Myths of Origin Four Short Novels - By Catherynne M. Valente Page 0,21

skin. His voice is soft as rain:

“Within the bowels of these elements,

where we are tortured and remain for ever,

The Labyrinth hath no limits,

nor is circumscribed in one self place;

for where we are is the Labyrinth,

and where the Labyrinth is, there must we ever be.

Hoo.”

I slept.

15

The pancreatic morning breaks sickly and yellow.

Again, the thumping body, the hang-over from delirium. This, at least, holds to pattern, grinding millstones in my grisly head, scarlet shame frothing and gurgling like spoiled port, grapes trampled underfoot, stains of burst fruit spreading like sin. As I wake the Monkey is perched bird-like on my chest, picking expertly at my aquamarine hair, grooming me as he would a member of his troop.

“It is poisoning you, the Stone, cyanide in your pretty blue cells,” he informed me with some cheer as he mussed with my curls. I answered sleepily. “It was just a rock. I escaped the Angel. How can it hurt me?”

“Hoo, hoo, Darlingblue! I escaped the Angel when I took it from you. You are still within Her. She wanted you mad and gibbering, and you are obliging. It is all going so well. You did not swallow it, so you could not master it. It licked at you like a grassfire. I took it so that you could not conquer it, so that you would follow the path that lunacy has laid out in such profound bricks. If you were your singular body, you could not follow me, tread so heavily this Road. Only the mad are Seekers-After. You are burning, girlchild. It is beautiful to see. The Stone is Doubt. It is Pernicious. You ought to pay more attention, you know. You have lost your eyes and are changing bodies like ball gowns. Were you so malleable and myriad before She came with Her swathes of ice?”

“Hic monstra delitescunt. But she cannot be the Villain. There is no Monster at the Center of the Labyrinth, no Minotaur, no Beast. I know it. That is not the meaning of this place. And why would she harm me? Why would you keep me from deliverance?” He nodded sagely. “This is Assassination. You have no choice. It is a game that has been played and played before. This is the Way. There is no Monster. But there are many monsters hereabout, as there are many Centers. You are a monster, I am a monster. She was, and a Center, too. You should have showed her your teeth. Instead she is poisoning you like mistletoe on an oak, because you thought she was beautiful and you let her. Hoo. Now you are very sick, and you will continue to spend your nights speaking in the breakwater tongues of the Labyrinth and clawing at the earth until your bones weather to white on the wide lanes of the Road. Or possibly light blue. As for howandwhy,” he shrugged wheat-shaded shoulders. “She Devours. It is the Way. Can’t you trust that the tale unfolds as it should?” He was contorting his graceful fingers rhythmically, tapping my body like a piano.

“No, I can’t. And how is it you know so much, Beast? Who are you?”

A long, slow smile spread across his features, widening the wrinkled face to a glowing jack o’ lantern. “I am myself and no other. But nothing here is precisely what it is.”

“Ssst!” I snorted, grinning. “I know all that. Who are you?” He laid one finger alongside that squat little nose and uttered his syllable.

“Hoo.” The air was suddenly filled with his wild laughter, leaping across the Road and careening off Walls, cavorting and thoroughly enjoying his joke. Catching his breath, he giggled, “Oh, Darlingblue, that was lovely. If you are very, very good and promise not to strangle me during your funny little fits, sometime soon I shall show you my name, then will you know. Until then, mum’s the word.”

The Monkey was off on another fit of hooting acrobatics. “But you,” his voice calmed, became grave, “are in trouble. I would like to help you, very much, very much. But I can’t. My Medicine is not for you.”

And so I was falling again, lost in the newness-which-was-not, lost in waves of golden fur and shining eyes, winks of I-know-what-you-don’t and shrugs of self-satisfaction. Lost, not just strange and Wandering, but diseased and poisoned, asps worming towards my great indigo heart that very, very moment. My voice cracked like a clay pitcher: “Is there nothing to be done?”

The Monkey flicked at a gnat on his saffron