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The dragon pilot wore dress blues and had his back to them. He was in light converse with a triad of low-elven nondescripts. From behind he was distinctly attractive. Jane was quite taken by his height, his buns, and the width of his shoulders. Maybe him, she thought. Yes, he'd do quite nicely.
Alerted by some subtle change in the atmosphere, Rocket turned.
Their eyes met. His were the everchanging green-gray of Hyperborean seas. Subtle eyes, trickster eyes, eyes that meant nothing but trouble. Jane's stomach lurched. She knew him. They had never met before, and yet he was as familiar to her as the inside of her own purse.
It was Puck again, Peter again, Rooster again. The externals were superficially different, hair shorter and more disciplined than any of the others', nose thi
Don't let it show.
The defeated dwarf was being carried through the party on the same silver platter that had earlier held the flayed horse's head. It took six straining children to bear him up. Revelers surged about them, vying to dab a sprig of holly in his blood for luck.
Smiling oddly, Rocket took a tentative step her way.
"Get lost," Jane told Ferret. His teeth flashed in a brief, astonished hiss, and then Jane was pushing her way through the merrymakers, through the hot crush of bodies and out onto the balcony.
The air was cool and fresh; it cleared her head wonderfully. Two dwarves in Galiagante's livery were sweeping up, dumping the last dustpanfuls of sawdust over the edge. They took their brooms, nodded curtly, and left.
Jane stared out over the Great Gray City. The buildings were black and mysterious, their lights a message she could not decode in a language she had never learned. She started to put her drink down on the rail, then impulsively cast it away from her. It tumbled and glittered on the way down, a temporary star.
Rocket came out on the balcony, as she had either feared or hoped he would.
"Who are you?" he said. "I know you. Why?"
She favored him with a scornful look. "Perhaps you've had too much to drink."
"I know you," he insisted. "Your fate and mine are bound together in some way. If not in this life, then in another."
"Your premonitions and fancies mean nothing to me, sir. Good night."
"I am a dragon pilot. Every day I deal with machines that would eat my soul from the inside if I gave them the chance. I assure you, madam, that I am not one who is prone to whimsy."
"Ah." Jane was not deaf to the boast in his statement. A very macho thing, handling dragons. Strapping those great black iron machines between one's legs and then opening the throttle. Sure to get the young ladies' juices flowing. "You are one of those gentlemen who make their living by enslaving children."
Rocket flushed. "There is more to my job than harvesting changelings," he protested.
"Is there?" Jane felt light as air, conscienceless, amoral. "I should think the one would be quite enough."
His face was taut. But Rocket managed to construct a plausible smile and an apologetic bow. "We seem to have somehow gotten off on the wrong foot. If you would allow me the privilege of starting over again—? My name is Rocket. I would very much enjoy the pleasure of your company."
"Are you witless?" This was wonderful fun. "You have been dismissed, sir."
The dragon pilot made an abortive movement toward her, as if driven by some great emotion. It seemed he must either leave immediately or else strike her. Jane stared at him coolly, feeling an unhealthy excitement, an irresistibly unwise desire to see exactly how far she could provoke him. Then, with a strangled cry, he strode forward and seized her chin. Roughly, he tilted her head back and to the side. "By the holy wolf, you're a changeling!"
Jane wrenched herself free. "Is this how you usually treat ladies? Good night, sir."
"I've been through Dream Gate seventeen times. This is nothing I could be mistaken about."
"And just what do you intend to do about it?" Jane demanded. "Will you turn me over to the Hospitalers? I'm old enough for them to start breeding me, aren't I? They ought to be able to get ten or twelve mestizo bastards out of me before my womb collapses."
Had she slapped him, Rocket could not have turned more white. He stepped back from her, hands clenched, eyes afire. He opened his mouth to say something, closed it again.
Still, he did not leave.
"There you are!"
Galiagante strolled out onto the balcony. His entourage followed, shedding glamour and sparks. Jouissante said, "We're going slumming," and Incolore explained, "We're forming up a little group to visit the Goblin Market," and Galiagante himself asked indifferently, "Would you care to come along?"
"Yes," Jane said. Why not? "Yes, I would."
"I'll come too," Rocket said grimly.
There were seven in the party: Galiagante, with Jouissante and Incolore in uneasy balance on either arm, Rocket, Jane herself, and two elves from one of the lower houses, Floristan and Esplandian, more functionaries than actual guests. Servants fetched their cloaks. Jane, along with the other fatas, pulled the hood up so that only a slim oval of face showed. They all do
They took the elevator down to the street, the functionaries shortened the way, and the entire party strolled easily into the Goblin Market.
"Gents, gents, gents!" a goblin barker cried.
Bad disco music gushed from aging speakers, all fuzz and repetitive bass thump. Galiagante gestured, the goblin stepped aside, and they ducked through a doorway into a lobby with mirrored walls.
Bank notes crinkled and sighed. They were ushered into a small, dark screening room. The linoleum floor was sticky underfoot. On the screen the magnified head of a kobold was noisily chewing food open-mouthed. They stood in the back, watching as beefsteaks, bananas, oysters, chocolate bars, and endless bowls of hot oatmeal disappeared into or fell in moist globs out of that enormous maw. There were only a few patrons in the cramped rows of seats.
Just when Jane's temples were begi
The room they entered was dominated by a horseshoe curve of doors. Galiagante went through one. Jouissante opened another. One of the functionaries—Esplandian?—dropped several tokens into Jane's hand. She opened her own door.
There was a chair. She sat down. A single dim light revealed a device on one wall with a slot for tokens. She inserted them all.
A window covering slid up. She was looking at a semicircular stage. At its center a troll writhed on a flat couch. He was naked save for a pair of socks and tight-laced brown shoes and the upper half of a gray undershirt. His great hairy belly protruded like a continent rising from an ugly sea of flesh. His eyelids had been sewn shut so long ago the flesh had grown together.
Jane saw Rocket in a window opposite. His mask stared at her.
The troll groaned. He had the most amazing hard-on. It was a raw pink for most of its length, as if the top layers of skin had been abraded away, shading to a bruise-like purple at the tip. From the slow way he twisted about, Jane thought at first that he was masturbating. But then he turned over on his side, and she could see the stump by one shoulder and realized that he had no arms with which to perform that function.