The Iron Dragon’s Mother

by Michael Swanwick

  The station, Cat noted, was nearly empty. The last few passengers were drifting back to their seats. If she didn’t hurry, the bus—and Esme and her luggage—would leave without her. She had to make up her mind fast. “You’ve got a deal.” Cat spat in her hand, Raven did likewise, and they shook. “I’ll get my bag and the kid. You can hit up the machine for a candy bar for her. She likes Kit Kats. Or Mandrake Chews. Nothing with nuts, okay?”

  “Understood.”

  * * *

  Back in the bus, Cat dug through her duffel bag, keeping tabs on the station out of the corner of her eye. She saw Raven step out into the lot and light up another cigarette, head down and hands cupped against the wind. Cat found her clutch and emptied its contents into the bottom of the bag. Then she approached the driver. “How many passengers haven’t gotten onto the bus?”

  The driver stroked her tusks. “Except for your friend out there, you’re the last.”

  “Good.” Cat held up the Chanel clutch. “See this? It’s not a knockoff. Worth a tidy bit in any flea market. Trust me, it will make your lady chums real jealous. It’s yours if you leave my ‘friend’ behind.”

  The driver fingered the clutch inside and out. “Looks okay,” she said at last. Then, “Lovers’ quarrel?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Then let’s go.” The driver put the bus into gear and stepped on the accelerator. Looking back, Cat saw Raven running after them, waving frantically as she dwindled to nothing.

  “Where’s my candy?” Esme asked.

  * * *

  Time either passed or it did not. Cat had no way of telling. All she knew was that she was brought awake again when a perfectly forgettable woman of no particular age, height, race, or species shook Cat’s seatmate out of her stupor. “You,” she said. “Leave.” The mountain of goblin flesh stared at her in disbelief, half rose from her seat, raised a hand the size of a ham as if to strike down the woman … and then meekly obeyed.

  The newcomer took the vacated seat. Staring past Cat and out the window, she said, “The world is still out there.”

  “Shouldn’t it be?” Cat asked carefully.

  “Now, yes. But someday it will be gone and then my long exile will be ended.”

  “Exile from where?”

  “A better place. Back in the day, I played a minor role in the creation of the universe. I was a servant of the Demiurge—the Goddess’s consort. He goes by the unlikely name of the Baldwynn now. But this was before there were names for individual things and we made do with functions. Oh, what a time that was! You have no idea what a rush it was to separate the light from the dark, the water from the land, gold from lead, sentience from inertia. I don’t pretend I was of any particular importance. Our number was legion. Some of us were responsible for establishing the properties of gases, others for tectonics, thermal exchange, orbital mechanics, and so on. It sounds dull but it wasn’t—just the opposite! I vividly remember the moment when we kindled the stars, setting into operation the forges in which the heavy elements would be created. Or the day we awakened the mountains and taught them to sing. Long, long ago that was and near infinite were our numbers. Yet of them all, only I do here remain.”

  Cat said nothing.

  “Alas for me, I had a flicker of individuality, which expressed itself as something no one had ever had before me—a sense of humor. I was forever joking and japing. The pull-my-finger thing? I invented it. Not that anybody laughed, of course. The Baldwynn overheard my baffled coworkers gossiping about my strange behavior and took me aside for a private interview. ‘I think,’ he said at its end, ‘that my creation needs something to give it a touch of unpredictability. Something that will render it just a smidge askew.’ His voice was warm and all-encompassing. I was helpless before his gaze. ‘See to it, will you?’

  “‘Lord Shaper,’ I said, ‘what possible improvement can I make on your work?’

  “‘I have confidence in you,’ he replied.

  “As you can well imagine, I was dreadfully flattered. I sat down and did nothing but think for several aeons. Until the funniest idea imaginable came to me. I would have leaped up and clicked my heels, if I’d had any heels and the gravitational constants had been put into place yet. So when the sequence of matters was exactly right, I made the smallest and most amusing possible change to the way things were, and settled back to await the praise I must surely receive.

  “But the Baldwynn was not amused. When he saw what I had done, his eyes burned with outrage and continents went up in flame. On the spot, he condemned me with the worst punishment imaginable. Even as my compatriots were one by one flickering out, like sparks, he damned me with eternal life.”

  “That doesn’t seem like much of a punishment.”

  “Nor did it to me—for the first billion years.”

  The woman took off her glasses, squinted at them, spat, and began cleaning the lenses with her thumbs. Cat took advantage of this distraction to draw out the holey stone and hold it up to her eye.

  In place of the nondescript beside her was a black flake of night. Cold and starless it burned, a hole into nothingness. Its outline flapped noiselessly, as if in a silent wind. What might have been its head turned toward Cat. Crescent moons swam up out of nowhere to form a jagged, toothy, eyeless grin.

  The stone fell from Cat’s fingers. Once again, she was looking at an eminently forgettable woman.

  The nonentity’s voice was soft and mild. She might have been telling a bedtime story to a child. “This is the doom the Baldwynn declared for me: to wander unceasingly through a world I know far too well until the end of existence. But here’s the kicker. He could have undone my work but he did not. Long have I contemplated that enigma and I have come to the conclusion that he wanted the deed done exactly as it was. Why, then, did he punish me for it? Because he could. He is cruel, the Baldwynn is. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating that aspect of him.” Cold air washed off of the woman, though all the rest of the bus was stiflingly hot. Cat found herself staring down at her own feet, for fear of seeing that grin again. “You want to know why I’m telling you this, don’t you?”

  Cat forced herself to look up. “I … yes, ma’am. If you please.”

  “It’s because his stench is all over you, child. I could smell it half a world away. Be wary, little mayfly, for the Baldwynn is cunning and unforgiving and his ways are subtle beyond our comprehension.” She reached across Cat to yank the bell cord. “I’ll be getting off here.”

  The bus slowed to a stop. “But there’s nothing out there.”

  “I won’t be staying.” The woman stood and started up the aisle.

  “Wait!” Cat cried after her. “I have to know: Why were you punished? What was your offense?”

  The nondescript woman turned and said, “When I created the higher life-forms, I divided them into male and female.” For an instant all the universe surged up into a single hyperdense, woman-shaped object, so that only Cat and the child she clutched existed outside of her. Stars and galaxies exploded in the darkness, burned to ash, dispersed into nothingness. Then she was of mortal appearance once more. With a wry twist of her mouth, she said, “My jokes were never very subtle.”

  * * *

  When the bus came to its final stop, it was morning. Cat and Esme got off. They passed through a station where the flower shop and souvenir stands weren’t open yet. Following the smell of fresh coffee out onto the street, Cat saw a cheap-looking café with a badly neglected thatched roof turning green with moss. Above and beyond it loomed the ancient city-fortress of Carcassonne.

  There were hippogriffs in the sky over Carcassonne and banners flying from the battlements. Barges and sailboats were anchored in the canal at its foot. Sometime during the long bus trip, the heat had broken and now there was the slightest hint of autumn in the air.

  Esme clapped her hands at the sight. “Look!” she said. “Can we climb the walls?”

  “Yes. Later. I promise.”

  All
Cat knew of Carcassonne was that the Conspiracy had its headquarters there. So she bought a local newspaper and perused it at a sidewalk table over croissants and café crème. The news was slow and unremarkable but among the want ads she found a job opening for a clerk-typist position with the Conspiracy. Sipping thoughtfully at the lees of her coffee, Cat decided that—

  Liquid noises made her look up from her paper. “Esme, stop blowing bubbles in your milk.”

  “But they gave me a straw.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “I’m done anyway. Can I chase the pigeons?”

  “Yes, so long as you don’t disturb anybody’s breakfast.”

  —it wouldn’t hurt to get a glimpse of her persecutors. She could get a notion of how well funded they were, and whether the organization was at all efficiently run.

  Mostly, though, she wanted to see at least one of the rat bastards who had ruined her life. If for no other reason than to give her hatred a face to focus on.

  Cat rented a cheap room at the Hôtel de la Gare and was about to go apply for the job when Helen said, “In those clothes?”

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Child. I was very briefly not exactly blacklisted but certainly persona non grata in the TV industry and to feed myself accepted a gig directing summer stock in the wastelands of Connecticut. Long story—let’s skip it. At any rate, dealing with actors who could only by the loosest of definitions act, I discovered that the exact right costume could alert the audience to what the character was supposed to be like, and often enough that was sufficient. You’ve never worked in an office in your life. But at least you can look the part.”

  So, after a long nap and a late lunch, Cat went out and had her hair cut, dyed, and curled. More disguise than that she deemed unnecessary for a quick drop-in. Then she shopped for clothes. “You’re not auditioning for Les Miz,” Helen said of one outfit, and “Nor Downton Abbey” of another, before approving a navy-blue skirt and blazer ensemble with the words, “Miss Moneypenny would approve.”

  “You’re talking gibberish again,” Cat remarked.

  “I got that a lot in my old life, too.”

  The next morning, Cat went to the Conspiracy’s headquarters on rue Saint-Jean to apply for the job.

  The building’s exterior was standard medieval stonework. But the lobby was so luxurious as to be a parody of itself. There were coral-pink pillars of polished porphyry, a stone floor with interlacing black granite asps set into sea-whorls of green jade, and a vaulted ceiling of lapis lazuli fretted with golden stars. A Cyclopsus arges skull rested in a vitrine to one side of the entrance, and a living Fiji mermaid swam endless circles in a crystal bowl to the other. The twiglady behind the receptionist’s desk looked up so welcomingly at Cat’s approach as to put her immediately on her guard. “Yes?”

  “I’m here to apply for a job,” Cat said, faking a confidence she did not feel.

  “You poor thing.” The twiglady slid a sheet of paper toward her. “Fill this out.”

  One temporary badge and a dull fantasy of her employment history committed to the application form later, “Kate Gallowglass” found herself sitting on a leatherette chair before the head of Employee Resources. He was a blue-eyed aristocrat in a bespoke suit and Royal Harlindon regimental tie who, she had to admit, couldn’t have looked more desirable if he were in shackles and shorts. After a quick glance at her application he said, “Why do you want to work here, Ms. Gallowglass?”

  “Money,” Cat said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I misspoke myself. I meant to say that this would be a fabulous opportunity for me to express my talents, unleash my inner potential, spread my wings, drink from the fountain of wisdom, kneel before the lingam of the numinous, learn humility and discipline from the best and wisest, be the change that I want to see, and become something more than anything I could ever possibly be. Unfortunately, at this present time, what with food and rent and such, I require a salary. But rest assured, if ever I were to find myself as wealthy as you obviously are, I’d definitely be taking this job, with its utter lack of career potential and a management culture that is obviously both demanding and condescending, for no money at all. That’s how highly I regard the position of File Clerk I. It’s something of a dream job for me.”

  The interviewer stared at Cat. “Was that meant to be amusing?”

  “If it were, I am almost certain you would have noticed.”

  Unexpectedly, the ER manager broke into laughter. Extending a beautifully manicured hand, he said, “You have the job. It is, as you implied, intellectual drudgery. But I am certain you have the inner resources to keep it in perspective. I am Barquentine of House Pleiades. You may address me as Lord Pleiades before outsiders, or Barquentine in private situations, but never Barkers under any circumstances. That name is reserved for personal friends of a certain class and background. Do you understand?”

  A little dazedly, Cat replied, “Completely, sir.”

  “Welcome aboard.”

  * * *

  “You don’t disapprove of my plan?” Cat asked.

  “Hell, no. It’s mad, impossible, sure to fail, and exactly the sort of thing I would have done at your age. Go for it!”

  “Okay, now I’m worried. And my stomach hurts.” Cat pulled up her pantyhose, smoothed down her skirt, and donned her flats. Now that she was in battle rattle, the prospect of going to work for her enemies no longer seemed a good idea. “Why am I putting myself in their clutches? Suppose they check my references?”

  “Nobody ever checks your references until it’s too late. My career arc took a steep upswing the day I realized that.”

  The day before, Cat had bought two costume jewelry bracelets and paid to have them quantum entangled. Now she placed the larger one on her own wrist and the smaller on Esme’s. “Keep this on at all times. That way we’ll always be able to feel where the other one is and I’ll know that you’re safe. I’m going to work now and it would be cruel to keep you locked inside all day. So here’s some money for lunch. Stay within the city walls, and try not to kill anybody.”

  “You don’t have to give me money,” Esme said. “I know how to steal food without being caught.”

  “That’s a useful thing to know. But humor me here, okay?”

  “’Kay.”

  At work, Cat soon discovered the answer to her second question: The Conspiracy was, organizationally, a complete and absolute shambles.

  The hen-wife in charge of Clerical Services was a motherly butterball of a trow named Lolly Underpool, who was extravagantly protective of her “girls,” not all of whom were female. She in turn reported to Missy Argent, the chief of Clerical and Data Entry, who was answerable to both Annable Frowst in the Division of Corruption and Raguel in the Division of Persecution. These “dotted line bosses” owed allegiance to the officially nameless (though everyone knew who they were) Acting Chief Conspirator and Temporary Head Conspirator, each of whose undefined powers were tempered, they being untenured, by oversight committees made up of different compositions of division and department heads. Since Lolly Underpool sat on both committees, she had acquired a great deal of intraoffice power and was in the enviable position of being able to countermand any orders given her which she considered impertinent.

  The extreme pinnacle of the organizational chart was occupied by the Chief Conspiratorial Officer, who was, as Cat already knew, her mother, the Dowager Sans Merci. In recent times, however, her presence had proved to be as fugitive as that of Her Absent Majesty, and the Conspiracy had effectively been left to look after itself.

  “We’ll start you off on something simple,” Lolly said. She produced a tray with a lump of sugar, a brass key, an unsharpened pencil, and a quartz crystal containing a small fossilized frog. “Choose any item.”

  Cat picked up the key.

  “Excellent! We’ve been needing to get started on that project for some time. See that stack of boxes by t
he copier?” Water-warped, brass-bound, and crusted with coral and barnacles, they could hardly be missed. “That key fits one. The others, you’ll just have to break their locks. I want you to Xerox the documents you’ll find within, shred the originals, assign each photocopy a document number—I’ll requisition a sheaf of them—and then cross-index them by date, sender, and recipient. If Raguel tries to get you to interrupt your work to make photocopies for him, tell him he has to go through proper channels, and that means me. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Only—I’ve never met Raguel. How will I know it’s him?”

  “He’ll be the one trying to get you to interrupt your work so you can make photocopies for him. Any other questions?”

  “Yes. That tray. Is that how all work is assigned here?”

  “How do you think Lord Pleiades got his position? He saw the Mont Blanc pen and snatched it up before my hand was halfway to it. The weasel.”

  So Cat found the box that the key fit and took it back to the cubby she had been assigned. It turned out to contain bundles of documents wrapped in sealskin and tied up with leather straps that broke into bits when she tugged at them. Opening the first bundle, she saw that it was all business correspondence. So many bales of cotton received. So many barrels of wine shipped. The documents appeared to be extremely old and many were so stained that their Xeroxes were unreadable. But “It’s Division policy and there’s nothing to be done about it,” Lolly said when she suggested that the originals of these be saved. “Shred them all.” It took most of the day to copy everything—even without taking into account the many interruptions from Raguel, who periodically came glooming down, trailing darkness after him, with work he wanted her to do, and who seemed incapable of taking “Buzz off” for an answer.