Have you ever been to a racetrack? In the world where you and I keep our galoshes, they are very odd places. Someone fires a gun and a number of horses or cars or people run as fast as they can in a great long circle, and they go round and round and round and everyone cheers and cheers until another somebody waves a specially colored flag, and then whichever speedster barrels past the flag first wins. Folk dress in all manner of finery and wonderful hats to go and watch the races, but only if it’s horses doing the barreling that day. This, at least, is understandable, for horses, in secret, love hats more than any other creature. It is a horse’s tragedy that they can never properly wear one.
To my mind, Fairyland races are much more sensible. The racetrack is the size of the world. Racers may barrel anywhere on any steed—over the Candelabra Desert or the Tattersall Tundra, across the Perverse and Perilous Sea, through the Worsted Wood, to the tops of the Pickapart Mountains or the Peppercorn Pyramids, down to the bottom of the Obstreperous Ocean where the Octopus Assassins lie in wait, even into Fairyland-Below or up to the Moon. And instead of racing a horse against a horse or a car against a car or a lady against a lady, Fairyland races ladies against chariots, centaurs against cheetahs, carriages against flying carpets, phoenixes against Dodos. You see, Fairyland long ago determined that Yetis were faster than anyone else and lost interest in races where the speediest always won. Now the race goes to the cleverest, the luckiest, the most reckless, and the most wanton. Nothing is banned, everything is allowed, and anyone with a crumb of wisdom to spare stays indoors until it is all over.
But wisdom is for owls and Oxford professors! Let us go to the races! You may wear your finest or your foulest, overalls or opulence. I believe I shall wear a hat, for I look splendid in them, but if they make your forehead itch, that’s perfectly all right. Picnicking is certainly allowed and I should never let you go hungry. Folk sit anywhere they please to sip their lemonades and catch a glimpse of the race as it goes by. Perhaps we will snag a seat in the Tulipbulb Amphitheatres of the Springtime Parish, or the beechwood bleachers of the Autumn Provinces. Perhaps we might gather with the gargoyles on the rooftops of Pandemonium, lay out a nice comfy lawn chair on the banks of the Barleybroom, or pitch a tent under a staircase in Asphodel. This is the first way in which Fairylanders love to gamble on a race. The racetrack covers every part of Fairyland, and so do the grandstands. Everyone hopes they have staked a claim on the very patch of glowerwheat on which something exciting will happen, but who can say? Where you and I keep our wallets, there is only one way to gamble on a race. Who shall win? Who shall lose? Give the nice man your money, and maybe you’ll get it back, but probably you won’t, because most things in any world are tricks, whether they are horse races, elections, or books about faraway and unrealistic places. But in Fairyland, gambling is an ancient and revered art. Fairy bookmakers won’t take gold or silver at all. They prefer something more personal.
Let us spread out a blanket at the starting line in Pandemonium. I’ve brought a great orange parasol so we don’t get sunburnt, and plenty of fizzy drinks and sandwiches for all. You see, every race begins in Pandemonium. Once, the ifrits tried to start a Firebreak (which is something like a marathon, if all of the runners could fly, travel back and forth in time, and were on fire) in their home of Flegethon City. All the runners stood ablaze at the starting line on Fervor Street, their volcano-batons in hand—but the city of Pandemonium moves according to the needs of narrative. It cannot stay in one place when it has caught the scent of a story. Just as the Firebreak was set to begin, Pandemonium arrived, rudely jostling Flegethon City right out of its pleasant spot on the shores of Braisebottom Lake to get a better seat.