City of Iron and Dust

by J. P. Oakes

  The Opera House’s architecture looms around them: massive, ostentatious, overwhelming. They walk beneath arches three stories tall, painted gold and draped with velvet and oil paintings. String quartets ooze soft melodies from hidden annexes. Red carpets lead everywhere. If you are visiting here, you must be a VIP, after all.

  Their destination: The Hall of Horns—a circular room lined with the heads of seven white harts, reserved for the rare times the heads of the Houses meet. It is buried deep within the Opera House. Anyone eager to attack so much concentrated power will have to steer a course along a route rife with ambush spots.

  Which is what allows Osmondo Red to ambush Granny Spregg.

  He launches himself out of an alcove, hissing as he comes. Once, when they fought side by side in the Iron War, he was tall and proud, roped with muscle, with blood on his teeth and fire in his eyes. Age and power, though, have soured him. He has collapsed in on himself. His belly is vast, his arms and legs gnarled and withered. His head is a sunken portrait of savagery, wobbling atop his swollen torso. And yet despite the depravities of age and excess, he has lost none of his bitter energy. He still retains the angry purpose that bore him across battlefields, and this is how he comes at her now—ready for war.

  Thacker squeals, and almost breaks into a full retreat. Granny Spregg stands her ground.

  “Bedlack,” Osmondo spits when he stands before her.

  It is so long since Granny Spregg has heard her own first name, she almost doesn’t recognize it. “Osmondo,” she manages to sneer back.

  “The bitch has sent you to crawl for her, I see.” Osmondo’s breath is sour, and his eyes red.

  “Brethelda sends her warmest greetings,” Granny Spregg says in her coldest voice.

  Osmondo leans in. “I know you, Bedlack.” His teeth are flecked with spots of black and red. “I know you like to consider yourself a player of games, so much smarter than the rest of us. You have come here to pluck at us like a harpist on her instrument, isn’t that right?”

  None of this is a compliment. Granny Spregg smiles all the same. “You do know that the phrase ‘throwing your weight around’ isn’t meant to be taken literally, don’t you, Osmondo?” she says. “Tell your chef to go easy on the butter.”

  Osmondo forms a gnarled fist. Thacker cowers on Granny Spregg’s behalf. Osmondo doesn’t strike, though.

  “Words,” he hisses between pointed teeth. “Always words with you. Do you think the others will feel more sympathy for you if you go in there with a blackened eye and a bleeding lip? Do you want me to beat you, Bedlack?” His face is inches from hers.

  “Yes, Osmondo,” she says. “Words. They’re quite harmless, I assure you. You only find them frightening because you don’t understand them.”

  Osmondo, she knows, is monolingual in his methods of persuasion. He understands only aggression. He bullies and he butchers until he gets his way. There is no subtlety to him, and the only way to tame him is to refuse to be intimidated.

  Osmondo, though, isn’t rising to her bait. “Words won’t save you,” he hisses. “Not tonight. I know where your troops are, Bedlack. You’ve sent them to rile up the fae, and I know that now you stand at the head of a House exposed. So, I don’t give a fuck what you have to say tonight. I will find an excuse, and I will march into your House, and I will find your children, and I will wear their corpses as my cloak. That will be the legacy of your words, Bedlack. A House of blood and woe.”

  He leans back, self-satisfied.

  It takes some effort, but Granny Spregg summons a small huffing laugh. “You still can’t tell if I want you to hit me or not, can you?”

  Osmondo grimaces, and then faster than she would have imagined given his age, he slams a fist into her eye, and sends her spilling to the floor.

  He stands over her. “I don’t care what you want, Bedlack,” he says. “I want to hit you. And I get what I want. Tonight, I want to watch your House bleed.”

  Bee

  “We should have taken that last left.”

  “That would take us straight into their line of fire.”

  “We should circle round.”

  “But these are all straight roads.”

  “Oh, shut up, you ass.”

  The Fae Liberation Front—however much they do not want to admit it—are lost. An address on Canal between Bridge and Arch Streets is attached to the call sign “Oscar-crimson-five” from Bee’s sheet of discovered goblin commando groups. However, out here in Smog’s Bend the streets are unfamiliar, and determining the best route is proving as divisive as any other argument they’ve had this night.

  Chow, the pixie, has a map out and is examining it with her brow deeply furrowed. “I think it’s an apartment block,” she says. “But we wouldn’t want to occupy an apartment block, would we?”

  Bee shrugs. He doesn’t really care why the goblins are anywhere. He just cares about making sure they aren’t there anymore.

  “This is Arch Street,” someone else says, pointing to a street sign.

  They stop, stare at the sign warily. Harretta approaches Bee and Tharn with similar caution. “We should,” she says hesitantly, “have a plan of attack.”

  Bee’s eyes flick to Tharn, but he—thankfully—does not scream at her that she’s dictating what the group should do, and simply nods. And for her part, Harretta doesn’t add to the conversation, even though she is clearly yearning to tell them more.

  Bee, however, has no plan in mind, and apparently Tharn doesn’t either. Finally, Bee says, “Well, if you have a suggestion, Harretta…”

  “Two groups,” she says immediately, “one small and fast to scout a way into the apartment building. Then, once they report back, the main group goes in big and loud. Meanwhile, the scouts head to the back of the building, looking for an alternate means of ingress so they can flank anyone else we come across.”

  Bee looks at Tharn, shrugs. “Sounds good to me.”

  Tharn nods.

  And that’s all well and good, except, of course, it doesn’t sound good to Bee in the slightest. Rather, it sounds like charging death down and daring death to make its move.

  But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything. Instead he listens as the group whispers the plan back and forth—tweaking, refining, negotiating—and by the time they’re done, there are two groups of scouts moving forward, one high and one low, while another group of four will watch their back trail. Meanwhile, the remainder will wait for the scouts to give the all clear.

  As a group, Bee thinks, they have approximated military know-how. Maybe there should be some comfort in that.

  He goes with the scouting group that’s sticking to street level. There are three of them: Bee; Garfaux, a purple-skinned sidhe; and Gange, a ginger-haired kobold. They all move at a light jog. Bee holds the machine gun—reclaimed from Tharn once more—tight to his hip, trying to reduce its clatter. He suspects the gun is the reason the other scouts were so happy to have him along.

  It is better, he thinks, to be out in front, to meet whatever the world has to offer head on.

  The apartment block looms before them, a cheap modern construction without a single straight line to call its own. Aluminum struts twist between buckling plasterboard panels. There is a service entrance to the side of the building. A wooden gate flaps open.

  As they approach, Bee holds up a hand, holds the group still. An awkward game of charades plays out, then Garfaux and Gange finally understand, and flit to the far side of the gateway, pressing themselves to the wall.

  A smell fills Bee’s nostrils, newly familiar to him. It is metallic and meaty and causes his stomach to clench.

  He lets the gun barrel lead him around the gateway, already knowing what he’s going to see. He blanches anyway. Bodies are scattered across the floor—goblins skewered and in pieces, their red caps askew atop their lolling heads. Shell casings have been scattered through the coagulating pool of blood.

  A goblin is propped up against one wall of th
e narrow space, panting shallowly, her hair dyed white and flecked with red. There’s a hole in her thigh and a sword in her hand.

  “Shit on a stick,” Garfaux breathes beside him. “What happened?”

  “I did.”

  It’s the goblin on the floor. Bee meets her gaze and almost takes a step back. Even with her eyes half-lidded, her stare speaks to something in the back of his skull and tells it to run. It’s an absurd thought, though. She’s on the floor… She’s bleeding out…

  And yet… is she responsible for this slaughter? Bee looks more closely, and realizes he’s made a mistake. Not a goblin. Or… not completely. There is fae in her ancestry too—maybe sidhe or pixie, something fine-boned enough that the sharpness of her goblin heritage still dominates, but also something that has paled the green of her skin, rounded her pupils.

  Not that any of this makes her potentially less deadly. Her sword could well be responsible for the wounds he sees. And so… is she on his side? Her goblin-sharp features don’t suggest she is. There again, her pale skin is far from a bright goblin green.

  Then he understands. Some goblin’s unwanted bastard trapped between two worlds, neither of which wanted her.

  He steps toward her, a toe-tip touching the pool of spilled blood. “What’s your name?” he asks.

  The half-goblin spits in response. And given everything she’s likely gone through in life, Bee isn’t sure he can blame her.

  “You killed these goblins?” he asks.

  Nothing. The same dead-eyed stare. It’s like looking into a lizard’s eyes.

  A radio crackles on the floor. Bee jumps.

  “Oscar-crimson-five,” the radio blares. “Report in. What is the status of asset Sil? Repeat, what is the status of asset Sil?”

  Bee looks from the radio to the half-goblin. “Asset Sil,” he repeats. “Is that you?”

  Nothing.

  “Asset,” Garfaux mutters next to him. “That means she’s working with the goblin bastards.”

  Bee looks at the bodies. “So,” he asks the half-goblin, “why would you kill goblins if you work for them?”

  Nothing.

  “She’s lying,” Garfaux says.

  “She’s not saying anything.”

  Garfaux shrugs. “Lie of omission.”

  Another examination of the half-goblin. Still nothing.

  “Let go of the sword,” he tells her, “and I’ll bind your leg.”

  She looks at him for a moment longer, and then finally closes her eyes. Then she opens her hand and the sword falls away.

  Bee lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “OK,” he tells Garfaux, “you go and get the others up here. I’ll see to her.”

  Garfaux licks his lips. Bee can sense his uncertainty, his fear. But what else is there to do? If they’re to get any more information about what’s happening tonight, then it seems they’ll need asset Sil’s cooperation.

  As Garfaux starts waving the others down, Bee crosses to Sil. He kneels and starts ripping a makeshift bandage from a nearby dead goblin’s shirt.

  “You know,” she says, just loud enough for him to hear, “I don’t need my sword to kill you.”

  His blood goes cold. He turns sharply to her, but she’s just lying there, eyes still closed.

  “Well, I’m glad you haven’t,” he manages, playing it all much cooler than he feels.

  But she doesn’t give him anything else, not a single sound even as he binds her leg tightly.

  Edwyll

  Elsewhere in the Iron City, Edwyll ducks gratefully through a rainbow-painted doorway and follows Lila inside an old townhouse. Behind him, Jag hesitates on the doorstep. He goes back, gives a little half-bow and ushers her in with a sweep of his arm.

  “I promised you safety,” he says. “You’ll be safe here. This is not a hotbed of sedition.” He points. “This is Lila. She’s an artist.”

  “Mostly I’m just a waitress,” Lila says, stepping deeper into the hallway. “But if Edwyll vouches for you, then you’re welcome here.”

  Jag nods, steps inside. As they follow Lila he leans over. “She does the most beautiful miniatures,” he tells her.

  Jag nods again, but it’s not clear to Edwyll how much she takes in. She is staring at the walls. Edwyll finds himself grinning despite the night’s events. He loves Lila’s house. Jallow, Lila’s on-again, off-again-partner, is a muralist whose work is as expansive as Lila’s is tight and controlled. His great washes of color spill across the walls. He and Lila started a collective whose members come and go through the house like the tide, paying rent in creativity, adding to the decorations. There are artifacts from Talluck’s performance pieces strung from the ceilings. Lila’s miniatures are dotted in amongst the chaos alongside Threm’s photographs of working-class fae in factories, and out on the Iron City’s streets.

  “This is…” But Jag doesn’t have the words.

  Edwyll nods. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  The house has been busy of late, rooms packed with artists. It’s made it difficult for Edwyll to crash here. He sleeps on the couch when he can, but Jallow doesn’t like it. Lila has told him that Jallow thinks it sets the wrong creative tone. And to be fair, Edwyll’s room at his parents’ house is always available, but he’s slept out on the streets more than once to avoid that particular destination.

  Lila waits for them in the living room. Most of the furniture in here has been scavenged, repurposed, and reinvented. Couches have been sutured together, patched wildly. Chimera writing desks teeter-totter on mismatched legs. Lanterns and lampshades metastasize, casting light in strange patterns, leaving oases of shadow at random intervals around the room.

  It is, to Edwyll, the most perfect room in all the world. It is imagination come to life, unfettered and pure. Lila and the others of the collective have made a world they want to live in. They have aspired for better than this falling-down, ramshackle house should ever allow, and to Edwyll’s eye, they have succeeded wildly.

  Talluck—a massive demi-dryad, a drome to be precise, child of a dryad mother and gnome father, and as broad as he is tall—is hunched over a diorama of a stage, manipulating tiny figures of plastic and wood. He half looks up as they enter, lets out a grunt that Edwyll takes as a greeting. Over by a coffee table, Jallow is leafing through a folio of black-and-white photographs. The table, Edwyll knows, has at its heart a small chunk of iron that Jallow has buried beneath layers and layers of imported maple wood, until its sting is reduced to a near negligible itch for all but the most sensitive fae. Jallow—from hardy kobold stock—has burned his hands to shit making them, despite thick protective gloves of ivy banding and spider silk. Still, Edwyll has listened to him tell other artists that it is worth it. “The metaphor of reclamation,” he says. “The idea that we can still come back from this. That we can bury the past and find a better place once again.” He calls them “rehabilitated objects” and they enjoy a small but lucrative market among House Spriggan nobles. It is this money that funds the collective.

  “Hello! Hello! Edwyll!” Threm, the fourth member of the collective, lurches up off the couch grinning. A gnome, in his early fifties, he carefully cultivates a careworn appearance. The battered camera around his neck is something of an affectation, but he is a photographer for The Grind, one of the Fae District’s local newspapers. He is bringing the camera up, just about to capture Edwyll in the viewfinder, when his eye falls on Jag.

  Of all of the collective, it is Threm whose reaction worries Edwyll the most. He is the one whose art is most political. Who has been arrested the most times. Who has needed to go into hiding in the collective’s basement more than once.

  Lila catches Threm’s expression. “She’s a friend of Edwyll’s,” she says quickly. Something in her tone makes the others look up. Talluck drops a diminutive wooden figure.

  “She’s a patron,” Edwyll says. “My patron.”

  He feels the shockwaves ripple out across the room. This is, he knows, possibly even more startl
ing than walking in here with a goblin on his heels. More in violation of everything these artists hold to be normal.

  Talluck has been making his miniatures for two decades, Lila her miniatures for almost two-thirds of that time. Both of them have made small sales to goblins before, but nothing of any real note. Jallow had to hustle for the best part of a decade before his star began to ascend. For Edwyll to waltz in here, still shy of his twentieth year, and casually announce that he has a patron… it’s a grenade thrown right into the established order of things.

  “A patron?” Lila is the first of them to recover. She is looking at Jag quizzically.

  Edwyll turns to look at Jag too, his breath catching. Because she doesn’t have to follow through. She doesn’t have to do anything. She is a goblin. She doesn’t truly owe him anything. She can call him a liar and no one will do anything.

  But as Lila looks at her, Jag’s face brightens. She beams at the room. “Oh, I just… It’s hard to say. I just saw his work and…” She trails off, but her eyes are bright.

  And Edwyll knows that she is leaving things out, weaving an alternate narrative that does not place her at the bar, in among the bodies. And he knows that if he says anything then this patronage will be forever tainted in the others’ eyes. Will always be bloodstained and mercenary, and he doesn’t want them to see it that way.

  The group are staring at Jag, waiting for her to go on. The silence drags. Jag looks uncertain.

  Then Lila claps. She grabs Edwyll in a hug. “Oh my goodness! Tonight of all nights you find a patron!”

  The moment in the room breaks. “I say!” Jallow shouts. “A drink!”

  Talluck sits back down at his diorama, grinning as he unfolds a figure’s bent arms, and Threm finally takes his appraising eyes off Jag, and pushes a hand through his hair, and says, “Well, at least there’s some good news in the Iron City tonight.”

  And it actually feels honest, here and now in this moment. And Edwyll knows that the jealousy will set in, but it hasn’t yet, and Edwyll finds himself smiling. Because maybe it doesn’t matter how he got a patron. Maybe all that matters is that he did.