The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [66]
“Excuse me, Mr. Map, but the lady alchemist said you’d know where to find my friends?”
“Now why would I know that?” Mr. Map licked his pen--his tongue was all black with ink, and the pen’s bristles filled up with it. He returned to his map. “Seems to me a friend knows best where friends are.”
“They…were taken. By two lions, the Marquess’s lions. She said their strength came from sleeping, but I didn’t understand…I guess I understand now.”
“Do you know where I learned my Art?” Mr. Map said nonchalantly, sipping a hot brandy which seemed to materialize in his hand. September could swear she had not seen him pick up a snifter from his side-table. “Fftthiiit!” sighed Mr. Map slowly, smacking his lips. “I promise, I waste nothing in asking. Like a ship, I always come round again to where I started.”
“No, Mister. I don’t know.”
“In prison, my kit, my cub! Where one learns anything worth knowing. In prison there is nothing but time, time, time. Time goes on just positively forever. You could master Wrackglummer, or learn Sanskrit, or memorize every poem ever written about ravens (there are exactly seven thousand ninety four at current count, but a no-talent rat down in the city keeps spoiling my count) and still you’d have so much time on your hands you’d be bored sleepless.”
“Why were you in prison?”
Mr. Map sipped his brandy again. He shut his eyes and shook his glossy curls. He offered it to September, who, having given up all pretense of carefulness, took a big gulp. It tasted like burnt walnuts and hot sugar and she coughed.
“That’s what happens to the old guard, my pup. You can always count on it. We who serve, we who make the world run. When the world changes, it stashes us away where we can’t make it run the other way again.”
Mr. Map opened his eyes. He smiled sadly. “Which is to say I once stood at the side of Queen Mallow, and loved her.”
“You were a soldier?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I stood at her side.” Mr. Map blushed. It looked like ink spreading under his skin. His wolfy ears flicked back and forth in embarrassment. “You’re young, little fawn, but surely you catch my meaning. Once, you might have called me Sir and no one would have corrected you.”
“Oh!” breathed September.
“Fftthit!” spat Mr. Map. “All done now, and gone, gone to old songs and older wine. History. She’s just another in a list of Queens to be memorized, now.”
“My friend the Wyverar--the Wyvern said some people think she’s still alive, down in the cellars, or wherever the Marquess keeps folk…”
Mr. Map glanced at her, and his eyes drooped sadly. He tried a smile, but it did not quite work out.
“I met a lady in prison,” he went on, as though September hadn’t spoken. “A Järlhopp. They keep their memories in a necklace, and wear it always and forever. Since her memory is so safe, she never forgets anything she’s seen, and the Järlhopp--her name was Leef, and how furry and sleek were her long ears!--Leef taught me to copy out my own memory onto parchment, to paint a perfect path…a path back to the things I loved, the things I knew when I was young. That’s what a map is, you know. Just a memory. Just a wish to go back home, someday, somehow. Leef kept hers in that jewel at her throat, I kept mine on paper, endless paper, endless time, until the Marquess had need of me, until she sent me away to the wilds of the Winter Treaty, where nothing happens, where I cannot possibly cause trouble, where no one lives. And where there are no kind Järlhoppes to comfort me, or folk who might need maps to find their way.”
September looked at her feet. At the elegant, glittering shoes. The brandy warmed her all over. “I…I need to find my way,” she said.
“I know, little cub. And I’m telling you your way. The way to the bottom