Dragonfield by Jane Yolen Page A

It was so loud, the earth itself was shocked and opened up hundreds of tiny mouths in surprise. Into every one of those tiny mouths a seed or pip or nut popped and, in moments, they had begun to grow. We watched as years were compressed into seconds and green shoots leaped upward towards the sky. By the time the last echo of Mother’s shout had died away, a great forest of mammoth oak and thorny vines surrounded the palace. Only one small passage overhead remained open where the moon beamed down a narrow light. Inside the rest of the knotted wood it was as dark as a dream, as deep as sleep.
    “Come, children,” said Father.
    We rode the moonbeam up and out and, as the last of us passed through the hole, the thorns sewed themselves shut behind us over the deathly quiet. We neither spoke nor sang all the way home.
    Having read through the L’s in Father’s library, I turned my attention to the H’s, my choice dictated by the fact that the wall with those books has a window that overlooks the orchard. The gnarled old trees that manage to bring forth their sweet red gifts every year fill me with wonder. It is a magic no fey could ever duplicate. And so now I have a grounding in Hagiography, Harmonics, Hormones, and History. It has been a lucky choice.
    One of the books I read spoke about the rise of a religion called Democracy which believes in neither monarchs nor magic. It encourages the common man. When, in a hundred years, some young princeling manages to unravel the knot of wood about Talia’s domain, I plan to be by his side, whispering the rote of Revolution in his ear. If my luck holds—and the Cloth of Invisibility works just long enough—Talia will seem to him only a musty relic of a bygone era whose bedclothes speak of decadence and whose bubbly breath of decay. He will wed the scullery out of compassion, and learn Computer Science. Then the spell of the land will be broken. No royal wedding—no royal babes. No babes—no inheritance. And though we fey will still be tied to the land, our wishes will belong to us alone.
    Father, Mother, my sisters, my brothers, sometimes freedom is won by a long patience, something that works far better than any magical spell.

The Storyteller
    He unpacks his bag of tales
    with fingers quick
    as a weaver’s
    picking the weft threads,
    threading the warp.
    Watch his fingers.
    Watch his lips
    speaking the old familiar words:
    “Once there was
    and there was not,
    oh, best beloved,
    when the world was filled with wishes
    the way the sea is filled with fishes …”
    All those threads
    pulling us back
    to another world, another time,
    when goosegirls married well
    and frogs could rhyme,
    when maids spoke syllables of pearl
    and stepmothers came to grief.
    Belief is the warp
    and the sharp-picked pattern
    of motif
    reminds us that Araby
    is not so far;
    that the pleasure dome
    of a Baghdad caliph
    sits side by side
    with the rush-roofed home
    of a Tattercoat or an animal bride.
    Cinderella wears a shoe
    first fitted in the East
    where her prince—
    no more a beast
    than the usual run of royal son—
    measures her nobility
    by the lotus foot,
    so many inches to the reign.
    Then the slipper made glass
    by a slip of ear and tongue.
    All tales are mistakes
    made true by the telling.
    The watching eye takes in the hue,
    the listening ear the word,
    but all they comprehend is Art.
    A story must be worn again
    before the magic garment
    fits the ready heart.
    The storyteller is done.
    He packs his bag.
    But watch his fingers
    and his lips.
    It is the oldest feat
    of prestidigitation.
    What you saw,
    what you heard,
    was equal to a new Creation.
    The colors blur,
    time is now.
    He speaks his final piece
    before his final bow:
    “It is all true,
    it is not true.
    The more I tell you,
    The more I shall lie.
    What is story
    but jesting Pilate’s cry.
    I am not paid to tell you the truth.”

The Five Points of Roguery
    T HE LAND OF DUN D’ADDIN is known for its rogues, though how so many