The young lady thought for a second. “What happened to your arm?”
“I let its bones be broken in exchange for wisdom. See that the same does not happen to you.” Narcisse glanced sidelong at Cat, who struck a vigilant pose. She was so situated that two steps backward would place her within the gate, blocking it with her body.
“Oh.” The young woman threw herself down cross-legged on the grass. “Very well. Ask what you will.”
A dark aura surrounded Fata Narcisse and she seemed to grow larger. Obviously, she was drawing upon quantum power sources again. Scowling ferociously, she said, “What is your use-name?”
“Elektra, daughter of Olympia, daughter of Hephaesta, of the line of Hekate.”
“What is your true name?
“It is writ in the halls of fire in sigils ten feet high, for those who have the wit to read it. Are you sure you’re a real examiner?”
“I am. What is your purpose here today?”
“To be born.”
“For what reason are you to be born?”
“To live, to love, to learn, and to lose.”
“What is the price of these privileges?”
“Death.”
“The purpose of your life?”
“To die.”
“The purpose of your death?”
“None.”
“Life having purpose, and death having none, why are you here?”
Elektra sighed and rolled her eye. “I give up.”
Sternly, Fata Narcisse said, “That’s not a real answer.”
“So?” the young woman said.
“You must answer the question.”
“Your examination is stupid. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of you as well.” The fire spirit stood, brushing grass from her skirt. Then she made a flicking gesture with one hand. The tips of her fingers lightly brushed against Narcisse, sending her flying ten feet through the air. Her body made an ugly sound when it hit the ground.
Elektra took off her hat and threw it away. Her hair burst into flames. Her eye was an intense darkness under those flames. To Cat, she said, “You stand in my way. Move aside.”
Skin clammy with dread, Cat stood her ground. Fata Narcisse had said she did not know what to say, and that was true. But she could at least try. “Hear me, Greatness! Your mother Olympia, daughter of Hephaesta, of the line of Hekate sent us here for your own protection. Heed the warning she sends through us: Your body is not yet prepared for you. Without armor to contain your fires, you will destroy yourself, your mother, and a good chunk of a world that I, for one, am very fond of. Half an hour’s patience is all we ask of you. That’s not much. It’s hardly anything. Surely you can see how reasonable that is.”
Elektra tapped her foot and made a moue of annoyance. Her hair sizzled and snapped. “Oh, twaddle. No one cares for your logic. Get out of my way.”
“No.”
The skin beneath the burning hair had grown paler and more translucent; it was possible to see the bone beneath it. Teeth sprouted, sharp and gnarled, in her mouth. “No? What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“Advance and you will be repulsed. Move toward the gate and I will drive you away from it. That’s what ‘no’ means.”
“You think you can stop me, sorceress?”
“Yes.”
The girl giggled. “You’re funny.”
Lightly, she strode toward Cat.
Twisting one foot against the grass to get a more solid stance, Cat felt that foot slip slightly on metal. This clarified her thinking most wondrously. Fata Narcisse had said that everything surrounding them was illusion. Which meant that it was an illusion which had thrown her through the air and, by the sound of it, done serious damage to her body. Her belief that all was illusion, then, had proved weaker than the fire spirit’s will. So. What did Cat have faith in that would be stronger than that will?
She had faith in her training.
Elektra reached up a negligent hand, as she had with Fata Narcisse. Cat brought her lignum vitae staff down on it hard.
“Ow!” The young woman stared at her hand in disbelief. “That hurt.”
With neither hurry nor hesitation, Cat took two steps back, into the womb-gate, filling it. She raised her staff in a defensive position. “I congratulate you, O nobly unborn,” she said. “You have just learned your first lesson about life. Most of us had to wait until we were born for that.”
The fire spirit put her head down and charged at Cat.
Stepping forward and to the side, Cat slammed one end of her staff into Elektra’s calf to make her stumble. Then she threw all her weight against the young woman’s ribs, so that she went smashing into the iron wall to one side of the womb-door. After which, Cat moved back to her starting position, blocking the exit.
For a long moment, both Cat and Elektra caught their breaths. Then the fire spirit laughed, clapped her hands, and—
Clang! Clang! Clang!
It was the sound of a shovel being slammed against the locomotive’s side. Small and distant came the crone’s voice: “Olly-olly-oxen-free! The new body is here! You can let the spawn pass.”
Cat stepped to the side and leaned her staff against the wall. With a bow, she said, “Pass, O nobly almost-born.”
A hot wind swept through the womb-gate and the fire spirit was gone.
“Olly-olly-oxen-free! You can come out now.” Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Fata Narcisse lay unmoving on the ground. Stooping over her body, Cat performed a quick scan. The elf-lady was gray with shock but there appeared to be no significant loss of blood. Narcisse groaned when Cat touched her ribs, so probably at least one was broken. But there appeared to be no injuries to the skull or spine.
“Don’t die on me, sis,” Cat muttered. “I want to borrow that peach silk blouse you like so much and pour a chocolate daiquiri down its front.” Then she rolled Narcisse on her side and, standing, slung her over her shoulder in a kobold’s carry.
As she passed through the birth-gate, Helen said, “Hell of a way to run a railroad.”
“We survived it,” Cat said. “I like to think that counts for something.”
* * *
The exterior world reeked of scorched metal and burnt plastic and spilled lubricant from ruptured wheel casings. But there were also the smell of acres of rye and the subtler, more alluring scent of night-flowering carnivores. Cat’s head lifted involuntarily and she saw five bat-riders flutter by in formation, lances held high, in search of prey. A moon winked five times and they were gone.
Workers were swarming about Olympia. Repair trains had arrived at last, bringing with them not only the new locomotive but cranes, bulldozers, and other tools with which to right Olympia’s body. Kobolds, haints, and dwarves began slowly and with a great deal of profanity to raise up the fallen locomotive.
Two haints placed a stretcher before Cat and helped her lower Narcisse onto it.
“Step back and let me work.” Grimalka shoved Cat aside and knelt beside the surgeon-archimage’s body. She passed her hands over it in complex gestures, mumbling cantrips under her breath. Then, to one of the haints, she said, “Get a drip and some painkiller into her. Stat.”
“Will she be okay?” Cat asked.
“Not my department,” the crone replied. “Put her into the infirmary car,” she told the second haint. “They’ll know what to do.” Then, addressing Cat again, “You done good, kid. The thanks of a grateful railroad, yadda yadda yadda.”
Cat took Esme’s hand. “I think this would be a good time for the two of us to slip away.”
“What are you—nuts? I’ll bet Fata Narcisse made you promises. Expensive ones, too, am I right?”
“As I recall, her promises were both extravagant and vague.”
“Yeah, well, you can start by demanding a prophecy from a grateful fire spirit. The way I see it, Her Nibs owes you one.”
* * *
They waited until Olympia had been righted and set firmly on the tracks agai
n. Then, after a brief consultation with Grimalka, the locomotive ordered the workers to retreat an earshot’s distance away. This left only Cat, Esme, and the crone in her presence. “I apologize that my daughter tried to kill you,” the locomotive said. “She is young and knows no better. With age comes wisdom. With wisdom comes the knowledge that service must be repaid, however base the servitor. You may ask me any three questions and I will lower myself to answer them.”
The crone leaned close to Cat and whispered, “Ask wisely. This is an offer few ever receive in a lifetime.”
“Ask her where I left my dolly,” Esme said. “No, wait. Here it is. I lost my flute, though.”
“She is right. You have two questions left.”
Quickly, before Esme could ask about the flute, Cat said, “Tell me where my brother now resides. He is Fingolfinrhod, Lord Sans Merci of House Sans Merci.”
For a long while, the locomotive remained silent and motionless, a black wall against the starry sky. Then she said:
“Full fathom five thy brother lies;
On his thighs are pleasures built;
Wanton pearls do please his eyes:
Naught of his life suffers guilt,
But hath endured a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly attend his quilt.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Roddie all right. But it doesn’t answer my question. I don’t suppose you have a more specific address?”
“Alas,” Olympia said, “your kind are to me like so many fireflies. At a distance, I cannot pick one out of your foul swarm. Ask me your final question.”
Cat thought carefully. Then she said, “Tell me whatever it is I most need to know.”
“Ahhhh, now that is a question worth the asking.” Again, the locomotive fell silent. Again they waited. Finally, she assumed the vatic voice a second time and said:
“In a glass coffin
Your mother lies imprisoned—
Wake her with a kiss.”
There was a long silence. Then, “That’s it?” Cat asked incredulously. “Damn you for a false prophet and a fraud! That was the exact opposite of anything I would ever want to know.”
“I have said my piece and paid my debt,” Olympia replied. “Let my servitors return. Already, I long to travel.”
As if this were a signal, the workers began drifting back toward the locomotive.
* * *
On the rails beyond the trains dispatched to aid in the cleanup efforts was a luxury liner with a dining car, a sleeping car, a club car, and a brothel car. “That’s for you and the urchin,” Grimalka said. “Don’t make faces! Fata Narcisse said she’d support you, right? That’s great—if she survives. But if she doesn’t, well, there’s no paper trail and you never existed. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Either way, if I were you, I’d take the ride. Trust me, once you’ve traveled like a Lady of the Rails, you’ll never be happy with first class again.”
So it was that, minutes later, Cat found herself in a leather armchair, riding away from the scene of the accident. A gwisin floated into the club car, carrying a blanket and a shallow bowl of warm water. Without saying a word, she knelt at Cat’s feet, removed her shoes, and began giving her a pedicure. A Teggish servitor placed three stiff menus before her, saying, “This one is for food, the second is a list of available spa services, and the third is for artisanal sexual practices you may be interested in.”
Cat ordered an omelet with truffles and a glass of sauvignon blanc. Esme wanted a grilled cheese sandwich and a Pepsi. While they were waiting to be called into the dining room, Cat looked over the third menu. “Some of these: Yuck,” she said. “What’s refluxophilia?”
“You don’t want to know,” Helen said.
Shortly thereafter, for the third time that night, Cat went to bed. This time, nothing woke her until noon the next day. Not even Esme.
Our soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken and we are delivered.
—The Book of Common Prayer
In late afternoon the train arrived in the ancient city of Avernus.
As its doors opened and Cat took Esme’s hand, preparatory to stepping down onto the platform, the smells of the city washed over her: diesel exhaust, hot tar, fresh espresso, roasting chestnuts, baking bread, cheap wine, expensive perfume, damp laundry, lemons, grilled lamb, hazelnut gelato, cigarette smoke from hotel lobbies, stale beer from low dives, lilacs and freesia from flower stands, algae-green water from fountains, the dust of eternity and, lurking behind them all, piss festering in dark alleyways.
“Ahhhh,” Helen said. “The stinks and stanks of life—I’m home at last.”
“I never know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t need to, my dear.”
Redcaps swept by with Cat’s duffel bag and the Hello Kitty knapsack. Cat ran to catch them, yanking Esme after her as if she were a wheeled bag, only to be brought to an abrupt halt by a footman holding up a sign with her name on it. Behind him, the redcaps were loading the luggage into the trunk of a Duesenberg under the watchful eye of its driver. “Fata Narcisse sends her regrets that she cannot meet you in person,” the footman said. He was a ginger dwarf with a crooked smile that didn’t quite reach all the way to insolence. “The doctors insist on house rest for at least three weeks. She directed me to tell you, however, that you are to be her guest at the compound for as long as you care to stay.”
“But we left before she did. How can she possibly be here ahead of us?”
“The railroad takes care of its own, ma’am. Are you coming?”
Having no better alternative at hand, Cat nodded.
* * *
A leisurely ride into the center of town, hugs and welcomes, and two uneventful weeks later, Cat and Narcisse lay sunning themselves by the pond. Narcisse was proudly naked, save for the plaster cast, covered with scrawled healing runes, on one arm. Cat had a towel draped across her butt. Between them was a Scrabble board.
There were buildings scattered about the compound’s grounds—cabanas here, a stand of beech there, a Gothic folly that looked to be on the verge of tumbling down alongside a small but artfully rendered tarn where it would most please the eye. The farther from the central knoll, the thicker the buildings clustered, until they joined to form a circular wall holding the world at bay. Earlier that morning, they had swum laps (Cat) and floated on a plastic chaise (Narcisse), gotten spider-silk facials, and been worked over by the resident masseuse. Esme stalked the edge of the water with a frog gig in her hand. From here, they could look out over the rooftops of the city and up to the top of the crater walls in all directions, though for security purposes all the compound had been glamoured unseeable from without.
“Scientist. Can that possibly be a real word?” Narcisse asked.
Cat, who had gotten the term from Helen, was not sure herself. But she said, “Do you want to challenge me?”
“No.” Narcisse toyed with the tiles on their rack. Then she said, “Little sister? Don’t you think it’s time you told me where you came from?”
“You were there.” Cat smiled. “Have you forgotten?”
“Don’t play the soubrette, ma mystérieuse. I found you in the middle of nowhere, a mulatto with the pride of a peer and the singlestick skills of a soldier, accompanied by a little girl who is clearly not related to you. Riding the rails. Don’t try to pretend there’s not a story behind that.”
With a sigh, Cat sat up, rearranging the towel about herself. “I had hoped never to share this with anyone. But you have been so kind to me and Esme. So, if you really insist…”
“I really do.”
“Then I have no choice.” At the last instant, Cat caught herself about to assume the stance of a professional storyteller and moved the raised hand to the back of her head to scratch, as if she were thinking. Then she related the story she and Helen had been working on
ever since being met by the footman at the train station.
CAT’S TALE
I grew up the adopted bastard of a wealthy provincial family—never mind which one!—in the social backwaters of Brocéliande. You can probably tell that by my accent. As a child, I did not ask myself why I looked so different from the rest of my family. But I did wonder why, in addition to ballroom dancing, horsemanship, and similar social attainments, I also took lessons in singlestick, summoning, orienteering, and other skills which none of my full-elven sisters and brothers were required to learn.
Whenever I asked, the answer was always, “It is an ability your grand-maman lacks.”
At adolescence, my training intensified—to what end, I could not tell. More alarmingly, no arrangements were made to place me in industry or the military, where my mortal blood would be useful. For the first time, I came to see that there was some hidden purpose behind my existence. My cousins and siblings, never warm to me, grew colder and more distant. So I began gathering hints and clues, every one of which led to my grandmother. Including the fact that I had been given the same name—don’t ask what!—as hers.
Grand-maman, meanwhile, was growing seely with age. Light leaked from her eyes, lips, and nostrils. She weighed so little that a vagrant breeze would bounce her into the air. There were whispered discussions of her condition and voiced worries that she was close to transcendence.
One day, the soul surgeons were called in. They brought with them a young changeling girl—a pre-op, with life but no consciousness—in a wire cage. Her skin was gray and rubbery and she breathed through her mouth, like a fish. Have you ever seen one? Ghastly. Normally, they hollow them out and fill ’em up with a mortal soul stolen from who-knows-where. Not this one.
The cage was left in the foyer while the surgeons went to see the old lady. I got a chopstick from the kitchen and poked the child with it to see if she would respond. She turned blank eyes toward me and, shivering as the awen overtook her, said, “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative. Think outside the box, live free or die, you only live once, I don’t have the bandwidth, I’ll hit the ground running. I’m a global force for good. At the end of the day it is what it is. Cray-cray amazeballs and totes adorbs. You see what I did there? Get a life!”
The Iron Dragon’s Mother Page 10