Wisdom's Kiss

  So now life would be utterly perfect were it not for one small yet critical detail—a side trip he has insisted we make & that I have no choice but to accept...

  A Life Unforeseen

  THE STORY OF FORTITUDE OF BACIO, COMMONLY KNOWN AS TRUDY, AS TOLD TO HER DAUGHTER

  Privately Printed and Circulated

  SHE WAS SO CLOSE! She had to escape! Desperately Trudy fought—her very life depended on it!—beating against the man grasping her so tightly. Yet strong arms pinned her hard, and twist as she might, she could not locate a shin to kick.

  "Stop struggling, or we'll both fall!" hissed a familiar voice.

  Yes, it was true—they were not falling—not yet, anyway. Instead of a face full of mud, Trudy found herself—most bafflingly!—rising up! Through the air! The wind redoubled, rippling Trudy's hair, and to her utter, lifelong amazement she found herself looking straight into the face of none other than her beloved Tips, who held her in his strapping grip as they rose, inexplicably, into the clouds.

  A moment later, stupefied and gasping, Trudy found herself standing in the elegant rattan basket of the Globe d'Or. Tendrils of mist—no, clouds!—swirled about the basket's ropes, while far below, curled between the trees like an illustration in an atlas, was the road she had so recently trod; in the distance she could yet see the tavern and its yard, doll-size now, and a distant river looping through the pines.

  Trudy gaped as Tips sealed the trapdoor in the basket's bottom and stowed the block and tackle that had hauled them so smoothly skyward—a machine operated, she noticed with dismay, by none other than Wisdom. Not even tattered clothes could disguise the princess, who with cool efficiency coiled a spool of cable, never taking her eyes from a compass set in the basket's rail.

  "But—" began Trudy, "but you were poisoned!"

  Wisdom shrugged. "So they say."

  "But—" began Trudy again, turning to Tips, "but I did not see you!"

  "You were headed for the hilltop right enough. Which is just what I needed, because the cable wouldn't reach the valley. And your hair was like a signal fire." He smiled at Trudy, but his smile held pain as well, and regret.

  "She wasn't supposed to see us," the princess said under her breath. "That's why we stayed in the clouds."

  "It's not the balloon she didn't see; it's me. Trudy can—how would you say it? She can see the future."

  Trudy stared at Tips: that was a secret! One they had sworn to each other never to share, ever —and certainly not with Her Royal Dizzyness!

  Her Highness, however, did not react in the slightest, but simply scooped up the compass and shinned out of the basket onto an arrangement of wires and rods that didn't look sturdy enough to support a pigeon. With no apparent thought to the vast distance between herself and the ground far below, she settled herself onto a bit of bench and with a flourish spun backward and held out her hands, palms away. She was—most definitely—showing off.

  Tips approached Trudy, stroking her arm. "Please ... You've got magic, she's got magic—we're all in this together."

  Trudy shot a suspicious look toward the princess, who with her back yet to them both cocked one arm, snapped her fingers, and produced a great handful of flame.>

  Trudy gasped. The princess made fire! Magically! And didn't even appear burnt by it!

  Tips leaned toward Trudy. "Do you notice that we're sailing into the wind? Dizzy's creating air—wind—with her hands. She's blowing us east."

  Trudy could now discern the approaching trees bent toward them, and the mist that in violation of every law of nature swirled against and not with the gliding Globe d'Or. "Oh ... Can she do anything else?"

  The princess turned to them at last. "She can also make water so we don't die of thirst up here, as we jolly well can't drink from clouds, and earth so ... Oh! That's it! I'll make great heavy rocks so we can land!"

  Trudy couldn't restrain herself. "You mean that you don't know how to land this thing? What—"

  "I can land it now," the princess sniffed. "And what about you? You can see the future? Is that why you always looked like I was about to slap you?"

  Trudy nodded. Her vision had come true: Wisdom had hurt her. She and Tips had hurt Trudy terribly, and now all that was left was the ache in her heart.

  Trudy began to cry.

  "Well. I need to ... check things." So saying, the princess cranked her contraption up to the skin of the Globe d'Or and the rope ladder hanging from it and climbed the great sphere into the clouds.

  Anxiously Tips watched Wisdom ascend, and with equal anxiety he turned back to Trudy.

  "You—you—but you love me!" Trudy stepped toward him—then jumped at the hiss.

  "Forgot to warn you—we've got Escoffier with us," Tips explained unnecessarily as the cat glowered.

  "Glorious." Trudy, sobbing, collapsed onto the floor.

  Lashing his tail most expressively, Escoffier climbed into her lap, his hot rough tongue licking the tears that ran down her arms.

  Tips stared at her miserably. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you—I always thought I loved you. I still love you."

  Trudy had dignity enough to snort.

  "I do! I'll always love you. You're my family!"

  "No, I'm not!" Trudy wailed. "I'm nobody's family. Don't you see? You have your brothers even if they're awful, and that little man, and now you've got her, but I have no one at all. It's a huge big world out there, and there's no one in it for me!" Too overcome to speak further, she buried her face in Escoffier and cried.

  Queen of All the Heavens

  A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

  PENNED BY ANONYMOUS

  Act II, Sc ene iii.

  The Globe d'Or.

  Wisdom sits atop the Globe. Tips joins her.

  TIPS: 'Tis dangerous, this globe, and taxing. I scale it daily, and I am winded.

  WISDOM: I have no fear.

  TIPS: Brave does not mean safe, my love. Please, don this belt—I wear its mate. Attached to this cable, you may prance about at will. Secure your feet here: you can now withstand a tempest.

  WISDOM: How brilliant. With my Elemental Air I shall pilot our craft through the skies.

  TIPS: You are as an angel!...But an angel bereft of jubilation.

  WISDOM: O Tips! How could I celebrate when another sobs with broken heart?

  TIPS: The same pain fills me. Trudy is my oldest, dearest friend; yet I have hurt her dreadfully.

  WISDOM: If I had known...

  TIPS: Would you have stopped? I did know and yet could not. For though she is my dearest friend, she is not my true love. That title belongs to another...

  They embrace.

  TIPS: The sky darkens. We should land, my darling, ere night falls.

  WISDOM: No! Even now, Farina schemes against my home. Though I have hurt one girl, I may yet save another. Heaven knows it is the very least recompense I could make to my sister.

  TIPS: You would travel through the night? 'Tis some kind of madness!

  WISDOM: There is no sane alternative. If I weary, I need only imagine Roger—and his harpy mother!—claiming Montagne. Such nightmarish spectacle shall arouse me at once!

  TIPS: Caution, my love. In your ire, you resemble a beautiful raptor poised for attack.

  WISDOM: Then you are wise beyond measure to moor me to this Globe! No, vengeance waits until my sister, and her throne, are safe.

  TIPS: And Trudy, too.

  WISDOM: Yes, and Trudy, too. She deserves that, and happiness in abundance.

  TIPS: Let us hope it comes to pass, for there is no truer friend in all the world than Trudy.

  WISDOM: Well phrased, my love; and she has no truer friend than you.

  They embrace.

  A Life Unforeseen

  THE STORY OF FORTITUDE OF BACIO, COMMONLY KNOWN AS TRUDY, AS TOLD TO HER DAUGHTER

  Privately Printed and Circulated

  TRUDY BEGAN WEEPING even before she awoke the next morning. It took her several minutes, in fact, to reassure herself
she was awake, so close to dream-state did this world appear: impenetrable white extending to infinity; a ceiling of gold above her head; Escoffier blithely cleaning his whiskers. And, only an arm's reach away, Tips asleep ... with Wisdom asleep beside him, her head in his lap.

  No, this was not a nightmare; it was an ever-worsening reality. Not only had she lost Tips, but she was now forced to occupy this wretched bucket of a conveyance as nothing more than a pointless and miserable addendum. The princess would not even land to let her off—if even the princess could, about which Trudy had more than a few doubts—for she was apparently in a "dreadful hurry." Instead Trudy was trapped in the worst possible place in the world.

  Searching for a handkerchief to sop her streaming eyes, she found a scrap of paper tucked into her pocket. She opened it suspiciously, recognizing too well the heavy white vellum (ridiculously pretentious, Trudy had always thought, not that Tips was in any way responsible for his master's letterhead). Her suspicions proved correct, for it was a letter from Tips, written—so she learned from the first sentence—while he had sat outside the duchess's chambers in Phraugheloch. His words, true as they were—no, because of how true they were—cut her to the quick. He described himself as kin. Well, she didn't want kin! She wanted a lover—a mate—a husband! She sobbed in anger and despair.

  "What is it?" Tips whispered from the bench opposite. He eased away from Wisdom to settle beside her. Escoffier sat, one paw midair, observing.

  Trudy pulled away. "I don't want to be your family! I want to be your wife."

  Gently Tips shook his head. "We haven't talked in six years. Everything you think—it's your thoughts, it's what you imagine. But it's nothing to do with me. This is my life, here—"

  Across the basket, Wisdom shifted ... opened her eyes—and hurled herself to her feet. "Where are we? This fog—I can't see a thing! Why didn't you wake me? Where's the compass?...Why are you both just sitting there?"

  "It doesn't matter," Trudy said bitterly.

  Tips, overcome, stared at the floor.

  "Doesn't matter? It's the future of Montagne! It's my future, my sister's, it's—"

  Trudy glared at her. "It's what? It's my future too? No, it's not. My future is over. You stole my future."

  Wisdom recoiled. "How dare you!"

  "How dare I? What's that, princess talk? How dare you! You can have anything you want, in the whole world. Why did you have to take him?"

  Wisdom opened her mouth. She closed it again. "I'm sorry," she said at last. "I didn't 'take' him. I love him..."

  "I hope we crash into a mountain! That's what your future should be!" Trudy glared at the princess and spun to glare at Tips—

  Then froze. A beam, powerful as a lighthouse, flashed through the basket's weaving.

  "Trudy?" Hesitantly Tips broke the silence. "What is it?"

  Trudy rose to her feet, Escoffier joining her at the rail. She peered into the clouds. "Do you see that?"

  Tips and Wisdom glanced at each other and shook their heads.

  Now Trudy could see clearly. It was not a lighthouse, or a sunbeam—not natural light. It was joy. Shining out of the clouds was a promise of joy as powerful as anything she had ever known. She pointed with one quavering finger. "It's ... happiness. That way." She turned to the others. "What's in that direction?"

  "Montagne, of course," Wisdom answered promptly. Trudy and Tips looked at her, baffled, and shared a baffled look between them.

  Wisdom scowled. "What else would it be? Oh, please, don't be so obtuse. It's patently obvious ... Isn't it?"

  The Supremely Private Diary of Wisdom Dizzy of Montagne

  Any Soul Who Contemplates Even Glancing

  at the Pages of this Volume Will

  Be Transformed into a Toad

  Suffer a Most Excruciating Punishment.

  On This You Have My Word.

  Sunday—morning—

  I fell asleep! I don't believe it! Tips & I stood watch—we talked & talked atop the Globe avoiding the basket & that girl so miserable—she had Escoffier for company anyway. But then we did return & we fell asleep even tho we v. much didn't mean to & when I woke up we were in the middle of a great enormous impenetrable cloud completely lost & making matters so much worse Trudy was chastising Tips for the way he'd treated her being quite sharp which is v. unlike her & saying a great many things to him and to me too about which she clearly felt v. strongly—

  But then she stopped & peered off into the clouds & said she saw happiness which I should quite like to know what that looks like but it was not the time to ask so instead I pointed out—because the two of them together were acting as dim as a box of rocks—that given that she was returning to Montagne it would make sense for her to be happy.

  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.

  The Imperial Encyclopedia of Lax

  8TH 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 attr active.> 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.

  >

  A Life Unforeseen

  THE STORY OF FORTITUDE OF BACIO, COMMONLY KNOWN AS TRUDY, AS TOLD TO HER DAUGHTER

  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.