by Tamsyn Muir
And Cobweb felt a little nauseous.
Flight Nine-Two
“Well—that is that, Cobweb, dear,” said Floralinda.
The poison had nearly given out by the time they got to the minotaur; but as it happens, Floralinda did not really need poison by the time she got to the minotaur, and had asked to save up the strongest batch for the first flight. Strong men would have quaked at the giant bat, and knights have died to basilisks; but the only flight that really gave Floralinda any problem was the worms, because she screamed.
She tried to smile, but it did not look quite right on Floralinda’s face any more. There were hard lines around the eyes and mouth that had first come there from pain, back when she had boiled her hands after the goblins; and then there were the little puckers from seeing things that people ought not to see. It was not that she did not smile any more, and it was not that she did not laugh—how she had laughed at the slime, before going and fetching a brazierful of flaming coals!—but it was a strange expression, like shoes she was still trying to break in.
And when she said, ‘That is that’ she did not sound quite as happy as she ought to have done. She sounded hungry, as though she had said, Pancakes; she also sounded strangely rueful. It was a beautiful evening when she said it: the snows had stopped falling quite so hard as in the early-winter blizzards, and the woods were deep and crisp and still instead.
“I will admit,” said Cobweb, “I didn’t think you could make it all the way down. In fact, I was pretty certain you couldn’t. The odds were against you.”
They lapsed into silence, until the fairy said—
“You must listen to me.”
And Floralinda raised her head to listen.
“The dragon will be different,” said the fairy. “You’re handy with that spear now, and a mild paralytic helps. You’re fit and quick, too; and you have practiced thinking the only thoughts that are worthwhile in a battle. But you are not a prince. I don’t really know what you are now, but it’s princes who battle dragons; even then, most of the princes have been crunched up. There is every chance that you are going to get crunched up tomorrow too, which will be very disappointing, but I hope you think, ‘Oh, well, I did my best’ before you are eaten all the way.”
“I don’t think I will be able to think that,” said Floralinda honestly. “I think I would be cross instead, and hope that I choked the dragon, and give it a good few kicks going down its tubes; I was thinking about filling my pockets with the rest of the poison, just in case.”
“That’s wonderfully vindictive,” said Cobweb.
“Yes, it makes me feel horrid; but you see, Cobweb, I truly mean to beat it; I know the princes all died, but I’m different.”
“How?” said the fairy.
Floralinda puzzled this over, and in the end said—
“Don’t you see that I want it much more than they do; they didn’t want anything except me, and they didn’t even know me. Or the golden sword, which sounds like it would only be good for melting down.”
There was not much even Cobweb could say to that, but Cobweb had not quite made her point, and she said again—
“Well, wanting something is all well and good, but I think you’re going to die tomorrow.”
“It’s not fair to die right before Christmas,” said Floralinda, “it ruins it for everybody, and most of all yourself.”
Cobweb said, “Let me go.”
And it was very silent at the top of that tower, inamongst all the dried fishes (nearly gone) and the hearth with the cauldron, and Floralinda’s rat-hide cloak sitting horribly on the bed, looking uneven and alive, and the wash-stand, and the ruined curtains, and the enormous collection of pith, and the wheaten loaf and the white, and the flask of milk, and the flask of water, and the f---ing orange.
“You can think for yourself,” said Cobweb. “You can fight for yourself. I’ve no idea what advice I would give about the dragon; I think you ought to make a run for the exit and get out that way.”
“I’d call that cheating,” said Floralinda.
“No, listen to me; it’s a dragon, and you are a—whatever you are, I’m sure I don’t know. I have come this far with you, and I don’t want to go any farther. Take the chain off my neck, and perhaps I’ll even stay with you.”
“No, you won’t,” said Floralinda.
“No, I won’t,” agreed Cobweb, “I will fly out of here the first thing, just in case you try to catch me in a net, and if I ever see you again I’ll kill you. But you should let me go, unless you mean to kill me with you. Also, if I have these rings on for much longer I’ll get scoliosis.”
Big tears filled those blue eyes. They dripped down Floralinda’s cheeks, and made her look a little bit like the girl that Cobweb had first seen lying back in the bed, ashen-faced, and not clever enough to know that she was going to die. That was Floralinda’s main fault, thought Cobweb; she was so silly that she did not even know when to give up.
“I know,” she said falteringly, “only—only—”
“I’ve done what I said I would do; I’ve gotten you down here with all the cleverness you needed; I was even a girl for you, though frankly, I don’t think there’s much to recommend it, and I worry that the whole experience has given me a complex,” said Cobweb.
“Yes, I know, dear, it does that; only—”
“Let me go, Floralinda!” cried Cobweb.
It was the first time that Cobweb had ever said her name.
Floralinda screwed her eyes shut and gave a low, choky cry. She reached over, and all at once she furiously thumbed the awful stuck latch on her golden chain; and it went flick, and suddenly the weight was removed from Cobweb’s neck. Both the fairy and the girl looked at each other; Cobweb’s hands flew up to her throat, wonderingly, and her wings beat hard like hummingbird’s wings, and she took to the air.
“Oh,” she said, “oh!”
And:
“I hope the dragon annihilates you!”
And Cobweb flew towards the fire, and sprang up the chimney like a piece of paper, and was gone.
Floralinda lay herself back on the bed and pulled the rat-skin cloak over her. The fire crackled in the hearth, and she stared up at the ceiling. She knew that she had done a good thing—or if not a good thing, something she ought to have done a long time ago, in response to something she never should have done at all. The worst part about trying to make good a sin is that it does not make the sin any less ugly. She was sorry she had kidnapped Cobweb. She was sorry that she had let Cobweb go. She was sorry for everything.
And then she wiped her eyes.
“I don’t know why I’m waiting,” she said.
Floralinda picked up her spear.
Flight One
It was a lovely winter’s morning when the witch came back to the tower. The snow was in sparkling diamond drifts all along the tower’s base, and the air smelled like pine needles and the cold. She was aggravated by the mess at the base, though thankfully she could not see how messy it really was beneath the snow-fall. It was a heap of bones and goodness only knows what, sticking out, looking rather like a kitchen-midden. It was all very close to the golden sword and made the whole thing look shabby.
“If one goes to the trouble of setting up an aesthetic,” she remarked, “it is really too bad when other people come and have their own say-so. This isn’t commentary. This is simply offensive.”
When she went into the tower, she was more aghast than ever, and she said—
“You!”
For there was Floralinda, steaming gently in the winter’s morning, covered in dragon’s blood. Her arms and legs were cut all over, and her hair was sizzled, and her lips were split. There was also a dead dragon, as well as a pile of well-sucked prince bones.
The witch was not struck by the prince bones. In her line of business, she had seen so many prince bones that she could be said to be a connoisseur. She was surprised by the dead dragon, which was already hardening into a dead diamond mass,
and she was shocked by Floralinda.
“Yes,” said Floralinda, timidly.
The witch thought hard.
“Why, didn’t the prince like you?”
“He didn’t come,” said Floralinda, “or at least, I mean, lots came, but they didn’t manage it; and you never came back. It’s not that I expected you to, but I thought you might check in on me.”
“I only check when the thing’s over and done with,” said the witch, “it’s amateur hour, to look at it before it’s done; only I did think that it was taking pretty long. I was interested when I felt the dragon go, and then the rest of the tower triggered as completed, and here we are. It’s not an artistic failure, even if it is an economic one,” she added bracingly. “If you make the perfect mouse-trap, you had better hope for the perfect mouse,” and she laughed, and seemed put out that Floralinda did not laugh with her.
Floralinda said:
“Why have you come back now?”
“Well, to start fresh,” said the witch. “It’s a bit early, but I might as well start re-springing the thing. Well! well! you did do a number on it, young lady! I’m rather sore about that dragon you just killed, you know. Those were real diamond scales and teeth.”
“I know,” said Floralinda, and she smiled, faintly.
The witch said, “Perhaps this calls for a return to the basics. There’s nothing so appealing as a timeless classic: I’ll stagger things this time, and put the hardest ones up at the top, so that the prince feels as though he’s getting more competent each time. Zone of proximal development, you know. I don’t suppose you’d like to get back up there at the top?” she added, and she winked jovially.
Floralinda looked at her.
“Would you want me?” she said.
The witch looked at the curls that should have been butter-coloured, and were stained a rather less pleasant strawberry colour, owing to the blood. She looked at the eyes that had once been as blue as sapphires and were now hard like sapphires too. She looked at the rat-skin cape, and at the broken spear on the ground; she looked at the chapped, calloused hands.
“Not particularly,” she said. “I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings. I always speak my mind. What if I gave you a job instead?”
“A job?” said Floralinda.
“Yes,” said the witch, who had been thinking. “Never mind about the classics. Let’s take this thing further. I can see now that the only danger in art is being unwilling to go the whole hog. I want you right there, on the first flight; that’s going to get bums on seats. You at the bottom; princess up the top; how’s that for modernism, eh?”
“But I am a princess—or at least, a girl,” said Floralinda stupidly; but she could not stop the question creeping in around those edges, nor the tinge of panic.
The witch despaired only momentarily at mortal ignorance.
“How could you be either of those things?” she said, as kindly as she could. “You’re a monster—a rare and magnificent monster; perhaps even unique.”
There was a fluttering from the doorway, and Floralinda went white as a sheet. A common-or-garden fairy landed on her shoulder, and then looked as though it regretted the decision, when it saw all the blood. It wiped its hands onto its front, but moonbeams aren’t absorbent, so this was not very effective.
“Not one more word,” said the fairy to the witch. “Let’s talk numbers and practicalities.”
“Who are you meant to be?” the witch asked.
“Her agent. I haven’t read all those books for nothing,” said the fairy.
They talked numbers and practicalities for a while, and came to a deal that seemed to please both sides, although the witch thought that haggling with an auteur on the verge of genius was unkind. Once they had sealed the deal, the witch went and checked through all the prince bones, wanting to be thorough; she was so taken with her new ideas that she whistled with her teeth, and did not pay much attention to the quiet conversation happening behind her—
“Oh, Cobweb, darling!”
“I’m simply not fit for anything else but this,” said the fairy grudgingly. “My career was over years ago. Don’t mistake me: I expect to be angry for about five more years, at this rate.”
“But—you came back!”
“Yes,” said the fairy. “You see, I feel absolutely ill; I feel as though I could be sick at any minute, but I don’t know when.”
Floralinda burst into tears.
Flight Forty
It was early spring when she arrived. Tiny crocuses and little daffodils had sprung up in patches of white and yellow and purple among the trees, and great carpets of bluebells had decorated all the grass around the place where the golden sword was set. Floralinda stood before the sword, breathing in the nice spring air, then drew it.
It took a long time to go up every single staircase to the top. The golden sword was heavy; she preferred the balance of a nice spear, and in any case the sword was a bit—ostentatious, when it came down to it. She noticed with relief that there was a huge venomous spider in residence, though she was a bit startled at its bigness: it was about as large as four beds, scuttling to and fro.
When she got up to the top of the tower she knocked on the door. There were noises from within that sounded as though somebody was crying; they stopped in a hurry. After another rap, the door finally opened.
The princess had wiped her face quickly, but the tears were still visible at the corners of her eyes. They were astonishingly lovely eyes, like jet; she had long straight sheets of ebony hair, like midnight, and a silk dress.
She looked at Floralinda.
“Have—have you come to rescue me?” she gasped.
Floralinda proffered her the golden sword. The princess was very well brought up, so she took it, even though her delicate wrists bowed under the weight.
“Oh no; this is for you,” Floralinda said. “You see, I want a f---ing challenge.”
And Floralinda ran all the way back down and stationed herself, waiting.
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