIZARD | I... can't... I... I...
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| ZAMA KOR | I was powerless, yet you did not kill me. You could have saved the world, and yet you did not. Why?
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| KING | It would not have been a world to live in, a world whose future was so bought. No tree would grow straight, no stream would be pure.
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| ZAMA KOR | Then Vengeance wins.
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| CATHERINE | Did my father's words mean nothing to you? Did the language of his actions not speak to you with even stronger voice?
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| KING | It is not something she is capable of understanding.
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| ZAMA KOR | Isn't it? Because it's beyond my experience, perhaps? You've never been nice to me!
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| CATHERINE | I have!
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| ZAMA KOR | No, not to me, to who you thought I was, to Aunt Wilhelmina.
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| CATHERINE | I don't care what you call yourself.
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| KING | I did not think you felt the common pain.
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| ZAMA KOR | I cannot think of the last time somebody hugged me. Could it have been so very long ago?
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| KING | Then live with us. No one should have been so alone for so very long.
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| CATHERINE | Yes! You must!
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| ZAMA KOR | You would let one as ugly as I amongst you? To live with you?
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| KING | You are not as ugly as all that.
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| ZAMA KOR | I am!
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| KING | It doesn't matter.
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| ZAMA KOR | It's an apple. It's just an apple. Was it never anything more?
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| KING | No.
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| ZAMA KOR | And yet, just an apple is... I could not make this.
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| KING | We don't have to.
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| CATHERINE | Aunt, the land sickens and dies. Help it.
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| ZAMA KOR | No. It's stopped. Shhhh... It's shrinking. That destruction came from my sick heart, but that's changing, mending. It will not be fast, it will not be easy, but this is strong. I had forgotten.
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| LIZARD | Can you reverse the spell you placed on me?
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| ZAMA KOR | Alas, no, I can only wish that your days are happy ones, and I can only ask that you remember me. And I cannot restore to life all those whom we have killed. The dead are forever dead, and nothing can rob them of their peace.
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| KING | There seems little we can do, so we will do little yet accomplish much. We will make amends as best we can. But for this moment, let us banish sorrow, for today is a beginning. I have not been this happy since... since I was a boy.
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| LIZARD | There was music, there was laughter, there was light.
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| There was such light in that place. All the walls and indeed the castle itself were torn down and we lived in the garden by our apple tree. The people chose new leaders and danced old dances, but every now and again there was a new step and I had another tale to tell. My mistress Zama Kor did not extend her life by magical means, but died when her time came, and it came, it came for all of us but I. For centuries thereafter the tree was blessed by the children of Cathy and Aldric, the bluest and most songful bluebirds this world ever knew. There are other stories I could have told you, other friends born, grown old, and died. And there will be more stories yet, and when people journey to the stars I will be with them and tell to them my tales so they will not forget, but the time of the bluebirds will be the time I remember best, the time I most cherish. Once upon a time,
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| ALL | a long time ago, For that's the way these stories go, Once upon a time, a sigh across the years, Initials in a stone, a reflection in a tear.
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| LIZARD | Goodnight. END OF PLAY © 1995 Eric Pettifor
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