Cold Iron

by Michael Swanwick

  Jane shrugged uneasily. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “You must know something.” The clerk was brown as bark and so grotesquely thin his eyes stuck out to either side; he looked to be an assemblage of twigs, like the stick men that were hung from poles and set ablaze on Hogmanay night. Rattling his fingers at her, he said, “Underlings always know.” What he must have thought an ingratiating grin split his face. “Creeping and sneaking about like mice, little whiskery noses into everything.”

  “No, really.”

  “Bullshit!” He slammed the counter. “It’s something to do with Grimpke, isn’t it? The earless old bastard in Section A?” He turned his head sideways, so one eye could peer down at her. “I thought so! Something to do with his famous leg-assembly, no doubt.” He eased back, cackling. “Well if that’s what Blugg thinks is going to make him Management’s darling, you can tell him—You can tell him—” A crafty look came over his thin face. “No, don’t say that. Tell him,” he twisted about to peer over a shoulder at the ranks of barrels arrayed on steel-mesh shelving behind him, “tell him that we’ve only got half a barrel of the bryony and if he wants more he’ll need documentation from the boys in the labs.”

  As Jane left, she heard the supply clerk laughing behind her. “Grimpke! What a joke!”

  When next she crawled into the wall, Jane did not settle into the little nest she had made there. Leaving the grimoire below, she climbed up between the walls, searching out the braces and supports for places to set her bare feet. It was surprisingly easy. Carefully she climbed all the way up to the very top. There she followed the cool currents of air until she found their source, a trapdoor that had long ago provided access to the roof.

  When she tried it, she found that it had been tarpapered over, and would not open. But it would not take any great effort for her to steal a knife.

  The next day, toward shift’s end, Rooster approached her with a new plan of escape. They were in the midst of a seasonal production slowdown, and rather than take them back to the dormitory early, Blugg had given the children brooms and barrels of sweeping compound and set them to work cleaning the floors of the pattern shop.

  It was all make-work. The floors were built of enormous oaken beams almost a century ago, so warped and ground away by generations of feet that the wood between the lines of grain was worn into deep ruts and cracks, forming inexhaustible wells of dirt and dust. No amount of sweeping would clean them.

  But so long as the children made a pretense of working, Blugg stayed in the pattern-master’s office and left them alone. Jane could see the cubby through the window-wall that ran the length of the building, just below the ceiling: a modest warren of desk spaces, all carpeted and clean, a calm and different world from the one in which she labored. Grimpke was up in the borrowed office with him. The two old ogres bent low and solemn over their production schedules.

  “Look.” Rooster shook a dustpan full of dirt and waxy crumbs of compound in Jane’s face. “Where do you think this stuff goes?”

  Jane pushed it away. “Back to the floor, soon enough.”

  “Very funny. No, listen. We dump it in those dustbins, right? Then later, there’s a couple of pillywiggins haul them out and dump the trash in a dumpster, okay? Along with scraps and sawdust, packaging, cannisters of chemical waste and the like. Then a truck comes along and empties the dumpsters. Where do you think that truck goes?”

  “The cafeteria.”

  “Chucklehead! It goes out through a service gateway in the east wall. Nowhere near the Time Clock—get it? Nowhere near the Time Clock.”

  “Get real. You want to climb into a trash truck’s belly? Have you ever seen the teeth on those things? They’re sharp as razors and bigger than you are. That thing gets you into its maw, and you’re as good as dead.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “No, of course I’m not sure. But it’s not worth taking a chance on.” Rooster looked cunning. “Let’s say the only way out is past the Clock, then. How do people get by it? With their punchcards, right? But suppose

  we could get hold of a couple of cards. If we could find some way to delay whoever normally used ’em, we could . . .”

  “Include me out.” Jane began sweeping vigorously away.

  “Jane!” Rooster hurried after her. With a quick glance upward, he seized her arm and swung her into the shadow of a pillar. “Jane, why are you against me? All the others are on Dimity’s side, except for you. And Dimity hates your guts. So whose side are you on? You have to choose.”

  “I’m not going to be on anybody’s side anymore,” she said. “Sides are stupid.”

  “What will it take?” he asked desperately. “What will it take to get you back on my side again?”

  He wasn’t going to stop pestering her until she agreed to be a part of his idiot schemes. Well, she had resolved to do whatever it took to get out of here. She might as well turn this to her advantage. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. You go places I don’t. Steal me a hex-nut. A virgin nut, mind you. One that’s never been used.”

  Mercurial as ever, Rooster leered and grabbed his crotch.

  “I’m sick of putting up with your crude jokes too. Help me or don’t, I don’t much care which. But if you’re not willing to do a little thing like this for me, I don’t see why I should be expected to put myself out for you.”

  In a hurt tone, Rooster said, “Hey, what’d I ever do to you? Ain’t I always been your friend?” He closed his good eye and put a finger alongside his nose. “If I help you, will you help me? With my plan?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jane said. “Sure I will.”

  When he was gone, Jane wearily swept her way to the far dark end of the shop. It had been such a long day, and she still had to go to Mrs. Greenleafs to play. She fervently hoped Blugg wouldn’t get so caught up in his project that he’d leave her waiting in the Castle’s foyer as he had the past three days running.

  Dimity was waiting in the shadows for her, and seized her just below the shoulder.

  “Ow!” Her poor arm was getting all bruised.

  But Dimity only squeezed all the tighter. “What were you and Rooster talking about?”

  “Nothing!” she cried.

  Dimity stared at her long and hard, with eyes like two coiled snakes. Finally she released Jane and turned away. “Better be nothing.”

  As the winter weeks progressed, Blugg’s plans ripened toward fruition. Creatures in suits began dropping by to confer with him. He grew more expansive and dressed with greater care, adding a string tie to his work shirt and bathing three times a week. Over in the erecting shop in an unused assembly bay—closed for structural repairs that wouldn’t be scheduled until the economic climate picked up—a prototype of Grimpke’s leg assembly was taking shape.

  During one of her trips to Section A, Jane pocketed a scrap of green leather from the floor of the trim shop. She stole some heavy thread and a curved needle, and sacrificed some of her time with the grimoire to make Rooster an eyepatch. It was more work than she’d intended, and she was feeling peevish by the time it was done. But when she woke Rooster to give it to him, he was so touched and delighted by the present, she felt put to shame.

  “This is great!” He sat up in bed and unwrapped the rag from his head, revealing for a hideous instant the ruin of his eye. Then he ducked his head, tugged on the band to adjust it, and when he straightened he was the old Rooster again. His smile went up further on one side of his face than the other, as if trying to compensate for the lack of balance higher up. His forelocks fell over the strap in a swaggering, piratical sort of way.

  He hopped off the bed. “Where’s a mirror?”

  Jane shook her head, laughing silently, his joy was so infectious. Because of course there were no mirrors in the dormitory or anywhere near it. Industrial safety regulations forbade them.

  Rooster tucked thumbs into armpits, making wingtips of his elbows, and stood on one leg. “Dimity better watch out for me now!”

&n
bsp; Alarmed, Jane said, “Oh, don’t pick a fight with her. Please don’t.”

  “I didn’t pick this fight.”

  “She’s stronger than you are. Now.”

  “It’s only the other kids that make her so strong. Without their faith in her, she’s nothing. All that power will come flowing back to me as soon as I kill Blugg.”

  “You can’t kill Blugg.”

  “Just watch me.”

  “Well, I’m not going to listen to any of this,” Jane said. “I’m going to bed.” And she did.

  But she had an awful feeling her innocent gift had started something spinning out of control.

  Jane was standing on call outside Blugg’s office when Rooster sidled up with the hex-nut he’d promised to steal. He favored her with a one-eyed wink and pressed it into her hand.

  “Is it cherry?” she asked.

  “Sure it is,” Rooster said. “What do you take me for? Some kind of a hardware-fucker?”

  “Don’t be crude.” Jane slipped the nut under her vest and into a pocket. She was getting to be a pretty good thief; the motions were all but automatic by now. To her surprise she found that she actively enjoyed stealing things. There was a dark, shivery thrill to putting herself in danger and yet eluding punishment.

  By the time Jane got back from the Castle that night, the other children were asleep. With practiced swiftness, she stripped off her smock, slipped under her bed, and lifted the loose board. Agile as a night-ape, she scaled the inside of the wall.

  The wind was a lash across Jane’s flesh. She crouched low on the roof, blue-skinned with cold. But Dame Moon gave her strength to endure it. With all her will, she stared at the hex-nut in her hand, focusing on the memorized specs: its dimensions, weight and sheering strength, the exact composition of its alloy.

  Nothing happened.

  She joggled it into the exact center of her palm, concentrating on the heft and feel of it, the pale gleam of moonlight on its faceted surface, the tight coil of the thread down its core. With an almost audible click, she felt her knowledge of it snap together into a perfect whole.

  I know you, she thought. Fly.

  It rose spinning in the air.

  Jane felt content. Knowing the hex-nut’s nature gave her power over it. It had to do what she wanted. Similarly, she knew that for all the dragon’s silence, 7332 needed her. Someday it would have to call her. She would be ready then. She would have all its specs down by heart. And when they left, she’d leave knowing the dragon’s name.

  In control.

  “What are you doing up here?”

  Jane spun around in horror. Rooster was climbing up through the trapdoor. He had a big shit-eating grin on his face and Jane, remembering her nudity, vainly tried to cover herself with her hands. “Don’t look!”

  “Too late. I’ve already seen everything.” Rooster laughed. “You look like Glam herself, riding the roofs.” He reached into the shadows behind him and brought out a blanket. Carelessly he draped it over her shoulders. “There. That ought to prove I’m on your side, after all.”

  “Oh. Sides again.” Blushing, Jane tugged the blanket tight about her.

  Rooster stood on tiptoe, straining an arm toward the moon, as if he thought he could pluck it down from the sky. He pulled himself so high and thin it seemed as if he were trying to make himself one with the wind. “Hey, nice view you got here.” He squinted down at her. “Would it make you feel any better if I took my clothes off too?” He began unbuttoning his trousers.

  “No!”

  “Oh well.” Rooster shrugged and rebuttoned himself. Then, abruptly, he dropped to his knees before her. “Jane, I’ve been thinking and thinking how to get you to like me again.”

  “I do like you, Rooster. You know that.” Jane edged away from him and he followed her on his knees so that the distance between them remained unchanged.

  “Yeah, but you won’t help me. You say you will, but you don’t really mean it. I mean, you know what I mean?”

  She lowered her eyes. “Yeah.”

  Rooster’s voice grew small, as if he were admitting to something shameful. Jane had to strain to make out his words. “So what I thought was maybe we should tell each other our true names.”

  “What?”

  “You know. You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine. That means you really trust somebody, because when they know your true name, they can kill you like that!” He snapped his fingers.

  “Rooster, I’m human.”

  “So? I don’t hold that against you.” His expression was bruised, wounded. He was perfectly vulnerable to her now, even without knowing his secret name. Jane’s heart ached for him.

  Gently, she said, “I don’t have a true name.”

  “Shit.” Rooster went to the very edge of the roof and for the longest time stared straight down at the faraway ground. Jane was seized with dread for him, but simultaneously feared to call out lest he should fall. Finally he put his arms out full length to either side and spun around. He stalked toward her. “I’m going to tell you anyway.”

  “Rooster, no!”

  “It’s Tetigistus. That means Needle.” He folded his arms. His face had taken on an eerily peaceful cast, as if all his cares and worries had suddenly fallen away. Jane found herself almost envying him. “There. Now you can do anything you want with me.”

  “Rooster, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Hey, you still haven’t told me what you’re doing up here.” The hex-nut had fallen from the air when Rooster first spoke. All this time she had been holding it clutched in one fist. Now Rooster unfolded her fingers and took the nut from her. “Ahhhh.” He peered at her through the bore. “So that’s what you wanted it for. You’re learning how to use things’ names against them.”

  Numbly Jane nodded. “Yes, I . . . I found this grimoire, see—”

  “Yeah, right, I stepped on it down at the bottom of the wall.” Rooster’s voice burned fierce with joy. “Oh, that’s perfect. That means anything can be turned against Blugg! We can crush him under boiler stock, call down molten brass on him, fill his arteries with particulate lead.”

  “Rooster, why this fixation on Blugg? Give it up. Revenge isn’t going to help you escape.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about escape.”

  “But you said—”

  “Only because that’s what you wanted. Since my sickness, since I lost my eye, the sight has been getting stronger within me every day. What do I care what side of the factory gates I’m on? Right here and now I can see worlds like nothing you’ve ever imagined. Things you don’t have the words for. And sometimes I get premonitions.” He frowned with unRoosterlike solemnity and said, “That’s why I keep trying to warn you. You’re caught in something, and the more you try to get loose, the more tangled you become.” Then he laughed, Rooster again. “But now we’re working together! First you’ll help me kill Blugg, and then we’ll lift his punchcard and we can walk out free. It’s so simple it’s beautiful.”

  Jane felt awful. Rooster’s plans were not hers. There was no way 7332 was going to let her take Rooster along when she left. She could feel the dragon’s presence even now, a saturating medium pervasive everywhere in the plant. Even here, weakened by the moonlight, its influence was yet tangible. She could feel the iron certainty of its revulsion in the back of her skull. “It won’t work. It’s just another of your childish fantasies.”

  “Don’t be like that. You’re just letting yourself get all caught up in the illusion of existence.” He held out a hand. “Here, let me show you.”

  She took his hand. “Show me? How?”

  “You know my name, don’t you? Well, use it.”

  “Teti . . . Tetigistus,” she said hesitantly. “Show me what you see.”

  They were walking down a dark winter sidewalk. Patches of unshoveled snow had been trodden down to black lumps, hard as rock and slippery as ice. Stone-and-glass buildings soared up out of sight. Lights were everywhere, lining the endless shop wi
ndows, twinkling in scrawny leafless trees, spelling out words in enormous letters in an alphabet strangely familiar but undecipherable to her. The streets were choked with machines that moved as if they were alive, but had no voices of their own, only the roar of their engines and the blare of horns.

  “Where are we?” Jane asked wonderingly.

  Rooster shook his head. They walked on, among throngs of silent, shadowy people. Nobody spoke to them or jostled them. It was as if they were ghosts.

  In a window they saw evergreen trees spangled with popcorn and foil and strings of gingerbread soldiers. Beneath the firs were heaped an ogre’s hoard of toys, bears in harness beating small drums, machines that were glossy miniatures of those in the street, dolls in lace-trimmed taffeta, a stuffed giraffe half as large as life.

  Jane had never seen anything or anyplace like this repository of alien wealth, but some resonant echo of the spirit told her that this place was in some way identical to or congruent with the world of her earliest memories, that time and place when she had been small and protected and happy. She began to cry. “Rooster, take me home, please.”

  He turned to her in surprise and unthinkingly released her hand.

  They were back on the factory roof again.

  “There.” Rooster kissed her on the cheek. “Now we trust each other completely,” he said.

  Time was getting short. Jane could feel the grinding vibration of events coming together as the machineries of fate moved them about. The next night, as she was making a pretense of playing with the toys, Jane closed her hand around the nugget of brass 7332 wanted. As a distraction she lifted a glory-hand free of the box, waving it back and forth as if she were playing sorceress. This made Mrs. Greenleaf happy, she knew, acting childish; the more childish she acted the happier the old elf was.

  Craftily, she turned her body to hide the theft, drawing the nugget close with a languid gesture of her hand, and secreting it among her clothes. Mrs. Greenleaf, busy with pencil and magazine, noticed nothing. Casually, though the Baldwynn never looked directly at anything, Jane glanced up at him to make sure he also was not watching.