An ear-battering smack of drums and firecrackers echoed through the air. A swirl of a thousand colors filled up September’s eyes so that she could see nothing else. The colors whirled and spun round one another, spinning out in front of A-Through-L and up into the air. Finally, they unfolded and became an impossibly slender, pointed man made all of racing silks and checkered flags, in every color and every pattern, as though someone had ripped off a patch from the costume of everyone who had run a race since before the mile was invented. He did not seem to have hands or feet so much as the twisting silk of him came to graceful points at the ends of his arms and legs. His face was a marvelous origami—noble crests, green chevrons, black stripes, lace handkerchiefs given as favors in some long-forgotten joust, all folded tight together to make a sharp, clear face with searching, canny eyes.
Now, all races must have a Racemistress or Racemaster. To find an ideal Racemaster, first track down a school principal who loves nothing better than tricking students into misbehaving, unless it was coming up with the most joyfully complicated punishments. Make certain that she has studied all her life to become an expert in every sport and game, from poker to croquet to Arcanasta to Daemoninoes to the Royal Game of Ur, the way ninjas train to perfect every martial art. For the Cantankerous Derby, the Stoat of Arms would sooner have lived out its days in a petting zoo than chosen anyone other than the greatest Racemaster who has ever lived or breathed or fired a starting catapult directly in the ear of a Glashtyn—and just such a one floated nimbly before them.
The man made of flags bowed, flourishing his arms and bending his head. “Good morning, Queen September, I will be your Racemaster for the next many days. Years, possibly! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. My name is Ajax Oddson. By my reputation, you will know you are in hands both good and fair.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know a thing about you,” September said cheerfully. She had long ago ceased to be embarrassed by not knowing a thing in Fairyland.
Saturday squeezed her hand. “Is there anyone in the human world who plays a game so well that everyone knows his name, so well that his name becomes the game, and you can hardly think of one without the other?”
September thought for a moment. “I suppose there’s Babe Ruth. That’s baseball. It’s a bit like sword fighting and a bit like juggling but far less interesting to watch than either one.”
“What a funny name!” said A-Through-L, his nostrils flaring. “Babies oughtn’t play with swords, unless they are trolls.” He rocked from one great red leg to the other. “If Fairyland has a Babe Ruth, then Ajax Oddson is him. I’m very pleased and also nervous to meet him. I thought we might. Who else would take charge of the most important race that’s ever cried on your mark?”
The Racemaster inclined his head demurely. “You’re too kind, Master Wyverary. Your Majesty, allow me to put you at ease. I had my education at the Home for Excessively Competitive Children on Blue Hen Island, where any child who loves to win more than he loves to eat or sleep or drink or have one single friend goes to be among his own kind. There we can be cared for by folk who understand our needs and wants and need-nots and want-nots. On our first day, we found a single blue poker chip lying on our pillows with the motto of the school stamped on it in gold. IN LUDO VERITAS. In the Game Is Truth. The day we turned that one chip into one thousand, we graduated. And my specialty has always been Derbies.”
Ajax Oddson twirled around, his chevrons and checks and diamonds flying. “Now, I am a Dandy. You may think me large and grand and beautiful, but”—he leaned in and held one pointed silken hand to his mouth, sharing a delicious secret—“in actuality, I am no bigger than a bullfrog. I have short, thin, highly breakable legs—anyone could beat me in a race. My old headmaster, Babel Y. Hexagon, whom I could defeat at Go while underwater and half asleep, could gallop all the way round the world faster than I could crack the four hundred meters. I could not get much better, tiny as I was, without wings or any particularly pragmatical magic. Oh, I am a dismal magician. My only aptitude is for Odd Magic—I can feel the improbabilities of any event with an outcome as surely as I feel the swelling of my nose when I am sick.”