Standing Between Earth and Heaven

by Douglas Milewski

  Tavan crawled to the side of the stage. One of the choir assumed the air of authority, helping Tavan up. The choir person spoke deeply, like a man.

  “I am the Superintendent.” She walked over to Imeni. “There are a few accusations against you. Are these true?”

  Imeni swayed her hip. “Hell no, and what time should she screw you?”

  The authoritarian figure shook his head. “Not this time, young woman. There’s a councilman’s daughter in the number two spot. Did you think that I would just give the number one spot away for so little? Did you think that competition was fair? You are a fool. Fortunately, you gave me all the excuse that I need. To the edge, all of you, I don’t have all day. You all get punished the same. Immediate exile.”

  Altyn and Tavan took hands, then walked to the edge of the stage. Imeni wedged between them, taking each of their hands. “I tried, pals. I really did. I did this all for you. It’s straight down from here. All this life on a flying city and we only get three minutes of freefall. And there’s a thunderhead under us. Bad timing, Tavan. Why do you always have such bad timing? Don’t you ever think anything through?”

  The Superintendent pushed. All three jumped off the stage. Imeni threw off Altyn’s hand, then dashed away with Tavan.

  Altyn looked up. “I fear.”

  Imeni walked back in by herself. She dramatically showed the empty space next to her. Altyn looked away.

  Imeni held out her arms. “We’re stuck down here, sister. So you have a choice. You can work with me, or you can work on your own. I don’t know about you, but there are people back there that tried to eat me. Your decision.”

  “Damn,” said Altyn. “Damn.”

  The choir regrouped, then bowed.

  “Damn,” said Maran. “Damn.”

  Tin Dragons, Iron Chains

  In the evening, overwhelmed by the sticky air that wrapped her like a blanket, Maran lay down for a short nap and promptly fell into a deep slumber. In her dream, she walked down a hill and found a place to sleep on the grass. Her husband was there as well, looking just as he had back when he was alive. She laid her head in his lap and looked up at the clouds unfolding like blooms.

  When she looked up a second time, roiling gray clouds filled the sky, low and baleful, like a bubbling stew. Through the clouds, flashing red, a serpent moved, half-snake and half-bird, weaving like a cobra. Clutching Kirim for safety, Maran realized that her husband was nowhere and that the serpent was flying closer. Maran turned to run, but could not run; her feet were in the air, unable to push against the ground.

  From somewhere above, Maran heard low, mechanical buzzings. Things with stiff wings, made of metal, swooped below the clouds. With exactingly repeated thuds, glowing bullets fired from those metal wings, weaving about the storm, they sped towards the red snake. The red snake retaliated with exacting strikes.

  One by one, the metal birds fell out of the clouds, spinning and smoking and burning.

  “Get out,” Maran found herself saying, “get out.”

  A few people did get out of those machines, jumping, then floating down with large white cloths unfolding above them, making themselves look like mushrooms or dandelion fluff. Those were the lucky drivers. Most were not that fortunate. Together with their metal coffins, they slammed into the ground, exploding in mushrooms of fire and black smoke, burnt sacrifices to a hard-hearted god.

  Something clinked.

  Maran wondered at that noise as it happened again. Something clinked. The noise came from elsewhere. The dream, which Maran now realized was a dream, stopped. For a few seconds, Maran could not decide which was real and which was fancy. A few more seconds more, and Maran blinked and found that here was real Annalise gently putting down a plate of stale biscuits and tea.

  Why was Annalise here? The sun was almost down. Maran had not asked for anything after this nap. She certainly did not ask for biscuits and tea.

  The light looked wrong, streaming in pale and lackluster. Night was now morning. How could it be morning? Maran sat up with that realization. She had overslept. She never overslept. She was always the last asleep and the first up. At least, that was the way it had used to be. Annalise did that now, but she wasn’t supposed to.

  Annalise smiled. “You needed bunk time, ma’am. Even the captain has to sleep.”

  Maran tried to speak, but the dream still seemed too real to her. Those last moments still grabbed Maran. The vehicles falling out of the sky – what were those things? How could metal things fly? What was it like to burn inside a metal coffin? Who were they? Were they from the Iron Duke or Tythia?

  Annalise slipped back out ignorant of the great ontological questions that filled Maran’s head. Whoever they were in those flying machines, they had lost that battle. Whoever they were, the Red Lady was winning. Winning what?

  What did it mean to lose? What did it mean to win? What did that look like? What would happen in the city? Were those even answerable questions? Would the city burn or only grow more corrupt?

  An impatient trumpet blasted across the courtyard, ordering something. After wondering for some seconds, Maran realized that it was now the Day of Battle. This was the holiest day of the year. That trumpet blare was the call to fight. Everyone would be up and ready soon, and she needed to be there as well. She would have to figure out her dream later. For right now, she had to get busy. She had ceremonies to attend and food to prepare. Maran quickly ate her breakfast and readied herself. She let the morning’s dream fade back into dirt.

  As she was already dressed, Maran rushed into the kitchen to prepare the Kurfurstin’s breakfast. Annalise had already prepared that as well, and was now concocting a horrid liquid.

  “I started this last night. It’s what Dad drinks at morning bell,” said Annalise. “Chicory, dandelion root, acorn, molasses, potato peel, and fish sauce. To flag it, a raw egg.”

  Maran took and sip and grimaced. “This stuff is awful. Who would drink it?”

  “The Seamstress. She ordered it. Go on, ma’am. It’s ready.”

  Maran decided that she better not think about this too much. She picked up the tray and hustled to Strikke’s room. Maran gently opened the door, expecting to find the Kurfurstin sleeping. Instead, she found Strikke awake and sitting on her bed with a golden dress strewn across her lap, patiently sewing sparkly beads onto it. Next to her, on a chair, was a mass of dirty plates, evidence of her long night of work. Under her eyes was the proof of her exhaustion.

  “Put it over there,” Strikke said, pointing to the chair.

  After some rearranging, Maran made a place for the tray, then gathered up as many empty plates and cups as possible.

  By the complexity of that dress, Strikke must have been sewing it every waking minute that she was not sleeping or drinking. It was entirely possible that Strikke simply was not sleeping, and even more possible that she could sew like that when she was drunk.

  “You need to come outside, ma’am,” reminded Maran.

  “I know, I know, but nobody’s going to do this for me. I’ll be there. And refill the sherry. It’s going to be a long day today. I need all the moral support I can get.” Strikke pointed to three empty decanters.

  “Ma’am, when did you sleep last?”

  “I don’t know. Yesterday a little. Was that yesterday? I don’t know. I’ve still got too much to do. I’m hungry. What about that black stuff? Did Annalise make that?”

  “It’s foul, ma’am.”

  Maran handed it to Strikke who made no face. “Uugh. That really is foul. Worse than campaign food.” The woman proceeded to drink it all down. “Terrible. Ugh. Do Demmarians really drink this? No wonder they want to rebel. I need real coffee. Do we have any left? Mom used to love it. I had it smuggled in by the ton. She’s got to have something left. I want it.”

  “I’m sure that we have some, ma’am.”

  Maran walked back to the kitchen with an armful of dishes. She did have some coffee hoarded away.

  “Annalise,
steep some coffee for the Kurfurstin. Heat it over a candle if you have to.” Maran unlocked the cash box and pulled the coffee out. “Take the coffee to the Kurfurstin when its ready, then refill the decanters. Use the everyday sherry. I’m going out to the balcony for the ceremonies. You can come watch. After the fight, we chop like an army. Tonight, we can finally relight fires, then we cook like it’s the end of the world.”

  Maran went out onto the Kurfurstin’s balcony and watched the ceremonies form. The entire guild slowly assembled in the approaching dawn, all dressed in their best clothes.

  All some time, Kurfurstin Strikke toddled out onto the balcony, coffee in hand, doing her best to appear vigorous, but failing miserably. Osei and Gamstadt walked with her.

  Osei looked even more tired than his employer. He was a human, and he just didn’t have the unflagging stamina of a dwarf. Strikke’s topsy turvy schedule was wearing him down sure as a grindstone wore down a knife. Maran admired him for his persistence. He intended to make the best of his position, and be seen doing it. As the only human to ever do this job, he wanted to do it the best that he could. Even so, enough was enough. When was Altyn going to get him replaced?

  Strikke frowned as she counted. “Some folks are missing down there. I need something to bang.”

  Fleck disappeared, then reappeared with an iron cane. Maran recognized it as belonging to the Missus, so recently dead. When Strikke took her mother’s iron cane from Fleck, her back straightened a little and the exhaustion disappeared from her. “I’ll have words with you later. Remember who you speak to.”

  Turning around, Strikke stepped up to the railing, banging her iron cane against it and leaving dents far beyond her strength. Her voice blasted across the court like a steam whistle. “Shut up you bastards and listen up. Hello there. I said shut up.” Strikke banged that cane some more, creating more dents.

  The crowd settled, but not completely.

  “Horsebreaker, get their attention.”

  Fleck put two fingers into his mouth, whistling a loud, long whistle. The crowd fell silent. Strikke whacked the railing one more time, just to be sure.

  “Listen up, you bastards. The gods have been firing grapeshot at us lately, and we’ve got to get our fight up. This is our pride, people. It’s everybody’s pride. Run and find the absentees. Get their asses in here. We’ve got ceremonies to run and a dragon to kill. Iron kills dragons, not absenteeism.”

  Dwarves hustled this way and that. After some minutes, a few more Ironmongers showed up, but not many.

  Strikke leaned to Gamstadt. “Gammy, make a note of who’s missing. Make them suffer. I will not be disrespected.” Strikke then turned her attention back to the crowd. “All right you bastards, send out your new apprentices. Let’s swear up a storm.”

  The ceremonies that followed made the slow and patient Loam ceremonies look hasty. They dragged on long and slow as everybody swore oaths to everything. They dragged exactly like plowing the fields in spring. Maran would have happily snuck out of those ceremonies, but as part of the Kurfurstin’s household, she had to be there.

  As her mind wandered, it occurred to Maran that Strikke always seemed far bolder with that iron cane in hand. So had the Missus, who had rarely put it down.

  Maran had never taken the time to inspect the cane properly. Given a good view of it, its handle looked exactly like the Iron Duke’s head, down to the correctly positioned bolts around his eye. The image was uncanny. The cane was either made by someone who knew the Iron Duke, or by the Duke himself. Maran’s gut told her that the Duke had made this cane, and that meant this cane was an idol, just like the statue of Tythia was an idol.

  How did that get forgotten? Or maybe it was never forgotten. Maybe Maran was the problem here. She was the outsider. The Missus surely had known the value of the cane. Had others, too? What else had died with the Missus? How could Maran guess? How could she even know what to ask? How could she ask about what she did not know and did not suspect?

  If that really was an idol, it needed to get remembered. Maran leaned over to Fleck. “I need to warn you about something. Strikke’s cane is an idol of the Iron Duke. It was made by his hands. That is the most valuable thing in this guild. Remember that when you hold it.”

  Fleck nodded, understanding what this fact implied. “Thanks for telling me. I will hold it with great honor from now on.”

  Finally, after taking half the morning, the oath swearing was done. The time had come for the dragon puppet to come out and fight its fight. Maran did not need to stay for that. Their version of the story had them being the sole heroes, and Marand doubted it was like that at all.

  “Iron kills dragons!” yelled the crowd.

  “Look to the Sun!” shouted Maran. Nobody here said that, but she needed to say it. She needed to remember what was important. The Alliance was important. That battle today did not celebrate the conquest of a dragon, it celebrated the victory of good standing against evil. The gods of light planted hope like a seed, and despite all the storms against it, that seed grew until it could stand against any storm thrown against it, and then beyond all belief, that tree bore fruit. Hope rained down upon mere mortals, not hail. Hope is the food of the soul, and what better thing could a cook hope to offer?

  On that happy thought, it was time for Maran to be a cook again.

  Relighting the Fires

  With great ceremony, Maran opened up the kitchen for Annalise to see.

  “This is it. This is the new kitchen. I’ve been cleaning it up. I have a new room downstairs. I’ll start sleeping there tonight. You have a room downstairs, too. I’ll show you. There’s a garden out the window. I haven’t had time to work on it yet.”

  “Pretty,” was all that Annalise could say.

  “Well designed,” countered Maran. “It’s a proper Loam kitchen. We’ve got to move in. Start carrying things up from the other larder. We need everything ready to go by sundown. I’ll be cooking for the Kurfurstin’s table on a tripod. It’s tradition. We’ll be using all the bowls. Now get hustling. There’s no stopping until dawn.”

  The day passed in a sweaty whirl of work. The sun heated the iron building, turning it into a furnace without a fire. Maran and Annalise stripped down as many layers as possible, going so far as to gather their skirts and stuff them into their waistbands. They often went to the windows, hoping for the least breeze to cool them.

  Music sometimes drifted through the windows. The humans joyfully held their celebrations on Groppekunta Street. Sometimes there were shouts, chaotic and wild. The humans must be recreating the battle as well. Curiosity welled up in Maran. What were those battles like? What costumes did they wear?

  “Annalise,” asked Maran, “what do Demmarians do on the holiday?”

  “All the usual stuff, ma’am. Fight and eat and all that.”

  Maran did her best to remember home. She remembered her husband, when he had still been alive. She had dressed him in a bear-headed costume made of grass and plaster. He and the other men had wandered about the town, terrorizing all the inhabitants. Those were hot days. Kirim had come by the house several times for water.

  That had been in Sureh. They would be holding that strange celebration right now.

  The unmarried women would be gathering with brooms and hoes and whatever else they could grab up. They would move through the town, street to street, fighting away the men dressed as animal people. With each kill, they would take a plaster head and carry it about as a trophy. When all the beasts were decapitated, they would gather in the center of town and display the plaster heads for all to see.

  “We have driven the animal people from town!” they would scream. “We are safe. Now we will take their souls to Endhaven and ensure that their spirits never return.”

  Instruments would come out next. Ouds, nyes, riqs, zils, and zurnas would take up the tune, and the heroines would begin dancing the Dance of the Dead. They would dance furiously as long as possible, spinning and laughing, bringing as much g
ood fortune as they could, until they all fell down dizzy.

  The Dance of the Dead. Maran had forgotten that. The Dance of the Dead was a Sureh tradition. No other Loam town did anything like it.

  The Dance of the Dead that led the dead to Endhaven, just like she did. Just like her. How could she forget that? It was all there. What she did, right now, was still remembered in Sureh.

  All this time, Maran had felt like she was something new, but now she felt like something old. Something forgotten. Forgotten, the way that the iron cane was forgotten. Forgotten, the way that fossors were forgotten. Forgotten, not by accident, but in practicality, as times passed and traditions changed.

  Outside, trumpets blared. Time had passed. The sun now touched the horizon. Ages ago, the battle had ended. The Oathbreakers had retreated from the field. The Prophet of Uma had been killed by his ally, the White Lady. The Alliance of the Sun had won the day. They had thrown their fortunes behind a single big battle and won. Weary dwarves had survived, and could finally light their cooking fires. From then on, the Alliance of the Sun would dominate the battlefield, not the Oathbreakers.

  “Look to the Sun,” said Maran, taking comfort in the old affirmation.

  Sundown. It was now time to relight the fires. It was time to end the old year and start a new. It was time to prepare the feasts of victory.

  Maran and Annalise knelt down before the stove.

  “You light it,” said Maran. “I’m promoting you to assistant cook. I’ll hire a new scull.”

  Annalise beamed. “Oh, ma’am. More shinies?”

  “Of course more shinies. I’ll even throw in a few more for the New Year’s Day. Now go on. Prepare the stove.”

  “Already done, ma’am.” Pride welled across Annalise’s face.

  Annalise had already loaded the stove exactly as Maran had taught her. With a burning candle kept lit for this occasion, Annalise clearly spoke a prayer in her squeaky voice. “Queen of Fire, Burning Passion, give us light and comfort. Cook our food and guide our sailors. Smoke our fish and bend our boards. Give us succor on the long, dark nights, and show our fishermen the way home.”