The Queen of Penesthelia and Firman The Brave 7

To the Uttermost West

So did Firman the Brave fulfill the third task set him by the Queen of Penesthelia. He and the Little Man of Gold and his horse Asil and his dog and the squirrel and the child passed silent by Clytemnestra where the men of war reigned, and crossed the Lesser Sea and its white waves and then the high lands between and went over the land of the men of war and came again to Penesthelia, all the while having thirty more adventures that I will neglect to tell you, because you would not believe me.

He appeared before the Queen, who had the golden beast of many legs and many feathers on her shoulder and the pearl of the mirror was in her fillet filled with the light of moon and stars, and her beauty broke his heart anew, for she was the fairest that ever there was in Penesthelia. And Firman the Brave bowed and presented the Little Man of Gold, who jumped as sprightly as a cricket, and he bowed so low to the Queen that he was almost bent in two, and then he sat by the arm of her throne and drew as long and a serious face as any of the Queen’s Councilors. And he had a long, long face, and dark dark eyes, and what went on behind those eyes no man knows.

And that was the third task.

The Queen of Penesthelia smiled on Firman the Brave but then looked sad. She said to him, “You have gone to the uttermost east, now you must go to the uttermost west, as far beyond Ortrera as Ortrera is from Penesthelia. There you will find a long, long Wood, and in the long, long Wood, you will find a gray, gray Wolf, and this Wolf you will bring to me to be my hound.”

“How shall this beast be bound?” Firman the Brave asked, “for the men of Ortrera have heard of this Wolf, and he is a wise and dangerous beast.”

“He may be bound with three things,” she said, “the breath of a fish and the spit of a bird and the beard of a woman, and those three things will bind him and bring him safely to me.”

“That sounds like no challenge,” said Firman the Brave,

“This only tells what you know,” the Queen of Penesthelia said, and she left his company.

So west they went through Penesthelia, and through Kyrassos of the copper, and Telmyrna of the jungles, and Rhakotis of the rivers, and Asterie of the shipwrights, and Myrnos of the mercenaries, and then into the plains of Ortrera where he was lord and a thousand horse rode with him all the way to Zarvanipur of glass and the glittering Kieselex beyond. And the men of war were already in Zarvanipur, but they were far from Aulis, and did not know Firman, who left his thousand horse behind, and rode into the Kieselex, which he soon saw was like a thousand knives, poured out in a thousand kilometers of glitter from a thousand black mountains a thousand thousand thousand years ago.

Asil put one hoof out, and drew it back, and the dog put one foot out and drew it back, and the child put one shoe out and drew it back, and the squirrel alone could run on the edges of the knives of glass, but no one else could follow.

“But how shall we cross over?” Firman the Brave asked, “and find the other side where the Long Wood and the gray Wolf are?”

An old man came up the road leaning on his staff, and he looked at Firman the Brave and he said, “Lord, why do you look so grim?”

“I have traveled from the uttermost east to the doorstep to the uttermost west, and I can go no further because of this land of glass knives. To me, it is impossible for any of us but the squirrel.”

“This only tells what you know,” the old man said. “Follow me, and I will show you another way.”

He led Firman the Brave and his companions to a high place with a steel tower. He led them to the top of the tower where he spoke into a device, and then across the plain of glass knives came floating a ship in the air as long as seven whales, painted in colors like the sky. It came to the tower and moored to it like a ship. Firman the Brave and Asil and the dog and the squirrel and the child stepped from the tower to the ship in the air like a sailor steps from a wharf to a ship in the sea, and the ship in the air floated west across the Kieselex, bearing them towards the long, long Wood.