Silk & Steel

by Ellen Kushner

  Lupe waved her towards the stairs, and the scooter parked below. “Ready to get your map?”

  Grynid took a final look at Lincoln. She’d chosen America for a reason. A half-Troll became president. Perhaps even she could succeed.

  “Ready.”

  * * *

  “Here it is. Home sweet home.”

  A red awning covering the entryway read, “The Prime Rib.” The “i” was dotted with a star.

  “Welcome to the steakhouse.” Lupe nosed the door open with her front bike tire.

  Inside, dark-paneled walls boasted intricate wainscoting. Button-tufted leather benches and chairs lay in piles. A glass-lidded grand piano tilted on a broken leg.

  “This is a restaurant?”

  “Was. Can you imagine? People coming from all over to eat, right next to each other? Food made in large batches by dozens of different germy cooks in a huge filthy kitchen? We were asking for an epidemic.”

  A ladder in the back led to the roof. They climbed in comfortable silence.

  “Turn on your goggles. You’ll see why this is the perfect location.”

  Bright-colored lines carved the rooftop into sections like a pie. Blue to the south, yellow-red and green to the north. Grayish-silver to the west. Borders of the different fiefdoms meeting at the steakhouse roof’s center.

  “Anytime I’m in trouble, I jump a few feet and I’m in a whole new world.” Lupe pointed to each slice of territory. “That’s the Mall, Pentagon, Dupont, and the Zoo. West is the Hoyas.”

  It was the perfect location if one planned to spend their entire life running and hiding. Grynid had an urge to again take Lupe’s hand.

  “Twenty minutes to midnight. The V&L contract is as good as mine. Tonight, we both win.” Lupe threw back an olive-green tarp and popped the clasps on a black plastic trunk.

  Maps spilled out. Handheld types. With—

  “Elevation lines. Terrain features.” Grynid’s knees wobbled.

  “See, there’s the Potomac, that’s—”

  “The river we crossed.” Grynid oriented the map. Everything was clear. Even the building layout followed the terrain to some extent. She could see!

  A voice from street level cut through the night. “Come on down, Lupe!”

  The color in Lupe’s face drained. Grynid grabbed her goggles. “My live location is still off!”

  “Mine, too!” Lupe’s eyes popped wide. “The solar-packs! Bobby Rowe must’ve given everyone the tracking info, to get them off his back. Grab the bike. We’ll jump into Dupont.”

  “Found ya!” A voice from Dupont territory.

  Lupe turned left. “Fine, the Zoo.”

  A voice from the Zoo. Voices from the Mall. Shuffling and scraping: they were climbing the walls.

  Lupe bounced on the balls of her feet. “We’ll go to Hoyas’ territory. Even though they’re insufferable.” She tugged at Grynid’s arm.

  “Lupe. Do we have to run?”

  “They’re after you, Grynid. They want your cred. They will never stop harassing you. You won’t have a chance to kick butt in law school!”

  Grynid’s tusk twitched. Lupe wanted to protect her. Prevent the failure Grynid feared.

  She believed in her.

  Hands crested the roof. A torso. Legs.

  “Go, Lupe. Twenty minutes to midnight, save your contract. I’m tired of running.” Grynid hefted her bag of books. She was Grynid of Trollskog. She wouldn’t fall to a bunch of dudes. “I have logic and reason on my side. I will take a stand.”

  Three other bodies summited and collected in the shadows. Grynid squared herself. She was a debate champion. She’d scored a 176 on the LSAT. She’d been accepted to one of the finest law schools in the world! She would not fail today, her first day away from home. She would teach them to respect the mind of a Troll.

  A hand slipped inside hers. It shook.

  “You’re not running?”

  “Knights don’t run, right?” Lupe managed a smile.

  Large Humans stepped into the light. The goggles highlighted them in various colors: leaders of separate courier factions. Their ratings were through the roof. Almost as high as Lupe’s.

  “Gentlemen, I look forward to a civilized discussion of your concerns,” Grynid announced.

  “You want her cred, you’ll have to come through me!” Lupe called out. “And when you get through me, you’ll have to deal with her!”

  The Dupont Human snorted. “We’re not after your pet, Lupe. We’re here for you.”

  “Me?” Lupe said.

  “Pet?” Grynid said. “Wait, her?”

  Lupe looked at the faction leaders. They each held an inverted tripod, as long as they were tall. One by one they attached a device to one of the prongs. An icon flared on each of them: a matchstick. A torch.

  This was a burnout.

  “Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!” Lupe waved her hands.

  “You cheat!” cried the Human from the Zoo territory. “You’re too good for a freelancer!”

  “I never cheat!” Lupe’s hands clenched in fists.

  “Where’d you get all that solar?” Dupont taunted.

  “THE SUN!”

  Grynid cleared her throat. “The solar-packs were obtained legally.” She scanned them again. They were not law enforcement. They had no mandate to exact justice in this or any jurisdiction.

  Craig, the Pentagon leader, spoke from behind. “You average an errand time of seven minutes. Our best guys, tricked out scooters, can’t break nine.”

  “Because you keep to your districts! I can cross borders!”

  “We don’t know how you’re doing it, but we know you’re cheating.”

  “I’m not cheating! I’m just better!”

  Of the forty-seven books in Grynid’s sack, more than half were devoted to the legal principles that govern the proof of fact. “I-don’t-know-how-you’re-so-good” was not one of them. “You have no evidence?”

  The Mall leader jerked a thumb at Grynid. “Shut your rancid mammoth up.”

  “Rancid?” Lupe said. “Are you blind? Can you not see her incredibly sturdy hips? She’s, like, objectively by any standard, smoking hot.”

  “The Ogre’s a pacifist,” Craig said. “Don’t worry on her.”

  The courier leaders relaxed and chuckled. They linked their burnout apps together, creating a web around Lupe. Then they clicked the tech on the tripods.

  Pitchforks. They looked like pitchforks.

  Grynid looked at the array of different colors. Heraldry from separate fiefdoms? A feudalist society complete with castles? Public humiliation as a punishment? For Grendel’s sake, there was even a plague in this country!

  Lupe closed her eyes and stood tall like a knight before battle. She didn’t run.

  Grynid snorted and flared her nostrils. This was unjust. They were angry because Lupe was—legally—better than they were. They were going to burn her?

  At the steakhouse?

  Grynid rubbed her tusk against her cheek. These villains were no different from the medieval mobs in Asbjorn Haugard’s book. Lupe, standing brave, was no different from the medieval knights.

  Screw it. Time for Grynid to be a medieval Troll.

  “What the—!”

  She swung her sack of law books in a perfect arc, slamming Craig and his tripod to the ground. Her second swing knocked Mall and Dupont into the Zoo Human. She swiped the tripods in her meaty palm, threw them in her jaw and chomped them in half. The Humans stared.

  Grynid roared. It reverberated throughout the boroughs. She roared at this mob, at the Ogre-slurs, at Tolkien and the pink rabbit and her faithless Mother who never believed in her. She roared from the pit of her Troll belly.

  With much limping, whining, and the acrid smell of urine, the witch-hunters vacated the roof. With each touch of the masticated tripods, pop-ups flared on Grynid’s goggles. Would you like to rate....

  “You all get zero stars!” Grynid swiped her claw at the air. Empty rows of stars flowed throu
gh the night. The Humans below cried out as if in physical pain. Grynid snorted past her tusks. She took two deep breaths.

  Lupe stared with wide, frozen eyes.

  Grynid pulled two law books out of the sack. “Technically, I did use logic and reason to defeat them.”

  Lupe climbed atop a box, closing the distance between them. Filling it with her warmth. Cinnamon. Woodsmoke. They stood on the roof, straddling every barrier and border, listening to night wind and the sound of the Potomac.

  “You just saved my life,” Lupe said. “Well, my cred.”

  “You stayed. To defend me. No one’s ever stood up for me before.”

  Lupe flickered a frown. “You’re really cool, Grynid. Like, above-average awesome. You’re worth standing up for. Still. They were after me, not you. And you stayed.”

  Grynid shrugged, tried to swallow, found she couldn’t look away from that absurdly beautiful tuskless mouth. “You got me a map.”

  Lupe reached out. Troll and Human hands found each other on the roof, as they had in Abraham Lincoln’s cave. Cinnamon and woodsmoke and a warm hand in hers.

  “Can I...?” Lupe timidly bit her lip, setting Grynid aflame.

  “Oh, yes.”

  Grynid bent her neck, Lupe stretched on her tiptoes and two worlds built a bridge with a kiss. With a kiss, all else melted: time, the pink rabbit, Mother’s voice. She was not lost. Not lost at all.

  The goggles chimed midnight, anchoring them to reality. Lupe’s outline blinked out, then flashed silver.

  “Lupe.” Grynid looked her over. “You won the contract! Vassal & Lorde!”

  “Huh.” Lupe turned her hand, examining her new colors. “Somehow it’s only the second-best thing that’s happened tonight.”

  Grynid felt her face flush pewter.

  “You have your map.” Lupe tucked her hair behind one ear. “Where will you go?”

  “O Street. Georgetown Law.”

  “Wow, Georgetown? Impressive.” She nodded her chin at her scooter. “Need a ride?”

  “Escorted by a knight?” Grynid asked. “How could I refuse?”

  They climbed down the ladder. Lupe switched out Bobby Rowe’s solar-packs with a fresh pair from her stash. Grynid felt a bold impulse. Mother did not approve of impulses. Grynid no longer cared.

  “Lupe.” She cleared her throat. “So as to be clear. You are also, uh, smoking hot. Objectively. By any standard. And I really like you.”

  Lupe paused, goggles part-way to her eyes.

  “I’m very focused on academics. But, when I pass the bar, join a firm—perhaps make partner—if you are still interested, I would not be opposed to receiving romantic overtures. Perhaps even a vakkerkart.”

  Lupe held out her hand to Grynid. “Perfect. That’ll give me time to figure out what a vakkerkart is. Until then we can just, like, kiss a lot, right?”

  “Absolutely. Yes. A lot.”

  The bike started. Grynid held her map, her sack of books, and Lupe’s waist. The sun rose behind them.

  Book and Hammer, Blade and Bone

  by Ann LeBlanc

  I awaken in pain, knowing I am in the wrong underworld. I still feel the cold ache from the iron blade that slipped through my ribs and stilled my heart. My hands tremble; I hold myself tight as the adrenaline of my final struggle drains out of me in wracking sobs.

  I should have been greeted by the sound of running water, the soft hands of the attendants of Cmlech, ready to accept me into death. I would share the news of the struggle above: of the strike and massacre at the quarry. Then I would enter anew into the service of the eternal insurrection of Cmlech, secret god of death.

  Instead, I am dead and alone in a dry, stone room, surrounded by books.

  I exit into an enormous chamber, high-ceilinged, with the muffled atmosphere of a holy place. I pass through rows of stone shelves filled with books.

  At the center of the great hall, a woman sits behind a wide, cluttered desk. Her long, grey hair is bound by a silver and turquoise clasp; her gown is the color of a clear winter sky and looks like it took a year’s labor to make.

  My fellow dead wait in a line to see her. None will respond to my questions except to insist I be quiet. My feet tap an impatient dance, my hands open and close and I am close to screaming. Cmlech waits upon my news, and I am stuck in a queue.

  Yet when I reach the front of the line and the woman looks up at me with eyes the color of wet soil, all my words flee.

  “Library card?” she asks with hand held open.

  “I... don’t have one.”

  “It’s the card you used to enter the library. Have you lost it already?”

  She sighs and takes a closer look at me. Her eyes narrow, her back stiffens, and her hand darts below the desk to grasp something I cannot see. I step back, try to look smaller.

  What must she think of me? A woman in ripped, sweat-and-blood-stained worker’s clothes, my arms and shoulders wide and strong enough to earn the nickname “The Ox” at the quarry.

  “Please. My name is Btta, I just died, and...” I grab the desk to stop my hands from shaking. “I don’t know where I am, and I need help. My god needs me. Can you help me?”

  She relaxes, having made some judgment of me. “Oh, you poor thing. You must be so disoriented. This is the local branch of the Great Library, serving the underworld of the Merciful Goat of Epnos. I’m Hillie, the head librarian. I’m sorry, but we don’t do intake for the newly dead.” She gestures to the great door behind her. “You must have wandered in from Epnos reception?”

  I shake my head and point to a small door. “I died, and then I woke up in that room.”

  “Not possible. That’s the book-return chamber.” She looks me up and down, slowly. “And you, are not a book.”

  “I know I’m not a book!” Cmlech forbid. “I’m not supposed to be here at all. Not in a library, not with a goat! I’m in the wrong underworld; I’m supposed to be with... my god.”

  “And who is your god?” she asks, and my heart drops.

  Why did she have to ask a question I cannot answer? “A god of death...”

  Her face closes at my evasion. The patron behind me clears his throat, loudly and intentionally.

  Hillie sighs, though I do not know if it is for me or the long line behind me.

  “You’re a fascinating mystery, but without a library card I cannot help you.” She points to the line. “I have other clients to serve today.”

  “Wait! I’m not just another dead person. I have an urgent message for my god!”

  Hillie looks behind me and says, “Next patron, please?”

  My face flushes hot in embarrassment and I stifle the urge to grab Hillie by her expensive gown and shake until she aids me. I tried that once on an Iolan clerk and still bear scars from the lashes my anger earned me.

  I storm out the enormous front door of the library and into the cave the library was carved from. At the other end of the cave is a narrow passageway—presumably leading to the underworld of Epnos’s goat god—but it is blocked by a checkpoint. The goat-headed guards demand my paperwork and refuse entry when I explain why I have none. When I don’t leave immediately, their hands move to their sword hilts.

  I try to re-enter the library, but the doors won’t open without a library card. I am trapped in this interstitial area, with no food or water, and nowhere to sleep but the hard, cold stone of a foreign underworld. I look up to the ceiling and wonder if any of my kin-workers survive miles above.

  I should not have thought of them. My hands shake again. With nothing to occupy my mind, my thoughts return to the memory of my death.

  * * *

  It was snowing on the fifth day of the quarry-workers’ strike. The sun rose dim behind pure white snow clouds as my kin-workers and I took turns guarding the quarry entrance.

  Gray-eyed Myrna arrived with a hug and the news of our case. She’d been helping us navigate the Iolan’s legal system, fighting the necromancers’ legal claims to our quarry. We san
g and drank and played games to pass the time while we waited for the Iolan magistrate to make his decision.

  When the cloud-dimmed sun reached its zenith, and the snow was two fingers thick on the ground, the necromancers arrived in their bone-white robes and demanded we leave. Standing death-still behind them were fourteen animated skeletons, befouled with alchemical pitch and inscribed with gold and silver runes. How many of those skeletons were our own dead, turned against us?

  Their leader approached us, sword in one hand, paperwork in another.

  “Myrna! You should have taken our offer.” He shook his head, mock-rueful. “It’s too late now. The Iolan magistrate has confirmed our claim to this quarry. Your assembly here is now illegal.”

  Myrna walked toward him, her gray eyes wide and bright. “The magistrate doesn’t own the quarry. He has never even seen this quarry, has never worked its stone. Why should he decide its fate?”

  The necromancer stepped forward. “In one hand I have a verified title document. In the other is a blade. You decide which one is more persuasive.”

  “Do you really think the magistrate’s paper is stronger than the bodies that work this quarry? What has your blade ever built?”

  It was meant to be the opening of her argument, but the head necromancer responded with a swipe of his sword. The high curve of Myrna’s neck blossomed with blood. I screamed as her body fell.

  My world condensed down to my hammer and the crack of my enemies’ bones. We fought with the anger of those who have had too much taken from them, and with the determination of those whose service to the god of revolutions will continue even after death.

  The skeletons fought in silence, bound to their creators’ greed. I brought two down with a roar and a lunge and a swing of my hammer and the rest surged upon me, separating me from the group. I was surrounded, but I did not yield. I pushed forward into the forest, hoping to draw enough skeletons away that my kin-workers could prevail.

  We fought in the forest, the trees my allies, the skeletons untiring. The skeleton before me lacked half its skull yet it still loped along, sword in hand. I swung my hammer, unaware of the skeleton behind me. The back of my head burst black and white and I fell.