The Iron Dragon’s Mother

by Michael Swanwick

  * * *

  Pushing her way through the thronged and torchlit streets, Cat waited until she was halfway home and flung her mask to the paving stones. Then she stomped on it, and kicked the remains into the gutter. The crowds were thicker now and their scent muskier and less floral. Someone upstream must have been selling glow sticks, for she saw increasing numbers of them being used as bracelets and necklaces and hatbands. More and more, as well, she saw shadowy figures coupling standing up in doorways or holding hands as one of them pissed against an alley wall. Whatever curiosity she might once have had about the Plague Carnival was more than satisfied now.

  “You could have waited an hour or two before coldcocking Barquentine, you know,” Helen said.

  “You like Barkers? Ick. I guess there really is no accounting for taste.”

  “You’ll admit he has great eyes. Anyway, I’ve always had a soft spot for a real bastard. You can play with their heads all you like and not feel guilty afterward.”

  “Again: Ick.”

  “Oh, like that banal creature in the green jockstrap is any better? There are so many more lustworthy male creatures in this world. You really ought to expand your horizons.”

  “This conversation is over,” Cat said. “I never heard a word of it. Anyway, I intend to get my commission back and an intact hymen is one of the requirements of the job. So a sweaty little tryst in the sheets with Barquentine simply wasn’t going to happen, got it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Bickering, they made their way home.

  Up the stairs Cat clomped, past darkened rooms with doors hastily left ajar from which emerged the sighs and moans of passion. There were times, and this was one, when she felt out of step with all the world.

  When Cat pushed open the door to her own room, she was anything but surprised to find that Esme had just finished packing her Hello Kitty knapsack.

  “Tell me something,” Cat said as she neatly folded the last of her things into the duffel. “Do you know how to pick locks? And hack a computer?”

  “I know lots of things,” Esme said. She thought. “Those too.”

  “Good.”

  Not much later, with the Plague Carnival still in full swing, they found themselves inside the unlit offices of the Conspiracy, Esme having made short work of locks, alarms, and security cameras. Cat led the way to the basement with a pocket Maglite and watched while Esme jimmied the door to the IT room with a piece of stiff plastic. There, Cat booted up a terminal and, with a bow to the child, said, “Maestro.”

  Esme giggled and sat down to work. “Should I delete all the files?”

  “No. They’ve surely got it all backed up on external storage. I want to waste their energies trying to fix things for as long as we can. Would it be possible for you to locate everything they have on Caitlin of House Sans Merci and then swap out every tenth item with the equivalent from randomly selected females?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then do that.”

  While Esme worked, Cat located the server cage. Then she fetched a squeeze bottle of honey from the coffee room.

  When finally Esme sang, “I’m done-done-DONE!” Cat went to work. One by one, she opened the blade servers, squirted a teaspoon of honey into each, and closed them up again. Watching, Esme said with solemn respect, “You’d make a good little girl.”

  Cat swung the child, laughing, up in the air. “And you’d make a great little dragon pilot!” While the servers sizzled and stank, she wheeled Esme around and around and around until she was shrieking with fear and delight.

  And then, as always, they were on the run again.

  * * *

  On the highway, it took them no time at all to hitch a ride away from Carcassonne. Truckers, it seemed, were suckers for little girls. This one chatted and joshed with Esme until she fell asleep, and then turned sullenly taciturn. After a couple of futile attempts to engage the trucker in conversation, Cat dug out the last of Dahut’s letters and began to read:

  Belovedest,

  All day long, since receiving your last letter, I have spent alone in my locked room weeping—with joy, my love, with joy. Are we at last to be reunited? And forever? I can scarce believe it. But since you say it is true, it must be so. In my mind, I see you speeding toward me in the distance like a white squall coming off the ocean. As you did—need I remind you?—the first time, when you crushed my boat and, laughing, flung its splintered timbers in the air, and I all but drowned in the cold, dark water while we made mad, passionate love.

  And then you withdrew, taking away with you my heart.

  Yes, I goaded you to this extreme, as if it were nothing, all the while knowing it to be a wonder such as this world has not seen in many an age. But I am making sacrifices, too! The citizens of Ys would tear me asunder with their bare hands if they knew what we intend. Father would weep but plunge his great sword through my body nonetheless. The old man was always kind to me, the people ever obedient. In all truth, I owe them better than this. But the heart wants what the heart wants and my heart wants you. Always and forever.

  When you come, I will open the sea gate so that you may enter the harbor and within it sound the Horn of Holmdel. Then the great transformation will occur. I do not imagine there will be many who will welcome it. There will be, I am certain, numerous deaths. But let them die, let them die, so long as our love lives! I surrender to you my heart, my city, and its people. Drown us all. Whatever happens, I am sure my heart will survive, fixed, as ever, eternally upon you.

  Tonight!

  Dahut

  What cannot be said will be wept.

  —Sappho

  When the final truck of their long journey to the west reached Whitemarsh on the coast of Cornouaille, Cat and Esme got off and waved their thanks until it was out of sight. The dawn was cool and the sky was palest yellow at the horizon. Cat was exhausted. She rented a room at a motel that served transient workers and collapsed onto the bed. Hours later she awoke to discover that it was dark and Esme was demanding to be fed.

  No rest for the hunted, she supposed. Thank all the gods that were or might be that Cat had known to pack food in her duffel. She got out tea bags, oranges, rice cakes, and a chunk of parmesan cheese. Also baby carrots and dipping sauce in a plastic container. Plus a jar of peanut butter and a box of Ritz Crackers. Spreading it all out picnic-style on the bedspread, she said, “Look! A feast!” and Esme applauded.

  It appeared that she had learned one thing at least from her travels.

  The next day, finally taking Helen’s advice, Cat found a job as a waitress in a roadhouse café just off the highway by the waterfront. Sea-elves came there after a long night of drinking to fill up on French fries and cheese curds. She listened to their lies, pocketed their miserly tips, and deemed their flirtations harmless. If the weather was rough and the fishing fleet could not put out, selkies gathered to drink bitter coffee and shout scorn at any river-faring kelpie unfortunate enough to wander in. Because she’d been a seawoman herself, though briefly, Cat knew how to pump her clientele for information. She laughed at their jokes and never commented on politics. Occasionally, she asked questions. Bit by bit, she assembled a mental map of the coastline as it was seen from both land and water. Somewhere along this stretch of a hundred miles or so, Cat was increasingly sure, she would find the drowned and forgotten city of Ys, and with it her brother.

  “Admit it,” Helen said. “You enjoyed working in Carcassonne and you’re enjoying working here. Having a solid job is a hell of a lot more satisfying than adventuring up and down the world ever was.”

  “I had a solid job,” Cat responded. “It got taken away from me.”

  Just before dawn, if the weather was fair, a swamp gaunt or three would come out of the salt marshes to glumly nurse a cup of coffee before leaving to report to work at the Department of Sanitation, abandoning a copper coin or two and occasionally a half-read newspaper on the counter behind them.

  The breakfast rush was over and Cat
was leaning against the counter reading the paper one morning when Raven walked in. She sat down on a stool and said, “That was a cute stunt you pulled, abandoning me at the bus station.”

  Cat put down the newspaper. “I’d do the same again in a heartbeat.”

  “You never could have swindled my dad like that.” Raven shook her head ruefully. “When he hears about this, he’s going to laugh until he busts a gut. Gimme a menu and a cup of coffee. Cream, no sugar.” She studied the menu, ordered the pain perdu. Then, when it arrived, “Tell me something. How’d you figure out I was scamming you?”

  “I knew how the brass were tracking me, and it wasn’t Saoirse’s little pack of Gabriel hounds. Also, my lawyer put pennies on their eyes and sent them to the Black Stone to be judged and reborn. So I knew they were out of the game.”

  “You live, you learn.” Raven gave all her attention to the food. When Cat came to clear away the dishes, she said, “Listen. Esme really is family. I really am a trickster. You really are in a world of trouble. I can help.”

  “I’d trust you a whole lot more if you weren’t so fucking sincere.”

  Choking with laughter, Raven said, “Oh, sweet Mother of Goats, I love you. I love you so much I’d work for you for free, if I could afford it. Luckily I can’t, so that’s fine.” Then, serious again, “You ever cut a deal with a haint? An important deal, I mean. You know how they phrase the compact?”

  “I tell you what I want. When you agree I’ve earned it, you give it to me.”

  “Yeah. Most folks won’t honor those terms. It’s why haints don’t make many important deals with outsiders. But they’ll deal with me. I’m proud of that. I want that stone you’ve got hanging around your neck. Now tell me what you want.”

  “I want the Conspiracy off my back and Saoirse as well. I want my name cleared. I want my commission back. I want to fly dragons again. I want to find my brother, who’s living in Ys, an undersea city the location of which nobody seems to know. Find me my brother and I’ll give you the stone. All the rest, I can take care of on my own.”

  Raven dug out her cigarette pack, tapped out a Marlboro, lit it, and took a long drag. She let the smoke trickle out her nostrils. Then, finally, she said, “Done. You underestimate Saoirse, by the way. She may have lost her Gabriel hounds, but she’s got a dossier on you three inches thick. That’s how I found you—by sneaking a peek. Saoirse’s a hunter; she’s found your trail and she’ll sniff out every inch of it. But I’m a pattern juggler; I figured out the trail’s logic and skipped ahead of her. You don’t have much time.”

  “Crap! How much?”

  “Four, maybe five days. More if you let me slow her down. So. Do we have an understanding?”

  Reluctantly, Cat nodded.

  “A’right.” Raven dropped a couple of bills on the counter, kicked the stool around, and stood.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Raven paused in the doorway and grinned that grin again. “If I told you, you’d try to stop me.”

  Then she was gone.

  * * *

  Two days later a woman’s naked body washed ashore at Port Salemo. Fish had nibbled away the face and fingertips. But there was a broken length of jewelry chain still wrapped around the neck and a Dragon Corps Academy class ring on the stub of one finger. When the coast guardians hoisted up the corpse, ghost crabs scuttled out of its hair, causing them to drop her in alarm. Raven was particularly proud of that touch. She had strutted into the diner, thrown down a copy of Le Républicain Salemo, and, jabbing a finger at the news item at the bottom of page 6, said, “It’ll be a week before Saoirse is sure that wasn’t you.”

  Cat, who had been washing dishes, dried her hands on her apron, and read the account. “Where did you get the body?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody, if that’s what you’re asking. Let’s just say that a certain necromancers’ convention will have to use a rubber dummy for one of their demonstrations.” Raven lit up a cigarette. “I’ll have the same as last time.”

  “Tell me something. Why do you smoke so much?”

  “Being a trickster involves the occasional use of magic. Magic requires sacrifice. The sacrifice has to be sincere. You can’t offer up something that’s easy.” Raven flicked ash into an ashtray. “Giving up these things is a real mother. Now. First order of business is to find your city. After that, you’ll need a way of getting to it alive. You’ve got a map, I presume? Why don’t you get it out?”

  “It’s in my head,” Cat said.

  “Never mind, I’ll pick up a navigational chart and we can go over it when you get off work. Which is when, incidentally?”

  “The dinner shift takes over at three.”

  “It’s a date.”

  * * *

  Cat’s motel room being overly cramped, they bought two lattes and a Pepsi in the local coffee shop, in effect renting a corner table for an hour.

  Cat and Raven pored over the map while Esme sharpened pencils, dispensed drafting tools on request, and ate great handfuls of butterfly chips right out of the bag.

  “Okay,” Raven said. “Here and here the currents are so strong they’d knock down any buildings unlucky enough to be in their path. I learned that last time I was in the area, smuggling rifles to renegade korrigans. So they’re out. The shallows over here are paradise for sports divers. Wall-to-wall shipwrecks. If your city were there, they’d have found it.”

  Cat leaned forward and crosshatched several stretches along the coast. “These are sites where watermen dredge up oysters and clams. Lobstermen plant their pots here and here and here and here. Esme—compass! Thank you.” She drew semicircles before all the seaside towns. “If Ys were on the approach to a port, they’d be forever dropping anchors through its roofs. So these areas are out too.” She lightly stippled more open water. “And these are heavily fished. It’s not impossible that Ys lies beneath one, but it’s not very likely either.”

  “What’s this empty space?”

  “I don’t have any information on it. Nobody fishes there, apparently. It’s one of those spots where they never catch anything and when they try, their nets get fouled.”

  “Uh-huh. How many of these spots have you found?”

  “That’s it. When we combine your information with mine, I don’t see where else Ys could possibly be.”

  Raven put her hands behind her head and stretched. “We’ve made a good beginning. Now tell me how Lord Pleiades wound up in Hôpital Maîtresse de la Miséricorde with a blood bubble the size of a golf ball in his brain.”

  As efficiently as she could, Cat complied, moving from slow dancing at the Plague Carnival to Barquentine’s attempted rape in his flat with an absolute minimum of words. When she was done, Raven said, “A pity you didn’t think to swipe that ring of his. I could use something like that in my line of work. But what’s done is done. Right now, our big problem as I see it is this: Even if we find your drowned city, how are you going to get in? I don’t expect you can breathe underwater—I sure can’t. Plus, you’re too buoyant for any prolonged interactions with its citizens. Indoors, you’d bob against the ceiling; outside you’d shoot up like a balloon. So you’re going to need strong magic. And by strong, I mean Class Three artifacts, maybe even Class Four.”

  “I keep hearing those terms,” Cat said. “But I have no idea what they mean.”

  “Okay. A Class Four artifact is a tool left over from the creation of the universe. Rarer and more powerful than you can imagine. A Class Three artifact is left over from the creation of Faerie. Not as rare, not as powerful, still an incredibly dangerous object, still worth a king’s ransom. A Class Two artifact is anything magical from before the Industrial Revelation. Some are more powerful than others, but they’re all antiques. A Class One artifact is mass produced, probably made in Cathay, and available wherever fine magic is sold. In any case, we’re talking expensive. Very, very expensive.”

  “You have noticed that I work as a waitress?”

  “No
problemo. Comes with the contract. Everything’s prix fixe. I just want you to appreciate what a good deal you’re getting. Right now, I’d suggest you get some sleep. We’re going out tonight to see an old friend of mine.”

  * * *

  A long nap and a quick meal later, Raven led Cat and Esme outside and, slapping a hand on the hood of a midnight-black Highlander, said, “How do you like my new ride?”

  “That’s a lot of vehicle for puttering around Whitemarsh, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Oh, I have plans for this baby. After I’ve taken care of your little problem, she and I are heading into some very rough country indeed. Right now, though … Ready for an adventure, Jill?”

  “You betcha,” the Highlander said.

  “Hop in, guys.”

  So they did.

  Time passed. The sun went down. The SUV hummed its way along the river road eastward, away from the shore and into the heart of Caledon Wood, a remnant of the primal forest that had once covered most of Europa, currently maintained as a wildlife refuge and game preserve. Scrub pines and dwarf cedars sped by the windows, then gave way to blackjack oaks, sassafras, sour gum, and holly. Nobody said a word, not even Jill. When Esme fell asleep, Cat wrapped a blanket around her and cradled the child in her lap.

  The river road started out smooth and well-maintained. By degrees it grew ruttier, narrower, and twistier. The occasional glimpses they got of the River Aelph darkened from silver to gray and then black. The forest turned to sugar maple, beech, elm, and birch. It was too dark for Cat to make out the leaves of individual trees, but she had her window open a crack and could identify them by smell.

  Jill hit a rough spot and everyone within bounced into the air. “Lady of a Thousand Names!” Raven swore, and downshifted twice. The road rapidly devolved into a dirt track.

  “Your friend lives an awful long way from anybody, doesn’t she?” Cat said. It had been over an hour since she had last spoken.