Throne of Vines
A Maven Fairy Godmother Story
Throne of Vines
Maven, a new fairy godmother, was curled up snoring on the hearth of the Palace kitchen at the end of her first week on the job. Curled into a ball, as much like a cat as she could manage, her gray head pillowed on her arm, and her round body a lump of lavender gossamer.
A deep moan echoed through the Palace. She woke up, shivering. Whispering to her gossamers to make themselves warmer, she rolled over to go back to sleep. As soon she was comfortable, her wand, now poking against her hip, vibrated.
"No. It can't be morning." The sun was not up yet.
Squirming to free her wand, she held it to her ear, expecting a summons from Fiona, the Fairy Godmother Superior. Instead, she heard a wail. The wand oscillated with the sound, then writhed from her fingers and slithered towards the back door.
Only the Palace could work magic inside its walls.
Maven clambered to her feet, shaking her head. Yesterday's events had run late into the night, and she was exhausted. She spoke to the embers glowing softly in the fireplace.
"Would you please make me a cup of coffee?"
The embers dimmed, and a white diner mug appeared on the hearth. She took a sip and shuddered. The black liquid was cold and bitter. The Palace must be pissed. It never made bad coffee.
Her wand rolled back to her and tapped on her foot. She bent over to pick up the wand, careful not to spill the coffee. The back door swung open.
Once outside, she looked up to the glassy spires of the Palace, lit only by starlight. It was ethereal and beautiful in a way that no structure made of any material could be in Mundane.
But this was Faery, and this Palace was built of magic, a spell by a long-dead wizard maintained over the centuries.
Yesterday it had been a Castle, gothic and rocky, probably better suited to protecting the many guests who were inside, sleeping off yesterday's festivities. Maybe the Palace had changed its mind and wanted to give up its slinky buttresses and Art Nouveau towers for something more archetypical, more suited for daily wear.
Maven stirred her coffee with her wand, hoping she was far enough outside the Palace's magic-absorbing field to refresh her coffee. She needed thinking fluid. The smell of the liquid improved, and the mug got warm. She risked another sip, and then drained it. She sighed. No rest for the weary. She wondered if the wicked needed it.
Maven had never granted a wish to a sentient building, except to help this one rebuild itself yesterday when its spell had been broken. Fiona had taken the lead on that spell. Why wasn't she here?
She bowed slightly to the Palace. "What can I do for you?"
She held her wand to her ear to listen, or rather to watch, as images flowed into her mind. Repeatedly, Princess Vivienne flew away from her wedding celebration on the back of her dragon, formerly known as Prince H.R., resident of the Castle. The colors of the images were all wrong--maybe buildings saw things in infrared--but the scene ended at Vivienne’s empty chamber. The curtains floated out the open windows by the undisturbed bed. Flowers shivered in the breeze. The fireplace was cold and dark.
"They'll come back," Maven said, sending images from Vivienne's point of view behind the dragon's massive head. Maven pictured how happy Vivienne would be to return to her sparkling Palace.
A burst of happiness came from the Palace. Maven's mug refilled itself with Starbucks' best, steamy and fragrant.
"It might not be tomorrow...today...but soon." It was like talking to a small child who knows only now and not-now. "They'll be back. Think of all the people here who you can take care of until the princess gets back."
Wrong move. Her coffee cup shattered, and the brown cylinder of ice that broke it landed on her toe like a brick.
"Now you behave yourself!" Maven hopped backwards on her other foot, trying to keep her balance and her temper. She couldn't turn this client into a frog. "I'll see what I can do, but they are married now, and they'll want time alone together."
The Palace sent a picture of Princess Vivienne in her tower, and the dragon H.R. outside in the gardens.
Maven sent back an image of the dragon, in his human form, asleep with the princess in the tower, with a roaring fire and a general rosy glow.
In response, every door and window in the Palace slammed shut with an impact that knocked the wind out of Maven and blew her over the Palace walls to the forest beyond. No amount of calling to the Palace, sending it pictures, or any other communication worked. It would not listen to her.
What would a Palace wish for?
Her wand beeped, bringing the summons from Fiona, Fairy Godmother Superior.
Maven swizzled up another cup of coffee and quaffed it. Maybe her boss would have some ideas.
* * *
Fiona peered into her crystal ball, her usually crisp coif now frizzy, drooping around her face. The dark circles under her eyes showed that she'd slept less than Maven had. Not good. The jars of fairy dust on the office shelves were quiet as if they, too, were still asleep.
"Where are the other two?" Fiona snapped. "We've got more wishes than the four of us can handle. I need them here now."
"The Palace is holding the wedding guests hostage." Maven hoped the caffeine would kick in soon to clear the grinding noise in her skull.
It didn't. Maven conjured two cups of coffee.
Fiona reached for her cup and took a long sip. "How did you get out?"
"The Palace threw me out to find the princess." Maven sighed. A toadstool nudged at the back of Maven's knees, but she just patted it without sitting. No time to relax.
"A logical choice, then as you are the princess's fairy godmother." Fiona spun her crystal ball, her hands cupped around it. "They are not in Faery."
"Where else could they be? They wouldn't go to Mundane, would they?"
Fiona glared at Maven. "Do you want another jaunt back home after yesterday's escapade?"
"No, Ma'am." Maven set her coffee mug on Fiona's desk, where it disappeared. "I said I wanted to be a good fairy godmother."
"Visit Azaha. Perhaps she has heard from her son." Fiona drank the rest of her coffee and turned back to her crystal ball.
Maven didn't think the princess's mother-in-law would be the best place to start looking, but she didn't have a better idea.
Maven poofed to the opening of the cave in the sheer-walled canyon where Azaha lived. Before she could decide how to announce her presence, a rumbling voice greeted her with a hot, smoky breeze.
"Back so soon?"
* * *
"He never writes, he never calls, not as much as a smoke signal." Azaha said. "Even if he had started a hoard like any normal dragon, I would not know where it was. We don't share that information."
She scrutinized Maven, raising an eyebrow ridge the size of a corner sofa. "I may have to move since you located me so easily. Twice."
"You invited me on Monday," Maven said, "I granted your wish, if you remember."
The dragon scrabbled in the piles of treasure and junk in the warehouse-sized cavern, finally rolling out a crystal ball as tall as Maven. Azaha spoke to it, and the Palace appeared, sparkling bright in the sunshine, but quickly turning green.
"By the Great Goose," Maven gasped. "This can't be happening." She dropped a curtsey, as dragons were big on protocol. "Thank you for your help, Oh Great Dragon Azaha!"
She poofed back, making herself tiny to hover in the air above the Palace. She watched in horror as the Vine that ate the South slithered over the Palace. Maven trembled. She had seen whole farms disappear under a blanket of kudzu: barns, houses and tractors became mere lumps under sinewy vines.
Kudzu grew fast, but usually only a yard or so a day. But in Faery, miles of it now draped over every inch of the Palace and the gardens like a self-weaving leafy burka, except for the top of the tallest tower.
Nothing stood in the way of the kudzu taking over the countryside, and all of Faery for that matter.
Again, she took out her wand to listen to the Palace. Instead of images, she felt the warm, vibrating glow of a 14-year-old girl's first crush on her favorite member of a boy band.
The Palace was in love with the kudzu. It thrilled to the clinging embrace of the vine, the susurration of a breeze through the leaves, and the fragrance of the magenta flowers opening on the lower vines. Green tendrils spiraled around each other, climbing, stretching to reach the top of the tower.
What would kudzu wish for?
A raven circled the Palace, riding the morning thermal, when a tendril of kudzu shot up and wrapped itself around the bird's leg. The startled raven screeched and flapped, trying to pull away from the vine. The farther the vine was stretched, the more of its brothers wrapped themselves around it, growing a spiral of vine into the clouds.
Maven flicked her wand, sending a burst of burning sparkles. The kudzu recoiled, releasing the bird, which dived like a stone into the forest.
Then a tendril sprung out like a striking cobra, aimed at Maven. Horrified, she poofed back to Fiona's office.
* * *
Fiona's desk was covered by a sheet of paper marked with large cryptic symbols. She frowned, tracing the symbols with one hand and peering into her crystal ball with the other. She gave no sign that she noticed Maven, though the crockery rattled a greeting. The fairy dust and various potions sounded nervous.
This time Maven gratefully accepted the nudge from the toadstool, and sat, taking deep breaths to slow her heart rate. The Palace was full of people, who she hoped were still sleeping. How long before they awoke to darkness and panic? What could she do to save them?
Fiona pushed a damp lock of hair from her forehead, nodding at the paper. "It's from the Giants. Roughly translated, it says, 'Do not make us come down there.'"
Maven slumped. "Don't blame them."
Fiona nodded. "Some enterprising Jacks have already tried climbing the vines, but they fall asleep and disappear into the vine." She crossed her arms. "What is this menace? Where did it come from?"
"It's called kudzu, and it comes from Mundane," Maven said, "It was growing all around the place we went yesterday. We must have brought a piece back."
. "I don't remember anything like that." Fiona frowned and shook her head, with a glance that said yesterday's events were still to be discussed. "What are you going to do about it?"
"With magic? Nothing." Maven put her hand on her forehead, remembering what she could. "It's called kudzu. It's hard to kill. Maybe if we had an army of goats to eat it…"
Fiona set her crystal ball to prediction mode. "It will cover Faery by winter."
"It won't take that long," Maven said. "We can't burn it—that might kill it, but it would kill the people inside. Same problem with weed killer, motor oil,…"
She and Fiona stared at each other for a long moment.
"We need a bigger hammer." Maven stood and pulled out her wand. "Maybe the Twilight Lounge has some ideas." She poofed out.
* * *
The Twilight Lounge was the first sentient building Maven had ever met. One time it shared a story with her, and her best chance was to ask it for help with the Palace. She conjured up a persona, per the rules of the Lounge, disguising herself as a Vagabond fortune teller. She found an empty booth, put her wand beside her ear and opened her mind to listen. .
"How can I talk to the Palace?" she whispered. "What can I say to it?" She thought of the slinky towers under the writhing mass of plant material
Her. She's in love. She won’t listen to you.
Maven's mind rattled at the Lounge's voice. She remembered her own experience of falling in love in all the wrong places.
Images appeared on the wooden tabletop. Long before it…she…became a Palace, the building was home and laboratory to a wizard, a mud and wattle cottage, long crumbled. But the wizard's magic added increasingly complex illusions of solidity until the physical cottage became the Castle, which saw to the wizard's needs. When the wizard was defeated by the dragon formerly known as Prince H.R., the Castle adopted the prince, for decades, maybe centuries. When Vivienne arrived, the Castle had her own princess, a worthy occupant for whom to become a dream home.
Yesterday, Vivienne had ridden away on her dragon, leaving no forwarding address.
The Castle's magic failed in her grief at losing both the prince and the princess. Then the fairy godmothers—all four of them--had helped her pull herself together. The Castle transformed herself into the Palace, and she had re-created herself as a perfect place for her princess to live happily ever after.
But Vivienne had not come back. Now only freeloaders slept in the many rooms, where the Palace made them sleep until her princess returned. No one there cared for the Palace, except the vine that cuddled her, caressed her, vibrating with her energy.
Maven broke eye contact with the table. She did not want to think about what she thought she saw. But she had a plan, not a minute too soon. "I owe you one," she said.
Two, replied the Lounge.
* * *
When Maven materialized in the air above the Palace, she noticed that it was much shorter than she remembered, and the kudzu was much taller, winding around itself, and reaching out for whatever it might grab. One rope of tendrils clung to a cloud, as impossible as Maven knew that was, and someone with a very large ax chopped at it, missing as the vine dodged each swing, shaking the cloud.
Then Maven felt a blast of hot wind. She fluttered up on her wings just in time to see the dragon H.R. send a flaming greeting, with Princess Vivienne astride his neck between his spinous ridges. The princess had traded her wedding gown for furs and leather bindings, the better to be warm in the airy heights.
H.R. was circling the castle, flapping his great wings and twitching his taloned tail like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Maven flew up beside the princess.
"This had better be good, Fairy Godmother!" The princess pointed to the spinal ridge in front of her. "Talk fast. Explain why you asked my mother-in-law to invade our privacy on our wedding night."
Maven spoke quickly, telling about the loneliness of the Palace, and how the guests were trapped inside, even her fairy godmother friends. "If the Palace can see that you are back, maybe she will throw off the kudzu. We can save them."
"I will burn it all," cried the dragon. He sent a blaze of fire to the rope of tendrils that had attached themselves to the cloud where the Giant still chopped away at it.
The vine was scorched, and it broke away from the cloud. But below them, the top of the the tower of Vivienne's room, was suddenly covered up. The Palace was merely a huge, misshapen lump of wriggling vines, which began to spread out, over the outer walls, and into the fields and forest. Vines twined themselves together and sprang towards the dragon, trying to catch it and drag it down.
The dragon swallowed a huge gulp of air, like the kid who wants to burp the alphabet.
"No!" Maven yelled. "All the people will be burned too!" She jumped from the dragon's back and moved in front of his huge head. She hoped his eyes were open and that he would remember that she had released him from his spell only yesterday.
She shook her wand at him as a distraction. "You do not want to explain this to your mother."
He was too surprised to belch for a moment. It was all she needed.
Maven took a deep breath, muttered her personal mantra: "I think I can! I think I can!" and dived right towards the tallest lump where she hoped she could wriggle between the vines, where she hoped the turret of the tower was still open, waiting for Vivienne to return.
As she approached, she could see that the Palace was smaller, shrinking under the weight of the vines. There was no actual rock, glass, or steel in the Palace. It was all illusion and magic, now wavering, and she knew that the kudzu was not self-supporting. It would collapse on those inside, smashing them under huge woody vines and tons of leaves.
Maven held her wand in front of her for guidance, and sent the strongest images she could think of to the Palace—Vivienne was back. Let her in. Fight off the kudzu.
She saw an image of a pale neck leaking green sap. The kudzu was draining the magic to grow at 500 times its normal rate. What had started as an embrace became a vampire's kiss, and the Palace was fading.
What does kudzu wish for?
She decided it was time to ask. Just as she fell towards the tower, she forced her wand between the vines and shouted, "Tell me what you want!"
She was surrounded by light, blinding, hot sunshine, or maybe the dragon decided not to wait. But she wasn't burning.
The images were of sunshine, glorious light, the food of life. The kudzu growing, growing, growing to the sun, higher than any other vine had ever grown. Kudzu was high on sunshine, fresh air, and magic, and it would strangle everything in its quest to get more. Maven knew that story too well from her old life in Mundane. She would not let it happen to the Palace.
Maven could not reason with the vine, but she could talk to the Palace. She wriggled her way in, squirming and twisting between the vines. They were all about growing higher, not thicker, and soon she found herself against the glassy wall of Vivienne's tower.
"Let me in." Maven slapped her palm against the glass. "Vivienne is here. Let me in."
Whump. With a fall that knocked the breath from her, she was rolling across the floor of Vivienne's sitting room in total darkness. She felt light-headed and silly, once she could breathe again. The kudzu was pumping out oxygen from photosynthesis. What a great time to remember science class.
Maven held her wand against the wall of the room with her palm. "Listen to me. Fight back. You are being used, not loved. Open your windows and doors and let the light in. Let the people out. "
She heard the cry that had awakened her that morning, the sad whine of the Palace.
"I know you want to be loved, but this is not love. If the kudzu is your lover, be its mistress. Command it and make it obey you." She visualized the Palace, glittering in the sun, surrounded by intricate fences of vines which kept her princess and prince, and all their subjects, safe from outsiders, a garden guardian. Then Maven sent an image of winter, with the leafless, gray vines covered with snow, cold and forbidding, impenetrable.
"Remember how H.R. worked to win the love of Vivienne?" Maven struggled to make images to go with her words. "You must require the kudzu to do the same. If you let it consume all your magic, there will be no Palace, no place for the princess. Everyone in your care will be crushed and killed."
Maven imagined all her clients who had gotten their wishes, all the visiting royalty, other freeloaders housed there, and all the people from the villages who came to help with the ceremony, crushed and strangled from the mass of vines. What good would it do to be no more than a magical grease spot under a lot of vines?
She sent another image, one from her memory, of a red hill, barren of all vegetation other than kudzu. It could live anywhere, and did not need any magic but its own to flourish.
The floor began to tremble, as if the tower were tussling with the kudzu. Maven leaned harder against the wall, both hands bracing her to keep from falling. The things on the tables and the mantle did not move. They might be stuck down by the Palace's magic or maybe they were afraid of being dashed to pieces.
Maven whispered. "The dragon wants to burn the kudzu. Show him that he doesn't have to do that. Save my friends and the villagers. Please." She slid down the wall, and then rolled to sit with her back against the wall, imagining the tower of vines in flames like a Towering Inferno movie poster. She promised herself that she would never again watch an action movie if she ever went back to Mundane.
Splintering sounds came from outside the writhing tower. Maven reached for a pretty thought: Princess Vivienne riding the dragon around the countryside, dropping baskets of ...something, flowers, fruit, maybe greeting cards...and finally, landing on a special platform to dismount the dragon, who transformed himself back into Prince H.R. and came into the tower room. She thought again of them in the room, kissing this time, as the sun set in the distance.
Maven felt suddenly heavy, like riding up in a high-speed elevator. Minutes passed. She took a deep breath to remain calm and closed her eyes tighter. When she could see through her closed eyelids that sunshine flowed into the room, she opened her eyes and scrambled to her feet. She peered out the tower window, now skyscraper tall above the fields and forest, surrounded by the most elaborately braided and curled plant material ever envisioned by a mad Baroque topiary artist. The tower swayed in the wind, making Maven dizzy. She backed away from the window.
Just then, the door to the room opened. Inside walked Vivienne and H.R., both in dressed in sensuous but sensible leather and fur. They stopped, surprised to see her in their honeymoon suite.
Maven bowed. "I was just leaving." Before they could say a word, she poofed back to her own little milkweed pod by the primrose path outside Fiona's office. She straightened her gossamers and sat on her hammock. She swizzled up a mug of coffee strong enough to slap your momma. She drank it, hot and bitter, and it warmed her to her knees.
Somehow she had brought the kudzu here, and that made it her fault. She would have to deal with those consequences. She hoped the Palace would keep it sorted out for the next couple of days. In the meantime, there were wishes to grant. Her wand beeped again, so she poofed back to Fiona's office to begin her second week on the job.