QUEEN
ALEXIS
Alexis was, according to the Legend of
Wishbringer, the wife of the
platypus Anatinus, and Queen of
Misty Island in the mid-tenth century.
Their dominion extended to the platypus castle in the
Mithicus
Mountains. In her youth, Alexis was one of the most fair of all
platypuses in
Quendor, and she hoped that her own daughter too
would be in her image of beauty. The legend tells that Queen
Alexis' newborn daughter, cursed by fate and prophecy, was born blind.
She was unwilling to look upon her blind child's face. Concurrently,
Morning-Star was born into a peasant home, who was blessed with rare
and perfect beauty. This baby, more beautiful abd perfect than her own
daughter made the Queen jealous. Envy breeds evil. To ease her heavy
heart, Queen Alexis caused the simple peasant home of Morning-Star to
burn. The sleeping family perished, all but Morning-Star, who, being
rescued by the Queen's design, became her daughter, whom she claimed
had her sight restored by prayer. The one true princess, who had been
left behind to fill the vacant cradle, perished too, and never saw her
mother.
The years were kind to Morning-Star. Her beauty
blossomed like the fragrant water-lily into full, abundant maidenhood.
Many knights already sought her fair hand in marriage. On her
seventeenth birthday, Anatinus made it known that whosoever might
desire to win the hand of Morning-Star, should now come forth to claim
it. According to the custom of the kingdom, the groom had to prove his
worth by fulfilling a love-quest of the Queen's own choosing. Many were
the eager knights who journeyed to the royal palace, hoping there to
win the love of Princess Morning-Star. Alexis, dark with envy, watched
the lusty swains descend like vultures around her daughter, and vowed
in secret not to let them have her.
From the knights
assembled, six were chosen, and stood before the heartless queen for
testing. But the crafty Alexis devised impossible love-quests for the
suitors.
- The first brave knight, a lad of twenty-one years,
was sent across the sea to beg Lord Nimbus, God of Rain, to quench the
thirsting Fields of Frotzen. But that pseudo-god, not sympathetic,
smote his vessel with a bolt of lightning.
- The second knight,
a weapons-bearer, strong of limb and spirit, scaled the mountain peak
of Matter-Horn, to seek Advice from spirits. The hopes of Princess
Morning-Star fell with him.
- A third knight ventured forth to
try the fabled Wings of Icarus, and learn the secret method of their
Flight, to please Alexis. But whilst soaring home to claim the
princess, the joyful knight flew into the open maw of Thermofax, a
dragon.
- Alexis sent the fourth knight deep into the Mines of
Mendon to slay a grue, and drag the carcass up where all might see it.
But Darkness overcame the hapless knight, who, lost without a lamp, was
soon devoured.
- Another knight, the fifth, directed by the
Queen to steal the Coconut of Quendor, chanced upon a lair of hungry
Implementors, and did not Foresee his peril.
- Lastly stood
before the Queen a gentle boy, no older than the Princess. Morning-Star
liked well his beardless smile, and begged her mother not to test his
Luck too harshly. But Alexis caused the youth to spend an evening
amidst an unclean cemetery, from where he never returned; for eldritch
vapors carried him away, and gave no reason.
Afterward, Queen
Alexis cried, “Is no man in the kingdom fit to wed my only daughter?
Methinks she must remain unmarried, then, and a virgin all her days.”
So it was Written. Morning-Star hoped death might grant her Freedom
from the edict of Alexis, by her mother's timely passing. But the
Reaper (busy elsewhere with a plague) heard not her praying; so Alexis
lived, and laughed, and watched her daughter's beauty fade away, and
all her wishes dwindle in her bosom until her demise. This caused
Morning-Star's heart to harden into the magic stone
Wishbringer.
Gladys
The Evil One, seemingly enthralled by this tale, had a series of 13
paintings hanging in her tower, showing a tragic sequence
involving a beautiful princess and a wicked queen.
It should
also be noted that in 966 GUE, the same peasant that would uncover the
Coconut of Quendor from the
Ur-Grue lair observed the furry Queen
Alexis in her private garden at the castle in the Mithicus Mountains.
As there were no doorways into the garden, this red gowned platypus,
with dark, beady eyes, was only able to enter by teleportation (or an
aerial mount). In a hidden comparment of a brogmoid statue she had an
enchanted crystal bubble jar. Its magical circlet was able to blow
silver bubbles which quickly transformed into flat round mirrors.
It was into one of these mirrors that Alexis, hoping to be admired,
commonly asked "Mirror, mirror in the air, who in Quendor is most
fair?" Much to her frustation, while Morning-Star was alive, it always
returned with "Your Highness once was fair, 'tis true, But Morning-Star
is WOO WOO WOO!"
It may also be of note that anyone whom the
Queen wished, suffered exquisite torture at her skilled hands before
being led away to many years of backbreaking labor in the
Granola Mines
of
Antharia.
| SOURCE(S): Wishbringer (game, The Legends of Wishbringer), Beyond Zork |