Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower - Tamsyn Muir Page 0,30

Cobweb shrieked, “Go!” she thrust out with her spear. It might have been harder had salamanders had hard stuff on top and soft parts on the belly, but the soft parts were well within reach, and Floralinda got it first try. Even better, the salamander, grazed by the venom-scrubbed tip of the sharpened shaft, took fright and jumped back down the staircase, not knowing it had been poisoned. It was dead very quickly.

Another salamander came up to investigate. Again, Cobweb shrieked, and Floralinda stabbed out wildly with the spear. This salamander escaped upwards into flight thirty-six, and Floralinda ran around the central pillar until the salamander flopped over, and died. By this time three more salamanders had emerged from the trapdoor, and whop!—Floralinda jabbed one with her spear, and whop! Whop!—two more, and it was just as easy as playing Blind Man’s Buff when you don’t have the blindfold on. The salamanders would have been difficult to kill with swords, since they were very quick and hard to catch with a fatal blow; but they had no defense against spider venom, so all Floralinda had to do was scratch their flesh and then stay out of their way for a little while. Their corpses sizzled and smoked against the cold stone floor.

There was a frightening moment when both Cobweb and Floralinda noticed that the tip of the spear had charred, from the heat of the salamanders’ skin, and all the venom had burnt off, and the point was in danger of catching alight; and yet there was another salamander coming up the stairs. They made what is called a ‘tactical retreat’, and Cobweb, who had thought ahead, doused the spear-tip in cold water, and re-applied the venom. Floralinda gripped the spear and went back to the head of the stairs, and immediately shrieked, for the salamander was right below her; it did indeed flick out its horrible tongue like a flame—it glowed red beneath the thick black leathery skin—but Floralinda stabbed downwards, which put paid to that.

It is very lucky that flight thirty-five was salamanders. The story would have been different had it been something difficult. That first victory was so easy, and so unexpected, that Floralinda laughed and cried alternately for half an hour afterwards; it was as simple as the first flights had been horrible, with the added sweetness that unlike the spider, who died by accident, she had set out specifically to make these things go away, and had managed it. It was like beginning an exam where the first questions were impossible, and then encountering a question along the lines of What sound do cats make (10 points)?. She was so excited, and so close to hysteria, that she ran rings around the central pillar ten times.

Once Floralinda had been calmed down, and once she had eaten some orange between two slices of bread, and unwillingly eaten a wren and a mistle-thrush, she took Cobweb in her hands and danced all around the top of the tower.

“Perhaps with this success you have grown independent and confident, and you’ll take off this chain, and enjoy getting down the rest of the way yourself,” said Cobweb.

“No, not at all,” said Floralinda earnestly, “for, Cobweb, I couldn’t have done that without you at all. I so appreciated you saying what to do, as it solves all my problems. My difficulty is that when I’m frightened, I have no idea, so I just empty my mind and do whatever you say,” she finished.

“The next few flights may not be so easy,” said the fairy.

But the next few flights were easy. In no time at all, Princess Floralinda travelled down three whole flights with no real difficulties. The harpy made things a great deal easier by flying straight at Floralinda first thing, screaming and trying to claw at her with her wicked talons and razor-sharp feathers; there was no time for Cobweb to scream anything like “Thrust!” or “Go!”, but the harpy flew into the point and scratched her arms, and lay paralyzed on the ground until Floralinda got up the courage to scratch her a few more times on her flanks. So too it went with the giant rats, who should have known better, as rats are intelligent; but I am afraid that Floralinda presented such a sight, nervously holding that spear as it shook, with its burnt-out tip, not looking at all like a danger, that they let themselves be scratched and died in record time.

The biting fishes were