The Iron Dragon’s Mother

by Michael Swanwick

“Told you it was just a cover story.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s great seeing you guys again,” Cat said. “Fabulous. Real swell. Now I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I get as far the fuck away from your traitorous faces as I possibly can. If you try to follow me, I swear I’ll kill you.”

  She started to back away.

  “No. Wait. Don’t. You’re not the only one who was framed—you were just the first.” One side of Ysault’s mouth quirked up in an almost-smile. “We’re all on the same side now. Or maybe ‘equally screwed’ is a better way to put it.” Then, seeing Cat hesitate, “C’mon, Caitlin, everyone makes mistakes. Underneath it all, we’re still dog-sisters, aren’t we? Pro matria mori, right?” She held up her fist.

  “I—”

  “Pro matria mori! We live by those words. Or aren’t you one of the Corps anymore?”

  Reluctantly, Cat bumped Ysault’s fist with her own. There were ties that were stronger than treachery, and the Dragon Corps had been the best and truest family she’d ever known. “Mat mori,” she replied. Then, “Call me Cat. It’s my name now. Where can we all sit down and talk?”

  “Well, there’s always Felix Culpa,” Ysault said. “It’s kind of a dive but it’s close. In fact, we were just on our way there to meet—”

  “No names.” Sibyl clapped a hand over Ysault’s mouth. After a jerk of her head toward a side street, she silently led them away, several twists and turns deeper into the narrowing streets and ever more decrepit buildings of the Italian Quarter.

  Felix Culpa, when they reached it, proved to be a small, dark basement bar with a crude mural of the Winged God’s nine-day fall on one wall. Cat felt an unease, as if someone were watching from the shadows, but dismissed it. They took a table and, when the ibis-headed waitress came, Esme said, “A glass of your finest pinot grigio, per favore, my good creature.”

  “You’ll have Pepsi.” Cat turned to the waitress. “I’ll have the pinot grigio.”

  “Soave.”

  “Something red and from Lemuria. Mu will do in a pinch.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence, during which their drinks arrived. Then Ysault said, “So. Tell me everything.”

  Cat gave a truncated version of her adventures, leaving out all mention of Fata Narcisse, Edderkopp, or Helen. Then she leaned back and said, “Your turn.”

  Her former peers glanced at one another. Sibyl nodded almost imperceptibly. “They came for us at night,” Ysault said. “Everyone in the women’s quarters, no exceptions. We were not treated with the courtesy due officers in Her Absent Majesty’s Dragon Corps, but rousted from bed in our nightgowns. It was humiliating.”

  “That was deliberate.”

  “We had to stand outside while our rooms were ransacked—for ‘evidence,’ they claimed. But I saw how they snickered. Then we were loaded into a bus, shackled to the seats, and taken to Glass Mountain.”

  “But that’s a maximum-security prison,” Cat said. “For civilians. They wouldn’t put officers—”

  “They did,” Sibyl said.

  “We had hopes, at first, of being vindicated. Weeks turned to months, however, with not even a promise of legal representation.”

  “But—”

  “Shush,” Sibyl said.

  “We realized that we had been given a life sentence without a hearing. So we resolved to escape.”

  “I thought nobody ever escaped from Glass Mountain,” Cat said.

  “We were the first.” There was no mistaking the pride in Ysault’s voice. “They made the mistake of keeping us together, so as not to contaminate the other prisoners. Not realizing how much talent we had among us. We got tough fast. We made plans. To begin, we needed cell phones with prepaid chips. These we got by bribing the guards.”

  “How?” Esme asked with interest.

  “Never you mind,” Cat said. “With cigarettes. Cigarettes are the currency of prisons, right, Ysault?”

  “Uh … I suppose.”

  “Everybody has enemies,” Sibyl said. “We agreed to kill theirs.”

  “Don’t listen, Esme.”

  “I like this story!”

  “Well, don’t.”

  “Most prison breaks occur at night. For ours, we chose a bright, cloudless day. Because when the sun hits the glass sides of the mountain, the dazzle is almost unbearable. Saoirse pointed out that no one would be expecting that. We made fetches of ourselves from stuffed clothing and left them in our cells to fool the guards and we wore snow goggles to keep from being blinded. The climbing gear we had made ourselves from contraband materials. We sewed together sanitary napkins and covered them with duct tape to make the kneepads. We took shivs off the other prisoners and pounded them down into pitons. The preparations took us well over a year.

  “It wasn’t hard going over the prison yard wall because it wasn’t guarded. What was on the other side, after all, but cliffs of jagged glass and below them the frigid northern sea?”

  “Skip the descent,” Sibyl said.

  “It would take forever to do it justice,” Ysault agreed. “It felt like forever at the time. It was epic. Remember what wilderness survival training was like? The descent was a hundred times worse. But at last, just as the sun was going down, we reached the bottom and there waiting for us was—”

  “No names.”

  “—a Kraken-class submersible and an inflatable dinghy to ferry us to it.”

  “No explanations.”

  “But the dinghy couldn’t land because there were enormous shards of glass everywhere. So we had to swim for it—and the water was cold and choppy. We couldn’t wade out because if a wave knocked us off our feet, we’d be dragged across the glass and bleed to death. Which meant that we had to dive into the water—a long, shallow dive because it wasn’t very deep close to the shore. And we couldn’t take off our shoes beforehand, of course, but just try swimming in ice-cold water wearing them!

  “The distance to the dinghy wasn’t great, but I wasn’t much of a swimmer either. So it seemed like miles. I didn’t think I was going to make it, but I did. I must have swallowed a gallon of ice water, and as I was pulled onto the boat, I passed out. When I came to, inside the submersible, the first thing I did was ask what the date was—and I learned that while we had spent three years on the inside, less than a week had passed in the outer world.”

  “Wow,” Cat said.

  “That’s why hardly anybody ever gets out of Glass Mountain on any terms at all. But we did what nobody else could. We got out on our own terms. Not only did we break out, but we left not a one of us behind. No injuries either, only a few bruises here and there, maybe a scrape or two. We were heroic.”

  “They let us escape.”

  “Afterward, we scattered like pigeons, each by a different path toward a separate region of Europa so our pursuit would be divided. Everybody agreed that was for the best.”

  “Saoirse’s idea. She cut a deal.”

  “I liked that story! Tell it again!” Esme said.

  “Grown-ups are talking, darling. Anyway, what would be the point? You never remember anything for very long.”

  “If I forget it, that just means I can hear it for the first time all over again.”

  “Behave yourself and I’ll buy you ice cream.” To the others, Cat said, “I’d heard the brass was holding an inquisition. But how could they arrest everybody? They need pilots.”

  “It was just the female pilots,” Ysault said bitterly. “Maybe two or three of the men, and they retained the worst. But wait a sec. You’ve been on the run. How did you hear about this?”

  “Rabbit told me,” Cat said. Then, when the others looked blank, “You know. The pilot?”

  “There was no one by that name on the base. Certainly no pilot. Right, Sibyl?”

  “I would have remembered.”

  “That’s crazy. Rabbit of House Oneiros? Always talking trash? C’mon! He’s not somebody you could possibly forget.”

  “No idea.”

  “No.”r />
  Cat flung up her hands. “Well, I’m baffled,” she said. Then, “Tell me how you got to Avernus.”

  The two pilots’ tale of separate flights across Europa and chance encounter in Avernus was described as quickly as Cat’s own story had been. She was sure they were hiding things from her—most obviously, the identity of the mysterious forces who had provided the submersible. But then, she was hiding things from them. So fair was fair.

  After the third drink, they settled comfortably into an old discussion from better days of how strict, exactly, the virginity requirement was. Masturbation was allowed, obviously. Otherwise the entire Corps would wash out in no time flat. (“Boys first,” Sibyl said, and Cat choked on her wine.) But did that mean that being masturbated by someone else was permissible? And if so, did it matter what gender that person was? What about acts performed with the mouth? Would one’s dragon settle for a technical virgin? Pretty much everyone agreed that anal sex, whether given or received, was a career ender. But the rest was the stuff of speculation and smutty jokes.

  Briefly, everything was as it had once been. Cat could close her eyes and imagine herself an officer again. Then Ysault sighed and said, “Well, it’s all theoretical now.”

  Sibyl put down her glass. “Yup.”

  “I’m going to get my post back,” Cat said. Then, when the others looked at her pityingly, “I haven’t worked out how yet. But I haven’t given up hope either. I haven’t.”

  “I have,” Sibyl said.

  “We all have, I’m afraid,” Ysault agreed. “Right now the plan is to run. Run as hard and fast as ever we can. Not that it will do us any good in the long run. But it will put off the inevitable.”

  “Best you do likewise.”

  The sun was getting low in the sky. Cat picked up the tab and, when she saw how much there was in the clutch, asked, “How are you guys fixed for money?”

  “Oh, we’re getting along. You know how it is. Opportunities come up…”

  “Dead broke.”

  Cat gave them half of what she had. “Tell me where you’re staying, so I can check up on you guys now and again.”

  “Bad idea.”

  “We have a little place on the Via Regina di Mago. The building with the red trim—fourth floor, the door that doesn’t look all smashed in. It’s quite nice, actually.”

  “It has snakes.”

  When Sibyl and Ysault were gone, Cat took out the cell phone Fata Narcisse had given her so she could call for a driver.

  “That was a bad idea, giving them money,” Helen said. “Especially out of that pricey little clutch of yours. That’s going to raise their suspicions.”

  “They needed it. I had it. I shared it. End of story.”

  “I noticed that you and Ysault never responded to anything Sibyl said,” Helen remarked.

  “Oh, nobody pays any attention to Sibyl.”

  “Strange. There are days when I feel just like her.”

  Morning and evening

  Maids heard the goblins cry:

  “Come buy our orchard fruits,

  Come buy, come buy…”

  —Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”

  Summer lingered. The heat peaked a little higher every day and never quite returned to the previous morning’s temperature at night so that the city hummed like a beehive with overworked air conditioners and those who had access to the rooftops slept uneasily, twisting and turning, naked and sweaty, under a ruddy sky. Whenever Narcisse held one of her orgies, Cat went into town to see Ysault and Sibyl. If Narcisse gave her money, Cat shared it with them. She always picked up the tab for their drinks.

  They were in the French Quarter at a restaurant off rue Barguest called La Ghoulerie (Cat ordered off of the vegan menu, to Esme’s noisy displeasure) one particularly oppressive day when Ysault said, “There’s someone I think you should hear.”

  “Okay. I’ve got an appointment with my attorney this afternoon, though.” Cat had decided, after weeks of nothing but inaction and vague promises from him, to sack Edderkopp. But she saw no reason to mention that fact here.

  “Easy-trapezey, sweetie. She’s not speaking today. Next week. Day of the Sow. Hour of the Bat. We’ll rendezvous in the square where we first ran into you and I’ll take you there. Are you down with that?”

  “Sure. But why not meet where you live?”

  “Nobody trusts you,” Sibyl said.

  * * *

  Counselor Edderkopp dumped three stacks of books, one after the other, on his desk. “Here’s something which may be of some relevance to your case. This is The Treaty of Hyperuranion—the place has changed name several times since then, of course—in nineteen volumes.” Opening one, he showed Cat the title page with the subheading, Being the Exact Terms Negotiated Between ye Olde Serpent and Wise, Lord Meririm Phosphoros, in Solemne Convocation with ye moste Auguste Lords of ye Forge. Recorded in ye Original Language and Meticulously Transcrib’d into ye Vernacular. “In the dragon tongue, the entire treaty is only eight words long.”

  Startled, Cat said, “Is that possible?”

  “It is if you have a large enough vocabulary.” Edderkopp made that rattling noise again. “I have my doubts, however. The seventh word I suspect to be a neologism, coined for the occasion. But for that, the treaty might have gone as long as ten. Well, enough pedantry. ’Tis of amusement to myself alone. The pertinent matter is that I have uncovered the cause behind your persecution.”

  “Which is—?”

  Edderkopp placed the red grimoire and related papers Cat had stolen from Lieutenant Anthea on the desk beside the piles of books. “By their thumbed and smudged condition, I can see that you have gone over some of these multiple times—yes, the legal patois can indeed seem opaque to one without legal training.” He held up a page between thumb and forefinger. “Here is a license of persecution, sworn out against you. This provided legal justification for all that was done.”

  “It said that I was a traitor to the Dragon Corps and to Her Absent Majesty’s Governance. Those are both lies.”

  “Pah! Legal fictions. Any lawyer worth his oats would know better than to take those charges literally. The only useful information to be gleaned here is the name of the law firm: Themis, Feller, Garuda and Bran.”

  Speaking clearly, unhurriedly, and just a touch loudly (for Edderkopp obviously fine-tuned his professed deafness to block whatever he did not wish to hear), Cat said, “All this is beside the point. I need you to tell me where I can find my brother. He can clear me of everything.”

  “Oh, do let an old man ramble on. It’s so rarely that I get the opportunity these days to demonstrate what a diabolically acute fellow I am. Now, Themis, Feller, Garuda and Bran is quite prominent in the area of treaty law. You begin to see the connection.” He added a slim folder to the pile. “I took the liberty of having your horoscope cast, hoping to find in it the ultimate cause for your misfortunes. Believe it or not, your birth-stars could not have been more auspicious. Further”—he slammed down an almanac—“the signs and portents recorded on that day were exemplary. Unimprovable! So when we look at your current situation, it seems beyond explanation. Like discovering that a roguish, chain-smoking vagabond is by rights Her Absent Majesty. Not that this applies in your case, of course, but you understand where I’m going here.

  “Excelsior! Coordinating certain insurance records with the facts of your biography, I am led to conclude that you must be in possession of a particular stone: nondescript, with a hole through the middle. Since you have the patronage of the wealthiest woman in Avernus and yet are wearing a most undistinguished chain about your neck, I can only conclude it is hanging there.” He held out a hand. “If you please.”

  With reluctance, Cat produced the stone her brother had thrown her just before disappearing into she knew not which underwater city.

  Edderkopp held the stone up to his face. His bright green eye shone through the hole, blinked twice, as if it had trouble believing what it was seeing. Then he f
lipped the stone about. “What a ninnyhammer I am! I was looking though the wrong—”

  His face froze with astonishment. Then, a second later, Edderkopp shook with silent laughter. “Well, well, well, well, well. You are full of surprises.” He handed back the stone to Cat.

  “No, I am not. I am the simplest, most virtuous, and most straightforward woman imaginable. I have been falsely accused of heinous crimes of which only my brother can clear me. Tell me where he is or lose me as a client.”

  The ancient attorney tapped a finger alongside his ear to draw her attention to his hearing aid. Then, stroking the mound of papers as if it were a cat, he said, “We approach now the very nut of my investigations. A concerted effort is being made to break the Treaty of Hyperuranion. For what purpose is irrelevant. What is significant is that the success or failure of that effort relies on one woman—a mortal woman. And she is here in this room.”

  “You can’t possibly be referring to me.”

  That dry rattle, once again. “I am not. You’re only half mortal. I mean the woman resident inside your head.” The attorney produced a sheet of flimsy yellow paper whose extreme age was attested to by its nearly illegible carbon-paper typewriter print. “This is a declaration of prophecy, issued long before you were born, but there was a tangential reference to it among your papers, so I sought it out.” He handed over the document with a flourish. “Down near the bottom of the page, I have underlined a paragraph. Read.”

  Cat read. “‘It is hereby prophesied that the Party of the Fourth Part, the aforesaid HELEN, will…’ What madness is this?”

  Edderkopp stuck his hands in his armpits and, waggling his elbows as if they were wings, crowed like a cock. Then he pushed a button on what Cat had to be told by Helen was an office intercom. “Mistress Nobody, send in the office imp.”

  In short order, the door opened and an imp walked in, crop-haired and ink-blotched, lightly carrying a stool taller than herself. With a sassy wink at Cat, the imp balanced the stool on her head, restacked books to make a space for it, set it down, clambered atop it, and opened a laptop writing desk. Dipping a quill into the inkwell, she said, “Ready.”