The Iron Dragon’s Mother

by Michael Swanwick

  More time passed.

  At last, the metal bars met. At the speed with which she was perceiving them, the sound they made was low and drawn-out, like whale-song. The metal twisted in her hands, sending shock waves up her arms and down her torso. On Dragon-Saoirse’s face she saw an anguished expression that was surely twin to her own.

  Her crowbar shattered.

  Dragon-Saoirse’s did not.

  All in an instant, Cat was lying on the beach and the wave was drawing back from her body. She was gasping with exhaustion. Her dragon was gone, back into the recesses of her mind, and all her body was numb. She could not move.

  She had lost.

  Triumphantly, Saoirse flung away her weapon.

  Struggling to breathe, Cat said, “This … proves … nothing.”

  “It proves. That I’m stronger. Than you are.” Saoirse was gasping, too. She must be nearly as exhausted as was Cat. Nevertheless, she drew a combat knife from a belt sheath and sank to her knees by Cat’s side. “I’m going to have to ask you to be patient, now. This will take a very long time indeed.”

  A gout of pink exploded out the back of her head.

  Saoirse fell.

  Slowly, achingly, Cat stood. She was filled with wonder and bafflement. Confusedly, she thought, Now I truly have nothing, not even an enemy. Then she heard a crunching of feet on rubble and Raven came swaggering up, a cigarette cocked jauntily in the corner of her mouth, and a rifle slung over her shoulder. When Raven got to the beach, she said, “I think we’ve just proved one thing: A gal with a pal with a Remington 700 is stronger than any dragon.”

  Cat stared at Raven, trying hard to believe that she was actually there and not a hallucination.

  “Gotta confess. I was planning to stop her with magic but you spent so much time under the sea, I kinda fell off the wagon.” Raven took the cigarette from her lips and flicked it away. “You know how hard it is to give up these things? So I went with Plan B.”

  “Raven,” Cat said at last. “I…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to puke.”

  * * *

  “You’d be surprised how often my line of business involves watching people throw up,” Raven said. She and Cat had gathered driftwood, house beams, rotted wine casks, and other combustibles and built a bonfire on the beach, where the sea caressed the land. When it was large enough, they heaped the skeletons atop it. They then had a brief debate over whether to include Saoirse or leave her corpse for the scavengers, but Cat won and she was included. They made sure, however, that her body didn’t touch the remains of the others. Cat cut off a lock of her own hair and placed it among the mingled bones. Then, with Saoirse’s combat knife, she sliced open a thumb and dripped blood on each of the three skulls, though not on Saoirse’s brow. Finally, she doused all with gasoline from a jerry can Raven produced.

  At a safe distance, Raven laid out food and wine on a red-and-white checked tablecloth she spread out on the sand. Then she rattled a box of matches. “Before I torch this mother, it’s traditional to say a few words about the deceased. And since I didn’t know any of them…”

  “I can do this.” Cat took a deep breath and struck the funereal pose of eulogy. “Prince Benthos was one of the Powers of the sea, noble of character, steadfast in love. Dahut was one of the Powers of the land and protector of her city, passionate to the point of madness, able to love two men equally and truly. My brother … well, I honestly believe he could have been the peer of either, given the opportunity. They all did their duty as they saw it. They all loved whom they wanted without shame. They were all great among the mighty. They all fell short of what the Goddess expected of them.” Cat paused. and then said, “The Goddess is a real cunt.”

  “You can’t end the oration like that!” Raven cried. “It’ll jinx you. Trust me, I know how these things work. Add another line, quick.”

  Cat considered, then with a wan smile said, “They were three sides of the same coin and they died in each other’s arms.”

  “Better,” Raven said. “And Saoirse?”

  “Once, Saoirse was everything I wanted to be. The Goddess gave her to me to teach me to aspire to something better.”

  “That’s good. Stand back.”

  The gasoline went up with a whoosh, engulfing all in flames.

  * * *

  Cat and Raven ate slowly and took only tiny sips of wine with each toast they made, so that when the bonfire died to ashes, they were just finishing up the bottle. “Even now, with Saoirse dead, I find myself still admiring her,” Cat said, trying to explain something she wasn’t sure she understood herself. “Not the half-maddened fury she became but Saoirse as she had once been. A long time ago, before all this nonsense, she was my hero and my role model.”

  “Well, there was your mistake,” Raven said. “Find better role models. Me, for instance.”

  Cat laughed longer and louder than the witticism deserved, then said, “I thought you’d run off, never to return.”

  “Naw. I couldn’t do that. Not to you, babe. Y’know, you don’t get to make many friends in my line of business.” Raven held out a hand, closed it into a fist, opened it again. The holey stone lay upon her palm. She gave it to Cat. “So. Have I fulfilled my commission?”

  “You misled me, Raven. This is a lot more valuable an item than you let on. You weren’t exactly forthcoming on that front. Had I known its true worth, there is no way in the world I would ever have promised you it. Even now, after all we’ve been through, it’s worth far more than the services you performed.” Cat handed back the Stone of Disillusion to Raven. “It’s yours.”

  Raven accepted the stone with a nod and placed it on a block of white marble fallen from a nearby temple. Then, with the stock of her rifle, she smashed it to powder.

  Cat drew in her breath sharply.

  “Thanks. I’ve got a major scam in the works, and that was the only thing that could possibly have stopped me.” Raven made to throw the rifle into the sea.

  “Hey, wait!” Cat said. “I might have a use for that.”

  * * *

  It had been a long day. But it wasn’t over yet.

  For hours, Cat and Raven sat and talked over old times. Which technically were recent times. But felt like old times. Cat told every story she could think of about Fingolfinrhod, even the embarrassing ones, and was surprised to discover that almost all of them were from when they were children and almost none from recent years. Raven had tales to tell that made Cat feel like she was living in a larger, bawdier world than she had realized.

  At last, casually, as if the question hadn’t been foremost in her mind all the time, Cat asked, “Where’s Esme?”

  “She’s being taken care of by Pop-Pop and my mom. Dad’s there too. They told me they were planning on having a cookout tonight, so you can imagine what that must be like. If it were anybody but you, I’d be with them right now. It’s gonna be a regular family reunion. We have great get-togethers. You should hear some of the gossip. It would make a manticore blush.”

  “I was hoping to see her again.”

  “Kind of a bad idea, babe. You couldn’t take losing her twice in a row.”

  “Well.” Cat skimmed her paper plate onto the embers and watched it flare up. “Tell her not to forget me.”

  “She will, you know. The little brat never remembers anyone.”

  “Tell her anyway.”

  “I will.” Raven leaned forward and put her hand on Cat’s knee. “But listen to me. You must accept this or you’ll never accept anything. Esme doesn’t belong to you. She was just under your protection for a while. Sooner or later, she was gonna flee you like a rat out of Lady Hel’s furnace room. It was inevitable.”

  “Okay, yeah, I got it.”

  “It’s too bad you can’t join us, though. My family would love you. And I’m thinking you’d get a kick out of the fun we have. Horseshoes. Badminton. Boar hunting. Plus we treat Esme like the grown-up she secretly is. These get-togethers are t
he only times she’s able to hang out with folks who really understand her and will let her have the occasional cocktail.”

  “You give her alcohol?”

  “Only a little. With her body mass, one martini and she’s dead to the world. But, the Goddess knows, she does dearly love a good cigar.”

  “You don’t—!”

  Raven winked.

  “Oh,” Cat said. “Oh. You’re kidding.”

  “So far as you know. Not kidding when I say I’m going to miss you, though.” Raven stood, slapping ash from her jeans. Then she handed Cat a business card. “Here’s the address you want. I picked this up working for the Conspiracy.”

  Cat looked at the card:

  THE HOUSE OF GLASS

  10000 ALCHEMICAL ROAD

  GINNY GALL

  BABYLON

  “I didn’t know I’d be headed there until yesterday. How could you possibly…?” Cat stopped. “Oh yeah, right. Trickster.”

  Raven grinned. “I keep telling you.”

  * * *

  Jill was parked on a dirt road to the land side of the ruins of Ys, alongside a forest-green Triumph TR6 that Raven had apparently cajoled into a short-term liaison. “Best you get away from here as fast as you possibly can,” Cat said. “The Lords of the Conspiracy are going to be converging on this spot just as soon as they can get their chests waxed and book parking spaces for their Learjets. They’ve got a treaty to break and runways to build so that ambassadors from Mount Obsidian can sign off on the deal.”

  Raven lit up a cigarette. “I’d go with you if I could. But from what you tell me, you’re heading into Destiny country again. And, like I told you last time you did that, I’ve got good reason to stay the fuck away from there. You can borrow Jill if you like, though. There’s some walking-around money and a train ticket to Babylon in the glove compartment. Just make sure she has a full tank of gas when you’re done with her, so she can make her way back to me. She and I have grown fond of each other and we’ve got plans.”

  “I will.”

  “Don’t forget what I taught you. Whenever you pay for something by check, overpay. Then, when it’s noticed, ask for a cash refund for the difference. Then cancel the check. It adds up.”

  Cat and Raven hugged, and kissed each other’s cheeks. “Nobody else gives me advice like you do,” Cat said.

  She watched Raven drive away, wondering if she would ever see her again and suspecting she would not. Then the last silent reverberations of the Horn of Holmdel ceased and seagulls came to scavenge the ruins, to bicker and fight, to scream ownership, to destroy all semblance of dignity.

  Somewhere, agents of the Conspiracy were about to take note.

  “You ready?” Jill asked.

  “It’s good to see you again, Jill. I probably should have said that earlier, but it’s been an emotional day and I was a little distracted.”

  Jill revved her engine. “I’m used to it. You’d be surprised how little courtesy people show a sub-luxury vehicle. Raven’s the only one who gives me any real respect.”

  Cat opened the SUV’s door. There on the passenger seat was her duffel bag, obviously full. Beside it was the Horn of Holmdel.

  “When did Raven manage to sneak that in?” she wondered.

  “Hardly matters,” Helen said. “It just saves me the trouble of having to walk you back to pick it up. What we’re planning to do will be extremely difficult. We’d be fools to leave a useful tool like that behind.”

  Cat turned the key in the ignition. Then, when the motor roared to life, she leaned forward and stroked the dash. “Okay, Jill. Ride like the wind.”

  “On this road?” Jill said. “I don’t think so.” Cautiously, she trundled down the dirt track.

  She who is favored by fortune has good luck even while sleeping.

  —Giambattista Basile, “Sun, Moon and Talia”

  It took several days to reach Babylon. Cat got off the train at Ginny Gall, three stations beyond the Tower. The land thereabouts was flat and the buildings a mixture of abandoned brownfield hulks and nondescript industrial boxes. In the distance, Babel was a thin scratch in the dust-yellow sky. She got a room at the Marriott Express and the next morning took a cab to 10000 Alchemical Road.

  The House of Glass turned out to be a long, low, windowless cinder-block building on a tract of reclaimed land bordered by fields of phragmites and a stagnant old industrial canal posted with biohazard signs. There was nothing about it to make anyone look twice. It was hard to estimate how large the building might be, since there was nothing by it for comparison, but it had to be city blocks long and possibly every bit as deep.

  “You don’t want to get off here at the highway, lady,” the cabbie, a balding kobold, protested. “Let me drive you to the entrance.”

  “No, this is good.” Cat paid the fare, tipping generously for luck. “I can use the exercise.”

  There was a large ground sign by the driveway reading THG with 10000 ALCHEMICAL ROAD in smaller letters below. Crouching between this and an ornamental thornbush, out of sight of passing traffic, Cat unwrapped the bundle of blankets she was carrying and reassembled the Remington. Clip in, safety off. More clips of ammunition in her pockets. Though, one way or another, she doubted she’d get to use them. Her purse, containing her wallet, a couple of tampons, and the Horn of Holmdel, she slung over her shoulder.

  “Walk in casually or run in firing?” Cat asked.

  “That’s more your field of expertise than mine,” Helen said. “But when you look at the path that brought you here, this day seems fated.”

  “We’ll stroll, then.”

  Defenses looked to be nonexistent. There were no surveillance towers or closed-circuit television cameras, no fences topped with razor wire, no warding fetishes, not even an overweight rent-a-cop by the door. Even more ominously, there were no cars in the parking lot.

  “Could this be a local holiday?” Helen said.

  “I doubt it.”

  It was a long walk down the drive past ChemLawn-perfect grounds to the main entrance. The glass doors opened at a touch. The lobby was empty.

  “Hello?” Cat said.

  There was no response.

  “We make such a sucky commando,” Helen said. “I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve directed this exact scene: a lone avenger charging in, guns ablaze, roaring defiance down the corridors of power. Mind you, in my day, a well-brought-up young lady wasn’t supposed to go to foreign lands to kill strangers and bring home ears and whatnots for souvenirs. Though I have to concede that later on that got better.”

  “Excuse me? Anyone?” Cat called. The building was eerily still. “Is there anyone here?”

  Five panels of corporate photomontage, bleeding one into another, dominated the lobby.

  The first panel showed blue sky behind the head of a dragon pilot in helmet and oxygen mask above whom was the word ACQUISITION.

  The second panel showed a hospital with a procedure-masked soul surgeon leaning over a greenish-gray infant, almost goblinesque in its ugliness, lying in a crib and the word TRANSPLANTATION.

  The third panel showed neatly dressed changeling girls whose faces were smiling masks at work in an improbably clean factory under the word MATURATION.

  The fourth panel showed a Tylwyth Teg wearing a Pulcinella mask easing open a glass coffin in which lay a sleeping changeling woman over the word IMPREGNATION.

  The fifth panel showed the soul surgeons again, removing the shadow from a preadolescent half-blood child, and the word EVACUATION.

  Finally, the last panel showed a slim dragon pilot in flight suit, helmet, and loosened oxygen mask standing on a runway, giving a grinning thumbs-up beneath the word DOMINATION.

  Cat could remember a time when she might have been able to convince herself to find this inspiring.

  Beyond the unoccupied reception desk was a hallway. They followed that past empty windowless offices, all indistinguishable from one another save for the framed photographs and clan fetis
hes on the desks, until finally emerging into a cubicle farm. Offices and cubicles alike were unoccupied. The lights, however, had been left burning. They hummed quietly overhead. All the desks had a memo lying on them, apparently dropped there immediately prior to the building’s evacuation. Cat picked one up and read:

  TO THE ATTENTION OF: ALL EMPLOYEES

  1. The House of Glass will be vacated at the end of this Day of the Labrys, Falling Leaves Moon. You may take with you personal items but nothing else. Be sure to sign out at the front desk.

  2. The facilities will remain vacant throughout the following Day of the Cat, Falling Leaves Moon. Anyone attempting to enter the building on that day will be subject to summary dismissal.

  3. Regular hours will resume the following Day of the Phoenix, Falling Leaves Moon. Restoration of normal operations will then be a priority. Cleanup of any damages done in the interim will be considered a part of your assigned duties.

  4. Anyone who fails to return to work on the Day of the Phoenix, Falling Leaves Moon, excepting only those with prescheduled authorized leave or those with a healing-woman’s certification of illness, will be subject to internal discipline.

  5. Please initial this memo below to indicate that you have read and understood its directives, seal it with a drop of your own blood, and leave it on your desk.

  “Huh,” Cat said. “Looks like we were expected. Any idea what to do next?”

  “Thank God I have done my duty. Admiral Horatio Nelson, October 21, 1805.”

  “Umm, yeah. Only, excuse me for asking this but what exactly are you saying?”

  “We’re supposed to be heroes, right? Let’s act like heroes.”

  “Gotcha.”

  The deeper Cat went into the building, however, the creepier she found the lack of resistance. Management clearly knew she was coming. They could not have failed to conclude that her intentions were hostile. What did they have planned?