Winter, Faerstice

by Kevin Lawler

  “Nice,” Winter said, “More smoke.” She coughed and waved away the cloud. It left soot on her clothes.

  Meadow grabbed Winter’s arm.

  “Just let me do this, OK?” Winter said, wresting free.

  “No,” Meadow said. “Give me some of them, I’ll help.”

  Winter shared the stones with Meadow. Phil and Topple were pulling sleeping bodies from the burning wall.

  Meadow held up a green-on-dark-green banded stone with copper sparkles. “Phil, do you know what this is?” she called across to him.

  Phil was pulling a sleeping young man by the cuff of his slacks. Phil had his own shirt in his other hand over his nose. He shrugged at her with one arm and kept pulling. Topple dragged an unconscious girl by the arms.

  The fire was closing in and there was not much time.

  Winter picked up another gem. She couldn’t tell if it was the same as the one Meadow pointed out. There was a high-pitched metallic sound as Winter discharged it.

  “I just said that one whistled,” said Meadow.

  “They looked different,” Winter said, “I can’t tell these apart.” She held another stone at the wall intently. It did nothing, and she tossed it.

  Behind her Winter heard a splitting, and she turned to see a quarter of the roof caving in from the fire. The clubgoers on that end of the dancehall ran away and screamed. The roof slumped in and burned under a purple flame. It was then that Winter was knocked down from her left side.

  She wasn’t sure what had hit her. The sound and the concussive force had come from the left of her. As she was picking herself up from the blast she remembered Meadow. Meadow’s hand grabbed Winter’s forearm and pulled her.

  “Let’s go,” Meadow said, her left hand bundled in pain against her chest, “It’s open. Grab the tank.”

  The evening air came in through the hole in the wall, and with it the lights of the city. Winter stumbled towards the opening, newly desperate for oxygen. Her foot hit the tank Meadow had captured and she reached down to pick it up before tripping out of the opening. Meadow was called to the others and they came up from behind.

  From the outside Winter could see how bad the situation was. The outer part of the wall had caught flame completely, and the inside would soon catch. Down at the corner of the building a group of cadets had been alerted by the gemstone blast. They saw Winter exiting the hole and rushed over. To the side Winter could see the full length of the flame jets coming at them, obscuring everything else. Winter felt a push from behind from one or other of her friends, and they began to run. Winter ran as fast as she could with both hands on the tank in front of her.

  Winter looked back and saw the cadets peppering the inside of the hole with flames. They immolated any civilian who tried to leave that way. One leapt through the flames like at the circus, and they caught him and roasted him on the ground. The cadets seemed the most focused on stopping the evacuation of the large crowds and only one slow cadet plodded after Winter and her ring. The cadet didn’t even carry a flamethrower.

  Winter stopped, dropped the canister, and pulled her knife. Her friends had stopped too and were ready to make a stand. The cadet thought better of it and ran back to the safety of the flamethrowers.

  “The people,” said Winter. But she knew they couldn’t go back.

  “It’s too late,” Ipsy said.

  “Um,” said Meadow shaking, “I would like to get to a hospital.” Meadow held up her hand. In places it was burned down to the meat.

  “We should get a little farther away, first,” Louisa said, “I know it doesn’t feel good.”

  They looked back over at the burning building, purple flames rising into the night.

  In the hospital a town over, Winter, Ipsy, and Louisa sat patiently in the waiting room, waiting for Meadow to finish being treated. They had had to wait an hour before Meadow was seen, and it was beginning to get late. “You guys go,” she had said, “I’m thankful that you came, but you don’t have to wait here.” After some discussion it was agreed that Topple and Phil would leave to find everyone a place to stay for the night. Ipsy and Louisa kept talking in hushed tones about the evening, and they did a bad job of including Winter. Winter looked up at the sign Atención de Urgencias with an arrow pointing to the left. She rolled the canister back and forth on the ground between her feet. Her seat was uncomfortable. She was hungry, and the candy bar she had bought from the machine made her feel worse from the sugar. She wanted to sleep and for the night to be over.

  Act III

  Þat kann ek it fimmta:

  ef ek sé af fári skotinn

  flein í folki vaða,

  fýgr-a hann svá stinnt,

  at ek stöðvig-a-k,

  ef ek hann sjónum of sék.

  A fifth I know,

  if I see from afar

  An arrow fly 'gainst the folk;

  It flies not so swift

  that I stop it not,

  If ever my eyes behold it.

  c. 10th century, Old Norse, from the

  Ljóðatal (Songs of Charms)

  Chapter 20

  Finally they were going to kill Agnes. After days and days of arguing the plan for a raid had been settled, sort of, late in the evening at the safehouse. “Safehouse” was a bit of a stretch: it was Cal’s now-empty house, and they were not safe in it. The house wasn’t exactly empty either, Cal’s duck was in the backyard, inside a fenced pen, and Winter had been put in charge of feeding him and changing his water.

  The plans Reveille had left for them were detailed. Winter could see that they had lost an organizing influence of the group. Even though she had been imprisoned Reveille had done an great job of putting together information on the tower before she went mad. Even though she wasn’t the best at sensing trees she had marked on the map approximately where there was one in the tower. She thought that was where Agnes was. Reveille had left them a code that should give them access to this area.

  They couldn’t reach an agreement on how to do things and were finally forced into action by a deadline left in Reveille’s document. There was a planned security system upgrade happening tomorrow evening that would make their job impossible, so it was tomorrow morning or never.

  They ended the evening by getting Cal’s dusty sporting crossbows out of the attic. While Louisa went over how to use them, Winter pulled the string back on hers to test it out. She slotted an arrow which she promptly shot into the ceiling, leaving a trickle of dust where it entered.

  “Careful!” Louisa said, “We only have the ones that came in the cases.”

  “We couldn’t find where Cal was keeping the rest,” Topple said.

  Louisa stood chair under the exit wound in the ceiling and tried to fish the arrows out with her finger.

  They didn’t seem to be worried about breaking the ceiling. Oh well, Cal wasn’t around anymore anyway. Maybe they should have practiced.

  The tension was worse for Meadow. She had had to be around Topple at a time when she would rather not see her. She also had to let her hand heal for much of the discussions without being able to do anything productive with it. Then, when they had resolved to make the trip to Agnes, Meadow didn’t have a lot of time left to do her job. So she had to stay up late after everyone else had gone to bed. It was a rush job on top of her being wounded, all so they could go meet Agnes where she lived and get killed. It didn’t make sense to Meadow, who was content to stay on the run. They were going to have to stay on the run at any rate. But if the group wanted to go together, Meadow would go, and would do her best to help. Anyway, they had killed Cal, and that made Meadow angry. Very angry.

  When they were checking the attic for crossbows Meadow found the propane-oxygen torch she had given Cal, still in the box. Meadow thought Cal might be interested in getting into jewelry. She took the beginner’s torch out of the box. She tested it by turning on the gas and sparking it. Still worked. It reminded her of the tank they had confiscated only a few nights ago. She had looke
d at it together with Phil: it had dual chambers with separate contents and wouldn’t ignite until mixed, like epoxy. It was a fascinating design for a tool so deadly. She wondered if the magic flames could help with jewelsmithing. Probably not. Probably easy to set yourself or your house on fire.

  Meadow looked at a pile of unknown gems in front of her jeweler’s kit. Her left hand was still wrapped in white medical tape, which tended to slide around inconveniently from the clear creme she had been given for the burn, but she could finally use it well enough to do her work. Over the tape and gauze was the splint they had given her for the fracture. “Fireworks are dangerous” they had warned her. The rainbow-colored pile of stones looked like candy. She grabbed her tweezers and selected a jellybean-sized white and red-spotted stone and put it into a concave metal tray she had for the purpose. With her gemcutter’s tools she began to chisel off a small flake of rock.

  “Ohh, shoot,” she said, the chisel slipping sideways in her hand. She readjusted and tried again, collecting the small flake. In a moment she would discharge it to see what, if any, effect it had. Many of them had no identifiable effect, and there was no good way to tell what they were actually doing if the effect wasn’t immediate and obvious, except for the few whose unguessable function had managed to survive in lore for generations. It was then that Meadow looked back at the pile and saw something she hadn’t seen before: resting in the pile, among the other stones, was a pale and dark and red stone. Was it a Carneolus? Meadow couldn’t be sure yet, but if so, it would make a fine piece of jewelry to take on their trip.

  In the morning they were up early. Topple was in the vanity by the master bedroom, Cal’s bathroom, with her clown outfit half on, applying her woad. Winter could hear the music blasting from the room before she found where Topple was. Everything in the house was twenty or thirty years too old, nice and kept well but old. The vanity looked like a throwback. The bright lights and the brass fixtures gave the room a yellow glow.

  Seeing Winter in the mirror, Topple spoke first. “The costume you made looks great. It even fit on the first try.”

  “Thanks. What is that music?” Winter asked.

  Topple swiped a long stripe of white foundation across her cheekbone and stared into the mirror. “It’s clown rap,” she said, “ICP. Appropriate, no?”

  “Seems...strange for you.” The lyrics were harsh and violent.

  Topple kept applying her foundation. “Sometimes that’s how it is. We used to listen to them in the break room at the circus. Gave us a break from all the Cirquish we had to listen to. It stuck.”

  Under her carrot-colored hair most of Topple’s face was chalk-white from the clown makeup.

  “Is there room for me?” Winter asked, woad in hand.

  “Yeah, sure,” Topple said. She made space.

  Winter debated trying to copy Topple’s clown makeup. It would’ve been a good look. But she decided instead to do something of her own. She wanted an aggressive warrior look. Some warpaint for a battle. Winter drew a serrated line under her eye.

  Topple started in around her own eyes with a blue, the first of several colors.

  “Are you nervous?” asked Topple.

  “A little,” Winter said.

  Topple ran the blowdryer as Winter continued with the makeup. Winter could see the work in progress around Topple’s eyes. Already it had the appearance of a stylish and modern clown, with an original color burst pattern around the eyes, nothing like the appearance of a traditional clown.

  “I still think this is a bad idea,” said Ipsy, “Reveille tried this and look what happened to her.” She had already said this several times before.

  They waited in front of the door for everyone to leave. There were unopened letters from the National Park Service and the US Department of Veterans Affairs on the counter. Bags rested on Cal’s dining table, on top of the chairs situated by the kitchen bar. The sun was up and they were late.

  Meadow rushed into the room. “Hey,” she said, “I woke up early and finished the jewelry.” Her hair was a mess. Blonde flyaways were everywhere.

  Meadow said, “This is for you, Louisa,” and Meadow slipped a silver bracelet onto Louisa’s wrist and then shut the catch. At the top of the bracelet was a pale red stone. “I have a good idea what this is. It’s either going to stop you from bleeding or it’s going make a really really bright flash. One of those two.” Meadow crooked her finger through the chain and pulled to make sure the bracelet held tight. Its construction was artful but clearly rushed.

  “We have to save these,” Meadow said, “These are one-shot, not the most powerful stones. Don’t use them too early or we won’t have them later.”

  “Ipsy, these are for you. Pear briolettes.” Meadow handed Ipsy a pair of teardrop-shaped earrings. “With them you can control someone else’s familiar for a short while. I think.”

  “This is for you, Topple,” Meadow said, “Pistachio calcite.”

  Topple took it and looked at it. “Where does it go?”

  “It’s a hairpin,” Meadow explained helpfully, “It can speed up your actions for a minute.”

  Meadow turned to Winter. “Sorry, Winter,” Meadow said sincerely, “This was all that I could make. So I don’t have one for you.”

  They were out the door and locking up when Winter remembered something.

  “Wait,” she said, “Hold on.”

  She went into the backyard and left the gate open for the duck. They probably weren’t coming back. Maybe a fox would get him, maybe he would find his way to the pond down the road. They hadn’t had time to find a place for him—something even Reveille had done for her bird. Winter decided that everything they did was like that, no time to get it right. Winter called to the duck and stretched out her hand to pet him goodbye, but he hid behind the plastic pool in his pen, cautiously quavering, with no intention of coming out.

  Chapter 21

  The crowd filled the streets. They had timed their raid to coincide with an annual food fair that brought the entire city out. There were so many people out that Winter and her crew had a hard time staying together. Topple was easiest to spot moving through the crowd. Her face was done in full radiant clown makeup, she was wearing the costume that Winter had slapped together, and she was carrying a purposefully oversized sack of (unknown to the crowd) sporting crossbows, Santa-like, on her back. She had the air of a worker on her way to start of her shift, and so though she did draw stares she was only interrupted a few times on their way to the Spécieuse Générale building.

  Winter herself had on woad that could easily be mistaken for facepaint from a booth. The crowd may have thought she was connected to the clown, which was, in more ways than one, true, even though Winter had opted not to do clown makeup.

  The smell from the food tents had got to them, and Winter wanted to stop, several of them did, even though they were on a timeline. The lines were too long or Winter might have made the attempt. They already had a circus clown, they deserved to have a corndog, dipped in batter and fresh from the fryer. Winter shook off her daydream and focused on her mission.

  From a distance Winter could hear the sound of guitars tuning up and then the excited voice of a vocalist coming out of a massive concert amp. He was trying to warm up the crowd and probably himself. The amps were too far away and it all sounded distant to Winter and oddly echoey, bouncing off the crowd. Behind the tents on the main parkway were the shops and cafés on the first floors of all the large buildings. Many of them were closed, but some of them were open and seemed to be doing a brisk business from people looking to escape the crowd.

  When they had reformed and met on the sidewalk, only a block from their destination, a young girl grabbed at Topple and tugged on her pantleg.

  “Hi, hi, hi,” she said.

  Topple’s friends were ready to intervene but Topple was already handling the situation. From her oversized bag she pulled a folding pocket knife, closed, and showed both sides of it to the young girl. Both sides of t
he handle were laid in a synthetic green emerald. Then she performed some sleight and after both sides of the handle were pearlescent white. This seemed to satisfy the young girl enough to let them pass.

  “Mom, mom, I want a knife,” she said.

  Topple started carrying the bag in front of her. That way it was harder to see her face, and it had the effect of making her look very busy at her work. The entrance to the building was getting closer.

  When they reached the door Topple dropped her bag outside by the wall away from the giant glass doors and told them to wait. Then she went inside to talk to the guard. From the outside it looked like an elaborate mime sequence. Winter couldn’t even tell if Topple was talking or not. But the security guard was talking back because Winter could see her lips moving. The security guard made a concessionary face and waved Topple through. Topple took wide strides through the metal detector to the bank of elevators while the security guard spoke into the mic on her desk. Topple made a cutesy show of stepping sideways into the elevator and disappeared for a long time.

  With Topple clear they stepped into the entrance and waited. The guard looked up at them briefly.

  The first sign to Winter that Topple had jettisoned the gas was the unrest among the crowd outside. It started as a slow tremor, scattered screams and then:

  “Are you seeing that?” someone in the crowd said.

  “I think I’m seeing things,” another person said.

  Winter took a deep breath, but not too deep. She didn’t feel very good about this plan in the first place. The guard had taken notice of the scene outside the glass and was becoming increasingly concerned.

  The panic outside escalated.