Silk & Steel

by Ellen Kushner

  Darlett was next to her, examining each of his limbs in turn. They were all present and correct. He was clutching a bundle of severed rope from the Elaran ship—the mast-stays had evidently been caught in the outline.

  Lirren shouldered her way through the assembled officers, grinning with triumph.

  Sora looked up at her. “It worked!” she panted. “You mad genius!”

  “That is the finest compliment I’ve ever—” Her face fell. “Your hand!” She hunkered next to Sora and whipped out her handkerchief to wrap the wound. Sora smiled at her.

  “It was viciously attacked by an Elaran. Nothing to do with your wonderfully useful methods and theories. As I was saying, Darlett, all credit for your rescue goes to Miss Harter, who has now successfully flung people through the aether three times. Which is bound to change naval warfare forever, wouldn’t you think?”

  The assembled officers murmured in agreement. Lirren glared meaningfully at Darlett across her spectacles as she tied off the makeshift bandage. He cleared his throat.

  “I suppose... I suppose the commander has something of a point.”

  Still panting, Sora clapped him on the back with her good hand, harder than was strictly necessary. “That’s the spirit! The sort of point one might put in a report to the admiralty, I dare say?”

  Darlett looked to Lirren again. “I... Well. I suppose, one occasionally underestimates... yes, and something of an apology is, as it were, perhaps—”

  A raucous cheer from the ship’s waist cut his words short. It spread in an instant to the officers, who turned to regard the Elaran ship. Sora followed their gazes—their own navy’s flag was being hoisted by the Cormorant’s crew.

  “Huzzah! Another mirage ship for our side!” Sora made to stand, with Lirren’s assistance. Lirren helped Darlett up as well, and they cheered together as they watched the flag reach the top.

  When the jubilation subsided, Sora clapped Darlett’s back again.

  “Someone get this poor man a drop of grog. He’s had a trying day. In fact—double grog rations for everyone, and triple for our miragers!”

  The officers cheered their commander, then drifted into excited, chattering groups. Darlett was pulled aside to give his account of the story, and Sora and Lirren had a brief moment to themselves.

  Lirren lifted Sora’s newly bandaged hand to her lips and kissed it ever so delicately.

  “If Darlett can bring himself to express his gushing gratitude on paper, I’ll be able to stay in the navy after all. And aboard the Hardweather.”

  Sora smiled. “She’s a good old tub, if you can put up with her commander.”

  Lirren looked her up and down. “I do wonder if a commander who can’t keep her uniform intact can keep a ship afloat. But I’m open to persuasion.”

  Sora cocked an eyebrow. “Then may I begin persuading you over a drink in the mess?”

  Lirren linked Sora’s good arm and saluted, adding her charming half-grin as she made to rejoin the rest of the crew. “Aye aye, Commander!”

  The Epic Fifth Wedding Anniversary of Zaynne the Barbarian and Tikka the Accountant

  by Elizabeth Davis

  Zaynne, daughter of glades and man, ferocious warrior blessed by the stormworn menhirs, who slew Urghal the Ghoul King, cradled a skull made out of rainbow petrified wood in her hands. The skull was carved from the heart of a world tree that had held up a long-forgotten cosmology. This heart was taken by the archmage Yipath, who then carved the skull and shaped the enchantments for his lover, carried in death into the Tomb of the Stone Pharaoh. It contained enough raw power to make any wizard worth his staff drool.

  Zaynne knew it would be the perfect paperweight for Tikka, her ever-patient wife. She imagined it sitting proudly on the endless stacks of papers, drawing the jealousy of every other accountant in the office. Maybe even the jealousy of the lawyers and magistrates.

  The years weighed lightly on Zaynne’s shoulders, and she was still able to recount how she met Tikka with the same freshness that most people could remember yesterday. Actually, Zaynne couldn’t remember yesterday that well. What with the multi-day bender from a drinking contest with giants, a concussion from a cave-in, and with the mummified guardian’s mind-warping magic, the whole past week was pretty much shot.

  Zaynne and Tikka’s auspicious beginning had started with Zaynne’s first dragon. Or more specifically, her first dragon hoard. Zaynne drove her wagon into town, the severed dragon head riding shotgun, and a mound of gold nearly falling out with each bump on the poorly paved road.... Among the cheering villagers and the awestruck children, there was Tikka. Standing calmly, quill pen swishing in her ledger, the only sign of excitement her fingers pushing her pince-nez up.

  Looking at Tikka’s carefully pressed purple robes and conical hat, Zaynne thought she was like the other officials: soft, easily startled, and unwilling to be late for lunch. When Tikka made her declaration of the Seven Queens’ Windfall Tax—which could be paid in standard coin, equivalently appraised treasure, or through service to the clockwork crowns—Zaynne tried boasting, arguing, and even a few threats. Tikka did not waver, her face impassive as she patiently tapped her feather quill against her ledger until Zaynne ran out of steam. Only then did she speak up, simply stating that Zaynne should step away from the wagon until she finished her counting. Never had Zaynne—who had faced down the dragon Zathargyaxs the Wrathful Flame and the Cult of the Spiraled Squid—been so utterly defeated.

  That was how Zaynne—with her armor all shined and furs all brushed—came to stand in front of Tikka’s desk as her coworkers gaped. Which led to Zaynne carrying Tikka—clad in white and bright summer flowers—over a broom to a clapping and singing crowd. Still, this wasn’t the time for reminiscing, Zaynne reminded herself as she picked up her feet.

  This was the time for washing up and changing into her rarely used formal gown for an evening at the finest restaurant in the city of the Clay-Armed God. (Restaurants, Zaynne was led to believe, were just like taverns, meadhalls, and food stalls, but fancier because a restaurant was Elvish. Zaynne didn’t really worry as long as there was wine.) More important than wine, for the first time in their five years of marriage, Zaynne would be on time. She was going to celebrate her anniversary right.

  Zaynne began her ablutions by climbing the steep hill to the Tenebrae family’s ancestral home, only a temperamental pegasus ride from the City of the Clay-Armed God or the Great City of the Sleeping Tortoise. It was a home she shared with Tikka’s brother Tallin, Tikka’s parents, and a whole host of children. (Nobody was sure where the children had come from, but everybody agreed that they belonged.) Not to forget the army of servants and field hands who made sure that rumors from the farthest farm made it to the Tenebrae House and that old covenants were upheld.

  The sprawling stone and wood manor overlooked fields of waving grain, pegasusi pens, and shadow groves, and Zaynne felt short-lived relief to have returned. (Among other emotions. Zaynne still found it weird to call a house with four walls and a roof “home.” Before marrying Tikka, the closest thing Zaynne had to a house was a mammoth-skin yurt. However, the Tenebrae Manor didn’t smell when it rained, and the lawn was big enough that she could set up her yurt when she felt too confined—nights that Tikka would join her, light-footed and giggling like a girl escaping from her parents’ watchful gaze.) Her relief was short-lived due to the smoke rising from the lawn of the Tenebrae House. The smoke was too voluminous to be a mere trash fire; its blackness was stained by bright sparks and it stank of magic.

  No longer joy but fear and anger brought Zaynne to the porch of the Tenebrae House. Under the awnings, Tallin worked at his outside desk while Rosie practiced her chang harp. Tallin looked up from the thick stack of papers with a relieved smile and ink-stained face. “Thank the gods, big and small, that you arrived before I sent my letter off to the Adventurers’ Guild. I still need to send off these letters to the Mage Guild and the Royal Guard. Really, the sort of things they let happen to non-
adventurers these days...”

  Zaynne got on with Tallin, who was something called a “gentleman scholar,” boasting that his work had been published in both the Royal Journal of Discovery and Mage Quarterly. She appreciated that he didn’t talk down to her and occasionally sent her on quests to help find something called a “thesis,” but she did think that he should leave the family library more often.

  He gave a deep sigh. “We haven’t even been able to put the fire out. With the Druidic Garden Competition only a few weeks away, Mother has already begun composing her laments. Father is off trying to calm the pegasusi.”

  “What happened?”

  Rosie broke her pained concentration and jumped up eagerly from the chang harp. With her clear voice, light fingers, and strong running legs, Rosie was considered a future Candidate for the Royal Bardic College. “It was a wizard. An actual wizard.” She raised her hands, fingers open wide to show the extent of her excitement.

  “I suspect he was actually a sorcerer, since he didn’t have a staff.” Tallin bent over, his quill scratching away.

  “He appeared in a puff of blue smoke and set the lawn on fire! Then he stood there, in his dark cloak.” Rosie drew her arms across her face, hiding herself behind an imaginary cloak. “And then... he called for Tikka!” She twisted her face into an imitation of Tikka’s sternest expression. “So, Tikka came marching down, ready to do battle. And they argued. And argued, and their argument was actually really boring despite him being a wizard. But then, he wrapped his cloak around her and flew off like a giant bat—”

  “Bats don’t fly like that, they flap more. It was more like a flying manta ray.”

  This critique did little to abate Rosie’s enthusiastic flapping before she pointed to the west, into the seawind. “He flew off that way!”

  Zaynne already knew who it had been, glancing down at the still-burning mark—a three-eyed cobra. “Severus Severyn the Serpetine.” Only one mage used the mark—mages take intellectual property theft very seriously.

  “Wasn’t he responsible for that zombie army earlier this year?” Tallin asked.

  “Didn’t he create the imp plague?” Rosie asked. “They were cute.”

  “Yes, and more! That snake in human skin has been a thorn in my side ever since I started adventuring. This must be his way of getting revenge for all the times I have upset his plans, wrecked his lair, and stolen his fine silverware. He’s too much of a coward to face me directly!”

  “Do you know where he might be?” Tallin asked.

  “His lair is on the cursed Isle of Aha’Hal in the Fang Archipelago.” With that, Zaynne tossed the anniversary skull onto Tallin’s desk.

  “Wait!” he called out before Zaynne could finish storming off. “The pegasusi are still too startled to be flown. Take the boat instead.”

  * * *

  The Octopus Bride was a retired fishing boat, snuggled against the docks. The only voyages she had been on for years were nominal fishing trips with overstuffed sandwiches, flagons of ale, and the occasional caught fish. She woke with surprise when Zaynne jumped in and struck the tow rope, not even unfurling the sail or setting the rudder. The Octopus Bride was still blinking sleep away when Zaynne unshipped the oars and started rowing with all her might.

  (It’s a well-known fact that the greatest single source of non-magical energy is the rage of a barbarian. The Seven Queens and their clockwork crowns once tried to harness this energy for the good of the kingdom, not just for the despair of monsters and evil overlords. However, the queens and their crowns quickly learned that the vast quantities of ale needed, and the frequency of quarrels when barbarians gathered together, made the project impractical.)

  The Octopus Bride was finally fully awake as she sailed at speeds undreamed of in her saltwater dreams. She sped past fishing boats that had been tall cedars back when the Octopus Bride was a working ship, their fisherman gasping, unsure if they saw an illusion or an actual boat. For the first time in her life, the Octopus Bride left behind her secluded blue bay for the greater sea’s rollicking gray waters.

  Zaynne brushed off the Octopus Bride’s wide-eyed worry as they crossed into the whale’s road, where even the seagulls refuse to fly and beg for food. Zaynne was oblivious to the sea-serpent coils that rolled under them, the hooves of the hippocampus, and even the steady, silent stare of a giant black umibōzu. Zaynne only had scorn as they rowed directly into the ocean-boiling showdown between Leviathan and Kraken, even as the Octopus Bride desperately tried to steer away. Zaynne paid no heed to the tentacles and tail crashing down.

  The Octopus Bride despaired, closing her eyes, foreseeing a new life as driftwood. Instead of hearing the rending of wood and canvas, there were the two sharp thuds of Zaynne’s oars hitting flesh, and the whiffing of air. The Octopus Bride hesitantly cracked open her eyes, only seeing the suddenly empty sea where Leviathan and Kraken had disappeared over the horizon. Zaynne, still rowing, didn’t notice.

  Zaynne was too busy ranting about Severus Severyn the Serpentine.

  “That weaselly sack of bones! Any respectable sorcerer would’ve kidnapped me. Kidnapping my wife is an underhanded scheme befitting the lowest of the lowest of the rat empires, not even the most cruel lich would break the adventurers’ code—”

  Zaynne took no notice of the heralding rocky reef that encircled the cursed Isle of Aha’Hal. Three sirens—woman-headed and bird-bodied—stirred on their rocky perches, chirping as they warmed up their vocal cords while the Octopus Bride came closer.

  “Come to us and listen,” the black-haired oldest sang. “Come and learn the language of the birds, and the writing in the stars. Come to us and listen!”

  “Come to us and listen,” the brown-haired middle one sang. “Come and learn of where the gods hid diamonds before time, and where the gold flows like water. Come to us and listen!”

  “Come to us and listen,” the blonde-haired youngest sang. “Come, for we have men whose pecs are the size of your head and women who are even bigger. Come and listen to us!”

  The eldest and the middle exchanged side glances while the youngest fluffed her feathers, filled with pride at her new lyrics.

  Zaynne’s boat came closer, and the sirens grew excited before the boat sailed on by, splashing them as Zaynne’s words clouded the air. “When I get my hands on him, I will feed him his own pancreas tied with his own appendix—” Zaynne had a remarkable grasp of anatomy from years of killing—and being eaten by—monsters.

  “Some people have no appreciation for our hard work,” the eldest sniffed as she shook off the salt-water spray.

  “My mermaid penpal talks about pirate ships and merchant vessels that pass by Shark Reef. We should move down there,” said the youngest, with all the authority of years she did not have.

  “We have sung at these rocks for generations—we will not give them up for some tropical fad,” the oldest spoke, ruffling her feathers.

  “Maybe we could move down there for the winter,” the middle one suggested as they nestled into a familiar argument.

  Hours later, Zaynne’s boat beached itself upon the cursed Isle of Aha’Hal. The Octopus Bride warily watched the hooting swamp as Zaynne threw down the anchor. Zaynne gave no hesitation as she left the sandy beach behind, marching right into the dark depths of the swamp, her footsteps sploshing.

  Giant crocodiles swam toward her, mosquito-spites sharpened their proboscis, and fanged birds of paradise swooped down, all eager for adventurer flesh. Even a napping basilisk awoke, watching the scene through its third eyelids.

  Zaynne jumped on the convenient crocodiles, hopscotching from nose to nose so their surprised jaws snapped only on damp air. She swatted carelessly at mosquito-spites and fanged birds of paradise who dove too close, sending them careening into each other. And the whole time she continued her rant.

  “He’s the son of a toad and a she-dog. And not even a nice dog. A dog that has mange, rabies, and leprosy. So did the toad! And his grandfather wasn’t just
a leprous lamprey—”

  The basilisk decided that this was a very nice patch of sunlight and there was no reason to leave it to deal with Zaynne over there.

  As the wildlife scattered, monsters fled, and even the plants shrank back, Zaynne made her way to uplifted land: the Black Fortress that was the lair of Severus Severyn the Serpentine. A fortress surrounded by sheer walls of black volcanic glass, with only one gate. A gate with seven locks, which could only be unlocked by the seven keys of Grossd’mn, the Blasphemous Plaguewalker. Were that not formidable enough, the wall was guarded by an army of skeleton warriors, all shapes and sizes, from the diminutive dwarves to the hulking carapace of a kappa titan.

  As Zaynne marched out of the swamp, the skeletons stopped lollygagging and straightened into intimidating force. A smaller—human-sized—one stepped forward, their prized helm shining in the weak sunlight. They held up one hand in the air. “Halt, trespasser!”

  Zaynne stopped, both in foot and mouth, as concentration creased her forehead.

  “These are the lands of the great and magnificent Severus Severyn the Serpentine. As you see, we are many and you are only one. Turn back—”

  Zaynne charged. The skeleton herald drew their sword, ready to meet hers, but she jumped and landed on his head. The skeleton herald dropped their sword, flailing for a skull now stuck in their ribcage, as Zaynne flew through the air to catch the arm of an ogre skeleton. As it raised its limb to squish her with its other hand, she swung from the arm bone, landing on the upper thigh of the kappa titan. She quickly climbed over a massive hip, ducking safely inside the carapace. A look of discomfort—somehow—passed over its bony face. Giant hands dropped a house-sized battle fan, and slapped around the carapace, trying to dislodge the climbing barbarian. Zaynne steadily held on as the carapace shook, nimbly jumping from spine vertebrae to rib between earthquake strikes, before diving off the cervical bones to the other side of the wall.