It was a figure even in the cobbler’s mind, because he could not call the figure a man or a woman because that would never be correct. Nor could he call it a boy or a girl, because neither of those labels would hang correctly on the person who stood there wringing its tiny hands.
“I thought you were an invisible little girl,” said the cobbler.
“No, sir,” said the figure. “Neither invisible nor a girl. Though I am little, and to my own people I am a girl, for I am not yet fully grown.”
“I see that you are quite little, my dear. But why stand down there, where no one but a giraffe can look over and see you? Why not fly up here onto the counter? There’s plenty of space,” he said, pushing some of his tools aside.
The little figure looked sad—or at least the cobbler
supposed
that she looked sad, because he had very little experience reading the expressions of persons of her kind. She turned around so that he could see her back. Then she raised her arms to her sides, and with a soft grunt of effort, expanded the pair of miniature wings.
The wings were lovely to see. Gold and tan in color, with nicely formed primary feathers, as well as all the requisite
secondary and tertiary feathers, and quite attractive emarginations.
However, upon seeing the feathers, the cobbler felt his mouth turn into a small round
O
, and he even spoke that aloud. “Oh,” he said, faintly and with an equal mix of surprise, and consternation and pity.
The wings slumped, and the little figure turned.
“I know,” she said sadly. “They look perfect, but they’re so small that they wouldn’t lift a pigeon, let alone a Monkey.”
“Ah,” said the cobbler. It was not a great change in his response, but it conveyed a different emotion—sympathy. A Winged Monkey whose wings were so small she could never ever fly.
The little Monkey fluttered her wings so they beat with the blurred speed of a hummingbird, but there was no corresponding change in the elevation of the owner. All that the cobbler could see was a bit of a flutter in the brocade vest the Monkey-child wore, stirred by a faint breeze from those stunted wings.
Once more the wings sagged back in defeat, and the little figure seemed to deflate with them. She hung her head for a moment, shaking it sadly.
“My sisters and my brothers all have normal wings, even my littlest brother, who is only two. Momma has to tie a tether to him to keep him from flying out of the nursery window. And Dadda has great wings. Big ones, with a pattern like a hunting falcon. He can fly way above the tops of the tallest trees in the forest and then soar down among the trunks, swooping past our windows. Sometimes he flies past and without even a flutter or a pause, he’ll toss walnuts and coconuts in through the window, and they land on our beds as if placed there by a slow and careful hand.” She sighed and shook her head. “My wings are almost the same size
now as they were after I was born. They grew a little and then stopped, but I never stopped growing, and I’m still growing. Soon I’ll be full-grown, and I’ll still have wings that can barely lift a small bird.”
Then she drew in a breath and looked up at the cobbler, who still leaned forward over the counter.
“And now you see why I need a pair of traveling shoes.”
-2-
The cobbler stepped out from behind his market stall and addressed the little Winged Monkey. He extended a large and callused hand.
“My name is Bucklebelt,” he said.
The Winged Monkey curtseyed. “I’m Nyla of the Green Forest Clan. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bucklebelt.”
“And a pleasure to make yours, Miss Nyla.” He tilted his head toward his counter. “As it is rather difficult to hold a conversation with you with my counter in the way, and entirely impossible to measure you for shoes, traveling or otherwise, may I assist you by lifting you onto the counter?”
Nyla sighed again and cast a sad glance around the bustling square. “I suppose everyone who is likely to laugh at a nearly wingless Winged Monkey has already had their fill of snortles and chuckles, I don’t see how being lifted onto a counter can cause me any greater embarrassment.”
He winked at her. “If anyone so much as sniggers, I will tonk them all a good one on their noggins in the hopes that it helps them remember their manners. This is the Emerald City after all, and the Wizard requires that everyone has manners.” Now he sighed. “But of course we both know that for some folks, manners come and go like the phases of the moon.”
She nodded, knowing full well that this was true. Some of the other Winged Monkeys her age laughed and made jokes about what they called her “butterfly” wings, but they never did that when the adults were around.
With her permission Bucklebelt lifted Miss Nyla onto the counter. He did it gently and made sure not to set her down on anything sharp. Then he went back around to his side of the counter and climbed onto a stool, for in truth even though he was a grown man, the cobbler was not a large man. Only parts of him were large—his nose was a red bulb, his eyes were as big as the largest blueberries in the southern groves, and his eyebrows stood up like giant caterpillars.
For her part Nyla was graceful and small, with dark brown fur, a soft gray muzzle, and big brown eyes that were the exact color of polished oak. She wore a vest stitched with every color from the Land of Oz, along with a leather satchel that was hung slantwise across her body. The leather was dyed red and green and delicately stitched with a pattern of ripe bananas under lustrous green leaves.
The cobbler noticed the bag and nodded his approval. “That’s good work,” he said. “And if it’s not the work of Salander the Leathermaker then I’m a Munchkin.”
“It is!” she cried, delighted at his recognition. The bag was Nyla’s prized possession. “My grandmomma bought this for me when I started school. You wouldn’t believe how many things I can keep in here.”
“Oh yes I would,” he said with a knowing smile. “Salander is the genius of our age when it comes to leather goods. There’s a saying that if it’s a Salander bag, then you can put six things in a bag made for five.”
“Or even seven or eight,” she said.
He nodded. “Your grandmomma must be shrewd and wise. That bag will never wear out, and you’ll never lose anything you put in it. There’s no better place to keep your hopes and dreams.”
That put a smile on Nyla’s face.
“Now,” said Mr. Bucklebelt, “let’s talk about traveling shoes. Exactly what
kind
of traveling shoes are you looking for? Because there are traveling shoes, and then there are
traveling shoes
. Some will get you home, and some will get you far, far from home. Some will take you places that you want to go, and others will take you to places that you
need
to go—even if you don’t know that that’s where you need to be.”
Nyla settled herself on a soft roll of yarn, pulling her bag around so that it rested on her lap. She took a moment to compose her thoughts, and then said, “I want traveling shoes that will take me to places I don’t even know about.”
“Ah,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “You want
magic
shoes.”
“But…aren’t
all
traveling shoes magical?”
“Oh no,” he said. “Not at all. Most traveling shoes are very civilized and proper, and as you know, when you’re too civilized then there’s no magic at all.”
“How can those kinds of shoes take you to wonderful places?” she asked, confused.
He took a moment before he answered that. “Well, it’s because there are different kinds of magic. In the most civilized places—in gray places where everything is normal—then shoes will protect your feet from ordinary things like stones in the road or nettles in the grass. They’ll keep your feet from burning on the hot sand or from freezing in the snow. And when you’re walking in mud, they won’t let squishy worms wriggle between your toes.”
“I don’t mind worms,” said Nyla, but she said it to herself.
Mr. Bucklebelt said, “That kind of traveling shoes will help you run indoors when there’s lightning or help you run fast to catch a boat that’s about to sail. They won’t squeak when you sneak, and they won’t flop when you hop. A good pair of traveling shoes—even the non magical kind that people wear here in Oz and everywhere where people have feet—will be a comfort on a long journey. And—maybe there’s just the tiniest spark of magic in them, because when you put on any pair of traveling shoes, your feet just want to go find somewhere new to walk.”
“Then what about shoes with
real
magic?”
“Ah,” he said sagely, touching his finger to the side of his nose, “that’s another thing entirely. There are very few genuinely magical traveling shoes. In my whole career as a cobbler, I’ve seen only three pairs.”
“Three?”
“One was a pair of stalking boots worn by the Huntsman of Hungry Hall. When he put those boots on, he never needed horse nor even hounds to find a stag or a wild boar for the village roast. Those boots always found the trail and kept him on it until his prey was within easy bowshot. No one in all the district ever went hungry because of the Huntsman’s stalking boots.”
“Wow!”
“Then there are the dancing slippers of the Ash Princess. The shoes looked like ordinary slippers on anyone else’s feet, but on her feet, they transformed into the second most elegant shoes in all the world, and even though they were as soft as calfskin leather, they were as clear as polished crystal.” He leaned in close and whispered. “Made from the leather of dragon’s wings. With those shoes, the Ash Princess and her Prince danced on moonbeams and starlight, high above the heads of everyone else at their wedding.”
“Wait…you said they were the
second
most elegant shoes in the world. What are the first?”
Mr. Bucklebelt sighed very softly, and when he spoke, his voice was hushed. “Ah, now…that brings us to the third pair of traveling shoes. The dragon-scale walking shoes. Now there is a pair of shoes, my girl. The finest craftsmanship in all the world. I’m only a humble cobbler—I
repair
shoes—but those were made by the finest cordwainer, the finest shoemaker in all the land. Do you know the story? No? Shall I tell you?”
Nyla nodded, her eyes alight with excitement.
“Then tell you I shall, for it is a tale anyone looking for traveling shoes really
should
know.” He settled himself more comfortably on his stool. “This is a very old story because it happened a very long time ago. Back in an age when there were griffins and dragons and herds of unicorns. Back when fish with scales of true gold swam in rivers that flowed to a great sea called Shallasa. Ah, but that was so long ago that most people don’t believe it’s anything but an old story. I know, though, that Shallasa is neither a made-up story nor myth, nor even a dream. And yet all we have left of that sea are its bones.”
“The bones of a sea?” asked Nyla. “How can a sea have bones?”
“They don’t look like bones as you and I know them, but everything has a part of itself that remains even when all of this is gone.” He gave her arm a gentle pinch. “When a sea dies, it leaves behind a great waste of salt and sand.”
“The Deadly Desert!” cried Nyla in horror.
“Yes indeed. That cruel waste that no one can cross,” he said, nodding gravely. “It stretches beyond our knowing and surrounds all of Oz. No one can cross it and live, and we know this because many have tried. So many. Even heroes
and fast horses, even scorpions in their armor and birds on their wings. Nothing that lives can traverse the Deadly Desert. And what a sadness that is, because even though the dragon-scale walking shoes were made in what is now Munchkin Country, the materials—the
key
materials, mind you—came from a land far beyond the Sea of Shallasa. A land not even remembered in fairytales and old songs, more’s the pity. It was a land of tall castles and deep valleys, a place where jewel-birds flitted among the trees and the mountains sang old songs every night at the setting of the sun. It was there, in a place in whose very soil the soul of magic thrived. That is the only place where the silver sequins that were used to cover the shoes can be found.”
“But…can’t someone
make
silver sequins? There is plenty of silver around and—”
“Ah,” said Bucklebelt, shaking his head, “like traveling shoes, there is silver and then there is
silver
. The silver I’m talking about isn’t a cold metal chopped from a mine. No, this is living silver, and there is only one source for it. Just one in all the world.”
“What is it?” asked Nyla in a wondering little voice.
He bent down closer, and his whisper was hushed and secret. “Dragon’s tears,” he said.
Her eyes went as wide as eyes could go. “
D-dragon’s
tears?”
“Oh yes. When Shallasa was still a shining sea, there were dragons in those far-off lands. Only a few, mind you, because even way back then, dragons were becoming scarce. But they were there. And there were different kinds of dragons. There were puffer dragons whose exhalations could chase the clouds through the sky and blow rainstorms away into other lands. There were soot dragons that ate fire and slept in the mouths of volcanoes. And, of course, there were silver dragons. Great, gleaming beasts made of living metal.”
“Oh my,” said Nyla. “Were they friendly dragons?”
Bucklebelt laughed. “Friendly? Whoever heard of a friendly dragon?”
“I read about talking dragons in stories,” said Nyla. “Sometimes they’re nice.”
“Those are stories, little one,” said the cobbler. “Stories are made up except when they’re not.”
Nyla blinked. “But…but…” Her face wrinkled with confusion as she tried to understand what Mr. Bucklebelt just said.
He chuckled. “I suppose
some
dragons have been civil, but I don’t know if any of them have ever been
nice
. At least not to edible, crunchable folks like you and me. Long, long ago, though, there were people who found a way to talk to those dragons. Not all of them…but the less grouchy ones. There are old songs—songs so old that half the words aren’t even words to us anymore—about people talking to dragons. High on a cliff or under a mountain or deep in the darkest woods.”