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by Mary Robinette Kowal
Fantasy, 12 pages.
Originally Published in Apex Online, 2007
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Maxwell Sanders pressed the phone closer to his ear as if that would somehow bring comprehension. “Did you say trolls?”
“Yes, Max.” With her words, he could picture Amalia’s rigid posture.
He ran a hand over his scalp. “I can’t redo the aluminum plant blueprints because your foreman believes in fairytales.”
In the silence, static hissed faintly on the line, reminding him that she was in Iceland. “I know what it sounds like, but eighty percent of the population here believes in fairies, elves, and trolls. So when the foreman tells me they won’t continue construction of the plant because we’re intruding into troll territory I can’t just ignore him.”
“So negotiate.”
She was silent long enough that Max thought he had lost the connection, then her voice crept across the ocean to his office in New York. “I think we’re beyond that.”
Max drummed his fingers on his desk before reaching for his calendar. “Want me to come out there and talk to them?”
“Do you have the time?”
If he still had hair, it would have stood on end. Amalia should tell him she could handle it, like always. She should become a little prickly at his suggestion that she might need help. She should not sound relieved. Max realized he was holding his breath and let it out slowly. “Sure, I’ve got time,” he lied. “I’ll catch the next plane.”
* * *
The windowless lobby at the Keflavik airport weighed on Max like claustrophobia waiting to happen. Amalia stood near one of the concrete pillars that squatted under the ceiling. A smile touched her lips and moved on, as if it were uncomfortable on her face. She submitted to a New York greeting, returning the kiss to the air by his cheek with efficiency, but her posture was strained beyond rigid. “Do you want to rest at your hotel until it’s light, or go straight to the job site?”
“Let’s hit the site.” Did she flinch? “I can rest this afternoon.”
“Did you bring a hat? It’s raining.”
Max shrugged. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”
He followed Amalia out the sliding door to the parking lot. As soon as he stepped outside, the rain cut across his face. Sheets of water blew horizontally through a parking lot illuminated under yellow lamps. Beyond the pools of sickly light, night seemed to clutch the earth. Running across the lot, he tucked his chin into his coat while cold needles of rain pricked the side of his face.
Amalia pulled her hood closer to her head and turned slightly towards him. “Welcome to Iceland.”
It was the closest he had ever heard her come to a joke.
* * *
Treeless mountains, a deeper black than the sky, undulated on either side of the car. As they drove, only the reflectors on either side of the road broke the night.
Max glanced at his watch. 9:37 a.m. “What time does the sun come up this time of year?”
“Around ten a.m.” Amalia was silent, and then spoke again, as if to apologize for not knowing the exact time. “It’s hard to tell with the overcast.”
She said very little else on the drive up to the site in Straumsvík. Max had been to Iceland only once before, as part of the initial scouting for his client. Since then Amalia had handled everything with her customary efficiency. He glanced at her as she drove. She had never been chatty, but now she seemed to have withdrawn into herself; her hands were tight on the steering wheel.
Without light pollution from towns and cities, the amber lights of the jobsite glowed against the bottom of the clouds, mocking the dawn.
Amalia pulled the car to a halt in a gravel lot. The wind buffeted the car as if it were angry with them. Great machines hunched on the rocky landscape, waiting for their drivers.
Max raised his eyebrows. “No workers?”
“Everything stopped yesterday.” Amalia clenched her fists on the steering wheel. “I’ll show you.”
As he climbed out of the car, the wind hurled pellets of rain at him. He pulled the collar of his coat farther up his neck and followed Amalia across the site.
Next to the beginning of a foundation hole, a backhoe lay on its side. The mangled arm of the yellow machine lay like some massive beast brought down in a hunt. He sucked in his breath. What could twist steel like a candy wrapper? Hydraulic fluid seemed to bloody the dark ground beneath it.
“Christ, Amalia! You had an accident on the jobsite and you didn’t tell me?” He wiped the rain off his scalp, ignoring the rain that continued to sweep across them. He waved his hand at the backhoe. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Because I only believe it when I’m standing here. Would you have believed me in New York?”
“What’s to believe? A backhoe fell over.”
She looked away from him.
Max turned to follow her gaze, stumbling on the broken lava as a tall Icelander joined them. The man looked l -- [End of Preview.]