Wisdom's Kiss (21 page)

She & Tips looked at each other & she said she wasn't from Montagne. Which is completely stupid because of course she is! Why else would she have that ridiculous name—which I doubtless could have phrased more tactfully but it's not as if mine's any better. Wisdom? Temperance? Providence? These aren't names—they're not even decent virtues! A good virtue is being able to fly or to write thank-you notes in your sleep or something like that. At least Fortitude is something I would appreciate possessing particularly given how regularly I betray the name I bear now.

So I said that even tho she might not be from Montagne her mother must have been and I asked what
her
name was and Trudy said as if winning an argument that it was Mina. "Which is short for...?" I asked. Because everyone I know with a name so pretty & short has a real name behind it that's ugly & long. Then Trudy thought for a moment & then whispered because you could tell she was only just remembering that her mother's real name was Mindwell. Which is extremely ugly & extremely virtuous & only someone from Montagne would ever inflict something that awful on a poor defenseless little baby girl!

Which I said—altho somewhat better than that I hope—& Trudy thought for a long while & then nodded so you'd think she was agreeing to wage war & she looked into the cloud & pointed.

If she is wrong we will crash into a mountain & die. But I don't think she is.

I'm v. pleased that I apologized to her about Tips. She deserves it.

8
TH EDITION

Printed in the Capital City of Rigorus
by Hazelnut & Filbert, Publishers to the Crown

MONTAGNE, CHATEAU DE

Situated at the mouth of the great fertile valley of Montagne, overlooking the switchbacked road that constitutes the valley's only point of entry, Chateau de Montagne has for centuries been the best-defended fortification in the empire, and possibly its most attractive. As the Kingdom of Montagne has historically been linked to sorcery, so, too, was its royal seat, and for many generations men whispered of magical passageways secreted within the chateau walls. The chateau's roofs and parapets, framed against the mountain of Ancienne and culminating in the high "Wizard Tower," present a most arresting spectacle. Within the chateau, the inner courtyard displays a neoclassical symmetry utterly devoid of repetitiousness or pedantry. Of particular note, and open to the public on state holidays, are the Great Hall; the Hall of Flags; the Throne Room; the Ballroom, paved in rose and ebon marble; and the Solstice Terrace. Recently erected on the north face of the chateau, the terrace projects over the high cliffs that define and protect the Montagne valley. Though most definitely to be avoided by acrophobics, the terrace provides an unmatched vista of the western mountains, particularly at sunset.

T
HE
S
TORY OF
F
ORTITUDE OF
B
ACIO,
C
OMMONLY
K
NOWN AS
T
RUDY, AS
T
OLD TO
H
ER
D
AUGHTER

Privately Printed and Circulated

MINDWELL!
Trudy had not thought of that name in twelve years!

It was wondrous, in fact, that she recalled it at all. Trudy could not have been more than five when she overheard a conversation between her mother and a handsome traveler as the Duke's Arms wound down for the night. Where are you from, the man asked, because your accent is not of Alpsburg. Normally Mina ignored such questions with a shrug, but this night she only laughed and replied, "My true name is Mindwell and that is answer enough."

Trudy's young mind could not fathom such a name, and Tips when she told him replied she must have dreamt it. And so Trudy agreed she had, and believed it until this moment. But it had been no dream. Her mother had been named for a virtue. Her mother—who had promised to tell her someday of her heritage but died before that promise could be fulfilled—her mother had come from Montagne.

Tips nodded. He had not forgotten Mindwell either.

Now Trudy stood in the basket of the Globe d'Or, pointing one shaking finger into the cloud that engulfed them—staring until her eyes ached and tears streamed down her face—and announced, "That way."

Escoffier pressed his warm body against her as he, too, peered into the blankness. Tips stood on her other side, though Trudy was far too preoccupied to concern herself with him, or Wisdom. She had more important concerns, for the vision of joy shining from those impenetrable clouds drew her with the same relentless power that draws the magnet north.

Escoffier began to mew, his tail lashing. Yet Trudy could see nothing in that oppressive white mist ... and then she could. "Look!"

A post loomed out of the cloud. No, not a post. An iron spire, attached to a steep conical roof sheathed in tile.

"It's a tower!" exclaimed Wisdom. "Good heavens, it's the Wizard Tower, of our chateau!" She could not resist a hug—though only a brief one—to Trudy. "You're brilliant! Now we can rescue Teddy, and Montagne!"

The cone shape slowly materialized ... revealing a platform carved into the slope as a pier is carved into seafront stones, edged with heavy iron rings.

"It's a dock!" Tips clapped Wisdom on the back. "How clever!"

Instead of elation, however, the princess blanched, her face clouding with something close to fear. "I've ... I've never seen that before. The Wizard Tower is—well, just be careful, will you? It's not—it's not human."

"Of course it's not; it's a tower." But Tips's fingers strayed to check the buckle of his sword belt, and he could not resist an anxious glance at Trudy.

She smiled back at him, beneficent in her newfound authority. To her, the tower radiated only peace. "It's fine."

So reassured, Tips leapt out as the basket scraped against the platform's slate pavers, helping Trudy (how nice it felt, his hands on her waist, however briefly!) and securing the balloon to the great iron rings.

Instinctively—for the tower, she could see, was
expecting
her—Trudy reached for a small door tucked into the platform wall, and before Wisdom could do more than strangle out a warning, she drew it open. Escoffier at once dashed into the dimness. With a reassuring glance at Trudy, Tips followed. Wisdom, on the other hand, kept a tight grip on the basket rail, testing the slate pavers against her weight. She smiled grimly at Trudy, then entered.

Marveling at her burgeoning confidence, Trudy ducked through the dark doorway herself. Almost at once she stumbled upon a spiral staircase, each step no wider than she was. She could barely make out a room—or roomlet, really—spread below her in the gloom. Vague shadows shifted in the corners as she descended.

Wisdom stood in the roomlet's center, staring at the spiral staircase as though she'd never seen it before. "I've never seen this before," she whispered hoarsely. "And I've been up here hundreds of times. Thousands..."

"It keeps going, you know." Tips stood, Escoffier mewing around his ankles, studying a hole in the floor: the spiral staircase continuing downward.

Wisdom slipped to Trudy's side. "Is this safe?" she whispered. "Because there's another staircase over there, a real one, that's the one we're supposed to use—that's the one I always use, and I know exactly where I end up—I mean, I've always known up to now, anyway—I'm babbling, aren't I? But that hole doesn't look safe to me."

Trudy, mesmerized, moved toward the darkness. "We have to go down there."

Wisdom again shuddered and then, belatedly remembering her position, declared that she should lead; it was her castle, after all. With a flourish and a mutter, she produced a bright handful of flame that sent the shadows flickering.

And so, princess at the fore, they descended.

The descent lasted hours—no, that was impossible. It could not have been more than ten minutes, but in that sepulchral darkness it felt interminable, the dust and damp melded into a slime that coated the impossibly narrow treads, the rough walls abrading Trudy's skirt and fingertips, the incessant and nauseating turning ... and always the throbbing insistence, shining from the depths, that they
hurry.

"Found it!" Wisdom called out at last, though "it" would have been quite difficult not to find: a wide, crude door with a latch fashioned from a shovel. Tips—who, Trudy now recalled, had always been a bit claustrophobic—at once pulled the door open a crack and breathed a sigh of relief at the daylight that seeped in. They all jockeyed to see, Escoffier worming his way between their legs.

"Where are we?" Tips whispered.

Wisdom snorted. "Of course! The gardening sheds. That's where she always is—she likes
plants
." Stating this as if the concept were absolutely inconceivable.

Hurry, hurry, yes—but where, exactly? Peering past Tips's elbow, Trudy observed a courtyard cluttered with flowerpots and wheelbarrows and great mounds of dirt; a greenhouse filled one wall. In the distance several men repotted flowers as a farmer led a horse and wagon.

"I can't go out there," Wisdom continued. "If word spreads that I was seen in Montagne when I'm supposed to be in Farina practically dead ... Besides,
she
never listens to me anyway."

I can't imagine why not, Trudy thought. She felt a pang of sympathy for this Temperance person; life could not be easy with a sister like Wisdom. Trudy peered out again past the clutter of rakes and shovels, examining the gardeners, the greenhouse—

A blast of emotion struck her, so powerful that she staggered back.

Tips caught her elbow. "What is it?"

"Something—someone—greenhouse—" Trudy gasped, overwhelmed by the sensation of crisis and by the imperative need for haste.

Wisdom yanked open the door. "Go!" She pushed Tips, then Trudy, through the opening. "
Save her!
"

FELIS EL GATO

Impresario Extraordinaire ♦ Soldier of Fortune
Mercenary of Stage & Empire

LORD OF THE LEGENDARY
FIST OF GOD
Famed Throughout the Courts and Countries of the World
&
The Great Sultanate
*
THE BOOTED MAESTRO
*

W
RITTEN IN
H
IS
O
WN
H
AND
~A
LL
T
RUTHS
V
ERIFIED
~
A
LL
B
OASTS
R
EAL

A Most Marvelous Entertainment. Not to Be Missed!

***

THE TRAGIC INCAPACITATION of the winsome Princess Wisdom—less than a day after Her Highness, to our most mutual satisfaction, had made my acquaintance—was a heartbreak not just to me, the duchy, and all the empire, but especially to poor Tomas, who was altogether destroyed by this crushing news. Departing his quarters in extreme wretchedness, he stumbled upon the Globe d'Or moored and lonesome in a field, forgotten in the tumult of tragedy. Despondently he climbed aboard (so he later reported to me), only to find the vessel occupied already by an impoverished lass seeking shelter from the lowering clouds, a lass who as it happened bore an uncanny resemblance to the poisoned princess. Perhaps it was this that caught the lad's attention, for soon he found himself conversing with the girl so intently that neither noticed the loosening of my well-tied knots, and the balloon floating, unmanned and without power (for
someone,
a miscreant whom I have never been able to identify, had removed the charcoal and the brazier!), into the heavens. So high were they when finally they realized their terrifying predicament that their shouts did not reach earth, and the two huddled in each other's arms, their fate in the sway of the pitiless elements, the wind taking them they knew not where.

I must pause here to clarify one matter, for rumors have circulated for decades that this maid, bearing the dull but respectable name of Violet la Riene, was none other than Princess Wisdom traveling incognito. This—as I more than anyone in the empire should know—is patently impossible. Her Highness had the pleasure of my company on two occasions, once for several hours, and Violet la Riene flourished for many years under my brilliant tutelage; I better than anyone can assert that the two young women were as different as is day from night. The princess had a radiance unmatched by any commoner. She spoke with grace, sweetening her words with noble gestures and kindly sentiments, in a manner that Violet la Riene, much as I enjoy the girl, could never hope to match. Indeed, Mademoiselle la Riene at times spouted a vocabulary more suited to sailors than lasses, words that would never soil the lips of a princess. The two differed in height, coloring, and the placement of moles. I concede that Mademoiselle la Riene's skill upon the stage, and her magnetic effect upon every audience before which she appeared, were quite reminiscent of Princess Wisdom, but that should be ascribed wholly to my skilled instruction and my ability to transfer the inspiration with which Princess Wisdom had filled me into another adept performer.

At that moment, however, trapped in that vessel of doom, the two could not possibly perceive the future success of Violet, or of Tomas, paired with her in the ring and out. Instead they sailed through the heavens—so they described to me later, with understandable pain—in the belief that every breath would be their last, for if the Globe d'Or did not crash to earth, killing them instantly, it would doubtless impale itself on a tree or mountainside, leaving them broken, slowly to perish of exposure. At one point Tomas, peering over the side, recognized the red locks of that ubiquitous Trudy, and tossed her a rope, that she might draw them to safety. Lamentably, the boy's good intent surpassed his reason, for the powerful sphere lifted the tavern wench at once, giving her no recourse but to join the duo in the basket.