The Iron Dragon's Daughter

by Michael Swanwick

  A scattering of fine powder hit the back of her throat. Her eyes opened wide, and the world became very clear. It was as if a fever she hadn't known she suffered from had abruptly broken and dissolved. She bent to snort up the rest.

  "Watch out!" Gwen's hand darted forward to raise Jane's hair back and away from the dust. "Do you have any idea how much this shit costs?"

  "Everything you've got," Peter muttered sullenly.

  "Thank you, Mr. Sunshine." Gwen scowled and then, impulsively, reached out and hugged him. With a mischievous smile, she said, "Did I ever tell you how Peter and I met?"

  "Oh, she doesn't want to hear that."

  "Yes, I do! Please!"

  "Well. When I was young"—Peter held up two fingers; two years ago, she meant—"I lived in an absolute hovel. In a trailer camp, if you can imagine that, by the edge of a marsh. The mosquitoes there were dreadful, and there were white apes that lived in the trees and would swoop down and snatch you up if you went out too late at night. They'd bite off your fingers and toes and the ears off your head. I knew a girl who lost her nose." She shuddered graciously.

  "I was so unhappy there. I had absolutely nothing worth owning. And then one day…" She fell silent. Her chin rose, and she stared into the distant past.

  Energy crawled around inside Jane. It trembled her right leg, and raced her heart. It took an effort of will not to bounce up and down on the bed. Gwen's face was lovely in profile, so pure and focused. Jane leaned forward, eager to hear. "What happened?"

  "Huh? Well, I suppose nothing happened. If by 'happened' you mean some event or remark that pushed me over the edge." She tapped out some more pixie dust onto the mirror, bent over it again to chop it fine with a gold-plated razor blade. "But it all became too much. It was all of a sameness, you see. No one day was different from any other. It was all gray, gray, gray.

  "So I went out into the marshes."

  They paused to snort up some more dust.

  "There was a little trail at the back of the trailer camp you could follow in. At the edges, it's all junk refrigerators and concrete rubble. You go past that, and there are all these little pools where they've dumped chemical wastes. Some of them have a kind of brown plastic crust, and others will try to ooze after you if you linger. Some are a beautiful, beautiful turquoise blue, and if you peer into them long enough, vapors rise from the water and you die. But if you go beyond them, you come to a place that's almost pristine. There are pools there where the black apples grow. They go down forever, into the heart of the earth."

  "Black apples?"

  "Yes. It took me an hour to get that far in, and I was all scratched and sweaty by then. But I found one of the pools. It was very quiet there, and the surface of the water was smooth as glass.

  "I looked around to make sure nobody was looking and took off my stuff. This horrible flowered blouse and a pair of jeans that didn't even fit right. It's a funny thing. They were so cheap that when I stood there unclothed to the sun and wind, I felt beautiful."

  "You were beautiful," Peter said earnestly.

  "Isn't he sweet? But you're getting ahead of the story. So I gathered myself together, took a deep breath, and dove in. It was the single bravest thing I ever did in my life." Gwen put the mirror on her knees, tipped the snuffbox and tapped its side. Nothing came out. "Shit! Is this all there is? Peter! You were supposed to score some more for me." She flung it and the mirror aside. "I'm sick of this place. Let's go!"

  "Where?" Peter asked.

  "What the fuck do I care where? The clubs will be opening soon. We'll think of someplace, just let's go."

  The limo was waiting. They got within, started down the streets. Gwen hammered on the roof with the flat of her hand. "Faster!" The dwarf obeyed. A twist of her hand and Green Man came on, their Whitsuntide album. She stared out the window.

  "What happened then?" Jane asked. "After you dove into the pool?"

  With a start, Gwen turned, frowning, to her. Then her mood shifted again, and she smiled. "I went down, down, down. At first the water was brown, like tea. But it turned black, fast, and then I couldn't see. I lost track of which way I was swimming, but it must have been down because I didn't return to the surface. My lungs hurt, and my ears—you can't imagine! It was like having nails driven through them.

  "Little tendrils touched me, gently, like the fingers of a thousand small lovers. Then more insistently. They grew thicker and clung to my face and by now I was drowning, and even though that was what I wanted, I couldn't help struggling. But that only entangled me all the more firmly. I kicked and tore at the roots until I was shrouded in them, and could not move. It was then that something bumped against my mouth.

  "It was soft, like an overripe plum, and about the size of my fist. It was a black apple, I realized that at once, one that had inexplicably grown much closer to the light than is normal. I thought to myself how sweet it would be to die with the taste of one in my mouth." Gwen reached out to stroke Peter's jeans. He shifted in his seat, parting his legs a bit, and she absently kneaded the inside of his thigh.

  "I bit deep, and it was not sweet, no. It was bitter, so bitter. And good."

  Peter closed his eyes and murmured, "We're almost to the good part."

  "The roots released me and I ascended, oh, filled with energy, and the waters became brighter, brighter, brighter. The surface of the pool was a circle of light and then it shattered."

  "What's a black apple?" Jane asked. She was ignored.

  "I was standing on the edge of the pool when she burst out. It was the most fantastic thing anybody has ever seen. One second, nothing, and then this beautiful, naked—" He groped for words. "It was as if the sun had risen at midnight."

  "But what were you doing in the marsh?"

  "I was gathering leeches. For my apothecary class. So Gwen was a particularly good stroke of luck because she had hundreds—"

  "Peter!"

  "—of these enormous green and gold suckers hanging on her body. They were everywhere! On her breasts and face and legs and everything. It took us forever to get them all off."

  "You bastard! You promised you'd never breathe a word about that."

  "No, I didn't."

  "I told you not to, and that's the same thing." She pounded on his chest, and then began tickling him under the rib cage. He collapsed helpless with laughter against the window. "Brute! Creature!" The limo careened through the angry streets. Jane, from her side of the seat, felt happy and a little embarrassed.

  Gwen stopped tickling Peter. When he'd gathered himself together, she began sucking his fingertips, one by one, her mouth making little moist noises. "Tell me what you'd like." She peered intently into his eyes. "Tell me what you'd like to do."

  Hopelessly, Peter said, "You know what I'd like. Just you and me—alone, together, forever."

  Gwen eased back in her seat. "Yes," she said languidly. "Wouldn't that be lovely?"

  Maybe it was the pixie dust, though its elation was long gone and had left in its wake a flat vacant buzz. Maybe the drug had a delayed effect on one's judgment. At any rate, Jane said, "Look. The sacrifice has to be voluntary, right? So what happens if you just say no? They'd have to use last year's runner-up, and then you and Peter can just go on with your lives. You could back to normal."

  Gwen's eyes snapped. "I don't want to return to my old life," she cried. "I want this life to go on forever."

  "But—"

  "Oh, what do you know?" She flung herself back on the seat. "You don't know anything. You're just an ignorant little wood-may."

  Stung, Jane cried, "Hey, that's not nice!"

  Peter made shushing gestures.

  "Oh, now we're correcting other people's manners, are we? I do not need this sort of criticism! You could just wait a few months and say any damn thing you want about me without worrying about hurting my feelings, but no! You have to insult me to my face, while I'm still alive."

  "I—"

  Gwen started to cry.

  Every
thing was turning out awful. "We're not far from the mall. Do you want me to get out here?"

  "Maybe you'd best."

  When the limo stopped, Peter got out with Jane and gave her an awkward hug. Lowering his voice he said, "She'll get over it. We'll go dancing in a little bit, and then we'll go to my place and… Well. Don't let her upset you. She'll be herself again come morning."

  He smiled a sad, haunted smile.

  * * *

  So she did go to the mall after all. She found Hebog and Salome on a bench by the miniature golf course. It was a temporary attraction, all astroturf and cheesy plywood windmills, presided over by a bored ogre half-dozing into his cupped hands. Nobody was playing. Her two friends sat side by side, a sweater draped casually over their laps.

  When Jane approached, Hebog's hand darted suddenly up to scratch his chin. Salome, coloring, began folding up the sweater. To her flat-out amazement Jane realized that they'd been secretly holding hands under its cover. "Hi, guys."

  Salome favored her with an aloof nod.

  "Hiya, Maggie," Hebog said.

  "That's what Ratsnickle calls me. I prefer Jane."

  "What's with you two?" Hebog asked curiously. "Aren't you going out together any more?"

  With all the self-control she could muster, Jane said, "Ratsnickle and I never went out together—not in any way, shape, or form. We were once friends, but we are friends no longer. The Lady willing, we shall never again be friends of any sort in any possible or foreseeable future."

  "Yeah, he said you were having a spat."

  Before Jane could frame an adequate response, Salome said, "Hey, have you seen Trotter-and-Stinch lately? They've got like three-point-five eyes between them now. The middle one has got two irises, one brown and the other blue. Gross."

  They traded gossip for a bit, and then Jane said, "I'm looking for something to get Gwen. She's really down in the dumps and I thought a present might help."

  "You mean like a sweater?" Hebog said. Salome punched his ribs.

  "No, something special. Like jewelry maybe. Gwen loves jewelry."

  "Cold weather's coming in. A sweater would be more practical."

  "Try the House of Oberon," Salome said. "If you're looking for something really nice." She glanced quickly at an empty wrist. "Oh, hey, lookit the time. We gotta go."

  * * *

  One couldn't just cruise into the House of Oberon dressed as Jane was dressed. First she had to steal herself a better blouse. She finally settled on peach-colored watered silk. The chinos would be okay if the shoes were right, but since she was wearing a ratty old pair of sneakers and it was next to impossible to steal shoes that fit really well, she chose to lift an expensive pair of jeans instead. She needed a handbag, too, good makeup, and a scarf that would look overpriced even considering the work that went into it. Cheap jewelry and a drop-dead pair of sunglasses completed the look. One glance at the rotting sneex and plastic baubles arrogantly accessorizing top of the line designer fashions and even the most perceptive merchant would think: Elf-brat.

  What with one thing and another it took her three subjective days to assemble everything. She had to periodically to lie low to avoid attracting attention from security. She had to steal food. Goddess only knew how many trips to the public toilets it took to complete the transformation.

  But it was worth it. When she entered the H of O, an orend almost broke a leg to get at her before one of the other salesclerks did. They discussed what Jane was after, and then she was ushered to the third most impressive jewelry case in the store. The orend unlocked the glass lid and swung it back so she could examine the contents more intimately.

  Jane ran a bored forefinger down a line of brooches, and stopped.

  At first glance the brooch seemed a silver moon at quarter phase, pocked and cratered on the bright crescent, metamorphosing into anodized circuitry in the dark. But on closer examination, the printed circuit revealed itself to be a complexly etched and scored maze at the heart of which a single tiny emerald, like a green tear, slid freely. Jane touched it with her one unbitten fingernail and watched it trace a difficult path through the winding blackness. "Gwen would love this," she breathed.

  The salesclerk mentioned a price.

  "Ah," Jane said regretfully. "No. Not this week. Mother would have a cow." As the orend started to close the case, Jane turned away and said, "What about that black coral number, the necklace? Is it any cheaper?"

  As the clerk looked up to follow her pointing finger, Jane reached behind her to the memorized position of the brooch and snatched it up. The descending lid brushed against her knuckles, a blow from a moth's wings, and then she was stuffing her catch into the back of her jeans.

  "Oh, considerably cheaper."

  "Then I don't think I'm interested." Jane let the orend guide her through two more cases and then politely, firmly, called it a day.

  At the holy well, Jane pitched a copper penny for luck, and took a good long look around to make sure nobody was watching. Then she dug the trinket from her pants.

  A hand closed about hers, crushing the brooch into her palm so hard that the pin pricked her flesh.

  "Gotcha," Strawwe said.

  "Ow!" Jane drew her hand free, and sucked on the puncture wound. "You asshole, I'm bleeding!"

  "Won't work." He stared at her in that pop-eyed way of his. "We've known about your thieving ways for some time now. Grunt told you we'd be watching. We've been watching."

  Jane said nothing.

  "I didn't need to catch you to turn you in. All I had to do was say I'd seen you nick something. They would have believed me." He took her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his gaze. "Do you doubt me?"

  She knocked his hand away. "So why are we talking?"

  "I'm going to make you an offer, and I want you to understand that I'm serious."

  "What kind of an offer?"

  "You and I are two of a kind." Strawwe was silent for so long that Jane began to wonder if maybe what he'd said made some kind of sense and she was simply too stupid to get it. "I don't—" she began, and "We're both outlaw powers," he said. "We're not like the rest of them. There are things we can do that the rest of them never can. You know that, don't you?"

  She shook her head in bafflement.

  Strawwe's eyes were as round as marbles. They bulged from his face. A faint whiff of nutmeg rose from his armpits. "There's things better than theft," he said. "I'll teach you." He leaned close to her and inhaled deeply. "You know what I'm suggesting. I can smell that you do."

  He wasn't lying. Jane could see that. "You want me to become a… to be like you."

  "A snitch, yes. Here's the deal: I don't report you for stealing. You get that scholarship you want. I'll be your mentor. You'll do whatever I tell you." He met Jane's horrified look with equanimity. "It's easy. You'll turn in Salome and the dwarf, tell the secretary what they've been doing. I'll tell them that you've changed. Reformed your ways. They'll believe it. They believe anything I say."

  "I could never do that to my friends!"

  "If you don't, I will."

  Again, Jane could see he wasn't lying. Hebog and Salome were going to suffer no matter what she did. If she cooperated, on the other hand, there was a chance to salvage something out of the wreckage.

  "And to seal the deal, you'll tell me your true name, and I'll tell you mine."

  "But that's—" Impossible, she was going to say.

  "—permanent. Yes, I know." He stared at her, bug-eyed and unblinking. His arms hung straight down by his sides. "You can go to University, if you want. I'll follow you. Wherever you go, there I'll be, closer than the closest friend you ever had. We'll read the same books. We'll eat out of the same bowl. We'll share the same bed."

  All in a flash Jane realized how lonely Strawwe must be, scorned and feared by his peers, tolerated but despised by the administration, so isolated from normal interaction that he no longer even knew how to talk to her, threatening where he should be persuasive, harsh w
hen he ought to smile. Which meant that his offer was sincere.

  "I won't!" she said wildly.

  He looked her up and down. She was trembling. He sniffed at the top of her hair, at her knees, at—she jumped away from him—her crotch. "You're not sure what you're going to do," he said. "I'll give you until tomorrow morning. Make up your mind. I'll smell your decision on the way in." He held up the moon brooch—she had almost forgotten it existed—and added, "I'll keep this as a token."

  He put the brooch in his mouth, turned, and departed.

  * * *

  "Kill him," she said. "That'd be easy enough for you."

  Melanchthon said nothing.

  Outside, actinic lights limned the meryons' defense perimeters and machines moved in the shadows. The dragon stared blindly down at the ground, but underneath his willful refusal to speak, Jane felt currents of power eddying, swirling resonances of electromagnetic anger. She had his name. She could master him; having done it once she felt sure of that. But sooner or later she would have to leave the cabin, and then he would be free to turn the force of his rage on her. She was safe only so long as his need for her overbalanced his anger.

  "Look. He wants to have sex with me. You made me promise no sex, remember? It alters the aura's charge, you said, I couldn't make repairs on your electronics, they'd go haywire. Remember? Hah?"

  It was useless. Jane piled her schoolbooks back onto the pilot's couch, and changed into her nightgown. She unfolded the futon and put on the sheets and a light blanket, with a heavier wool coverlet folded down at the foot just in case. The nights had been getting cooler lately. It was the season.

  She lay down to sleep.

  Eyes closed, slumber would not come. Instead she chased the old puzzle of the dragon's silence around and around in circles. Perhaps he was ashamed at being mastered by one of human blood, and this was petty revenge—he would act on her behalf, but in no other way acknowledge her existence. Then again, dragons were subtle. Perhaps he was trying to goad her into some rash act. Perhaps a situation would come in which, fearing to trust him, she would instead act as he required her to, in some baroque plan of his own devising. Perhaps he was manipulating her every move, thought, emotion within some conspiratorial maze too vast for her to even see it.