The Chick Is In The Mail

She clawed her way out of sleep, pushing and hitting at the hands that gripped her shoulders. The hands retreated and Irene sat up, aching and sick and dizzy, a flood of lantern light blinding her eyes. She threw her arm up to shield her face.

'Get that damned light off me,' she snapped. The light withdrew. Irene squinted, saw the creased face of Anna, one of the gate guards, looking anxiously down at her.

'Mistress Irene, I'm sorry,' the woman said. 'Your quarters were empty, and the Master of the Menagerie has sent for you in all urgency.' She frowned. 'He said you would know why.'

Irene staggered to her feet. She was in the antechamber of Goldie's aerie, one of Goldie's winter blankets and an empty wine jug tumbled at her feet. Memory came flooding back, and with it a heartache far worse than the ache in her head and body. Windwing and Kerides were dead. She looked over at the hulk of her griffin, was surprised to see her awake, the great eyes reflecting green in the faint rays of lantern light.

'You did well to find me at all, Anna,' Irene told the guard, grateful she hadn't gotten drunk enough to try to sleep with Goldie.

Irene went to the water cistern and dunked her head. The cold water revived her. 'I have a guess what Tulius wants,' she said, mopping her face with the tail of her purple scarf. 'Andi wasn't in our quarters?'

Anna, mute with shock, shook her head.

'I'll find Andi,' Irene said. 'You have horses readied, for yourself and a companion as well. I want an escort.'

Irene ran into the courtyard. The night told its hour on her skin. In perhaps two hours the birds would begin their pre-dawn chorus. Except for the guards, the Imperial compound slept.

Irene had a good idea where to find her painfully modest apprentice.

A single lantern glowed in an interior room of the baths. Irene swept in like a thunder squall. 'Andi! Out and dressed! Now!'

Andi had been soaking, half asleep in the warm water. The apprentice gasped, floundered wildly for a towel and missed.

'Come on, girl,' Irene said sharply. 'You haven't got anything I haven't seen in the mirror.' She stepped forward, grabbing up the towel. Andi rose from the bath and faced her.

Irene stared. 'I take that back.'

'Here,' she said. She snapped the towel at Andi's offending anatomy. Andi gasped and made a frantic grab and Irene tossed him the rest of the towel. 'We'll discuss that later,' she said. 'Get dressed. We're needed at the menagerie.'

Andi scrambled into his tunic-high-necked to cover the Adam's apple in his throat, extra padding to suggest small breasts where none existed. As Andi yanked the garment into place, Irene grasped him by the arm. 'What did you do to the Black Beast?'

Andi met her eyes. 'I poisoned him.'

* * *

The Black Beast lay on his side, panting, tongue rolling swollen and grey from the gaping beak. The glossy scales were dulled, and rustled like a fall of dry leaves with the creature's labored breathing. His injured hind leg was swollen and hot, the bandage crusted yellow.

'What did you do to my Beast?' Tulius raged, following them into the cell. Irene spun on her heel. Her calloused palm struck out, with all her considerable strength behind it. Tulius staggered back, wheezing as he tried to pull air back into his diaphragm. 'Shut up!' Irene shouted, stalking after him, stiffened fingers jabbing repeatedly at his chest. 'The Empress said the Black Beast was yours-unless the circumstances changed. Well, for now, they have changed. The Black Beast is sick, and sick animals are mine.' She snapped her head towards Anna and Catullus, waiting just outside the door. 'Get a transport wagon. This animal is too ill to remain here. We're moving it to the Imperial Mews. And while you're at it,' she added, indicating Tulius with a thrust of her chin, 'get that… person… out of here so we can work.'

Tulius, still wheezing, turned an even darker red, but was not prepared to argue with the two armed and determined palace guards. Catullus hustled Tulius away, and Anna pulled the cedar door closed, leaving Irene and Andi alone with the Beast.

Irene checked the beast, sedated him to damp his pain. 'You realize you could have killed this animal.'

'It was going to die in the arena,' Andi said, cutting away the bandage. 'I thought I could keep him sick long enough for the barbarian prince to come and go. Then maybe the Empress would intervene.'

Irene nodded begrudgingly. 'All right. It makes sense, in a twisted sort of way. But if you ever do anything like this again, I'll geld you myself.'

Andi colored, but his hands continued to move, baring the wound, purging the poisoned flesh. 'My father, my teachers-they all said, Irene is the best there is-perhaps the best that's ever been. I had to work with you, to be able to see, to study, creatures like Goldie. I knew I was good enough. But everyone said that only women and eunuchs get positions at the palace.' He glanced at her. 'You know that's true.'

'True enough,' Irene admitted. She stroked the beast, its neck warm beneath her hand. The scales had a pattern of striations running out from a central vein, giving them a silky feel. In the oblique lantern light, they looked like feathers.

The puppy-thoughts in Irene's head suddenly caught their tails. Are his scales specialized feathers, or her feathers specialized scales?

The Black Beast had not reacted to Andi, but to Goldie's scent on Andi's flesh. His vocalizations had played upon her memory because they were echoes of Goldie's. In size, in the shape of body, beak and talons, the Black Beast was Goldie's mate, yet his lack of wings had deceived her-until now.

'I didn't even want to pretend to be a eunuch,' Andi said. 'So I pretended to be a woman.' He smeared Beastie's wound with Varangian goo. 'It wasn't that hard. Except I had to shave a lot.'

'Don't worry,' Irene whispered. She stroked the beast, shaking. 'When this animal is healthy again, you'll be so indispensable that no one will care whether you're a whole man or a bearded lady.' She laughed. 'There's adequate precedence for both.'

There was a soft knock. Anna eased the door open. 'Mistress Irene, the wagon is ready.'

Irene stood. 'I want this animal taken directly to the griffin's aerie. We'll bed it in the antechamber.'

'The aerie?' Andi asked, startled.

Irene felt the grin stretching her face. 'Don't you see it, Andi? You aren't the only gentleman who's been traveling incognito. This Black Beast is a male griffin-and griffins are on the list.'

* * *

'We think the sexes are highly specialized,' Irene explained to the Princess Helena. 'The female hunts, but it is the male, with his scales and superior strength, who guards the nesting site. Lions have a similar arrangement.'

'Certain fish, also,' Andi put in. 'And the sea horse, Your Highness. The male guards the eggs and young.'

'Ah,' Helena said, graciously inclining her head. 'Androcles, is it not? Your Mistress tells me We have you to thank for the Dark Emperor's survival, and the Dark Emperor for the return of Goldie's health.' She smiled. 'I am very grateful.'

Andi bowed.

The Princess turned her eyes back to the aerie, where the two griffins lounged side by side in the warm sand, necks twined as human lovers twine arms. Andi, dismissed, went back to work.

'A whole man for an apprentice,' the Princess mused, loud enough for Andi to overhear. 'Very daring, Irene.'

Irene startled. 'How did you know…?'

The Princess smirked. 'How did I know he wasn't a eunuch? How does a mare know a stallion from a gelding? Honestly, Irene, if you have to ask that, you've been celibate too long.' Helena cast an appraising eye on Andi, not bothering to be subtle about it. Irene felt a flush creeping up her neck.

'He has very good bones,' Helena observed, 'but he's awfully thin, and he works hard. I suppose he must be exhausted by the end of the day.' She lifted a sympathetic brow. 'Really, my dear, don't you want me to send you one of my Varangians?'

The Princess Helena completely misinterpreted Andi's laughter, but that, Irene thought, was probably just as well.

Chain of Command by Leslie What & Nina Kiriki Hoffman

'Mom,' Kayla said in that tone teenagers use when they're practicing for the time they will put you in the nursing home. 'You're not going to wear THAT, are you?'

I forced myself to smile, making sure I showed teeth. I'd had my canines lengthened and my incisors filed to subtle points. Remember, I told myself. I'm the mom. I'm Alpha. Wolf Woman. A CEO of Earth Muthas, a militant woman-owned multinational. Only my teenage daughter was powerful enough to make me forget this.

I was wearing mail and a leather thong and copper breastplate because I had a focus group to lead in half an hour and there wasn't time between now and then to change from civvies. I held the keys in my mouth for a second while I tightened my belt. All I had to do was drop off Kayla at her friend Tiffany's; from there they would walk to their cheerleader meeting at the high school. I could hide in the Jeep; no one need see me.

Kayla was five foot seven and growing fast enough that I expected her to surpass me during the coming year, when she would be a junior. Her hair was bronze from a bottle, though on her, it looked feminine. She preferred a fruity-smelling department store perfume called Flower Power to my musky Marker, the flagship product for my company. Her scent made my eyes water, but I decided against saying anything. 'Choose your issues,' our family counselor had warned.

I had chosen.

So had Kayla.