The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

CHAPTER XIX
SILVER, BLACK, AND RED

In Which Prince Myrrh Receives Some Career Advice, September Receives a Silver Bullet, and the Alleyman Is Unmasked

The darkness that swallowed September up snapped back just as quickly. She did not feel dizzy or ill at all-but her head still spun and she stumbled a little under the force of sudden noise and light.

Everyone was yelling very loudly and all at once.

Prince Myrrh, quite awake and red with passion, shouted out in pain. Iago snarled and hissed at a red hat with two feathers in it floating in the air. The Alleyman had his Woeful Wimble out and was screwing it into the shadow of Prince Myrrh, while a lovely lady all in silver hurled loathing at the shadow of the Marquess. A big, burly man in a broad, black fisherman’s hat and rain slicker cried out for September to snap to, do something, and another lady, this one in a flaming red gown and red scarves and a red war helmet, leapt at the red hat, which bobbed and dodged nimbly.

September looked down. The pale Goblin’s brooch had gone dark. She had lost an hour, and in that hour, somehow, everything had changed. They all stood on the roof of the Trefoil, with the glittering lights of Tain spreading out below them and winds howling all around. The silver lady sat astride a great tiger, and the black-jacketed man rode a striped and hungry-looking lynx of enormous size. Winds, September’s heart knew before her head had quite caught up.

The Red Wind feinted and lunged for the invisible Alleyman, catching him with a loud crunch of bodies. Prince Myrrh, finding himself suddenly free, rushed to hide behind his mother. The shadow of the Marquess stepped aside in dismay. He reached out for her, wordless and sorrowful. “I can’t protect you,” the Marquess said desperately. “I have no magic. You should have waited for her. Your real mother, who looks like you and could break them all with a word.”

The Red Wind and the Alleyman suddenly disappeared over the edge of the roof, and all the shouting stopped.

“What’s happening?” September cried. “A moment ago we were in my house, or her house-”

“You followed me, child,” said the Silver Wind. “As you’ve been following me all the while. I am weak and small under the world, for there is no open air to whip me into my full power. But I could be a silver thread for you, flashing on in the dark. It is one of my specialties. The Green Wind loves to spirit away the discontent. I love to pull lost things out of the dark. You followed me across your own cornfield with the Black Wind in my boat. You saw me in the Upside-Down, in the onion-field, and in the cellar at the bottom of the world, a little silver sigh on the stairs when you did not know how to get out. You followed me again, back through the doors until you caught me, and I brought you here, just as fast as wind. The Alleyman was waiting for us,” the Silver Wind added darkly. “You rode on Cymbeline here, the Tiger of Wild Flurries, and you said your name was Glasswort, which I thought very strange, and that you very much enjoyed being a heroine and might look into it as a new career.”

September had to laugh, even in the midst of the chaos on the roof. I hope you did enjoy it, she thought. Because I do not enjoy at all not knowing what happened to me between the bottom of the world and the top. And to miss riding a tiger!

Prince Myrrh looked startled at the sound of her laugh. He stared at her with big, dark, wounded eyes.

“Hullo, Myrrh,” September said.

“H… Hullo,” he said softly.

But though he might have said more, the Red Wind swirled up behind him, her scarves flying. The Black Wind drew a crossbow covered in burls and blackberries and shot just beneath the red hat, which seemed now to be in the Red Wind’s grip, now to be gripping her. The arrow winged too far to the left and missed. He fired once more, and this one connected, driving home beneath the hat, but too far beneath and off center to be a fatal shot. Still, the cap crumpled to the roof, and the Red Wind stood over it, her face blazing.

Where the Alleyman fell, a stone knocked loose. Beneath it, a little plaque gleamed. September and the Winds crowded close around to read it.

RULES OF FAIRYLAND-BELOW

BEWARE OF DOG

ANYTHING IMPORTANT COMES IN THREES AND SIXES

DO NOT STEAL QUEENS

A GIRL IN THE WILD IS WORTH TWO IN CHAINS

NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF TEMPTATION

EVERYTHING MUST BE PAID FOR SOONER OR LATER

WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP

“But I know those words!” September cried. “I’ve been seeing them everywhere!”

The Black Wind nodded. “The Rules are older and deeper than groundwater. They are always in motion, always making themselves understood and obeyed. They are always following, always a part of the very land. They are Physicks-not Queer nor Quiet nor Questing, but pure Law. Halloween destroyed all the postings, but she couldn’t destroy the Rules. And here in Tain, the center of everything, she couldn’t even smash all the words themselves. This one, loyal public service board stayed whole. And haven’t you been following them, even if you didn’t know it? Haven’t you paid and paid, haven’t you found things in threes, haven’t you been tempted in your need?”

September had-and she was about to say so when the Red Wind yawned, bored stiff.

“Oh, bother that, brother Black! Let’s talk about something interesting! I haven’t had a brawl like that since the Cloud War!” The Red Wind exulted. She shook her dark red hair and pulled a pair of carved crimson pistols from her belt, tossing them into the air, catching them by the barrels, and offering them handle-first to Prince Myrrh. “If you mean to be King,” she said, “you might as well start by ridding your kingdom of a villain.”

Prince Myrrh stood up and gazed steadily at the Red Wind. He did look regal, for all his wolf ears twitched and his lip trembled. “I don’t mean to be King at all,” he said. “I have had a great long while to think about it, and I don’t want to. You can’t make me. I just got here. Anyway, being King is a fool’s game. You’ll only get toppled eventually, and in the meantime, all Kings seem to do is hatch schemes and plot. I’m a practical boy-I don’t see a need to scheme when I could just live my life and read books and learn magic and sit out in the evenings, perhaps make a friend who is not too interested in history. I just want to be a boy. I want to experience things like eating and jumping and running and dancing.”

“A King may dance,” said the Black Wind, whose voice was deep and beautiful as a full well.

“But not whenever he likes,” countered Prince Myrrh. “He may only dance when it benefits others, or when someone important wants to dance with him, or when dancing might accomplish some royal goal. I want to dance because I feel like it, because the water tasted sweet or the sun was shining-oh, how I would like to see the sun shine!”

“You should go up to the other world,” said the Marquess. “We can go up together if it would make you happy. We can find her, if you wanted to. I just want to lie down on the earth again-let the other me worry over her child and Fairyland and be stared at by everyone. She was always stronger.”

“Well, someone has to end this! End the Alleyman and Halloween and keep the worlds separate, or else we shall all have to get jobs in advertising, and I for one would rather blow out completely!” snapped the Silver Wind. “You are the Rightful King!”

“What does that mean?” cried Myrrh. “Rightful how? Anyone can be King if they’re bloody-minded enough, or unfortunate enough, or want it enough. Or even if they’re just born with the right parents, in the right order. That doesn’t mean anything at all. Why should I be King and a poor changeling child should not? I don’t know a thing about Kinging, and I daresay I’d be just as good at juggling if you forced me to. But no one calls me the Rightful Juggler! They used to fish for Kings in a lake, did you know that? Nod told me all about it. Doesn’t sound like anyone cares about Rightful until they want to kick someone else out of the chair. So thank you very much, but I want my mother. I want to be alive for half a second before I’m meant to shoot somebody!”

“Then who?” said the Black Wind, throwing up his hands. “If the magical object won’t do his work, what are we to do?”

“It’s been me all along,” said September slowly. “Me who gave up my shadow, me who went down into Fairyland-Below and Fairyland-Lower-Than-That to wake up the Prince. Me who shot the poor Minotaur. You oughtn’t just hand the whole business over the moment a Prince comes on the scene. I’ve got to see it through, don’t you see? The Hollow Queen is hollow because she’s missing the part of her that’s me. We’ve got to come together again. And he can’t do a thing about that.”

“Very well.” The Red Wind shrugged, turning the pistol handles toward her. It didn’t matter a whit to the Wind who did the deed, as long as it was done. She seemed to look at September fully for the first time. “You know, I do believe that’s my coat,” she mused. “And that is most certainly my cat.”

Iago roared-a roar of love and remembering and recognition and regret. He did not leave the Marquess’s side, but the roar said that he was sorry about it.

“I’ve never been able to bring myself to find another, since you left me.” The Red Wind sighed.

The wine-colored coat wriggled with pleasure. “You may keep it,” said the Red Wind expansively. “I gave it up, after all, when I had to go Below a century ago to battle with a young upstart ogre-maid who wanted to take my place. I thrashed her soundly, of course. Don’t get to be a Wind if you’re faint of anything.”

September took the wine-colored coat off anyhow, and gave it back to its mistress, who it clearly sorely missed. She could stand now, in her Watchful Dress, and not feel ashamed of her finery or herself. Nor did September take the pistols.

“She has her own, Red,” the Silver Wind said admonishingly. She dismounted from her Tiger, whose eyes fairly glowed in the night. The crystal moon showed a bold II on its smooth face. The Black Wind left his Lynx as well, and both held out their hands to September.

In one was a silver rivet, in the other a black one. The Red Wind sighed and reholstered her guns, joining her sibling Winds. She held a crimson rivet out on her palm.

“Take one,” said the Silver Wind. “Take one and bolt yourself to your shadow once more. The Alleyman is blooded. We can hold him-or kill him as you like. We don’t mind. Winds are cold in that way-after all, storms have no hearts.”

“I wish my Green Wind were here!”

“The Green Wind and the Blue Wind are Topside breezes,” said the Black Wind. “They deal in fresh, growing things. Only we venture Below.”

“What if I choose wrong? Are they very different?”

“We can only offer you ourselves. The Red Wind is a War Wind. The Silver Wind is a Following Wind, to fill up your heart and blow it along. The Black Wind, and Banquo, the Lynx of Gentle Showers, is a Fierce Wind, to blow one off course. We do not know which you need.”

September considered that she had been following the Silver Wind for so long, and it had brought her so far. She took the silver rivet and tucked it into the Rivet Gun’s tube, where the gun chortled and took it up. But she did not go down into the Trefoil-she could not yet.

September marched over to the Alleyman, and the Rivet Gun rejoiced, for it felt sure it was going to be Used most delightfully. September stood over the red cap as it lay on the roof with nobody beneath it. What a wretched, horrid creature! How hideous he must be, to hide himself with whatever magic made him invisible! She hated him, with all her galloping young heart. Her face flushed with anger, and September reached down and snatched the two vicious, horn-like feathers from his hat, throwing them to the ground.

The Alleyman shimmered and between two blinks, September could see him as clear as anything, bleeding from his shoulder, his dark face gone ashen.

It was her father’s shadow.