by Wen Spencer
She nodded her understanding as her stomach flipped queasily. The elves were obviously assuming that she would become an elf.
* * *
She had hated Kansas, from the endless sky to the narrow minds of the ranch. Despite that, she’d been homesick; she missed the comfort of Christian fellowship. She’d thought about joining a church after the first month in Pittsburgh. Any decent person, though, would wonder where her parents were, and a truly good person would need to know how she was surviving on her own. If she was safe. If she had enough to eat. If she was ready for the winter. Her life didn’t stand up to the scrutiny that a close-knit community would bring.
It brought her to tears when she thought about Christmas without belonging to a church. She got goose bumps singing carols in evening services. The soft light of candles filling the church. The scent of pine trees and beeswax. Voices raised without an organ’s accompaniment; a unison of love and devotion. “O Holy Night.” “Silent Night.” What Child is This?”
She’d told herself it was only for a year. Once her baby was born and she was firmly rooted in Pittsburgh, she’d start carefully vetting the churches in Pittsburgh. Once she found one like her grandmother’s in Boston, she’d have the community she desperately wanted.
When she had tracked Forest Moss down, she thought she could continue on that timeline. Instead of walking Liberty Avenue, selling her body to random strangers, she would be safe at night in a familiar bed. Everything else would stay the same. She should have taken Tinker’s life as a warning. The girl had been yanked out of her life, flown to Aum Renau, and things had never been the same for her.
Olivia had lost her entire life once. She was twelve when her mother decided to return to the ranch. They left behind her father, paternal grandmother, aunts, uncles and a herd of younger cousins that were as close as sisters and brothers to her. The church she’d attended since she was born. The middle school full of kids she’d known since kindergarten. The library where all the librarians knew her name and fed her wonderful books that expanded her mind.
They had driven for days, the sky growing larger and larger until the world was just wheat and sky. She felt like she’d been reduced to a speck of dirt and dropped on a foreign planet full of aliens.
So lost…
Like she felt now.
She curled up on the window seat and stared out through the glass. What was she supposed to do? She needed Forest Moss’ support to survive in Pittsburgh through the winter and the war. She wouldn’t be able to keep turning tricks to earn money as her pregnancy got more and more obvious. For her baby’s sake, she needed to eat well and stay warm and safe. And Forest Moss needed her. Without her, he’d unravel. The Wyverns would decide he was too dangerous to live, especially with other domana arriving in Pittsburgh that made him less vital to the city’s defense. Forest Moss needed her and she owed him and was fairly sure that she loved him.
But she was scared of losing herself.
She’d spent so many years fighting her family as they tried to beat her into their mold of a good and proper woman. They had wanted her to be a docile, obedient baby machine. If they could have arranged for uneducated, they would have worked for that too, but the state of Kansas tested their home school students.
What the elves wanted was worse. They wanted to change every cell of her body, and in doing so, strip away her mortality. If they took her basic humanity and then isolated her from everything human, how could she possibly stay herself? On top of it, they had bound her willingness to change to Forest Moss’ life. All the beatings and shunning and days with nothing but bread and water paled in comparison.
It would be one thing if Forest Moss wanted her to change; she would never change for anyone’s selfish desires. All that he wanted, though, was to be with her. It was the Wyverns that would force her to decide between the two.
They needed to separate themselves from the Wyverns. How?
The Wyverns hadn’t come to Pittsburgh until the war broke out. They would leave once it was done. Hopefully. She could pray for a quick and speedy end. If they left before she had her baby, then the elf sense of time might mean that no one would try to change her until it was far too late.
They would need a better place to live, one that would provide through the winter.
She stared out the window at Fifth Avenue and the sprawl of city beyond the Cathedral’s wide lawn. There had to be a simpler way to find an empty place than walking up and down the streets, checking every door.
Movement on the lawn caught her eye. Some of the students were playing Ultimate Frisbee. A handful of the marines had gathered on the sidelines to watch. The humans were as curious as the elves. The game halted to teach the marines how to throw the Frisbee.
It made her remember that Dean Fisher had said that the university assumed that their students would find an apartment in their sophomore year. How? The students would be coming from Earth with everything they would need for an entire school year. They wouldn’t be roaming the streets for days on end. There had to be some way for offworld students to line up housing before they crossed the border.
* * *
Elfhome Real Estate had an office on Forbes Avenue that whispered “luxury.” A big picture window. Thick pile carpet. Large ironwood desk. Leather visitor chairs. The cornered agent gazed at her with wide, wide eyes as she explained that she needed someplace to live. Forest Moss sat silently in the chair beside her, staring at the ceiling. The Wyverns stood quietly at her back. The marines milled outside, occasionally peering in through the picture window.
She finished with the most important part. “The Wind Clan will be paying for our quarters as part of the Stone Clan compensation for coming to Pittsburgh and fighting the oni.”
“But—but—but,” the real estate agent stammered. “I don’t understand what you think I can do about this.”
Olivia considered the lettering on the window that stated: Elfhome Real Estate. She scanned the photos of apartments decorating his wall. They had captions such as “studio with view” and “one bedroom with balcony.”
“You are a real estate agent, right?” she said just to confirm it. He could have been a secretary or a very well dressed janitor.
He put up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “We’re property managers for several Earth-based real estate companies affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt maintains dormitories for undergraduate student housing. We handle the temporary and permanent housing for graduate and doctorate students, faculty and some of the postdocs who are doing field work in the area.”
Olivia huffed impatiently and locked in on the key words. “You handle housing.”
“To people associated with the University of Pittsburgh.” He stressed the word “associated.”
She countered with, “Pitt was on summer break when the gate failed.”
He paused for a moment, obviously sensing a trap. “Yes.”
“So there are apartments with occupants coming back to them—right? They’re on Earth and we’re on Elfhome and there’s no way to get from one to the other.”
“Yes.” He drew this word out as if he suspected that he shouldn’t admit to the truth. His eyes darted to the listening elves that probably couldn’t follow the English conversation.
Which might not be to her benefit.
Olivia switched to Elvish. “I need someplace to live close to Prince True Blood’s encampment. You have empty apartments. I don’t see the problem here.”
He took a deep breath and glanced to the Wyverns again. After a minute, he wet his lips and stated carefully in Elvish. “We demand that people meet certain requirements. They have to be employees or students of the University.”
“I can take a class,” Olivia said.
He opened and shut his mouth a few times.
Olivia scanned the apartment offerings on the wall. They would need room for her and Forest Moss and eventually the baby. A scrape of boot against tile added in a horde of elv
es, at least at the start. Three bedrooms. There was only one such offering on the wall.
“That one.” Olivia pointed to the flyer. “I want to see it.”
“The penthouse at Webster Hall Apartments?” The agent’s voice threatened to break.
“Yes.”
He named the monthly rent, which given another situation would have had her fleeing the building. It was thousands of dollars a month. How did anyone afford such a place? She swallowed down her fear. First things first: make sure it was acceptable and then see if the Wind Clan truly would foot the bill.
“Show it to us.”
His gaze flicked to the Wyverns again and then slowly he half-bowed. “Yes, certainly.”
* * *
Webster Hall was a stately sandstone building on Fifth Avenue next to St. Paul’s. Olivia suppressed a familiar twinge of guilt at the sight of the cross on the steeple. She hadn’t wanted to get married to Troy, had resisted months of bullying before agreeing, had been legally too young, and he had six wives already. She had, however, said vows before God and witnesses. She meant those oaths at the time. And yet, here she was, more or less married to an elf.
Troy’s God might have been the type that damned an abused child to hell for adultery, but Olivia’s God didn’t. In fact, her God might be the reason there were so many tornadoes in Kansas.
Squaring her shoulders, she marched into Webster Hall. Forest Moss, the five Wyverns, and a real estate agent trailed behind her. Thankfully the marines stayed outside.
There was a spacious lobby with expensive-looking leather sofas and a wall of gleaming bronze mailboxes for the tenants. Beyond a locked security door, there was an elevator to the upper floors.
They left two Wyverns in the lobby and squeezed into the elevator car when it arrived. It deposited them in a tiny hallway on the penthouse level.
The front door opened into a small foyer. A small galley kitchen was immediately to the right with a small refrigerator, electric range and a microwave. Closed off to make the most of wall space, the room would be pitch black in a power outage.
Olivia walked into the living room, trying not to like the fact that it was one long wall of high windows. They’d been having Indian summer and the sun baked the room in warmth. Come winter, though, heat would escape through the glass at an alarming rate in a power outage.
“How is the building heated?” Olivia asked.
“There’s central heat and air conditioning.”
All electricity-dependent then. Olivia knew that electricity was fairly easy to take out. One good storm or a well-placed bomb, and a section of the city could be without power for hours, maybe days. The oni had tried to take out the city’s power plant once. There was no fireplace, wood burning or gas, so there wasn’t another way to warm the apartment. She wished she had thought to ask before demanding to see the apartment.
There were three bedrooms, just as stated, but the smallest would hold little more than a crib and a dresser. If the Wyverns continued to sleep within sword’s reach, then the apartment was far too small. Since it had been the largest apartment listed, then this was a dead end.
Olivia sighed and leaned her forehead against the glass. The wall of windows gave the apartment a better view of the Rim than the taller cathedral. She could clearly see the line of destruction running from horizon to horizon in a sweeping arc, marking where a fifty-mile-diameter circle had been punched out of Earth and dropped onto Elfhome. The Rim sheared through city sprawl, streets and buildings reduced to rubble by the transfer. To the northeast lay virgin Elfhome forest: towering ironwood trees and nothing else for hundreds of miles. To southwest, Pittsburgh lay, under siege by oni and alien vegetation, and losing the battle.
Looking at it made her feel completely alone.
She closed her eyes. Please, God, help me. I don’t know what to do.
The real estate agent had gone into professional mode, babbling about the benefits of the apartment. “It’s an amazing view of the old CMU campus. I have always loved Hamerschlag Hall. It’s the one with the rotunda on the roof.”
She opened her eyes to peer at the far hillside. There were several large old classical-looking stone buildings. The one with the rotunda was stunningly beautiful. She hadn’t heard of a second school in Oakland. “CMU campus?”
“CMU was Carnegie Mellon University. Well, still is, only it moved to Earth.”
Maybe she was thinking too small. She had a small army trailing behind her. They could take over a large building. Not this one; it was too dependent on electricity. Something they could install wood stoves in. They could do radical infrastructure changes on a big building. Fortified areas. Escape routes. Hydroponics.
“Hammerslag?” She pointed because she knew she was butchering the name. “Is that empty?”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “The EIA uses the campus as overflow offices and barracks. Director Maynard’s offices are downtown at the PPG castle, but during Shutdown, there’s an EIA-only access road open directly to the campus. That way their personnel aren’t caught in the traffic jams.”
She had her hands full with the elves; she didn’t want to add the EIA. Still there were dozens of old stately buildings on the hillside. “The EIA uses everything over there?”
“Everything except the old Phipps Conservatory; that building way to the right.” He pointed to the glimmer of glass through the trees.
“Like a greenhouse conservatory?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“How old is old?”
He spread his hands to indicate ignorance. “Over a hundred years old. I think it was built in 1890—so—a hundred forty years. It didn’t fare well after the first Shutdown. It was very dependent on admissions to stay open. It was a big drop from a population of two million people living within an hour drive time to sixty thousand.”
“So it’s closed?” she asked.
“Yes, it closed a few years ago.”
“Perfect.”
* * *
The Phipps Conservatory was like something out of a fairy tale, an elegant and fanciful expanse of glass that glittered in the Indian summer sun. It sat on a hill by itself, separated from the rest of Oakland by a deep ravine spanned by a wide stone bridge. Remnants of banners rustled in the wind as they hiked up the hill toward it, offering hope that the neglect to the building wouldn’t be too extensive. She could make out vague shapes of towering plants within.
Getting past the locked front doors proved to be simple for impatient elves with magically sharp swords. Better yet, once they could unlock the doors from the other side, Forest Moss was able to repair the damage done to the door with a few gestures and words.
The front of the building was set into a hillside and capped with a great glass dome that washed the area in sun. Judging by the dozen round tables, each hosting four chairs, there had been a café on one side of the foyer. A quick exploration revealed a small working kitchen. Across the hall was a denuded gift shop with one giant garden gnome looking forlornly at the empty shelves. There were also bathrooms with multiple stalls.
The next area was a courtyard with palm trees, moist and green. Just as she was wondering the source of the water, a sprinkler head popped up and misted the area.
She did a little victory dance. So far, perfect.
The more Olivia explored the conservatory, the more perfect it seemed. While the greenhouse areas were vulnerable, there was a large brick building in back that housed offices and classrooms that could be converted into an easily defendable living space for a large number of people.
Room after room of wild splendor teetering on the edge of ruin but not completely lost. Hard work could salvage it all but pretty plants weren’t what she needed. She needed crops to eat. It seemed like a shame to tear out the cultivated gardens to grow vegetables. The last and largest room, however, was labeled “Production Greenhouse” and was nothing short of a miracle. With the large bag of keva beans, she had everything needed to grow all the
food they would ever need. It meant that no matter when the war ended, they could survive the winter and still have seed for next summer.
Her God was watching over her. He would provide.
She pressed her hands together and bowed her head in prayer. “Thank you for your wondrous bounty.”
THREADS THAT BIND AND BREAK
Gossamers filled the skies over Pittsburgh. Translucent as jellyfish and shimmering with thousands of tiny fractured rainbows, the massive beasts defied all logic.
Law watched the gossamers with new eyes. She grew up with the sight of the great living airships swimming above the skyscrapers. As a child, she’d accepted their existence without question; impossible creatures lurked in every corner of Pittsburgh. Since June, though, she’d learned many dangerous secrets and dark truths. The Skin Clan twisted sea creatures into flying airships by using powerful spells. There were larger, more dangerous beasts scattered across the planet that they’d made for war. Nor did the Skin Clan limit their biological tampering to animals; they carried out countless experiments on their slaves. They were cruel and immoral masters and they were in Pittsburgh. Somewhere. Carefully hidden.
Law studied the airships, aware for the first time of the menace that they represented. She never realized before that there were differences between the beasts and the gondolas slung under their bodies; most likely because she’d only seen the viceroy’s airships coming and going. The one lone airship over the airfield was being untethered to make room for the incoming ones. It was the viceroy’s surviving gossamer, as the other animal had been killed earlier in the summer. Its gondola was Wind Clan blue, the importance of which she never knew until June. The color turned the wooden craft into an unmistakable war flag.
The incoming airships were carried by larger beasts. The gondolas were black, trimmed with red or green, and bristled with weapons. The Stone Clan had arrived in force. The prows of the black-and-red gondolas jutted out with saw-like teeth gleaming like blood. The largest drifted toward the Wind Clan gossamer with the menace of a river shark.