Standing Between Earth and Heaven

by Douglas Milewski

  Maran would happily give up that distinction. Given her choice, she would happily become a cook in a brothel rather than enter this temple again.

  Once inside the door, the tumult outside faded away to a dull echo. The great foundry sat silent. No one worked. All fires were extinguished, even the charcoal powered fires of the Converter. Only one lamp stayed lit, with one Protector standing by it. Maran had no idea why it was important.

  The Converter had been taken off its hinges and now lay on its side. The steelworkers were replacing its inner stone lining. With the emergency, they had dropped their tools about, scattered them like branches after a tornado.

  Why a stone lining? Presumably, since stone had a higher melting point, the stone lining could contain the molten iron. Maran thought that an exceedingly clever way to melt iron without melting the container, and more than she truly wanted to know.

  Maran knew that charcoal was part of the secret, too. At one time, the Ironmongers had used high quality coal, but they had exhausted that coal seam, so they had found a source of high-quality charcoal and used slave labor to mine it. That mine was shut down now, or it was supposed to be. Maran really needed to check and see whether Svero really was doing that.

  Once their charcoal ran out, what would the Ironmongers do? Maran had no idea. They would need a new way to make steel. She would need to visit the Iron Duke. In the end, she would need to know the secret of steel anyway. In the meantime, she was ignorant and wanted to stay that way. She had more important tasks before her.

  The problem right now was talking to Justice, which was the reason that Maran had come to the Converter. This Converter was the only place where Maran could reliably choose to enter the Steel City and the world of dreams. Maybe someday she could find a better place or a better way, but right now, her only other option was opium, and she would not take opium again.

  If not for the seriousness of today’s crime, Maran would not do this. She was not very good at this crossing. She really need more training. She needed more knowledge. In truth, she felt like a fraud. How could she even pretend to do this thing?

  Maran took a deep breath and told herself to start.

  To enter the Steel City, Maran played her riq and danced, as hard and fast as she could until her breath grew ragged and her brow ran with sweat. She tried emptying her mind, to let it float, but visions of dead children kept returning to her mind. So she danced longer and harder, until her legs burned with the effort and her arms trembled from playing. Only when utterly exhausted did she allow herself to collapse onto the dirt floor and drift. The building spun a little in vertigo, and her soul drifted free.

  Quick as a dream, she crossed.

  Bang Shift

  Cacophony. That was Maran’s first impression. Noise. Banging. Vibrating. Buzzing. Yelling. So much so that all the noise layered over itself tenfold, producing an almost musical rhythm. Maran found herself lying among iron tracks. She lay in the great rail yard that stood before the Iron Duke’s house.

  The rail yard resounded with activity. Some dwarves were rocking iron beams into place while others secured them with rivets, swinging their sledgehammers high. Behind them, other iron beams lay in a heap, twisted and ruined.

  The fence line contained many breaks where the fence lay flattened and twisted. Workers pulled the iron out of the tangles, tossing it into that impressively high pile of twisted wreckage, while other workers used mobile forges to make new fencing. A black bird hopped between posts, fascinated by the scene.

  On the far shore, entire blocks of houses were missing. Nothing seemed left but splinters and stone.

  There must have been a battle here, and judging from the scale of the damage, gods must have been involved. Maran’s dream from the night before raced back to her. She remembered those broken buildings. The scale of the destruction staggered her.

  Wrapping her courage around her like like cheesecloth against a frost, Maran walked to visit Jack. He had a car. He could get her to Tythia. She hustled through the yard, weaving through the iron workers.

  Those iron workers noticed Maran. One yelled out, “Hey babe, your hips work like mine pumps! How about you pump me!” The worker made a rude gesture leaving no doubt about his desires.

  Maran had no idea how to reply to that level of rudeness. No one had ever shouted such a thing at her before.

  From off to one side, a hoarse voice shouted. “Show a little respect!” The voice seemed familiar. A dwarf woman strutted out, grabbed ahold of the offending man and punched him in the neck. The man responded in kind. Excited by the fistfight, the other workers surged around the event, yelling encouragements and blocking Maran’s view.

  As the workers bet on the outcome, the identity of that voice came back to Maran. That was old Greis, who used to guard one of the Iromonger kitchens until she died in a steam explosion. If it had been anyone else, Maran could have walked away from that fight, but not Greis. She owed that dead woman. Feeling that obligation, Maran dove through the taller and stronger shoulders, inching her way forward.

  By the time that Maran wedged through the circle, there wasn’t much fight left. Greis had one knee on her opponent’s chest and was pounding his face with a spanner.

  Maran shouted in her best meister voice. “Greis! That’s enough!”

  Greis stopped immediately. “Yes, ma’am.” She then grabbed the head of her opponent, forcing his bloody face to look at Maran. “The Ma’am is here, and nows’is your one chance ta sorry up to her. She’s a good woman, and she deserves proper respect. Got it?” Greis stood, hauling up her opponent by the overalls. “Now mosey on over and say your sorries or I’ll make ya sorrier.”

  The bloody-faced worker toddled over and mumbled something incoherent through his bleeding lips.

  “Good enough,” said Greis, patting the man on his shoulder, then shoving him away into his friends, who laughed.

  Maran felt horrified.

  “Howdy, ma’am!” screamed Greis, who then threw a big armful of hugs around Maran. She let go just as quickly. “I hope ya don’t mind me standin’ up for ya, ma’am. Just seemed the right thing.”

  Maran had a hard time smiling, but as compliments went, it was an honest compliment. “Thank you. I do not prefer violence, but thank you.”

  “Ma pleasure, ma’am. Durin’ the war, the baggage train always held a tourney. I was always in the final four for bare knuckles champion. Never did win, though. Always swore I would until that wagon overturned on me.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Maran, and she was.

  “Ain’t nothin’ now,” said Greis. “I’m mighty dead, y’know? Not much harm in any of it. Hey, do you like my new duds?”

  Greis showed off her shapeless blue trousers held on by straps across her shoulders.

  “What are they?” asked Maran, unable to really describe the clothing.

  “They’re called overalls. Ain’t ever seen anything like ‘em while I was alive. I’d’ve given my right tit for clothin’ this useful. Mighty handy with all these pockets.”

  Greis took a few thing out of her pockets to demonstrate. “Best as I can tell, they’re made of tent cloth. Tough as nails, ma’am. When you go back to the livin’, you tell ‘em about this.”

  “I promise. What are you doing?”

  “The Duke has me oilin’ wheels. The Ironmongers make things, and us Horsebreakers run ‘em. After last night’s fight, though, us Horsebreakers have to help do everything. I’m mountin’ new wheels fast as we can machine ‘em. Most everyone else is manning the guns.”

  That peaked Maran’s curiosity. She did not like violence, but she did want to know what had happened.

  “Did you see the fight?”

  “Oh, yeah, ma’am. Oh, yeah. A storm flew in here quicker’n a rattlesnake with wings. Next thing y’know, the Duke there came out all hollerin’ and whistlin’. And lemme tell you, that Duke’s whistle ain’t no little lilt, ma’am. It goes for miles, loud as thunder. Louder than Maltid
a.

  “Well, out of them clouds came a flying thing with wings, kinda like a cardinal shoved onto a rattlesnake. It was the Red Lady. Along with her came all kinds of other stuff with wings and a few things without. Well, she and the the Duke ruckussed it out for a while, here and there. He was bigger. She was faster. Meanwhile, we’re shootin’ stuff as fast as we can and they come even faster than that, and that’s faster than you think.

  “Here, watch this.”

  Greis took a shiny gun out of her pocket with some sort of mechanical cylinder in it. She cracked it open. “See, these bullets have the powder stuck onto ‘em. You can fire ‘em fast as pissin’.”

  Aiming at a post, Greis held the gun up and flicked the hammer with her thumb, shooting six times in as many seconds. The act horrified Maran. If the Ironmonger guards had had such guns that morning, far more people would have died. The only thing standing between the Ironmongers and such weapons was the mechanics, and the certainty that they would invent such things horrified her further.

  Greis broke open the gun again. The bullet casing popped out and she slid in six more bullets. “Load ‘em easy as a lay,” she chuckled. She snapped the gun back up, then put it away. “Think of all the Malachites we coulda put away if we’d had these.

  “And that’s only the handguns. Look at those.” Greis pointed to the four-barreled carriage gun nearby. “That girl there chucks bombs into the air. Boom. Ya don’t even have to hit ‘em. And those over there, why, they just throws up bullets as long as you hold the trigger. Killin’s as easy as shovelin’ stalls.”

  Maran’s horror only rose at these descriptions. She really did not want to know about the guns. Instead, she wanted to know about the Red Lady’s forces.

  “Where are they coming from?” Maran asked.

  “The Duke makes ‘em.”

  “Oh, no, I mean where did the Red Lady come from.”

  “I don’t know. Out yonder, I guess. There’s lots of yonder out there. Lots more than the Steel City, anyhow.”

  Maran enjoyed visiting old Greis, who always felt and acted like a friend to her. Maran missed having friends who felt like friends. Given the chance, she would linger here, her job undone. It was certainly better than visiting bloody Justice.

  At this point, Maran realized that she was avoiding her responsibilities.

  “I have to go, Greis,” Maran explained. “I need to see Jack.”

  “C’mon then,” Greis replied. “I’ll get you there.”

  Together, they walked toward the shack. As they neared the fence, Greis stopped. “From here, it’s you, ma’am. I ain’t goin’ in there unless I gotta. I heard about Jack. I’m not brave like you, ma’am.”

  Brave? Maran doubted that. She would have used the phrase “screaming coward.” If not for the needs of Justice, she would not have come here again.

  “Thanks, Greis. I hope to see you soon.”

  Maran looked through a battered chain-link gate to Jack’s shack. Was he home? Would he help? He seemed to know how to get everywhere. Could he get her to Justice?

  The gargantuan dogs that looked back though that fence gave Maran pause. They were each as big as a plow horse. Hearing her press against the fence, they came to investigate. This time, they did not bark, seeming to recognize her. They sniffed a bit. Presumably, she smelled of the Duke’s forge, because they wagged their tails at her.

  Slowly, Maran made her way around the fence. The dogs followed her to the gate. Maran held out her hand and hoped for the best. Two gigantic wet noses pushed her around. After a few seconds of investigations, the dogs seemed satisfied. They turned around and went back to their iron beams, chewing them like bones.

  Maran let her breath go and breathed again. Those dogs were scary but sweet. Now it was time to visit Jack’s shack.

  As Maran approached the shack, she noticed the drawbridge across the river. It, too, had been damaged by the fighting. Was it stuck open? Crews worked on it with blazing motes of fire, sending forth showers of sparks.

  With slow but firm raps, Maran knocked on the makeshift door. The entire shack rattled in response, threatening to fall, yet not moving.

  “Jack! Jack!”

  Nothing happened. No one answered. Maran waited for a bit, hoping for the best.

  After a minute, a half-dressed Jack opened his door looking worse for wear. “What? Can’t I sleep? I’ve been workin’ my lugs off.”

  “Jack, I need to visit Tythia.”

  “Tythia? You want to go see Tythia? You’re nuts. Go find another bum. I like my tail lights in one piece.”

  “I need to go there. It’s for the Ironmongers.”

  “What? Go away.” Jack slammed the door.

  “But ...”

  “Gimme me a minute,” he yelled through the door.

  Jack emerged a few minutes later wearing a red plaid shirt, greasy pants, and an abused jacket with fraying elbows. He walked straight to the powder-blue car that sat outside his shack. The vehicle looked like a cross between a ship prow and a carriage, assuming that the inventor bludgeoned his creation upon completion.

  Behind Jack came a crow woman, as silent as silent could be, wearing one of Jack’s red shirts and nothing else. She looked with empty eyes, following like a shadow.

  Crows gave Maran the creeps.

  Maran first saw crows a few days ago. Those were all elven souls, but Maran had no idea why elven souls would be here in this city, let alone not getting reborn like elves do. They lived along the river, empty and meaningless. Maybe they did things, and maybe they did not. They just existed.

  This crow appeared to be a human woman, so Maran didn’t know as much about crows as she had thought.

  Jack paid no attention to the crow woman, instead focusing on his car. Jack petted the car with affection.“Ever met my best girl? This is Matilda. You wouldn’t know it, but she’s the fastest thing on four wheels. She can outrun almost anything, even the Hellions. She ain’t no race car, though. Race cars got to follow rules. Out on the road, there are no rules. You get there or you don’t. The only thing getting you there is her, and no one could pick better.”

  Jack spoke slowly now to a rhythm that Maran could not hear. The words came out staccato. “Matilda. Straight eight rat, bored and stroked 500 CID, Ardun heads, ported, puffer, dog clutch, custom gearbox, scatterboard, three-on-the-tree, tubbed, extra springs, switches on front and rear lights, one binder. She’s no handler and neither am I.

  “Get in.”

  Jack grabbed a door handle and pushed a button on it with a firm click, opening the door. He slid onto the long, bench-like seat covered in leather. His hand reached under the seat, pulling out a short, double-barreled gun. He opened it, inserted two red cylinders, then closed it again with a snap, putting it beside him on the seat.

  Maran tried getting in as well, but she could not figure out the door mechanism. She pushed the button with her thumb, pulling the door loose, but the door refused to open any further.

  “Push and pull together,” said Jack.

  Maran tried that a few times.

  Jack ended up sliding over and slamming the door open with his shoulder. “It sticks.”

  Before Maran sat down, Jack pushed a button among the controls, making the car sound out a whirring noise. The car replied with a staccato complaint, then accepted the annoyance. The vehicle sputtered, roaring to life like a thunderstorm on wheels.

  “No muffler,” shouted Jack.

  Jack pushed another button on the dash. This one did nothing. It went in and stopped. Jack put a cigarette in his mouth.

  The crow woman sat in the back seat. Maran had not even heard her get in. She stared straight ahead, dark haired and dark eyed and nothing else.

  Jacks’s hands and feet moved across the controls and the world shuddered. Matilda moved as if standing still were a legal offense against god and man. One moment, Maran was sitting there feeling small in the big seat, and the next, the doom of heaven had slammed her backwards in a cry
of rage. Freedom! The car knew freedom.

  With a twist on the wheel, Jack turned the car in circles about the rail yard, throwing stones and weeds in all directions amid the yells and curses of the abused workers. He slid the car back over to his house, a cloud of brown smoke billowing behind him, with the car screaming for more.

  The little button popped out. Jack pulled it from the dashboard and lit his cigarette, then banged his car back into gear. The car hurtled forward, relieved of its stationary crucifixion. Both Jack and the car drove as if that were the only thing that creation had meant them to do, as if driving fast were the one and only gift from the gods. With that wheel in his hand, Jack roared to life. His eyes shown with every bit of horsepower that pounded through his soul.

  Jack’s first turn was quick, slamming Maran into her door. She grabbed onto whatever she could. Jack might be meant for speed, but she most definitely was not. They were going faster than a racehorse, and if you go too fast, you die. In the Steel City, could Maran die?

  The car hurtled through the front gates, entering the city beyond. They rushed down streets lined with little houses, which to Maren felt like hurtling down little canyons.

  Jack pointed his thumb backwards, catching her attention. “We picked up some company back there. Somebody’s after you,” he yelled. “They were waiting outside the gates. Gonna find out who they are. Hold on.”

  Jack slammed pedals with his feet and shifted a lever on his steering wheel, making the car spin halfway on the road. Maran screamed. The tires squealed and burned, smoking white and smelling foul. Just that fast, Jack had Matilda headed in the opposite direction, barreling towards a big, black car with a square front.

  Reacting to the oncoming Matilda, the black car lost control, driving onto the sidewalk and colliding with a marble stoop. It ended its chase in steam.