The Iron Dragon's Daughter (27 page)

"Watch this!" Jenny Greenteeth flung a can into a space precisely equidistant between two of the circling gryphons. In their eagerness, they crashed into each other, feathers flying. While they were fighting, yet another gryphon swooped down and snagged it with his talons. He sailed away, shaking his leg in a futile effort to free it from the can.

They all, Jane included, hooted with laughter.

Nant wanted to play canasta but Raven insisted on pinochle, so they eventually settled on hearts. Sirin won heavily. Jane got stuck with the black virgin and a short run of hearts three times running. "It's not your day," Sirin observed.

"No. It's not."

"Well, I don't know about you but I'm going to check out the action off-campus. There's a new place over in Senauden. Anybody coming with me?"

Nant nodded. Raven scowled and shook her head. Jenny Greenteeth impulsively threw the deck over the edge of the balcony. The wind caught the cards, spread them, and swept them away.

"Count me in," Jane said.

The skywalk to Senauden Tower was located eighteen floors below Habundia. They crossed over and rode up another thirty-four floors to a new club Sirin had heard of called The Drowned Man. It was situated by the central elevator banks and the enamel gray steelplate walls trembled when the larger cars passed by. "It looks like a submarine," Jane said, eyeing the painted water pipes and exposed ducting overhead.

"Submarines aren't this crowded."

"Don't gawk," Sirin said. "We don't want anybody to think we're students."

Banks of televisions over the bar multiplied the aftermath of a bombing in Cockaigne. The images flickered in eerie sync with the toothache throb of the house band. They got a table and had a few drinks. A dwarf named Red Gwalch dropped by to make a perfunctory pass at Sirin and stayed to argue with Nant.

"I'm a hierarchist myself. It comes from being a dwarf—we're all conservative at heart." He stuck a cigarette in his mouth. "Some of us try to pretend otherwise. Not me."

"Oh, don't get her started," Sirin said.

But Nant rose to the bait. "More fool you, then! Hierarchies only work to the benefit of those on the top. If you're high, you'll get by. If you're low, out you go! That's how it is."

"So?" A match flared. A grin floated in the darkness. "What's your pain to me?"

"Sirin?" Jane reached forward to squeeze her friend's hand. "You've got to tell me what's wrong with my experimental set-up."

Sirin looked embarrassed. "Jane, it's something you're supposed to figure out for yourself. Working it out is part of the learning experience."

"But—"

"It's better this way. It really is."

"It's your pain too, or ought to be. Unless you're planning to be tall and elvish when you grow up?"

"Very cute. I've met your kind before."

"What kind is that?"

"Sirin—"

"I won't talk about it. I won't!"

"The kind who talks about dwarven history for hours, but wouldn't dream of dating one of her own kind."

"Don't let it bother you, little man. I'm sure you'll find somebody who'll overlook your… shortcomings."

"You're really a bitch, aren't you?" Red Gwalch dropped his cigarette on the floor, and ground it under one shiny Italian shoe. "I like that in a woman." He held out a hand and Nant accepted it. They walked out onto the dance floor and disappeared in the crush of bodies.

"That's the last we'll see of—" Sirin began.

The air crackled with premonition, and an elf in a tufted-silk suit materialized by their table. "Ladies." He had the sort of cultivated good looks that seemed striking face on and less pleasant the instant you looked away. "May I join you?" He slid into a chair, extended an arm. "Galiagante."

"Sirin."

"Jane."

When she touched his hand, Galiagante seized her fingertips and turned her hand over. He bowed low over it, lightly kissing her palm. Sirin hid a smile.

They hadn't been talking long when Nant came back to reclaim her purse. Red Gwalch waited for her by the door. She glanced nervously at him over her shoulder. "I'm going back to the dorm now."

"Sure you are," Sirin said kindly.

They all three watched her leave. "She didn't get much dancing in," Jane commented.

"I cannot blame her. This style of music is not made for dancing." When Galiagante smiled, his cheekbones shifted, as if something were crawling around under the skin. His eyes were feverishly bright. "Too young. However, I know a place where the music is soft and the dancing slow. If you don't mind a touch of travel…"

He slid a hand under Sirin's elbow and helped her to her feet.

"Hey," Jane said. "This isn't the way to the elevators."

Galiagante smiled patiently. "The public cars are so crowded, aren't they? I'm sure we can do better than that." He led them to a small, tiled alcove, where a bank of unmarked elevators stood, and pushed the call button.

When a car arrived, its interior was small and dark, with black leather seats. A stolid dwarf in chauffeur's livery and cap stood at the controls. They piled in.

"Lac sans Oiseaux," Galiagante said.

Without even nodding, the dwarf slammed the doors shut. Jane's stomach lurched as the car fell. Galiagante shot a sleeve back to check the time and placed his arm across the seat behind Sirin's back, not quite touching. Sirin shifted slightly, accepting the arm, moving into it. His hand closed on her shoulder.

Jane was captivated. It was like a little dance between diplomats, an exchange of formalities ending in entente. The dwarf faced forward, watching the floors rise through a slit of glass. Galiagante's other arm reached out to encompass Jane as well, and this she did not like nearly so well.

"So," she said brightly. "What do you do? For a living, I mean."

"Do?" Galiagante sounded politely baffled. "I do nothing. I suppose that in the sense you mean rather than doing things I am things."

"Like what?"

"Oh, an investor, perhaps. An inheritor. Many, many stockholders. And you, Jane, just what is it that you—do?"

"Right now I'm trying to figure out why my experiments never work."

"You are a researcher?"

"We're students." She ignored Sirin's scowl. "Alchemy majors."

"Ahhh. I have interests in an alchemical firm or two. Perhaps I can help."

The elevator was going deep, deep, and yet it was still accelerating. The cables whined and sang in the background. They must surely have passed ground level long ago, and be speeding into the roots of the world. Jane described her problems with the sophic stone.

"We have a phenomenon very like that in industry," Galiagante said when she was done. "It's called green thumb syndrome. It sometimes occurs when a new plant establishes a complicated but known procedure for the first time. Your people set it up perfectly but nothing happens. The oxides won't reduce, the catalysts won't… cattle. Punishing the technicians accomplishes nothing. The reaction simply refuses to run. Eventually management will fly in somebody who's worked on the procedure before and have her run through it once. For
her
it will work. Then, ever afterward, it will work for the new plant. But that first time it must be run by somebody who is sure it will work, who knows it in the core of her being. It has something to do with quantum uncertainty events, I believe, though I wouldn't swear to it."

"Then I'm screwed. How can I make myself believe in an experiment I've seen fail five times in a row?" Sirin's attention was fixed on Galiagante; she never once looked at Jane.

"You can't. But surely there must be some way to outthink the set-up. Let's say that next time you run the experiment, you borrow glassware that's already been used for that purpose. Make sure you assemble it in the proper order—I doubt that identical glass tubes would be interchangeable—and it ought to work fine. You must have friends who'd be glad to lend you what you need. Perhaps you could trade new equipment for used."

"We're slowing to a stop," Sirin said.

In the foyer an ogre in a tuxedo barred their way, saying, "This is a closed floor, sir." Galiagante offhandedly flashed a gold card, and they were let by.

The first thing Jane realized about Lac sans Oiseaux was that while Sirin might be appropriately attired for the club—casually, but in keeping with the rest—she herself was not. It was a rich crowd, Teggish and better, and not a one of them was wearing jeans. Just being among them made her stomach hurt. When Galiagante got a table, Jane slumped down in her chair, trying to look inconspicuous.

Behind the bar was an enormous glass tank, lit by harsh fluorescents, where the rest of the club was bathed in red and purple. A horse was drowning in the tank. Legs churned up clouds of bubbles. Eyes bloodshot and wild, it craned its neck to lift agonized nostrils above the thrashing surface. It was excruciating to watch. The music was slow and romantic, but just loud enough that the horse struggled in silence.

Jane shifted her chair so she wouldn't have to see. Galiagante looked amused. A kobold brought them brandies and was dismissed. "Would you like some coke?"

"Of course we would," Jane said quickly, cutting off Sirin while she was still shaking her head.

Mirror women glided through the crowd, bearing trays. Because their surfaces reflected whatever was before them, Jane couldn't tell whether they were entirely naked or merely mostly so. They were angular singularities, warping reality with their passage, leaving it unchanged in their wake. Galiagante snapped his fingers, and one bent low over their table.

Light flashed from one chrome nipple as she offered the tray. Neat lines of powder were laid out ready to use. Galiagante laid his wallet on the table, and bent to snort up two, one per nostril. Sirin and Jane followed his example. He left several bills on the tray.

"Dance?"

Sirin accepted his arm and they moved out onto the floor.

The wallet had been left behind on the table. It sat in a pool of light, almost breathing it was so imbued with life. The leather was decorated with a skull-and-rose tattoo. This small gesture, leaving the wallet behind, impressed Jane greatly. It implied much about Galiagante's resources.

Casually, she glanced inside.

Elves were volatile. It would be madness to rip one off. It would take a suicidal amount of nerve. She sipped her drink. Sirin danced beautifully, of course, and Galiagante held her close, murmuring in her ear. Her features were fine and aristocratic, and seeing her among her own kind Jane realized for the first time that Sirin was surely one of the Tylwyth Teg herself.

The music was slow and, propelled by it, the two dancers were preternaturally graceful, like ice swans aglide on a pond. By degrees, though, Sirin's placid mood changed to distress. Her step faltered. She seemed to struggle against Galiagante's implacable grip.

Jane watched them thoughtfully.

When the dance ended, Sirin returned to the table and seized her purse. "I'm going to the power room. Are you coming, Jane?" There was a touch of demand in her last sentence.

"We won't be long," she threw over her shoulder.

Galiagante did not respond. He sat staring at the drowning horse, a small smile flickering like flame on his lips.

"Hold this for me." Sirin thrust her purse at Jane, and slammed into a toilet stall.

Jane leaned back against a sink, studying the line of stalls. From one came the sounds of somebody puking. Ruby heels showed in the space beneath the door. Jane went into the next stall and slid shut the bolt.

On the tiles by the vomiting elf-lady's knees was a beaded handbag. Slowly, carefully, Jane drew it closer with the toe of her shoe. Its owner was too involved in being sick to notice.

There was a lot of money in the handbag. Jane took it all, and returned the bag to the floor. Sirin's purse had considerably less, but what there was she took. She tore Sirin's public elevator pass into shreds. The pieces floated for a moment in the toilet bowl. She flushed them away.

When she emerged, Sirin was repairing her makeup in the mirror. Her face was ashen. She clutched Jane's arm fiercely.

"We've got to get out of here. Now."

"What are you talking about?"

"Galiagante. Jane, all the time we were dancing, he was talking to me, telling me things. Things that. Jane, you know me. I'm not a prude. But some of the things he said. About fishhooks and…" She stopped. "We've got to get out," she insisted.

"Of course we will. We'll leave right now."

They burst through the club's double doors and ran to the elevator bank. Sirin pushed the call button. She looked anxiously over her shoulder. Galiagante had not yet noticed that they were late returning from the john.

"There's a car coming. I can hear the cables."

"It can't come any too soon for me." Sirin took out her wallet and opened it. Her face twisted in dismay. "I don't have any money! We'll have to use the public—" She rummaged in her purse with growing panic. "Where's my
elevator pass
?"

"Take it easy, Sirin."

"We're trapped. Jane, you don't know what he wants me to do—what he wants both of us to do!"

"It's okay, Sirin. Really it is."

"You can't imagine. It's so…"

The elevator arrived, and a dwarf in livery—not the same one as earlier—scowled up at them. Jane shoved Sirin within, and snapped, "Skywalk level to Bellegarde. Step on it." To Sirin she said, "It's okay, I've got enough money to cover it. My treat."

Sirin collapsed, weeping, on her shoulder.

At Jane's insistence they didn't go directly back to the dorm but went to the Pub instead. The Pub was a student bar not many floors beneath Habundia. It was crowded and noisy and safe. Jane ordered a pitcher of beer, and Sirin knocked back three mugs one after the other.