Myths of Origin Four Short Novels - By Catherynne M. Valente Page 0,39

and release, a hot rush of that fermentfire air as he rasps his words in a rush, orgasmic larynx shredded by my jade nails as we fall, downdowndowndowndown.

“ —hanc quoque Phoebus amat. Carissima! Ederis!”

24

Rain of rice-clouds as we pass through him.

The thick throat full of bats and chewed rope flies by, and it is not so much down as through. Through the twisted body of the Minotaur, skating on bulbous intestines and pancreatic oil-paints, slicing his flesh with katana-limbs as I go, Devouring what flanks and flesh-handfuls I can seize, savoring the smoky meat, full of fennel and scorched crow’s wings, his black blood dripping from my willow-chin as mine did from the Angel’s. I enjoy now the biting and tasting as she did, the cello-bow slide of flesh into my belly. It is Power. With each sink of my teeth into him, his teeth into me, I hear him hiss like a kettle, the low comfort-hoo of the Monkey at my side, and my own triumphant wolf-cub yelps. What a lovely little concerto we make, the three of us in the dark. But as it is begun I can see that I was mistaken.

This is not the important thing, the passingthrough, the Devouring. My white-armed Death is not comprised of this sooty bullbody. There are many Detours. After all, something lies ever on the far side of any Door. And I could see it as soon as

(it snapped at her, did the Door, and she fell in. Downdowndowndowndown—)

we were inside, lying like a hearth and waiting. What lies inside a Door? What do you see in the sky? Only Another and Another and Another, a Door toleading within the Door fromleading. Doorswithindoors unto the end of the world, the disappointing climax of entrance, knowing that there is always one more, always another Wall, another step, another bridge across the doom of ages.

The second Door glows red as from a forge, a dull and angry light illuminating the muscled walls like a manuscript. It beats inevitable like a deer-hide drum in the distance. Thuhthumpthuhthumpthuhthump. We might as well be patient. Thump.

25

Such a simple thing, opening a Door.

And stepping through, such an accustomed sequence of muscles and fingerbowl-joints; habitual, thoughtless, even. As though from a lustral basin, I sprinkle sacred drops of the Minotaur’s spinal fluid on my brow as we exit his Doorbody. (Have I done this before? Am I doing it right?) Anointed one am I. Dark to light we move, from the museum-arches of black bone to a dusty cloud of subtle gold, as though the wind had swallowed the last possible ray of saffron sun from a dying sky and choked on its beams, coughing out a cigar-puff of topaz-kindling into the little room where we stood suddenly, having stepped through a dilapidated closet Door, draped in rags.

The Monkey climbed cheerfully up my treebody and perched like a parrot on my shoulder, looping the long noose of his tail around my neck, a pretty tableau of gold against green. It took some time for our eyes to adjust, like waking up, peering and hazing. If I had had pupils they would have been struggling valiantly for just the right aperture to take in the little hut where we found ourselves safe.

It was her scream that brought me into focus, instantly aware of the new Walls, knotted shelves sagging with thick-bound books, the forked red of the fire in her hearth, flames feasting on the crisp pages of still other volumes, inexplicably interdicted and condemned to the stake. Tall, slender jars like sentinel herons, bundles of dried branches and herbs hanging like a tangle of roots from the ceiling, scenting the room with an unpleasant odor of rotted wood and rosemary. Thick brown pelts covered the floor, and in the corner nearest the fire sat a woman curled into a rough-hewn oak chair far too large for her frail frame, dwarfed by the high warped back, feeding another book to the fire. All this I took in like a breath, lined with the ragged razor of her voice screaming high, tearing, hawk-like.

The scream penetrated my body, coiling like an eel around the Compass within, spinning the needles, a twisting ribbon of tongue roiling through my ravaged flesh. Her so-human voice scored me like a whip, this realwoman, the first I had seen, without wings, without glass skin, just an old woman crumpled into her last chair, wrinkled and dog-eared, her house full of strange beasts.

Of course, it was