Cold Iron

by Michael Swanwick

  Rooster, laughing insanely, was pissing on a hammer giant’s foot.

  The hammer giant screamed in fury. It was the Sand Slinger himself, the biggest creature in all the plant, that Rooster had decided to pick on. This was typical Rooster shrewdness, since the Sand Slinger was not only the largest but had the slowest reaction time of all the giants. But it was still a madly dangerous thing to do.

  Now at last the Sand Slinger thought to raise its foot up from the stream of urine and bring it down upon its miniscule antagonist. The floor shook with the impact.

  Rooster darted aside, jeering.

  The giant moved its head from side to side in baffled rage. Brow knitted, it stared down at the three-ton maul lying atop its anvil. A cunning expression blossomed on its coarse face, and it reached an enormous hand for the hammer.

  “Now!” The shadow-boy anxiously pointed to Blugg’s office. It was empty. The door had been left slammed wide, open and unguarded.

  Crash. The hammer slammed down where Rooster had been.

  Running, stooping, Jane scuttled across those enormous empty spaces separating her from Blugg’s office. She was aghast at her own daring, and terrified she would be caught. Behind her, the hammer slammed down again. The soles of her feet tingled with the vibrations. Then she was in the office. She stepped immediately to the side, where the wall would hide her, and straightened up to get her bearings.

  Crash. The hammer fell a third time. People were yelling, running, screaming.

  The office was close and cluttered. Technical manuals lay on the floor in heaps. The trash basket overflowed with litter. Water-stained plans for wyverns obsolete decades ago hung on the walls, along with thumbtacked production schedules gone brown at the edges, and a SAFETY FIRST poster showing a cartoon hand holding index finger upward, a ribbon tied in a bow just beneath the second knuckle.

  The sole bit of color came from a supplier’s calendar with a picture of naked mermaids, fat as sea cows, lolling on the rocks. Jane stared at those pink acres of marshmallow-soft flesh for a frozen instant, as if the image were a window into an alien and threatening universe. Then she shook her head clear and darted to the desk.

  The pressed metal ashtray was exactly where it ought to be. A cigar smoldered on its lip, still damp on one end. Gingerly, she took the smelly thing between thumb and forefinger and held it aside. Hurry! she thought. In among the ashes were what looked to be seven crescent moons carved from yellowed ivory. She picked out two, put down the cigar, and whirled to go.

  But then a speck of green caught her eye, and she glanced down in the waste basket. One comer of a book peeked out from the trash. For no reason that she could think of, she brushed the papers aside to see what it was. Then she saw and caught her breath.

  A grimoire!

  It was a thick volume in a pebbled green vinyl cover, with the company logo on the front and beneath that a title she could not read in raised gold-edged lettering. Three chrome bolts held in the pages so they could be easily removed and updated. Jane gaped, then came to her senses. Grimoires were valuable beyond imagining, so rare that each was numbered and registered in the front offices. It was impossible that one should end up here, in Blugg’s office, much less that it would then be thrown away as worthless.

  Still . . . it wouldn’t hurt just to touch it.

  She touched it, and a numinous sense of essence flowed up her arm. In a way unlike anything she had ever felt before the volume spoke to her. It was real! Beyond any doubt or possibility of delusion, the book was a true grimoire. Here, within her grasp, was real magick; recipes for hell-fire and vengeance, secrets capable of leveling cities, the technologies of invisibility and ecstatic cruelty, power enough to raise the dead and harrow Hell itself.

  For a long, timeless instant she communed with the grimoire, letting it suffuse and possess her. At last its whispered promises faded and were still.

  She dug it out of the papers.

  It was too big to carry in one hand. Jane stuck the stolen nail parings in her mouth, where she could hold them between lip and gum, and seized the book with both hands.

  At that instant there was a long, shrill whistle. She turned, and there in the doorway stood the shadow-boy, held back by the fetish-bundles nailed to the jamb, urging her out with anxious sweeps of his arm. Beyond, she saw that the Sand Slinger had been brought under control. Rooster was held captive by one of the hogmen. The spectators were breaking up, some into small knots to discuss what they’d seen, others turning away, returning to their jobs.

  Cradling the book in her arms, she ran from the room. It weighed a ton, and she staggered under its weight. But she wasn’t going to give it up. It was hers now.

  The shadow-boy stood in open daylight, as close to visible as he ever came. “What took you so long?” he whispered fearfully. “He’ll be coming soon.”

  “Here.” She thrust the book at him. “Take this back to the dormitory, quick, and hide it under my blanket.” When he didn’t move, she snapped, “There’s no time for questions. Just do it!”

  In a voice close to tears, the shadow-boy said, “But what about my lunch?” His head turned yearningly to where the lake hag leaned over her cart, staring slack-jawed at the aftermath of Rooster’s fight. She had yet to begin her second swing through the factory.

  “You can have mine,” Jane dredged her somewhat flattened sandwich from her apron pocket, and slapped it down atop the grimoire. “Now go!”

  An indistinct motion that might have been a shrug, and the shadow-boy was gone. Jane did not see him leave. It was as if he had simply dissolved into the gloom and ceased to be.

  She raised a hand to her mouth to spit out the stolen nail parings, and simultaneously saw Blugg all the way across the foundry, squinting straight at her. Jane stood in an exquisite paralysis of exposure.

  Then Rooster darted free of the hogman and shouted something up at the giant. With a roar of outrage, the Sand Slinger seized the first weapon that came to hand, and hurled it.

  Lightning flashed.

  The afterimage of the molten iron that splayed from the flung ladle burned across Jane’s eyes. Voices rose in a babble of fear, laced through with urgently shouted orders. High above them all, Rooster screamed an agonized scream.

  In the confusion, Jane made good her escape. She was back at her bench in a minute, hastily pulling on her gloves. Maybe Blugg hadn’t really seen her. Maybe he’d forgotten her in all the excitement.

  “Did you get them?” Smidgeon whispered. For a second Jane couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. Then she remembered, nodded, and spat out the stolen nail parings into her hand. Smidgeon took them and passed them down the line to Lumpbockle who palmed them off to Little Dick, and from there Jane lost track. She scooped some emery powder into the palm of her glove. Back to work. That was the safest course.

  To the far side of the factory, Rooster’s still body was being carted away. Leather-helmeted spriggans ran about, dousing small fires the molten metal had started. Water sizzled and gushed into steam. A scorched smell filled the air.

  Over it all rumbled the Sand Slinger’s laughter, like thunder.

  Blugg descended upon the workbench, face black with rage. He slammed his hand on the table so hard the emery trays jumped. “Stand up, damn you!” he shouted. “Stand when I’m talking to you!”

  They scrambled to their feet.

  “You vile little pieces of shit. You worthless, miserable . . .” He didn’t seem able to compose his thoughts. “Who put Rooster up to this? That’s what I want to know. Who? Eh?” He seized Smidgeon in one enormous hand and hauled the wretched creature struggling off her feet. “Tell me!” He twisted her ear until she whimpered.

  “I-I think he did it himself, sir. He’s always been a wild one.”

  “Bah!” Blugg contemptuously flung Smidgeon down, and turned on Jane. His face swelled up before her, as large and awful as the moon. Jane could smell his sweat, not the fine, clean astringency of a Rooster or a shadow-boy
, but the strong, sour smell of an adult male. She smelled his breath, too, sweet with corruption. He had yellow little stumps of teeth, black where the gums drew away from them. A bit of rotten meat caught between two of his teeth mesmerized Jane. She could not look away.

  “You—” he began. Then, shaking his head bullishly, he drew back and addressed them all: “You think you can ruin my career, don’t you?”

  They were too fearful to speak.

  “Well, I have news for you! I’m not some dickless wonder you can fuck over anytime you feel like. You make things hard on me, and I’ll make things hard on you. I’ll make things harder on you than you could ever imagine!”

  He bent over, turning sideways, and pointed to his own rump. “When you make trouble, Management is going to land on me right here, get that? And if they land on me here, I’m going to land on you here too.” Every time he said here, he waggled his backside and jabbed his forefinger at it; it would have been funny, if it weren’t so frightening. “Do you read me?”

  They stood trembling and silent before him.

  “I said: Do you read me!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  For a long time Blugg glared at them, motionless, silent, unblinking. A muscle in the back of Jane’s left leg began to tremble with the effort of standing still. She was sure he was going to ask what she was doing in his office. Despair welled up within her, a force so overwhelming that once it started to leak from her eyes she knew it would fill the room and drown them all.

  “You . . . little . . . vermin,” he said at last. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to strangle each and every one of you with my bare hands. I could do it, too—don’t think you’d be missed! You eat like pigs and then spend half the day sitting on your thumbs.” He walked down the line looking them each in the eye. When he came to Jane she again thought he would ask why she had invaded his office, but he did not.

  “All right,” he said at last, “line up by height, and out the east door doubleti—where’s the shadow-boy?”

  “Here, sir,” the shadow-boy said meekly. Jane started. She hadn’t realized he was standing beside her.

  Blugg rocked slowly on his heels, sweeping his gaze up and down the workbench, savoring their fear. Then he snapped, “All right, doubletime out—I’ve got some special work duty for you little shits. Now!”

  They were quick-marched, Blugg cursing them every step of the way, out the east door, past the loading docks and around the steam hammer works. A brace of loaders were parked in front of the orange smithy, so they took a detour through the old file works building, which had begun long ago as a covered yardway connecting the planing shed to the machine shop and then been expanded and still later, after the new file works building was dedicated, renovated into a clutch of utility rooms.

  Blugg had still not said anything of Jane’s being in his office. She was beginning to dare hope that all that had happened had driven it from his mind.

  “You!” He grabbed Jane by her collar, half-choking her, and kicked open a door. “Wait in here. If you’re not here when I return, you know what’ll happen to you.”

  He flung her inside and slammed the door.

  The hurrying footsteps of the children faded away, and all was still.

  2.

  The room was empty. One wall was all windows from waist-high to the ceiling, panes painted over in a motley, unplanned pattern of grey and dull blue to reduce environmental distraction and promote worker efficiency. Pale light shone through them, wintry weak and shadowless. Thin cracks where the paint had contracted by the edges of the sash bars shone painfully bright.

  Beneath the windows a long lab bench was cluttered with testing equipment. Three oscilloscopes shivered liquidly, square-cornered sine waves slowly creeping across their screens. White smocks had been hastily hung over wall pegs or left draped atop high wooden stools, as if the low-level technomancers who ordinarily worked here had been suddenly driven away by some industrial disaster. To the far side of the room, a new-model dragon’s eyeball, as tall as she was, peered from a testing box. Click. It swiveled to look at her.

  Jane shivered miserably. She tried to picture what punishment Blugg would inflict on her for her crime, and could not. Whatever it was, it would be bad. She walked slowly across the room and back again, the sound of her footsteps bouncing from the high ceiling. The dragon’s eye tracked her progress.

  Was Rooster dead? His plan had turned out even worse than she had anticipated. She had expected that he would escape unscathed while she herself would be caught and subjected to a punishment both swift and dreadful. This was worse, far worse, on both counts.

  Time passed, and Blugg did not return. Nor did the techs who surely worked here. At first she awaited them with fear, knowing they would not accept her explanation of what she was doing in their workspace.

  Then, from sheer boredom, she began to look forward to the confrontation. Later, she despaired of it. Finally, she arrived at indifference. Let them come or not; she did not care. She was a creature of pure perception, a passive observer of the coarse feel of the metallic grit dusting the workbench, of the oxidized rubber smell of the voltmeters, and the fine sheen of the smoothly worn grain on the seats of the stools. Without her, these things would cease to exist, fading silently and gratefully into nothingness.

  By excruciatingly slow degrees the window dimmed and the room cooled. Just before darkness, someone walked by in the hallway, flicking switches. Row upon row of fluorescent tubes winked on overhead.

  Jane’s stomach ached. She felt miserable in a way that was beyond tears. Her insides cramped. For the umpteenth time she walked into the center of the room, the dragon’s eye following her every step. She had no idea what time it was, but she was certain she had missed supper.

  The door slammed open.

  Blugg entered, looking weary and distracted. His grey workshirt was damp under the armpits, and the sleeves were rolled halfway up his wooly forearms. The dragon’s eye flicked toward him.

  “What were you doing in my office?” Oddly, Blugg did not look at Jane. Instead, he frowned down at a small filigree-capped crystal that hung from his hand on a loop of thread.

  “I was only . . .”

  All of its own volition, Jane’s hand rose to her mouth. Her lips pursed involuntarily. It was the exact same gesture she had been making when Blugg saw her in front of his office. Horrified, she whipped her hand down and hid it behind her back.

  Blugg stared at her in a bug-eyed, unblinking way for a moment. A slow smile grew on his face. “You little minx. You were going through my trash.”

  “No!” she cried. “I didn’t take anything, really I didn’t.”

  Blugg slid the crystal back in its plastic case and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. He reached forward and seized her chin.

  His smile grew dreamier, and more frighteningly distant. He turned her head from side to side, studying her face. “Mmmmm.” He ran his gaze down the front of her work apron, as though appraising her strength. His nostrils flared. “Rummaging through my trash basket, were you? Looking for orange peels and bits of sandwich crust. Well, why not? A healthy appetite is a good thing in a youngster.”

  This was more terrifying than threats would have been, for it made no sense at all. Jane stared up at Blugg uncomprehendingly.

  He laid his hands on her shoulders, turned her around slowly. “You’ve been working for me how long? Why, it’s been years, hasn’t it? How time has flown. You’re getting to be a big little girl, aren’t you? Perhaps it’s time you were promoted. I’m going to put in for a Clerk-Messenger Three. How would you like that?”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t sir me! It’s a simple enough question.” He looked at her oddly, then sniffed the air again. “Pfaugh! You’re bleeding. Why haven’t you kept yourself clean?”

  “Bleeding?” she said blankly.

  Blugg pointed down at her leg with a fat, blunt finger. “There.”

  Jane looked down. There
was blood trickling down her calf. She could feel it now, itching all the way down from her thigh.

  This final indignity broke her delicately maintained control. The sudden, sorcerous appearance of blood from some previously unsuspected wound ruptured the membrane holding back all her fear and apprehension. She began to cry.

  “Oh, shit.” Blugg made a face. “Why does all this crap always happen to me?” Disgusted, he waved her to the door. “Go on! Go straight to the nurse’s station and do whatever she tells you.”

  “Congratulations,” the nurse said. “You’re a woman now.”

  The nurse was a sour old creature with piggy eyes, a pointed nose, and two donkey’s ears. She showed Jane how to fold a sanitary napkin, and what to do with it. Then she delivered a memorized lecture on personal hygiene, gave her two aspirins and sent her back to the dormitory.

  Rooster was there already. He lay delirious upon his bed, head swathed in bandages. “He’s going to lose his left eye,” Dimity said. “That’s if he lives. They said if he doesn’t die tonight, he’ll probably be okay.”

  Jane timidly touched Rooster’s shoulder, though she could scarcely bear doing so. His skin was pale as wax, and cold. “Fly the friendly skies,” he mumbled, lost in some faraway delirium. “Join the Pepsi generation.”

  Jane snatched her hand away from him, as if scorched.

  “I’m taking care of him. So don’t you interfere.” Dimity smoothed the blanket down fussily. There was a defiant edge to her voice. When she was done, she leaned back, hands on hips, waiting for Jane to challenge her. Then, when Jane did not, she smiled meanly. “Time for you to go to bed. Isn’t it?”

  Jane nodded and went to her corner.

  The grimoire was waiting for her. The shadow-boy had left it under her folded blanket as instructed. She undressed slowly, managing to spread out the blanket and slip beneath without exposing the book. When she put her arms around it, she experienced a tingling sensation, like a low-voltage electrical current running through her. It made her feel strange.