But a machinist’s daughter can be shrewd and practical. And can’t there be snow and enemies and red lanterns and somersaults? And at least one mushroom ring? That would be the best thing, really, if she can manage it.

There must be blood, the girl thought. There must always be blood. The Green Wind said that, so it must be true. It will all be hard and bloody, but there will be wonders, too, or else why bring me here at all? And it’s the wonders I’m after, even if I have to bleed for them.

Finally, September stepped forward and, quite without knowing she meant to do it, dropped to one knee before the witch Goodbye. She bent her head to hide her trembling and said, “I am just a girl from Omaha. I can only do a few things. I can swim and read books and fix boilers if they are only a little broken. Sometimes, I can make very rash decisions when really I ought to keep quiet and be a good girl. If those are weapons you think might be useful, I will take them up and go after your Spoon. If I return”—September swallowed hard—“I ask only that you give me safe passage back to the closet between worlds, so that I can go home when it is all over and sleep in my own bed. And … a favor…”

“What sort of favor?” said Goodbye warily.

September frowned. “Well, I can’t think of anything good just now. But I will think of something, by and by.”

The moon peered over the clouds at them. With great solemnity, Hello and Goodbye spat into their hands and shook on the bargain.

“What about the lions?” Goodbye said fearfully.

“Well, I have some experience with big cats. I expect lions are no more fearsome than Leopards,” answered September, though she was not quite so sure as she sounded. “Only, tell me, where does the Marquess live? How can I get there?”

As one, the three witches pointed west at a cleft in the cliffs. “Where else?” said Manythanks. “The capital. Pandemonium.”

“Is it very far?”

They all looked shamefacedly at their feet. More than “very,” then, thought September.

“Good-bye,” said Hello.

“Many thanks,” said Goodbye.

“Farewell,” said Manythanks, and kissed her very lightly on the cheek. The wairwulf’s kiss joined the Green Wind’s there, and the two of

them got along very well, considering.

The full moon shone jubilantly as September strode up over the dunes and into the interior of Fairyland with her belly full of witch-cake. She smelled the sweet, wheat-sugar scent of sea grass and listened to distant owls call after mice. And then she suddenly remembered, like a crack of lightning in her mind, check your pockets. She laid her sceptre in the grass and dug into the pocket of her green smoking jacket. September pulled out a small crystal ball, glittering in the moonlight. A single perfectly green leaf hung suspended in it, swaying back and forth gently, as if blown by a faraway wind.

CHAPTER IV

THE WYVERARY

In Which September Is Discovered by a Wyvern, Learns of a Most Distressing Law, and Thinks of Home (but Only Briefly)

September woke in a meadow full of tiny red flowers. She had walked through the night, watching the moon slowly fall down into the horizon and all the dark morning stars turn in the sky, like a silver carousel. It was important, she reasoned, not to fall asleep in the dark where deviant things might carry her off. No matter how tired she was, or how sore her bare foot, she would wait till morning, when she could be assured of the sun to keep her warm while she dreamed. And the sun had pulled up a warm blanket of her light over the little girl, tucking her in with gentle beams. September’s long hair had dried on the meadow-grass. Her orange dress was only a little stiff now from the salt of the sea. She yawned and stretched.

“What happened to your shoe?” said a big, deep, rumbling voice. September froze in mid-stretch. Two blazing, flame-colored eyes danced before her. A dragon was staring at her with acute interest, crouching like a cat in the long grass. His tail waved lazily. The beast’s lizardish skin glowed a profound red, the color of the very last embers of the fire. His horns (and these horns led September to presume the dragon a he) jutted out from his head like a young bull’s, fine and thick and black. He had his wings tucked neatly back along his knobbly spine—where they were bound with great bronze chains and fastened with an extremely serious-looking lock.

“I … I lost it,” said September, holding herself utterly still so as not to spook either the dragon or herself, her arms still stuck out into the air. “It fell into the sink as I was climbing onto a Leopard.”

“That’s not losing it,” the beast rumbled sagely. “That’s leaving it.”

“Um,” said September.

“Don’t wear shoes myself,” the dragon haroomed. “Tried when I was a wee thing, but the cobblers gave me up for lost.” He rose up on heavily muscled hind legs and, balancing carefully on one of them, flexed one enormous three-toed scarlet foot. His black claws clicked together with a sound like typewriter keys clacking. “You’re very quiet! Why don’t you say something? Why don’t you do a trick? I’ll be impressed, I promise. Start with your name, that’s easiest.”

September put down her arms and folded them in her lap. The dragon hunched in close, his smoky-sweet breath flaring huge red nostrils. “September,” she said softly. “And … well, I’m very scared, and I don’t know if you’re going to eat me or not, and it’s hard to do tricks when you’re scared. Anyway, where I come from, it’s a known fact that dragons eat people, and I prefer to be the one doing the eating if eating is to be done. Which it hasn’t been since last night. I don’t suppose you have cake? I think dragon food would be all right, it’s only Fairy food I’m to watch out for.”

“How funny you are!” crowed the beast. “First off, I am not a dragon. I don’t know where you could have gotten that idea. I was very careful to show you my feet. I am a Wyvern. No forepaws, see?” The Wyvern displayed his proud, scaled chest, the color of old peaches. He balanced quite well on his massive hindquarters, and the rest of him rose up in a kind of squat S-shape, ending in the colossal head, which bore many teeth and a thick jaw and snapping bits of fire-colored whiskers. “And you must have very rude dragons where you come from! I’ve never heard the like! If people show up to a dragon’s mountain yelling about sacrifices and O, YE, FELL BEAST SPARE MY VILLAGE this and GREAT DRAGON, I SHALL MURDER THEE that, well, certainly, a fellow might have a chomp. But you oughtn’t judge any more than you judge a lady for eating the lovely fresh salad that a waiter brings her in a restaurant. Secondly, no, I don’t have any cake.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean any offense.”

“Why should I be offended? Dragons are a bit more than cousins, but a bit less than siblings. I know all about them, you see, because they begin with D.”

“What is your name, Wyvern? I should have been more polite.”

Tags: Catherynne M. Valente Fairyland Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net