STOCKS AND BONDAGE

by Esther M. Friesner

‘‘AND that’s where the witch works,’’ said Roseberry the elf, nodding toward the closed office door. ‘‘As you’ll find out soon enough, poor thing,’’ he added, dropping his voice to a whisper so low that Kurlian the dwarf had to poke him in the side with his pickax and ask him to repeat it.

Roseberry shook his head emphatically. ‘‘Nuh-uh. She might hear me. I’m an elf, not an idiot.’’

‘‘Who said you were an idiot?’’ the dwarf protested.

‘‘Puh-leeez.’’ Roseberry rolled his eyes. ‘‘You dwarves are born clutching a volume of Dumb Elf Jokes.’’

‘‘Well, you won’t hear any such jokes from me,’’ Kurlian said. ‘‘You’re my colleague now; I’d never insult you. I want to work here.’’

Roseberry viewed the dwarf with a critical eye, as if measuring him for a uniform. From long red cap to long white beard, from the simple cut of his brown homespun tunic to the elaborately gemmed design of the gold belt girdling it, Kurlian Bluechip was all dwarf and a yard wide. About a yard tall, too.

Roseberry himself was a run-of-the-mill elf, unspeakably beautiful, tall and willowy and graceful. When he drifted down the woodland paths, his wake was littered with the corpses of suicidal spiders who’d despaired over how poorly their webs measured up to the delicacy of his flossy golden hair. As an elf, it was Roseberry’s archetypal obligation to scorn all dwarves as gold-mad mud-grubbers, but now he just couldn’t bring himself to do so.

He wants to work here! he thought. Poor little toad doesn’t know what he’s in for. She’ll have him for breakfast. I might as well fill him in. It’ll only postpone the inevitable, but I’ll sleep with a clear conscience.

Wordlessly, Roseberry indicated that the dwarf should follow him. Kurlian frowned, but dutifully obeyed. After all, Roseberry was his guide, thus assigned by the Inhuman Resources Director. Dwarves knew how to follow the leader. The small burrowing folk were famous throughout the Seelie realm for being excellent team players. (The elves said this was just a nice way of saying no dwarf could think for himself if his mineshaft depended on it.)

The dwarf’s short legs were hard put to keep pace with Roseberry’s long stride, and the office corridors seemed to go on forever. Kurlian’s initial interviewer at Under-the-Hill Enterprises, Inc., had taken great pains to point out that the metaphysical plant of the company was not merely multistory and multinational but also multidimensional. It was logical that the main office be large enough to touch base on all of the world-planes served by U.H.E.: Logical, and damned hard on the feet. Kurlian wished that the elf would ditch the whole dark-doings-afoot shtick and cut to the mother lode.

Just when the dwarf felt ready to collapse, Roseberry reached a particular portal in a particular corridor and hustled Kurlian inside. He slipped in after, locking the door behind them.

‘‘Dark in here,’’ the dwarf remarked.

Roseberry snapped his fingers and half a dozen pixies housed in glass globes on the walls revved up their auras, casting a vivid green glow over the room.

‘‘Yeah, that’s better.’’

‘‘If you like working inside a radioactive lettuce,’’ Roseberry said dryly. ‘‘Why we can’t have electric lights like the rest of the world . . . sod tradition anyway.’’ He crossed to a tall, blue-spotted mushroom which took up most of the little chamber, hoisted his rump onto the slightly shorter fungus beside it, and told Kurlian, ‘‘Pull up a Portabella and make yourself to home.’’

The dwarf noted that every article of furniture in the room was either a mushroom, a toadstool, or some other sort of saprophyte. Selecting an overstuffed puffball, he settled himself carefully. ‘‘Nice digs.’’

‘‘Thanks,’’ Roseberry replied without enthusiasm. ‘‘When I get hungry, I just set fire to the place, throw in a steak, and extinguish the whole mess with gravy. Office aux champignons, mmmm-mh!’’

‘‘Will my office be like this?’’ Kurlian asked, stroking the surface of the puffball chair lightly and watching with growing dismay as it began to disintegrate under his blunt fingers.

‘‘What office?’’ Roseberry returned. ‘‘You’re the new guy; you’ll be lucky if you get a cubicle of your own.’’

‘‘I wouldn’t mind sharing.’’

‘‘As if you’ll have a choice! Like it or not, you’ll share; I guarantee it.’’

‘‘But I just said that I wouldn’t mi— Wait a minute: What kind of sharing?’’ The elf’s odd manner put Kurlian on guard. Dwarves weren’t the sharpest chisels on the workbench, but they were not half as thickskulled as they looked.

Roseberry leaned back on his fungus and lowered his eyelids. ‘‘It’s not my place to say. Not outright. I can drop ominous and premonitory hints, or I can pose meaningful-but-cryptic riddles. Your choice.’’

Poor Kurlian’s stomach began to crimp in upon itself, a phenomenon unheard-of in dwarvish circles. It took a tramload of anxiety to upset a digestive organ that could extract nutrients from shale, lignite, and— in a lean year—radishes. ‘‘Ominous hints, please.’’

‘‘Really? Too bad. I had a really nifty riddle all lined up: What makes a dwarf bounce but never jump for joy?’’

‘‘Bounce?’’ Kurlian echoed.

‘‘You know, from thumping the mattress when you have to bed the witch. All right, your first hint is—’’

‘‘Bed the witch?’’ Kurlian’s horrifed bellow made the puffball crumble. He hit the floor with a clang.

‘‘Wow, and I didn’t even finish giving you the first hint.’’ Roseberry’s admiration was genuine. ‘‘You’re good.’’

‘‘Bed the witch . . .’’ Kurlian repeated, shaking his head slowly. ‘‘Oh, no, no, impossible. It must be a joke.’’

‘‘It’s a joke that’s in your contract.’’

‘‘It is not!’’ Kurlian protested as he hauled himself back onto his feet. ‘‘I read my contract before I signed it. There was no mention at all about—’’

‘‘That,’’ said the elf enigmatically, ‘‘was then.’’ He pressed a spot on his desktop, and a golden basin rose from the depths of the speckled mushroom. Shadows swirled over the elf’s face as his gazed into it, chanting: ‘‘O great and whimsical procurer of all otherworldly knowledge, vouchsafe unto me a vision of the full text of the U.H.E. standard employment agreement.’’

The bowl seethed and bubbled, then gave a loud burp. Roseberry smiled. ‘‘There we are: Paragraph nine, section seven-A, dependent clause four. See for yourself.’’

‘‘Don’t have to.’’ The dwarf growled. ‘‘Got my own copy right here.’’ He pulled a tightly rolled parchment from the leather pouch at his side and unfurled it triumphantly for the elf’s inspection. ‘‘That’s the very clause, right there in crimson and ecru. It says that attendance at the company picnic is mandatory.’’

Roseberry regarded the proffered document and lifted one elegant eyebrow. ‘‘Does it?’’

Something in his manner made Kurlian blanch and hastily run his finger down the margin. A choking sound rose to his lips. ‘‘It’s—it’s changed! My contract’s changed!’’

Roseberry sighed. ‘‘All U.H.E. contracts change after we sign them.’’

‘‘But how—?’’

‘‘Remember the part where I told you she’s a witch?’’ The elf shrugged. ‘‘Duh.’’

Kurlian reeled backward, ramming the wall and joggling the pixies in their lightglobes. They squealed like a batch of mice in a cocktail shaker. ‘‘This is terrible,’’ he gasped. ‘‘This is awful! This is—’’

‘‘—legally binding,’’ the elf said. ‘‘No use making a fuss.’’ He gently shepherded the dwarf onto another toadstool. ‘‘Get it over with quickly, that’s the best way.’’

‘‘I read a U.H.E. recruitment ad in one of our finest underground papers.’’ Kurlian spoke in a dazed and wobbly voice. ‘‘An ad for mining engineers, top pay, good benefits. I want to get married, but my darling Gurfrieda’s got a bride-price that’s higher than the Scurvy Mountains. It looked soooo tempting!’’

‘‘Of course it did,’’ the elf said. ‘‘Bait is. Though to be honest, you’re the first in centuries to swallow it. Word’s gotten out. None of the Seelie folk ever work for U.H.E. willingly. Usually our liege lords compel us, giving the witch our employment in exchange for settlement of their Accounts Outstanding. I’m surprised you didn’t know.’’

‘‘You miss a lot of gossip when you’re digging mines,’’ Kurlian said.

‘‘Well, no use crying over spilled nectar. You signed the contract, you comply with the terms. You’ve only got to do it once, and the witch leaves you alone afterward. It’s called paying your dues. Or sexual harassment, if you talk to the Mortals.’’

‘‘There’s not enough gold under a dragon’s butt to pay these dues.’’ The dwarf still had the stunned look of a man who has had a full-grown basilisk fall on his head. ‘‘Not even under the butt of the Red Dragon of J’thork, and that is one big-ass dragon!’’

‘‘Not anymore,’’ said Roseberry. ‘‘He developed an eating disorder after his turn with the witch.’’

‘‘His . . . turn . . . with . . .’’ Kurlian was aghast. ‘‘But dragons are a protected species!’’

‘‘Once you sign the witch’s contract, there’s nothing in all the worlds to protect you.’’ Roseberry was grim as the grave.

‘‘How can one creature command such power?’’

‘‘Easy. She’s the best C.E.O. this company ever had, her ideas are a bottomless goldmine, and she keeps the stockholders happy. In all the realms—Seelie, Un-seelie or Mortal—there is no greater magic than the bottom line.’’

‘‘Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve got a bottom line of my own: I quit!’’ Kurlin thumped the handle of his pickax on the floor for emphasis and sprang to his feet. ‘‘I quit right now, and you can tell the witch that she’ll be getting a stern letter from the Dwarvish Regulatory Commission!’’ He stalked to the door of Roseberry’s office and flung it open with an extravagant gesture.

‘‘Goin’ somewhere?’’ asked the hall goblin blocking the way. He was a big one, ten feet tall if an inch, every inch covered with scales, warts, slime, and well-aged roadkill. He smiled tuskily.

The dwarf was no coward. Shifting his pickax to battle-ready mode, he glared at the hall goblin and gritted, ‘‘Who are you?’’

The goblin’s grin got wider. ‘‘The welcome wagon.’’

From behind Kurlian, Roseberry greeted the monster on his doorsill. ‘‘H’lo, Nutmeg. Come on in. How’s everything up in Security?’’

‘‘Can’t complain,’’ the goblin replied. ‘‘They whip us when we do.’’ He stepped into the elf’s office, chivvying Kurlian back inside and shutting the door after himself.

‘‘Take an early lunch today, did you?’’

‘‘How can you tell?’’

‘‘You’ve got a scrap of vice president stuck in your teeth.’’

‘‘ ’Ta.’’ The goblin took a coil of rope from his belt and used it for dental floss. A thighbone, a bit of scalp, and a briefcase came flying out from between his fangs. Kurlian gaped at the carnal detritus and dropped his pickax.

‘‘I’m not going anywhere, am I?’’ he asked.

‘‘Not until you fulfill that clause,’’ Nutmeg replied, all hail-fellow-well-et.

‘‘You know about that?’’ The dwarf gave the goblin a hard stare.

‘‘Everyone who works here knows,’’ the goblin said. ‘‘Mostly ’cuz everyone who works here’s had to fulfill it.’’

‘‘Even you?’’

‘‘Yeah, even— Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?’’ Nutmeg scowled.

‘‘The witch is rather comprehensive in her amatory tastes,’’ Roseberry said.

‘‘Voracious, more like.’’ The goblin shuddered, which nearly undid poor Kurlian. If the witch’s intimate attentions were enough to make a goblin shake—!

‘‘Now, now, Nutmeg, you’re scaring the new guy.’’ Roseberry acted as if they’d been discussing nothing more outlandish than the weather. ‘‘You survived it, I survived it, everyone survived it—’’

‘‘Not Yimiyimi,’’ said Nutmeg. ‘‘Killed him, right enough.’’

‘‘Wh— who’s that?’’ Kurlian’s hands opened and closed spasmodically, as if seeking the pickax he’d long since let fall.

‘‘Yimiyimi?’’ Roseberry waved the goblin’s scarifying testimony away on the interoffice breeze. ‘‘Well, of course it killed him. He was a pixie, no bigger than a gerbil’s sneeze. Basic physics should tell you that he was never going to survive an encounter with—’’

‘‘ ’Taint so,’’ Nutmeg maintained. ‘‘Size don’t matter with her. Witches is awful flexible.’’

‘‘A pity Yimiyimi wasn’t,’’ said Roseberry.

‘‘I am liking this less and less,’’ Kurlian said, reclaiming his weapon from the floor. ‘‘Much less and less. I don’t care if the goblin eats me—or tries to—’’ (Here he flourished his pickax belligerently, to let Nutmeg know just how indigestible he could make himself.) ‘‘—I want out, I want it now, and no one’s going to stop me!’’

‘‘No one has to,’’ said the elf. ‘‘Ever hear of a captivity clause?’’

‘‘A what?’’

‘‘Opposite of an escape clause. Its power binds you to these premises until the witch herself releases you.’’

‘‘Which she don’t till you fulfill that other clause,’’ the goblin said. Again he shuddered.

‘‘You mean I’m trapped until—?’’ The dwarf looked from elf to goblin and from goblin to elf for some reprieve.

‘‘Yup.’’ Nutmeg nodded. ‘‘Y’can try busting out if you like, but it won’t work. Never has.’’

The dwarf burst into tears.

Elf and goblin were gobsmacked by this unexpected display. More than disconcerting, it was loud. Beings who lived in boundless caverns deep in the earth had no grasp of indoor voices. Roseberry and Nutmeg clapped their hands over their ears and tried to reason with the distraught Kurlian. They were compelled to do this at the top of their lungs in order to make themselves heard. The noise level in the elf’s office soon made Pandemonium sound like a Quaker prayer meeting.

‘‘WHAT THE BLAZING DOGWORT IS GOING ON IN HERE?’’

Roseberry’s door flew open and a one-eyed ogre terrible to behold stood wedged between the jambs, his gnarled oaken club pounding the floor for order. All the fungoid furniture crumbled. The pixies fled their glowglobes en masse, leaving elf, dwarf, and goblin to crawl single-file between the ogre’s legs, out of the darkened office and into the corridor, where they slumped in a row against the wall. The ogre eyed them severely.

‘‘Well?’’ he demanded in a more reasonable tone of voice. It still sounded like a forklift goosing a dragon.

‘‘I was just explaining the Whoopee Clause to the new guy, Sigmoid,’’ Roseberry said. ‘‘He overreacted.’’

‘‘The Whoopee Clause?’’ the ogre repeated. And to Kurlian’s horror, he shuddered. ‘‘I remember when it was my turn.’’ He shuddered again and began to bite his nails, spitting out clippings the size of shingles.

‘‘What’d she make you do?’’ Nutmeg inquired.

Sigmoid screwed his lips up tight. ‘‘Won’t tell.’’ ‘‘We’ll tell if you will,’’ Roseberry urged.

The ogre remained unmoved. ‘‘Can’t say as I’m all that interested in hearing about the bedroom antics of elves.’’

‘‘Same here,’’ the goblin said, then he chortled. ‘‘ ’Course’s not like we’ve got her head for business. Clever old cow. Years ago she made some elves do the winky-dinky-doo in front of her while she took notes. Elves bein’ elves, they didn’t have nooooo problem turnin’ it into a spectator sport—’’

‘‘There is no shame in performing the Dance of Life for the eyes of others,’’ Roseberry said huffily.

‘‘And that, kiddies, is how the witch invented the Kama Sutra,’’ said the ogre. ‘‘One of our best-selling products in the Mortal realm.’’

Kurlian scratched his head. ‘‘I thought it was a Mortal creation.’’

‘‘They’d like to believe that themselves, but just look. ‘Basic’ positions? Ha! As if Mortals could ever come up with half o’ them greased weasel contortions. All the witch needed to turn a tidy profit for U.H.E. was a notebook, a sketchpad, and a couple of elves in heat!’’

‘‘Actually, there were five of us,’’ Roseberry murmured. Seeing the shocked stares of the other three, he snapped out a defensive, ‘‘What? At least it got me out of the Whoopee Clause without having to bed the witch herself.’’

‘‘She allowed an alternative?’’ Kurlian Bluechip felt a faint surge of hope. ‘‘Maybe she’ll let me do the same.’’

‘‘Could be.’’ Sigmoid the ogre scratched his head. ‘‘I’ve heard tell o’ such things. There’s even a sort o’ legend in the union handbook as tells of how some day the witch will face a warrior maiden of great prowess who’ll put paid to the Whoopee Clause forever. ’Course them’s just legends and union talk. Can’t put much faith in ’em.’’

‘‘What do I care for legends?’’ Kurlian cried. ‘‘All I want to know is: Can I get around the Whoopee Clause?’’

‘‘Depends.’’

‘‘On what?’’

The ogre got a cunning look in his eye. ‘‘Hard to say. Hard to think, what with this parlous great thirst I got and the misery in me limbs from patrolling the halls.’’

Kurlian could tell whither the wind blew. ‘‘If there’s somewhere we can all share a few tankards—and find me a way of escaping the Whoopee Clause—then the drinks are on me.’’

Shortly after, in the U.H.E. Underlings Cafeteria and Brewpub, the quartet of Seelie folk huddled over four pints of nut-brown October ale and earnestly discussed the dwarf’s problem. Being the employee of longest standing, Roseberry spoke first:

‘‘Such things as alternative service to the witch are rare, but not unheard of. I recall once, some centuries ago, the great dwarvish bard Jingli signed on the U.H.E. dotted line but fulfilled his contract through other means than playing hide-the-acorn with the witch.’’

Kurlian puffed out his chest with pride in his fellow dwarf. ‘‘No doubt he sang for her one of the great and stirring epics of our people, thus satisfying her.’’

‘‘Sort of,’’ said Roseberry. ‘‘As I heard it, his idea of foreplay was to start crooning one of those interminable dwarf doo-dahs and she cracked around Canto the Thirty-third. She released him from the Whoopee Clause if he’d just shut up. She’ll never fall for that ploy again.’’

‘‘Never?’’ Kurlian’s recent hope died young. He began to snivel, which was only a bit quieter than the racket he made when he went full-throttle weepers. The elf and the goblin covered their ears.

Sigmoid the ogre took direct action, picking up the dwarf by his belt and hanging the little fellow upside down, shaking him gently (for an ogre). ‘‘That’ll do,’’ he said.

‘‘Put me down, or pay for the next round yourself!’’ the dwarf snapped.

The ogre complied, but stuck to his guns. ‘‘So you’ve got to bed the witch, wah, wah, wah. Think you’re better’n the rest of us? Quitcher bellyachin’. Sooner you do it, sooner it’s done.’’

‘‘Sooner I’m done, you mean,’’ said Kurlian. ‘‘This will kill me.’’

‘‘Naaah. Worst it’ll do is rough you up some, if she’s in a playful mood.’’ The ogre grinned.

‘‘No,’’ said Kurlian firmly. ‘‘This will kill me.’’

The way he said it caused all three of his colleagues, plus a nosybody mailroom gremlin just passing through the cafeteria, to take notice. Roseberry gave the gremlin a move along, move along, smartly now! glower, to no effect, then asked Kurlian, ‘‘What do you mean?’’

‘‘You don’t know about the Dwarven Rule?’’ Elf, ogre, goblin, and gremlin all shook their heads. The dwarf took a deep breath: ‘‘It is written in scrolls as old as Time and older than Fate that no dwarf may come unto his chosen bride’s bed if his body be sullied by fleshly dalliance.’’

‘‘Oh, I’ve heard this one!’’ the gremlin broke in. He was a scruffy, snaggle-toothed specimen so wizened and malodorous that Kurlian wondered how desperate the witch must be if she’d demanded Whoopee Clause fulfillment from this repulsive creature. ‘‘Thought it was a joke. Stupid stuff, if you ask me.’’

‘‘No one asked you, and it’s no joke,’’ the dwarf grumbled.

The gremlin ignored him. ‘‘I heard it don’t matter a nit’s nipple if you dwarfers do boinkies with everyone, everything, and my late Granny Zagroon after you’re wed. But before marriage? Nothing. What’s the point of that?’’

‘‘Quiet or I’ll feed you to the automatic envelope-licking machine,’’ the ogre told him. ‘‘Could be the dwarfs got a good reason.’’

‘‘We do,’’ said Kurlian. ‘‘It’s the unicorns.’’

‘‘Ah!’’ Roseberry brightened. ‘‘So it’s true: You little fellows do have the unicorn market sewn up.’’

The dwarf bobbed his head. ‘‘Lock, stock, and virginity. Unicorns are a cash crop like no other. They feed themselves, never get sick, don’t need guarding, sell for plenty in the Mortal realm, and the only maintenance they require is to live within spitting distance of a population that’s one hundred per cent prenuptial virgin.’’

‘‘Lucky for you they don’t insist on post-nuptial virginity,’’ the elf said.

‘‘Unicorns don’t insist on anything. They’re fairly dumb, three steps below a golden retriever and four above an infomercial addict. Instinct drives ’em. If they catch a whiff of premarital please-and-thank-you, they leave the area and the authority of their former owners. According to our laws, any dwarvish tribe thus bereft of its unicorns has the right to hire a seer and an executioner, the former to discover the party or parties whose behavior caused the beasts’ departure, the latter to—’’ He slashed a finger across his throat and made a khhhhkkk! sound.

‘‘Couldn’t you just build fences?’’ Roseberry asked.

‘‘No fence can hold them,’’ Kurlian countered. ‘‘And where’s the wight with the carborundum balls to try stopping a full-steam-ahead unicorn migration?’’

A cataract of tears poured from Sigmoid’s eye. ‘‘Me great-great-grandad perished unto death in the big unicorn shift of ’07,’’ he said.

Kurlian tapped the side of his nose. ‘‘That was when King Vog’s tribe lost their herds, all because his son Morgrim couldn’t keep his lust in his lederhosen. It was Vog’s fault, letting the lad live in that forest commune with six other dwarven twits and that Mortal slut. Exiled princess, my pickax! It didn’t matter when the others took their turns with her, them already being married, but when young Morgrim had a go—’’ Kurlian clicked his tongue. ‘‘Bye-bye unicorns. Morgrim was the first one they trampled on their way over the border. Saved his dad the price of that seer/ executioner package. Vog’s tribe never recovered economically. Had to rent themselves out as lawn ornaments. Only consolation was that the stampeding ’corns flattened Princess Mattressback, too.’’

Roseberry was confused. ‘‘So she was a princess?’’

‘‘Unproven,’’ Kurlian sneered. ‘‘The only thing snow-white about her was the bottoms of her shoes, ’cause her feet were always waggling in the air.’’

‘‘Hey, I know her,’’ the elf exclaimed. ‘‘She worked over in Archetypes-for-Hire. I heard she married a prince on her summer vacation and lived happily ever after.’’

‘‘Spin-wizards,’’ the goblin informed him. ‘‘The witch brought ’em in on the case herself, once word got back. Wouldn’t do was the stockholders to hear of scandal touching a U.H.E. employee. Bad for the corp’rate image.’’

‘‘I chipped in on her wedding gift!’’ The elf looked fit to be tied.

‘‘She worked here?’’ Kurlian was startled. ‘‘But— but the Whoopee Clause?’’

‘‘Oh, she fulfilled it. The witch is an Equal Opportunity Exploiter,’’ Sigmoid the ogre said solemnly. ‘‘Which is one reason she heads the Team Bonding campout whenever we get enough new members in our all-sylph secretarial pool. Some o’ them poor ladies is pulling pine needles out o’ their wings for weeks after.’’

‘‘Which is why I’m here now,’’ said a fresh voice from the end of the table.

Elf and goblin, gremlin and ogre, all turned to see who had just barged in on a conversation already amoebic in its ability to draw in helpless passersby.

They saw a second dwarf, twin to Kurlian Bluechip in every detail.

‘‘No one told me we had two new employees.’’ Roseberry was miffed. ‘‘Mouse-puckey, now I’ll have to go through the whole welcome-to-the-Whoopee-Clause folderol again.’’

‘‘No, you won’t,’’ said the second dwarf. ‘‘I’m here to put an end to the Whoopee Clause once and for all.’’ The newcomer hopped onto a vacant chair, leaned one elbow on the table, and added, ‘‘Who’s a lady got to slay before someone buys her a drink in this dump?’’

Kurlian clasped his beard. ‘‘Gurfrieda!’’ he exclaimed just before he toppled over in a dead faint.

He came back to his senses to find the ogre tenderly pouring a container of cafeteria lemonade over his face. He sat up in time to hear Roseberry inquire:

‘‘—just like him?’’

The second dwarf chuckled and took a long pull from her mug of ale. ‘‘Not exactly like him, but the differences are nothing you’ll ever see, elf-boy.’’

‘‘But the beard’s a disguise, right?’’ The elf reached out one tentative hand, as if intent on giving the facial adornment in question the customary yank-test for authenticity.

Gurfrieda slapped his hand aside. ‘‘Touch it and die. Sloppily.’’

‘‘Gur— Gurfrieda?’’ Kurlian asked, shaken. ‘‘D— darling? What— what— what—?’’

‘‘—am I doing here?’’ The dwarf-maiden smiled, foam clinging to her mustache. ‘‘What do you think?’’

‘‘Following ’er ’eart’s one true love, she is,’’ the gremlin said with a happy sigh. ‘‘Couldn’t bear to be parted from ’im fer an instant.’’ Sentimental tears slid from the creature’s eyes. This set off the ogre again, and pretty soon he, the gremlin, and the goblin as well were all enjoying a good, romantic weep.

Gurfrieda spared them a look of unmitigated disgust, then gave Kurlian a hard thump on the head. ‘‘Yes, what were you thinking, coming here for employment?’’

‘‘But—but your father—your bride-price—U.H.E. salaries—’’ He spread his hands. ‘‘I figured it was a good bet.’’

‘‘Oh, a great bet, I’m sure,’’ Gurfrieda mocked him. ‘‘For the witch! You couldn’t do a little spade-work and find out why U.H.E. pays so well?’’

‘‘No one told me about the Whoopee Clause until after I signed on! And the contract changed itself! And—!’’

‘‘And you didn’t think that a scam the witch has been pulling for aeons would be all over the Internet? Nice job-research skills, ninny.’’ Gurfrieda spat in his beard and left the cafeteria.

Kurlian caught up with her by the vending machines just outside. The hour being inapt for any of the Seelie folk’s sixteen official mealtimes, the place was deserted. The anguished dwarf flung himself after his sweetheart and latched onto one chunky leg. The elf, ogre, goblin, and proof-against-all-hints mailroom gremlin tagged along to watch.

‘‘Forgive me, my love,’’ Kurlian sobbed. ‘‘Your beauty robbed me of my wits; I was rendered stupid by desire! I could only think of amassing your bride-price as swiftly as might be!’’

The dwarf-maid rounded ferociously on her suppliant suitor. ‘‘What’s the big rush? We’re dwarves, you moron! We’re immortal! Well, barring unicorn stampedes. You’ve been a virgin for centuries. You couldn’t wait a little longer to get some?’’

Roseberry cleared his throat and attempted a diplomatic intervention. ‘‘Perhaps he was only thinking of your needs, ma’am.’’

‘‘What needs?’’ Gurfrieda countered. ‘‘I got any needs, I go down to Madam Bunny’s House of Commercial Affection and ask for the blue plate special.’’

The elf’s eyebrows rose sharply. ‘‘Er, begging your pardon, ma’am, but doesn’t something like that rather . . . perturb the unicorns?’’

The female dwarf laughed loud and long. ‘‘Not likely! It’s only virgins going astray that provokes ’em.’’

Roseberry’s brows rose higher yet. ‘‘By this I take it to mean that you are not—?’’ He blushed like a common gnome.

‘‘If I were, it’d be a grievous insult to the memories of my last six husbands, now wouldn’t it, Twinkles?’’ Gurfrieda gave the elf a roguish look and a gratuitous pinch on the fundament that sent him leaping into Sigmoid’s arms.

‘‘Seasoned lass, ain’t she?’’ Sigmoid remarked.

‘‘With the experience of six husbands behind her,’’ Roseberry muttered, slowly climbing back down to the floor. ‘‘At least that explains why our dwarvish friend is in such a hurry to accumulate his bride-price.’’

‘‘Hotcha,’’ agreed the gremlin.

‘‘Which I’ll never get now!’’ Kurlian howled his grief at the sorcery detector on the ceiling. ‘‘No way to leave this corporate prison unless I submit to the witch’s lust, no way to submit to the witch’s lust without causing the flight of our tribe’s unicorns! Alas, alack, wurra-wurra, doggone it all to—!’’

There was a soft whunk behind Kurlian’s left ear. Grinning like a drunken hedgehog, he crossed his eyes, rolled them back in his head for safekeeping, and slumped to the corridor floor unconscious.

Gurfrieda repocketed a small, ladylike cosh and told the remaining males, ‘‘When menfolk start saying things like wurra-wurra and doggone it, they’re not going to be any help at all. Best to tidy ’em aside till things are settled. You there—’’ She indicated Sigmoid the ogre. ‘‘You look capable. Find a well-ventilated, out-of-the-way closet and stick him in it.’

‘‘Yes’m,’’ said the ogre, hastening to obey.

‘‘And don’t forget where it is!’’ she shouted after him. ‘‘Now you—’’ She meant the goblin. ‘‘You’re with Security?’’

The goblin gave her a snappy salute. ‘‘Watchman First Class Nutmeg at your service, ma’am.’’

‘‘And you look like a first class nutmeg, too. Excellent. Go back to your normal rounds and precisely twenty minutes from now, knock at the witch’s office door.’’

‘‘That’s all? Just knock?’’

Gurfrieda sighed. ‘‘Can you outthink moss? No, I don’t want you to just knock. Knock first, for appearance’s sake, then come right in. Please tell me that that big bunch of keys at your waist is for opening doors and not just to supply some deadweight when they want to drown you.’’

‘‘A little from Column A and a little from Column B,’’ Nutmeg admitted. His face sagged with regret. ‘‘Ma’am, I’d be glad t’oblige you, but as for knocking at the witch’s door and then barging in . . . Ma’am, that’s not my designated beat. It’d mean my job, and me nigh fully vested in the pension plan, and with stock options, and me aged parents to support, and me wife and squirmlings, and—’’

The dwarf-woman flung him a bag of gold that hit him dead center in the brisket and slammed him into the wall. He weighed it by hand, bounded to his feet, and with a jolly, ‘‘Sod the stock options!’’ he was off and running.

Gurfrieda chuckled. ‘‘Like my fourth husband Dagmunt always said, the best keys are made of gold. And now—’’ she turned to Roseberry.

‘‘You want I should do something, too, m’lady?’’ the gremlin asked, sidling up to Gurfrieda. His tone was unctuous enough to grease the axles of a thousand chariots.

‘‘Yes, you can drop de— No, wait a minute.’’ She stroked her beard in thought. ‘‘There is something you could do for me: Bring me an apple.’’

‘‘Why d’you want an apple?’’ the gremlin asked. Gurfrieda’s reply came couched in the form of another sack of gold, to which she first attached a live mouse as a bit of lagniappe. The gremlin popped the squeaking snack into its mouth and bounded back into the cafeteria, all cheerful cooperation.

‘‘Was that really necessary?’’ Roseberry asked. He looked tediously beautiful even with one hand cupped over his mouth in a bout of elfin nausea.

‘‘It got him out of the way, didn’t it?’’ Gurfrieda countered. ‘‘Now you can do your part untroubled by that buttinski, if you move fast.’’

‘‘And what is my part?’’

‘‘Taking me to the witch’s office at once.’’

The dwarf-woman’s resolute words had a strange effect on Roseberry. With the dignity and elegance that had made his people the target of countless custard pie attacks by less lordly Seeliefolk, he knelt before her. When he spoke, his words were freighted with a degree of grandeur the elves reserved for the most momentous circumstances.

‘‘Madam,’’ he declared. ‘‘Thou art, I trow, she whose coming was foretold. Yea, in sooth thou needs must be the great Liberator, the maiden warrior of whom the old ones sing and the scribes do write in the union handbook. I am thy humble servant.’’

Gurfrieda patted Roseberry on the shoulder. ‘‘Honey, humble and elf go together like friendly and taxman.’’

‘‘But it is so!’’ Roseberry maintained. ‘‘As Sigmoid told your betrothed, there is a prophetic text within the pages of our union handbook that ordains the coming of a warrior maiden who shall defeat the witch at her own game and rescue all generations of U.H.E. employees, present and future, from the hag’s carnal appetites.’’

As long as the elf was down on his knees, Gurfrieda found it easy to throw one arm around his neck, buddy-buddy, and calmly explain, ‘‘Look, Twinkles, liberation prophecies are an orc’s toenail a dozen among subjugated populations. I think they’re started by the guys doing the subjugating. An underling who’s waiting to be saved by some heroic yo-yo on a white horse is an underling who is not investigating his independent options.’’

‘‘We’ve tried other ways of winning our freedom from the witch,’’ the elf told her. ‘‘Once upon a time, the leadership of the Brotherhood of Ogres, Orcs, Goblins, Elves, and Revenants staged a test-the-waters protest in the cafeteria over the quality of the Friday meatloaf.’’ He sighed. ‘‘Shortly thereafter, the B.O.O.G.E.R. bigwigs vanished entirely and for a while after that we were served much bigger portions of meatloaf.’’

‘‘You have my sympathies and most of my appetite for the next two weeks,’’ Gurfrieda told him. ‘‘That still doesn’t make me your magical maiden-warrior. Being married six times puts a little strain on a girl’s maidenhood.’’

‘‘Perhaps the prophecy refers to your purity of purpose ,’’ the elf offered. Waning hope shone pathetically in his eyes.

‘‘Scratch an elf, find a spin-wizard.’’ Gurfrieda grinned through her whiskers.

Roseberry sighed. ‘‘We’re doomed.’’

Gurfrieda pinched his cheek lightly. ‘‘Don’t put all your eggs in one prophecy, Twinkles: I’ll face the witch. I admit that I came here just to pull Kurlian’s chestnuts out of the fire, but when I see how that hag’s broken the spirit of a fine-looking elf like you, it makes my dwarvish blood boil.’’ She gave Roseberry another pinch on the cheek, only with a semantic difference.

The assaulted elf leaped to his feet, clapping his hands over the area of Gurfrieda’s unasked attentions. ‘‘Madam!’’ he gasped. ‘‘And you about to be a married woman! Again. What are you thinking?’’

‘‘Twinkles, if you’ve gotta ask, it’s gonna be oodles of fun explaining.’’ Gurfrieda gave him a saucy wink just as the gremlin came bounding back, a shiny apple in his paws.

‘‘Here you go!’’ he wheezed, eyes glittering with anticipation. ‘‘Whatcha gonna do with it, eh? Poison it an’ give it to the witch? Poison’s nice.’’

Gurfrieda said nothing. She merely accepted the apple with one hand, reached into her belt pouch with the other, and withdrew a small glass vial from which she poured three black drops—no more, no less—over the ripe fruit. The apple’s rosy skin turned a peculiar shade of purple, then irised through a number of rapid cosmetic hue-shifts—purple to green to yellow to blue—before returning to an even more tempting shade of red than its original color. The dwarf studied the apple, gave a satisfied bob of her head, and tossed the vial to the gremlin.

‘‘Oooh.’’ The gremlin held it up to the light, tilting it to see the dregs slosh back and forth within. ‘‘‘Kin I keep what’s left?’’

‘‘Use it as you like,’’ Gurfrieda told him graciously. The mailroom gremlin dashed away, cackling aloud his plans for vengeance against the ogre up in R&D who had absentmindedly done something unspeakable down the mail chute. When he was out of sight, Gurfrieda faced Roseberry: ‘‘Take me to her. Now.’’

Roseberry regarded the dwarf-woman with profound respect and a little pity. ‘‘She has spells that ward her office against all venoms,’’ he said. ‘‘They cause the poison’s powers to rebound against the would-be poisoner sevenfold. They also work on gifts of unwanted Christmas fruitcakes.’’

‘‘I figured she’d have something like that,’’ Gurfrieda said. ‘‘That’s why I did not use poison.’’

‘‘No?’’ The elf cocked his head. ‘‘You were a little cavalier about giving the leftovers to a gremlin. If it’s not poison, then what is it?’’

Gurfrieda waved the apple under the elf’s nose. Roseberry inhaled the fruit’s perfume, and before he could exhale he was smothering the dwarf-woman’s face with passionate kisses. The effects wore off just as he was on the point of nibbling her mustache. ‘‘By the sacred Dance of Life!’’ he blurted, thrusting her away. ‘‘That’s an aphrodisiac!’’

‘‘And a darn good one.’’ Gurfrieda linked her arm through Roseberry’s. ‘‘Now let’s go see a witch about a contract clause.’’

Of course Sigmoid did forget where he’d stored Kurlian. It took Gurfrieda most of the afternoon to find her betrothed. She offered him a smile as he emerged, blinking in the light, a motherly ‘‘Don’t fret any more, love; your troubles are over,’’ and a kiss that was part tonsillectomy.

When he finally broke free of his fiancée’s enthusiasm, Kurlian gasped, ‘‘My troubles are over? How—?’’

‘‘Feast your eyes, loverboy.’’ With a flick of the wrist, Gurfrieda unfurled a copy of Kurlian’s contract. Halfway down the parchment was a series of vicious slashes executed with what looked like red ink. Gurfrieda enjoyed the look of growing wonderment on Kurlian’s face. It was almost a pity to put an end to it by telling him: ‘‘You and all employees of U.H.E., present and future, are no longer under any contractual obligation to the aforementioned U.H.E., its officers or executives, entailing coerced intimacy.’’

‘‘Uh?’’

Gurfrieda gave her glassy-eyed gallant a doting look. ‘‘Whoopee Clause go bye-bye.’’

‘‘But how did you—?’’

‘‘You know how some folks say that all us dwarves look alike?’’ She sighed. ‘‘They really can’t tell us apart.’’

‘‘Oh,’’ said Kurlian. And then: ‘‘Oh! Gurfrieda, you don’t mean that you—? That she—? That you, third person plural, both actually—? Oh, Gurfrieda!’’

‘‘Oh, shut up,’’ his fiancee growled. ‘‘There came a point in our . . . negotiations where the witch had to realize she’d made a mistake, but by that time it was too late: I’d taken steps to make sure she was powerless to exert even eleventh-hour self-restraint. Not that she actually minded following through with me . . . until afterward.’’ The little lady’s mustache lifted ever so slightly at one corner.

‘‘Afterward . . .’’ Kurlian repeated. ‘‘So you used your, er, newfound position of influence with the witch to thus, ahem, appeal to her more tender side, softening her heart toward her employees?’’

Gurfrieda snorted. ‘‘For pity’s sake, you sound sappy as a Mortal! You’ll be talking about the redeeming power of the love of a good dwarf next!’’

‘‘Then what did—?’’

Gurfrieda thrust one hand into the bosom of her tunic and withdrew a crinkly, crisply folded parchment which she handed to her swain. ‘‘What’s this?’’ he asked, unfolding the document.

‘‘My wedding gift to you, my love,’’ Gurfrieda murmured, her whiskers tickling his ear. ‘‘A talisman of ultimate power.’’

Kurlian examined the parchment, baffled. ‘‘What talisman? This is a purchase order!’’

Gurfrieda smirked. ‘‘Specifically, a purchase for every share of U.H.E. Preferred I could snap up. Our tribe is now one of this company’s major stockholders and I’m our designated spokesdwarf. Now do you understand why she rescinded the Whoopee Clause when I showed her this . . . afterward?’’

‘‘Indeed I do, my dreadfully clever love. Despite the witch’s power, she became your thrall the instant she realized you’d made her break the supreme rule, the rule each C.E.O.—witch or wizard, Seelie or Mortal, Harvard or Yale—must obey.’’ Kurlian Bluechip doffed his cap and solemnly intoned: ‘‘Never diddle the stockholders.’’

Gurfrieda’s right hand began to toy with the ends of Kurlian’s beard. ‘‘Outsmarting witches always gets me in the mood,’’ she purred, her left hand toying elsewhere.

‘‘D—darling, we can’t,’’ he panted, feebly attempting to escape her clutches. ‘‘We shouldn’t. Think of propriety! Think of my neck! Think of the unicorns!’’

‘‘Where do you think I got the money to buy up all those U.H.E. shares?’’ she replied. ‘‘I convinced our Tribal Council to sell off our unicorns before I came here. We’ll be just as rich, and live simpler lives: Wall Street doesn’t give a damn about virginity.’’

A radiant smile lit up Kurlian’s face. ‘‘You mean—?’’

‘‘Shut up and kiss me, you little lug,’’ said Gurfrieda, and hauled him back into the closet, shutting the door behind them.