City of Iron and Dust

by J. P. Oakes

  He blinks at her, but she can’t tell if he sees anything beyond the confines of his own pain.

  “I’m going to count to ten,” a goblin shouts at the huddled fae. Meanwhile she knows he is signaling desperately to his men, setting up a crossfire, ensuring victory no matter what the fae do.

  “The gun,” she mouths to Bee again. She wants the gun. And she doesn’t know why. But, she’s starting to realize, she doesn’t care why or why not. Right now, it’s enough to know what she wants.

  “Give me the gun.”

  Bee closes his eyes again.

  Behind him, someone stands, throws a gun into the center of the lobby.

  It lands too far away from her. She can’t do anything.

  Another gun follows. Another gun that lands just yards out of reach.

  And they’re actually doing it, she realizes. It’s not a ruse or a ploy. They’re just giving in to the command to be slaughtered. They’re doing, she realizes, just what she was taught to do.

  She thinks she wants to scream.

  And then Bee shoves out his arm, and the machine gun starts to slide across the floor. It spins, barrel and grip whirling end over end as it hisses and skitters across the chipped linoleum. And everyone watches as it skids past the other two weapons. Everyone watches as it lands in Sil’s outstretched hand.

  “Asset Sil?” It’s the same as before. A different goblin, but that same question, that same moment of hesitation. That tiny window opening to give her the slimmest of chances to cling to life. And at least, she thinks, her loyalty to the House has bought her that.

  Then she opens fire.

  And she wants it, she finds. She wants to see the goblins buck and writhe. She wants to see their blood in messy spatters on the walls. She wants to see their guns come to bear and she wants to deny them their victory. She wants this, this rage, or revenge, or anger, or hatred, or fear, or whatever it is. She wants it even though she doesn’t understand it. She wants it because it is hers. Because she made it herself. She wants it because House Red Cap did not cram it down the throat of a child and make her believe it was the only way to be. This thing is a thing of her own design. This massacre. This murder.

  This victory.

  Knull

  Knull is nursing a water bottle someone just gave him. He looks up as more footsteps approach, hopeful of food to accompany the drink. This time, though, it’s Skart. And the kobold is smiling.

  “I think,” Skart says, “that it’s time we talked.”

  Knull doesn’t think that it’s time they talked. He thinks he’d rather find a way to put this whole revolution on pause while he gets his head clear, and has some stronger drinks, and maybe even fixes his damn ankle.

  Except, he knows, deep down, that’s not what he wants. Because if he could press pause, he’d think about none of this. Rather, he’d work incredibly hard to ensure that when the world resumed he could say, Sorry, Skart, but I found another buyer. I don’t even have the Dust anymore…

  Sorry, Skart, that all these fae are dying for nothing…

  He realizes Skart is still waiting for an answer.

  “Um, yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

  “Maybe we can find somewhere quieter to talk?” Skart says. “There are some offices at the back. Maybe we can use one of them.”

  Knull was hoping to not move again for approximately the rest of his life, but he sighs, and grunts, and gets to his feet. Then his ankle almost buckles as he tries to put weight on it. Skart reaches out, steadies him.

  “Didn’t one of our healers see you?” His face is full of paternal concern.

  “No Dust,” Knull mutters. “Not having that.”

  Skart furrows his brow, but he doesn’t say anything. He just offers up an arm and lets Knull lean on it as they hobble toward the back offices. Knull tries to not feel grateful.

  “Skart!” The big dryad calls from the center of the floor. There’s a slightly frantic air to her.

  Skart glances in her direction. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Brumble. Mr Knull and I have important matters to discuss.”

  Knull looks at Brumble as a drowning creature looks to a distant spar of wood while Skart directs him to a dusty door. Its glass pane is so filthy as to be impenetrable.

  “Just through here.” Skart opens the door, which screeches on ancient hinges.

  Knull steps through into a room bare but for two rusting filing cabinets and a substantial smattering of rat droppings. Behind him, Skart scrapes the door closed.

  Knull licks his lips. Despite the mostly empty water bottle in his hand, his mouth feels dry all over again.

  “I think you know why I asked you here,” Skart says. He ducks his head. “But before we get into that, I have to ask… Dust. Why do you hate it so much?”

  Knull studies Skart’s ruddy face. The old kobold is impenetrable, his angle impossible to judge. Not that it matters, Knull tells himself. He doesn’t have to tell him anything. He owes him nothing.

  Except his life.

  “Dust,” he says finally, “is for idiots.”

  He expects Skart to scoff, or to roll his eyes, or to tell him that he’s the idiot, but Skart does none of these things. He just looks thoughtful. “But Dust,” he says finally, speaking slowly, “is our connection to our past, to who we really are. It’s the one way back to the magic that was severed from our souls.”

  “Magic?” Now Knull is the one scoffing. “Let me tell you how fucking magical it is to watch your parents rot from the inside out. Let me tell you how magical it is to find out your mom decided there were better things to spend money on than food this week. Let me tell you how magical it is to watch a father spin around in a field of daisies just before he goes off to blow a few more goblins to get the coins to do it again. Yeah, it’s a source of fucking wonder, alright.”

  “Ah.” Skart bows his head. “You poor child.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy.”

  Skart nods. “I imagine not. But you don’t get to control how others feel, Knull. Most of us hardly get to control anything in our lives. That’s the lot of the fae in the Iron City, really. No choices. Just walking the paths the goblins have dictated for us.”

  “And how exactly does addiction give fae more choices?” Knull has been holding onto these arguments for a long time.

  Skart nods. “It doesn’t. But Dust is hardly the only addictive substance in the Iron City. There are medicines that can heal in the correct doses, and harm when taken to excess.”

  Knull gets to scoff before Skart does. “Yeah, well, nobody is saying cough medicine is what defines us as fae. No one says, ‘Choke this shit down, even if it kills you. Even if it kills your kids.’”

  He’s trying to get a rise out of the old kobold. He doesn’t know why, but he wants to make him angry. But Skart just keeps on nodding.

  “But you don’t sell cough medicine, do you, Knull? You sell the very thing you profess to hate. The very thing that keeps us oppressed.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Knull isn’t going to apologize for his life choices. He’s lived with them longer than Skart has. “I do it because the only way out of the Fae Districts is money. And if you’re dumb enough to think it’s anything but that, then I’ll happily take your coin and leave you behind.”

  “Money.” Skart nods again. He just keeps on nodding. “Yes, that makes sense. But Dust isn’t the only way to make money. So, why not start a store? Why not get a job in a factory? Why not—”

  “Because it’s bullshit.” Knull can only stomach so much of this horse dung. “No one gets out with what they make from those jobs. They’re dead ends. Rat traps. There’s only one way to make enough and that—”

  “Is to condemn more fae to the same addiction that robbed your parents of their will and you of your childhood?” This time, it’s Skart who cuts Knull off. This time, it’s Skart with the fire in his eyes and on his tongue. “How much do you hate yourself?” Skart asks him. “How deep have you buried that? Do
you even acknowledge it to yourself anymore?”

  It’s like a knife blade. It’s like all his defense being ripped away with one fine, precise slice. “Fuck you,” he gasps.

  Skart shakes his head, keeps talking. “But I didn’t do this to you, Knull. Dust didn’t do this to you. The goblins did. They set the trap, and you walked in. They rigged the game so that the only way out is to become complicit. Push the addiction that keeps hundreds of fae trapped in the hopes that maybe just you—and you alone—can get out. And that’s the joke, Knull. That’s what sends them laughing to their beds: there is no way out. The Iron Wall is a perfect circle. The goblins control all the ways in and all the ways out. And if you get big enough to hit their radar, they’ll crush you. Do you really think the goblins will let you keep anything you get from selling that Dust? Do you really think you’ll be wealthy enough to challenge a House if you piss them off? We both know the answers to those questions.”

  Knull wants to leave this room. He hates this room. And still Skart won’t stop talking.

  “You want a choice, Knull. You want to be free. But you’re as addicted as anyone else. The idea of freedom has been shoved down your throat, and you can’t get the taste from your mouth. And the goblins drip-feed you that dream to keep you in line, to keep you doing their bidding. They’ve given you no choice at all.”

  And it’s every doubt that’s haunted every night. It’s every time he’s questioned his ambitions and every time his decisions have felt shallow and selfish. It’s every time he’s turned his back on his brother amplified and reverberating without mercy. It’s every time he’s felt no better than his parents.

  “The only way to choose,” Skart keeps on, not taking a moment to break, not acknowledging the rasping of his breath, the dampness in his eyes, “is to tear the whole system down. That is what the Dust is for, Knull. That is who we are. That is why I arranged to have so much brought into the city at once. Because every system has its limits. And I am going to overload them. I am going to make sure there isn’t any more horror, Knull. I am going to make sure no more children have to watch their parents waste away in a toxic dream.

  “All I need to achieve that,” Skart says, “is for you to choose to help me. Because if you don’t, then you’re right: we’re all trapped, the reprisals come, and history repeats.

  “So, Knull,” he says, “what will you choose?”

  Granny Spregg

  Granny Spregg opens her eyes. She closes them again. She had thought it couldn’t get worse than seeing Thacker upon waking. She was wrong.

  “I know you’re awake, Mother,” Brethelda says to her. “In fact, I think it’s time for all of your charades to come to an end.”

  This time, Granny Spregg keeps her eyes open. She is, yet again, in her bed. Thacker has, yet again, plumped the pillows behind her head.

  “How bad is it?” Brethelda says.

  “Oh, don’t pretend you care, dear.” Granny Spregg is too tired to dissemble. Thacker has even taken her ballgown off her, left her in her undershirt. She feels more vulnerable than if she were just naked.

  “You are my mother!” The force of Brethelda’s shout catches Granny Spregg off guard. Brethelda, who has been sitting on the edge of the bed, is now standing. She even takes a few moments to visibly calm herself.

  “I am,” she says, still breathing hard, “as often as I wish that I was not, very much your daughter, Mother. Now answer me—are you dying?”

  Granny Spregg licks her lips. “I am trying very hard not to.”

  Brethelda shakes her head. “Games. Always games with you.” She turns to Thacker. He wilts in the corner. “How bad is she?”

  Thacker looks wretchedly at Granny Spregg.

  “Look to me, Thacker,” Brethelda demands. “I am the head of your House. I am the one you owe your fealty to. If you are to pay obeisance, you pay it at my feet. So, tell me now.”

  Thacker sobs.

  Granny Spregg sighs. “At least do me the decency of holding onto your composure while you betray me, Thacker.”

  Thacker gulps. “Her arm,” he manages.

  Thacker has at least done her the decency of leaving her gloves on. But Granny Spregg is too old to waste time dragging this out any longer. She peels one off. “He means this.”

  Her arm is lurid purple to the elbow now. As she rolls up the sleeve of her undershirt, she sees the violet tendrils reaching up to her shoulder and out of sight.

  “Ah,” Brethelda says. “Poison then. Will you tell me who? Or—” She turns to Thacker. “—must I get the answers from your servant again.”

  Granny Spregg knows her expression is sour. “I was perhaps a little too enthusiastic in my belittling of Privett earlier.”

  Brethelda’s face is made of stone. “I see,” she says. “It appears I have been lax.” She pushes her hand through her short cropped hair. “It is time to clean house.” She looks to Thacker. “Come here.”

  He approaches hesitantly, still sniveling, ashamed eyes on Granny Spregg. “I’m sorry,” he mouths to her.

  “Now,” Brethelda says, as he stands before her. “I need you—” And then with a sudden violence she kicks out his knees. She seizes his head as his body collapses one way and wrenches it in the other direction. There is a crack loud enough to bounce off the walls. Thacker goes limp.

  Granny Spregg stares.

  Brethelda drops the body. She takes a long calming breath.

  “Thacker,” Granny Spregg says. She commands him. But he just lies there and doesn’t say a word.

  “Now, Mother,” Brethelda says while Thacker still just lies there, “you have been up to mischief, and you have come to mischief.”

  Thacker’s eyes are wide and staring.

  “But you are old, infirm in body, and now I suspect in mind as well. You are not wholly to blame.”

  Thacker’s pigeon chest is still.

  “You have clearly been enabled. And it takes little imagination to figure out who your accomplice was.”

  Brethelda finally looks down at the floor. At the little, scurrying goblin, so pathetic, and so desperate to please.

  No more.

  Brethelda looks back at Granny Spregg. “You are my mother. I love you. I do this for your own good.” She smiles. “I hope the time remaining to you is peaceful. Now, I would stay, but you have left me with much to do.”

  Granny Spregg is barely paying attention. She is still staring. Thacker is still just lying there. And it takes her a moment to realize what is happening, but then Granny Spregg finally feels the tears running down her cheeks.

  Sil

  In an apartment building on Canal between Bridge and Arch Streets, a lobby is full of gun smoke. Cracked plaster crumbles, patters down on a linoleum floor. A framed photograph slips from its hook, falls. Someone’s breathing is very labored.

  Sil, still lying prone, sees a figure stumble out from the rear of the building, groping through the haze. She swings the machine-gun barrel up, works the mechanism loudly.

  “Woah! Woah!” The figure flings his hands in the air.

  It’s one of the fae. She lets the gun barrel fall.

  I already shot all the Red Caps…

  Others start to stumble out into the lobby, dazed, bewildered. Some clutch wounds. Someone calls out, “Who’s hit?”

  Many, it turns out. Six fatally. The fae lay them out in a row. They take the plastic leaves from a fake potted plant, and cover the eyes of the fallen.

  The number of wounded is comparatively low. Only four have been clipped by bullets. The goblin commandos shot to kill, and they knew their business well. Bee, still lying on the floor, grunting in pain, is—from some perspectives—one of the lucky ones.

  A brixie with long blue hair kneels beside Bee and pulls a small plastic bag from her pocket. She examines its contents. “They only gave me enough for one high,” she says, “but now seems like the time to use it.”

  She sticks her nose in the bag, inhales. Sil sees her sudden
ly haloed by sunlight. The floor ripples at her feet, and fish leap and splash from the quivering tiles. The brixie reaches down and Bee’s hip glows. There is a wet sucking noise. Bee sits up with a gasp.

  The brixie walks to each of the wounded in turn, lays on hands. Soon they’re all up, standing, staring. They don’t celebrate, though. Rather the gravity of the bodies claims them, and they drift to stand beside the dead.

  Tharn breaks the mood. “You mean you’ve been able to do this all night,” he says, “and I’ve been wandering around with my arm in a sling?”

  “I was trying to save it to get the most from it!” the brixie protests. “Good thing I did.”

  Bee puts a hand on Tharn’s freshly healed arm. “Not the time.”

  “Anyway.” The healer stares around, slightly glassy-eyed. “I think that’s everyone.” A snake weaves in and out of her hair.

  Bee glances up again; his eyes fall on Sil. She’s not paying attention. She’s focused on the goblin corpses. The ones that she didn’t have to kill. The ones that she killed anyway.

  “Quick!” Bee says. He points at Sil. “Before the high’s gone! Get her leg.”

  Sil looks up, realizes she’s the subject of discussion. Bee’s words register, and she expects objections from the others, but instead there is a rush of activity, and suddenly she is surrounded. And then the brixie is placing hands of white light against her leg, and Sil can hear birdsong and feel the sun on her face, and a breeze blowing through her hair, and the air is sweet, and—

  —then it’s over. Then she’s in an apartment building lobby surrounded by fifteen fae all staring at her, and she’s feeling as if she’s lost something, although she couldn’t say exactly what.

  Bee offers her a hand up, but she ignores it, rising smoothly. She tests the limit of her leg. It is as good as new. No tightness. The same range of movement. She nods at the healer. She thinks she should probably say something.

  “Good work.”

  They are all still looking at her. She can’t tell why. Then the one called Tharn says, “Well, you kick ass.”

  There are smiles at that, and someone else says, “I vote she gets to keep the machine gun now.”