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KING BERESFOR (to Blandamour, grudgingly) "Well, I don't suppose it would hurt for you to see it, just for a bit, though."
(He leads the knight to the inmost part of the castle, past guards, and carefully disarming traps. A massive steel door is reached, and he opens this with a golden key that he wears around his neck. The door opens, and a richly decorated room is revealed, with elaborate carpets and framed works of art on the wall. A superb table sits in the middle, with but a single chair. Upon it, nestled in a swirl of silk brocade, is an ivory vase, so elegantly simple that the glaze does not even completely cover it, but reveals the clay in a few places; but artfully, like a seductive woman baring skin. The glaze is faintly opalescent, and for some reason makes him think of a cedary smell, experienced once but never forgotten. Tranquility is in every curve, every variation of the color. Just to gaze at it makes him forget all of his worldly cares and touches his mind with the coolth of a child's spring morning, when all of the world seems new and green. Startled, he turns to the king, who smirks and says, "Yes, that is the vase called Peace of Mind. It was made by the master potter Ling Po as his masterpiece, an age ago. It is said that he made a dozen attempts before succeeding, each before it cracking in the kiln's fire. But finally he succeeded, and that is the result. It is mine, and I shall not part with it for a dozen daughters. I well know how to get more daughters, but there is only one vase like that."
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