City of Iron and Dust

by J. P. Oakes

  She shoots the handlers in quick succession. It’s not hard. It takes a little longer to set the enslaved fae free. Some are so weak they cannot walk. She can’t do much for them, but she shows them where the Dust is kept. She hopes that there is enough magic there to make their freedom last. She does stay long enough to see that they do not close the entrance to House Red Cap. That they leave the wound in its flank exposed.

  That, she finds, makes her happy too.

  From the fae it’s a short walk to the House Red Cap garages. She finds a car—something broad, and black, and glistening, something built for comfort. She thinks she might be in it for a while.

  It’s rare that she drives herself, and it takes her a while to regain familiarity with the clutch and the accelerator, but she manages it, rolling out slowly onto an abandoned street. She glances at the clock on the dash. Dawn is almost here.

  She doesn’t know exactly where Edwyll’s house is in the Fae Districts, but she knows the general direction. She can see the glow of the fires. She points the car in that direction and drives.

  She doesn’t know what she will do when she gets there. She just knows that she cannot leave without making sure that he’s not still alive. So much of what has happened tonight, so many of her realizations about who she is and what she wants to achieve seem grounded in meeting him. She cannot save much in the city, but if she can save him, she will.

  She is just entering the Fae Districts when it happens. The pulse passes through the whole city, through the entirety of its fabric. It is something seismic. It beats in her chest, and in her head. The car bucks beneath her. The street ripples. She slews to a stop, blinking, sucking on the air, trying to work out what just happened, trying to reconcile it all with the sudden ache in her chest.

  It is a moment before she sees what is going on. Before her eyes are pulled upward. But then the movement catches her eye. Because the thing is still growing, is still jutting higher and higher into the heavens. This massive, impossible thing. This vast, towering black tree.

  And she knows who made it as soon as she sees it. Edwyll’s hands are in every sweep of every branch, in every line of its trunk. Seeing it, she can see Edwyll’s intent, and his design. She can see the beauty of its truth, Edwyll’s truth, the one that no one will be able to deny anymore.

  He has brought hope to life once more in the Iron City.

  She drives faster now, a desperation growing in her. A fear that this can only mean one thing. That she is too late.

  But then she finds that she is not.

  She is fighting through pedestrian traffic. Nosing the car through the throngs standing out on the streets, pointing, and staring, and talking. All the violence that has led to this moment seems forgotten, eclipsed by this sudden transformation of their home. And then, around a corner, the vast trunk is directly before her.

  She jams on the brakes, comes to a halt only a yard from its broad black bark. She gets out of her car, shaking slightly. She looks up, and stares at its massive branches.

  Between them, the sky is starting to lighten.

  “Hey.”

  She looks round and there he is. Standing at the foot of his creation.

  “Edwyll!” She runs to him, hugs him without thought. The full solidity of him. She steps back. And he is whole, the wound in his stomach gone.

  “How?” She gestures at him, at the tree, at everything.

  “My brother,” Edwyll says. There’s pain in his voice. “He… That kobold, he was after some Dust. A lot of Dust. My brother had it somehow. He took it. It killed him. But before he died he…” He gestures at the tree. “He took this out of my head.” A smile suddenly touches Edwyll’s lips. “I think, in the end, maybe he turned out to be my patron.”

  “He healed you?” Jag reaches out towards Edwyll’s stomach, pauses, hands hesitating just above where the wound was.

  “Yes. Bee too.”

  “Who?”

  Edwyll points. There is a demi-dryad. Maybe a bryad or a prixad, she thinks. He has a spar of wood in one hand and is holding it as if ready to defend himself.

  “Who’s the goblin?” this new fae says.

  She shrugs. She can’t blame him for his fear. She can only prove it unjustified. “I’m Jag,” she says. “I used to think I was important. That I could do something. But now, I think the best thing I can do for the Iron City, for myself, is to leave. To find something else, something better. I wanted to see if Edwyll could come with me.” She smiles. “Who are you?”

  Bee hesitates.

  “He helped my brother,” Edwyll says. “I think he lost a lot tonight.”

  Bee nods.

  “You’re welcome to come with us,” Jag says. It seems the least she can offer.

  Bee shakes his head. “No. No, I can’t. I’ve got to carry on the fight.”

  Edwyll looks around. He sweeps an arm, not at their immediate surroundings but at the whole city. “What fight? What are you fighting for? What can be won here?”

  Bee shrugs. “I don’t know. Not for sure. But something better. Something that doesn’t end here.”

  Jag takes Edwyll’s arm. “I don’t think you can build anything better on foundations this rotten. I think if there’s anything better to be found, it’s out there, out beyond the Iron Wall. Out in the world we’ve shut away.”

  Bee shrugs. “I’ve got to carry on the fight. I promised.”

  Jag opens her mouth to argue, but Edwyll turns away, heads to the car. Bee smiles at them, something sad and a little apologetic. And she lets it go. Who knows, maybe he’s right. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  Edwyll’s already sitting in the passenger seat as she climbs back behind the steering wheel. She fiddles with the radio until she finds something with a beat. They drive.

  The Iron Wall comes at them like a dragon crouched low on the horizon. It watches them approach, exuding malevolence.

  Beside her, Edwyll starts to squirm. Jag thinks perhaps she should stop, should let them get out, but as soon as she touches the brakes, Edwyll says between gritted teeth, “Keep driving.” So she does.

  There are not many gates in and out of the Iron Wall. Ingress and egress are tightly controlled. The Iron City is a closed system. The world outside is big and bad. There are wolves at the doors, or so Jag was told. But so much of what she was told was a lie, she cannot believe that what is out there is any worse than what is in here. She can at least hope that it will be better.

  As she approaches the Eastern Gate, a meat truck is just coming through. For a moment, the way is clear, but it is closing quickly. Jag starts to drive faster and faster. Around her, the city starts to blur. Before her, the Iron Wall comes closer and closer. Guards start to shout, to raise rifles. Jag desperately ekes the last dregs of power from the engine, hurls the car at the shrinking gap. And Jag can’t tell if it’s the wall roaring, or the engine, or herself. Edwyll starts to howl.

  And then it’s over. They’re through. And a pressure like an anvil seems to lift from Jag’s chest. She gasps with relief, and the car sails down the road, eating up the asphalt like it’s been starving for it its whole life.

  They keep driving. Beside her, Edwyll gasps, and sighs. She chuffs laughter in relief. And in the rearview, Jag can see the Iron City shrinking smaller and smaller, can see the black tree rising taller—a promise for the future and a reprimand for the past.

  Before them, the sun starts to rise. Warmth and light spread through the cabin of the car. And as Jag takes one final look back, she sees that blossom has bloomed on the black tree’s branches and is starting to fall in a soft white rain on the streets below.

  EPILOGUE

  A Cinderella Story

  Brethelda

  Dawn comes to the Iron City. A new day. And on the highest floor of the highest tower of House Spriggan, Brethelda Spregg surveys a city transformed.

  There is still much she doesn’t understand. The significance of the black tree. Its origin. The effect it will have. But things, sh
e is sure, are going to be different.

  As she stands there, one of her hands shakes slightly. She is holding a piece of paper, a report. It tells her that her mother is dead. Brethelda is, she is sure, going to be different too.

  There are so many things to be uncertain about, but still Brethelda’s next move is clear. She needs to make peace. She will not be able to keep House Spriggan safe during whatever comes next if House Red is spoiling for war.

  And so, she descends. Servants scurry before and behind her, clearing her path and ensuring her passage leaves no trace, creating the illusion of perfect calm in a city still roiling from the night before. They have her car waiting. It slides away from the kerb the moment she leans back in her seat. Everything is clean and efficient. She wonders how much of that will last.

  She is taken to the Opera House. She wants this to be formal. She wants to make sure it is done right.

  She marches up the steps, and stalks down the richly decorated hallways. She enters the Hall of Horns. The seven severed hart heads regard her silently with their glass eyes. Her mother cut one of those heads free and mounted it there, she thinks. Her hand starts to quiver again.

  On the opposite side of the room, a door opens. Brethelda straightens, stills herself. Osmondo will brook no weakness and will look for any opening he can find.

  And yet, it is not Osmondo Red who enters the room. For a moment Brethelda is not even sure it is a goblin. She is slender and tall, delicately featured. Her hair falls in a white sheet, covering one eye.

  “I apologize for making you wait,” she says to Brethelda. “This morning finds House Red in a little bit of… disarray.”

  A half-goblin, Brethelda realizes. Half-fae. Perhaps pixie or sidhe. There is something regal about her, and so Brethelda would guess sidhe if she had to. But this is not the only thing the half-goblin’s looks reveal. She has been on the receiving end of a brutal beating recently. Cuts and stitches crosshatch her arms, her hands, her face and neck. Everything exposed looks bruised or abraded. One arm is in a sling. The wrist of the other arm is wreathed in bandages.

  “Who are you?” Brethelda snaps. “Why isn’t Osmondo here himself?”

  There are more diplomatic ways to deal with this, but Brethelda is caught flat-footed, is caught grieving and uncertain. She is closer to breaking than she would care to admit.

  “Ah,” the half-goblin smiles. It is broad and brims with quite genuine joy. “I am afraid to say that Osmondo Red is… indisposed.”

  “What?” Brethelda blinks. “How?”

  The half-goblin’s smile widens. “Permanently indisposed?” she says. “Deposed? I’m not sure the best way to say it.”

  Brethelda’s eyebrows skyrocket. “He’s—?”

  “Dead?” The half-goblin’s smile looks like it’s about to split her head apart. “Very.”

  Which leads directly to Brethelda’s next question. “You?”

  The half-goblin nods. “Yes. And with great pleasure.”

  Brethelda takes her in again. This battered, beaten child of two worlds with her confident swagger, and her anarchic joy bursting out of the seams of her mouth. And she feels uncertain. And for the first time today she feels truly afraid.

  “Who are you?” she asks again.

  “Me?” The half-goblin gives a little curtsy, but there is nothing meek in her expression. No timidity in any line of her body. She straightens. She looks Brethelda in the eye.

  “I am Sil. I am the new head of House Red. And I am the future.”

  Acknowledgements

  Every book takes a village, and I am exceptionally grateful to: my agent, Howard Morhaim, my editors, Cath Trechman and Joanna Harwood, my friends, Paul Jessup and Natania Barron, and above all others (sorry guys), my wife Tami. Without them—their support, their wisdom, and their encouragement—this book wouldn’t exist. So, it’s their fault. Blame them.

  About the Author

  J. P. Oakes is a writer and creative director living on Long Island, where he drinks too much tea, overthinks dumb action movies, and indulges in profound nerdery. Follow him on social media @jp_oakes for flash fiction and thoughts on the writing process, or if you want to engage someone for many long hours on the topic of Bioware Games.

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