by James Hunter
“Right, right.” He turned back toward the room and absently passed a hand over his head. “Well … I’m not sure how we’re going to do that, actually. I’ve been here for fifteen minutes maybe. The room was easy enough to find—”
“Easy to find,” I muttered, thinking back to my snorkeling expedition. “I want to punch you in the face right now.”
“Right. Well. First, let me say thank you for not punching me in the face.”
“You’re welcome, but don’t push your luck. Now, you were saying?”
“Well, I was saying that this thing”—he waved toward the room—“is quite … formidable. The whole room’s a binding construct, multiple layers of protections and failsafe mechanisms. Very formidable.”
“Alright, give me a sec. I want to get a looksee.” Using the Vis still pumping through my body, I formed a wispy probing construct of spirit. Power trickled out and into the room. Spider-web-thin strands of energy swept the space, alighting on the various sigils, the metal door, and the statues. Damn. Serious Mojo, with a capital M. Some kind of strange barrier lingering at the room’s entryway. If we stepped over that invisible threshold without the proper … keycard, maybe … things would get real ugly, real fast.
Like Ben said, the sigils were binding constructs, holding captive the two spriggans guarding the fancy-pants door.
One toe over that barrier and those things would spring to life all Pinocchio-like, unleash all that pent-up fury, and turn us both into little red smears on the floor. There wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it, either. There wasn’t any way around these bindings: they were too complex for me to make heads or tails of. Maybe in a couple hundred years I’d be able to put something like this together.
“So,” Ben asked, “what’d you think?”
“In my professional opinion, we’re screwed … unless—hey, Stumpy.” The gnome bowed at the waist in acknowledgment. “You got a keycard for the door and the Guardians?”
He shook his body no and began to jabber.
“Tell him to slow down,” Ben said.
“You’re kidding right. You seriously speak friggin’ gnome?”
“No, High Fae, but this has similar features. Syntax, gender, some vocab.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You heard the man, Stumpy, slow it down and start over.”
Another painful couple of minutes passed, the little guy speaking his gibber-speak both too loud and too slow, like someone talking to a particularly dense and partially deaf foreigner. Ben bore it patiently, nodding enthusiastically in places, asking for repetition in others.
“Okay,” he said, “so our friend here—Razelfran, not Stumpy—says only a few of them have access to the chamber, something akin to their military officers, I think. Razelfran’s just a low-level private. The guards will attack if he crosses the entryway.”
“Right,” I said, “so we’re screwed.”
As though to emphasize my point, the approaching pack of ice gnomes chose that moment to send up a war-cry. Close now. Too close. They’d hemmed us in; gnomes behind, death trap ahead, and no way to backtrack. The shrieks came again, and I could hear foot-falls in the snow.
“Can you make a veil good enough to hide us from the spriggans?” I asked.
“Probably.”
“Probably? I need a yes or a no here.”
Ben shrugged apologetically. “Probably is the best I can give you.”
I sighed. Just perfect. “Okay,” I said, “longshot’s better than no shot, I guess. Look, I have a plan. Sort of. Get the weaves ready for the veil, and be ready to move when I tell you.” He looked a little green, but nodded his head in understanding. “And Stumpy”—I turned toward the gnome—“you stick close to my side. No noise, no unnecessary movement. ‘Kay? ‘Kay.”
I sent my probing lash back out, searching the intricate sigils again. Swirling strands of spirit and air all bound together in ice and reinforced with cables of dark energy—the unwilling sacrifice of something formally living. A delicate, pulsing lace extended up from the strange markings and fed into the fae guardians, carved with similar markings.
“Yancy, they’re coming,” Ben whispered, lips nearly pressed against my ear. “They can see us!” he squealed, voice tight with barely restrained panic.
Laughter, sharp and crazed, followed by a round of crooning hoots and the shuffle of feet over ice.
“Oh my God, I think I know which one has the keycard.”
I glanced back, just for a second. Bringing up the rear, a beastly creature three or four times the size of his brethren, easily the world’s tallest gnome. Coarse white fur running over thick muscle, built for tearing apart lesser creatures—like puny humans, maybe. Blue face with the same wispy hoarfrost beard, though its lower jaw hung open revealing rows and rows of crooked, yellow fangs. A massive set of curling ram’s horns protruded from either side of its shaggy head. And, of course, a pointy gnome hat, which really kinda ruined the killing-machine badass thing it had going. Still, I bet no one would knock this guy over if he was sitting on the front lawn.
Right, double screwed, so back to work.
There! I found the strand responsible for the primary directive. Basically, the sigils and runes carved and painted around the room summoned and held the spriggans in place, but they also supplied the creatures with a rudimentary set of orders. Namely, smash anything that doesn’t have the correct keycard. I couldn’t dispel the working, but I could disrupt the programming. Shove a stick into the bike spokes, so to speak. Sure, I couldn’t make something like this, but busting it up? Yeah. Breaking something really intricate is a lot easier than making something really intricate.
I hardened my probe into a scalpel of spirit, and, with surgical precision, severed the minuscule strand responsible for the basic orders.
I pulled Ben into the chamber, Stumpy trailing behind.
“Now, do it now!” I hollered.
Several things happened at once:
First, the gnome death squad tore into the chamber a few steps behind us, beady eyes focused, clubs and rough ice-sickles—not the same as icicles—swinging back and forth in anticipation.
Then, Ben’s illusion snapped into place with a barely audible pop and the world around us became a little hazy and slightly distorted, like seeing through a dirty fishbowl.
Finally, the spriggan guardians lurched into motion, giant wooden feet carrying the monstrosities forward with loping strides, crashing into the gnomes, scattering them like so many bowling pins. The first two or three gnomes went down easy, shock evident on their crude, icy faces. Huge knotted fists smashed into weaker flesh, caving in a skull here, turning an arm to mush there. The gnomes scrambled to react, scattering throughout the chamber, a mad rush to put distance between themselves and their traitorous Summer allies.
Ben’s face was painted with terror and horror in equal measures, the reaction of one not accustomed to violence. “What did you do,” he whispered, voice trembling.
“Corrupted the basic guard command—instead of smash anything without the proper access card …”
“Smash anything,” he said. “If they see through the veil they’ll smash us too.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I don’t think so. spriggans are Summer—no friggin’ way do they like waiting hand and foot on some Winter goons. I’m guessin’ that they’ll go for the guys with the pointy hats.”
We fell silent as the carnage unfolded. A pair of gnomes clung to the back of one of the creatures, trying to cleave into its torso with blades of frost. The spriggan spun in response, charging backward and throwing its hulking shoulders against the chamber wall. The unlucky stowaways let out screams as gore—chips of blue flesh and black blood—erupted in a stream on either side of the guardian. The other spriggan picked up a gnome by the head—its hat toppled to the side—and shook its little form in a terrible grip before repeatedly smashing it into the floor. A perfect ad for the gnome version of Don’t Shake a Baby.
The massive
horned gnome lumbered into the brawl, throwing a wrecking ball punch into the spriggan’s face. The Summer Fae stumbled back a step. The gnome advanced—a booted foot flashed out, colliding with a knee, which broke away with a crack. The spriggan crashed to the floor and the room shook and rattled with the impact. The gnome commander hurled his beefy body through the air, a linebacker making a reckless tackle.
The other Guardian caught the beast midflight, pulling it from the air like a pop fly, tree-root arms snaking around its neck. The gnome struggled, throwing spiny elbows into the spriggan’s center to no effect.
The downed spriggan reached over and grabbed its amputated leg, pulling it in place while fae power knitted the limb back together, little vines and branches merging and twisting. It stood up, lips drawn back from crude blunt teeth, as it advanced on the brutish gnome. It wrapped wooden hands around the gnome’s horns and pulled. The horns came away, a gout of blue blood spraying into the air, and the gnome howled in anguish. Not for long though, because the spriggan promptly shoved the horns inside the creature’s skull. The howl cut off and the creature twitched for a moment before growing still.
The last surviving gnome turned and fled back down the hallway, abandoning his dead or dying fellows to their fate. The spriggans weren’t having it, no sir. Dropping the broken body, both shambled down the hall like a friggin’ mudslide, the chamber rumbling with their passing. Bloodied and broken bodies lay around the room, heads crushed, limbs absent, guts burst open and smeared against the walls. Better them than us, but still … brutal.
“Let’s go,” I said, walking free of the illusion and over to the formally horned gnome commander. I surveyed the fresh corpse from a couple of feet out, one hand over my mouth and nose to block out the stink. Nasty scene, and I wasn’t too keen on rummaging through his blood-soaked pockets if I could help it. Thankfully, I saw the keycard—just a rectangle of hard black plastic with a sigil painted on the back in orange—tucked away in his boot.
I pilfered the card and walked over to the card reader. “Come on, Ben.” I ushered the other man over. “I don’t think those things’ll come back, but they could. Best to scoot our happy asses along. Hey, that means you too, Stumpster. Keep close, but don’t get in the way.” The gnome shrugged its shoulders and bowed, as though to say, Whatever, dude, let’s just get this over with.
We wound our way through the corpse-littered floor, careful not to touch any of the bodies or the puddles of sickly fluid.
I placed the keycard on the reader. The locks disengaged and I pulled the door open on oiled hinges. Time to show whoever was running this circus why taking kids was a big no-no.
FIVE:
Wonderland
A gen-u-ine winter wonderland lay behind that metal door, like the set of Santa’s workshop only about a thousand times creepier. Thick powered snow covered every square inch of the cavernous floor—pristine, unblemished, and sparkling like a thousand gemstones, so bright I could hardly look. But when I put foot to the snow, there was no crunch underfoot. It was as solid as a winter lake, but with better traction. Massive icicles jutted from the floor and ceiling, natural columns, catching a few trickling shafts of sunlight from above and breaking them into a smorgasbord of color—gold and red, azure and deep purple, just about everything else in between.
Neato Toledo, not that I’m the kinda guy to wax poetic or anything.
Against the far wall was a sight far less lovely. A cage, holding a slumbering kid of eleven or twelve, all wrapped up in thick blankets, his brown hair poking out. Ben’s grandson. Next to the cage sat a massive throne, all lacy curves and flowing lines, carved of ice in a thousand shades of blue and white. Swirls and flourishes ran over the surface of the chair, dancing with delicately wrought pictures of men and women being tortured.
A man, sawed in two. A woman, drawn and quartered. A couple being torn apart and eaten by gnomes. Pictures inside of pictures, until the eye lost count. The fae are so friggin’ creepy—can’t just have a pretty frozen paradise. No, they need to go and remind you that they’re all homicidal jackasses.
“Quite amazing, isn’t it?” said a voice from behind us.
I spun, calling up an energy shield, preparing for an assault. I shouldn’t have worried about it. The guy standing behind us, just inside the metal door, looked a breath away from turning to dust. Old, old, old. A long wispy beard of hoarfrost, similar to the ice gnomes, trailed down to his belly. Pale-blue skin so ancient it wasn’t even wrinkly, just thin as cheap toilet paper and stretched tight against a lean skeleton. Gaunt, this guy, every bone obvious on his frail and desiccated body. Nearly naked, save for a dirty cloth caked with ice covering his nether regions—thank God for small miracles—and leaning heavily on an old shepherd’s crook of plain dark wood.
This guy didn’t look like much of a threat. Shit, part of me wanted to walk him across the street, maybe help him find his seat at the Golden Corral, and then get him hooked up to his oxygen tank.
“Took me two centuries to make it, you know.” He paused, wheezing. “A reminder of my greatness while I waited out my exile.” And then he was gone, a breeze of wind fluttered past, and I spun again to find him sprawled on the throne, a skeleton king dead in his chair.
“I know well how I must look to you,” he said, “much like I look to the rest of the fae, I imagine. Old, harmless, mayhap? A lion without teeth or claws?” He chuckled.
“Even the mage underestimates me. He sees only a weak old man, that one. He brought in the harpy to make you suffer. Idiot idea. Didn’t trust me to do the job, myself. As though some winged spirit whore could best me.” He scoffed. “Ever since the high fae ousted me, usurped my kingdom. Everyone thinks me weak, but I’ll show them all. Take back what’s mine.”
“Oh shit,” I said putting the pieces together in my mind: old man, ice-cave, shepherd’s crook, stolen kingdom.
His tale wasn’t much more than a shadow of a legend; told, retold, and practically forgotten hundreds of years before I was even a glimmer in my pop’s eye.
Once upon a time, long, long ago—or so the story went—Winter had a nasty king, a merciless creature more brutal and dastardly than all of his kin and kith combined. He was a tyrant with a terribly heavy hand. Basically, the king of pricks. One cold day the King of Winter ventured out of his icy lands to visit the Black Lodge, home to Arwan the Horned, Protector of the Unfettered Fae.
While en route, he ran across a gentle and noble spirited hippalectryon—part horse, part rooster, all genetics-experiment-gone-wrong—and slew the beast because he was a colossal dick. But in doing so, he pissed off the wrong fairy, Gyre-Carlin, Mistress of the Unfettered, and a violently protective wildlife activist. She didn’t take kindly to the Winter King offing ol’ Horsy McRooster-face, so she swore revenge, orchestrated a massive uprising, and eventually drove the evil king into exile, end of story.
Except, maybe it wasn’t the end of the story. I had a feeling that said ousted king was the old fogey sitting before me.
“You’re Old Man Winter,” I said.
“Give the meat monkey a cracker,” he cackled, still unmoving. “Aye, and Jack Frost too. Used to be I ruled all of Winter. Sadly, my power has somewhat diminished. But with this new vessel …” he tilted his crook toward the boy in the cage, “I shall be young again. Powerful enough to redress old grievances.” He smiled, his teeth sharp points of black ice.
“Look Mr., err, Winter, I guess. This doesn’t have to get messy,” I said. “Give us the kid and we’ll up and ditty-bop our asses right outta here, no problem. Leave you to hang out in the fae retirement home, watching your shows all afternoon. Whatever. Bygones be bygones and all that.”
He laughed again, the sound as raspy and dry as old leaves, his body quivering. “Such a petulant child. So disrespectful. Let me tell you about bygones, young man. In bygone years, I’d have frozen off your fingers and toes, blackened your arms and legs with frostbite, and left you nothing more than a useless lump of flesh. A tors
o, forever suffering, never dying.” He laughed again.
“Wow,” I said, “sounds like you were a real people person back in the day.”
“Look here,” Ben interrupted, “I don’t care who you are. We aren’t interested in playing any kind of game with you. I’m here for my grandson, and you’ll return him now, or face the full weight and wrath of the Guild of Staff.”
Another choking round of laughs. “Nonsense, Benjamin Altschuler, we all know it is just you and this … this …” he waved his feeble hand in my direction, “washout down here. The Guild did not approve of your incursion.” He thumbed his nose. “No, you are down here because you are desperate.”
“Hey there, Golden Oldies,” I said, “I’ve been desperate plenty of times, and it usually turns out poorly for the other guy.” I pulled out my revolver—big ol’ mean-looking son of a bitch—and pointed it at him. I knew it probably wouldn’t fire, but maybe he didn’t.
“Now I know you supernatural folks don’t give a shit about mortal weaponry. Understandable, since most mortal weaponry doesn’t even function out here in the fae boonies. But this? This is a special peashooter, amigo. Bullets are cold iron, Jack, and last time I checked, you fairies don’t much care for cold iron.”
I thumbed the hammer back. A revolver doesn’t have a safety, only a double action trigger mechanism. With the hammer back, it meant the trigger was only a hairsbreadth away from sending lead down range … well, in this case the gun probably wouldn’t actually fire—might explode in my face. But in principle, hot lead was only a hairsbreadth away.
“Posturing, young man. We both know your aptly named peashooter won’t work down here.”
He waved his shepherd’s crook. A portal at the far end of the room shimmered into being, an opalescent sparkle running across the surface of the air in rippling waves. On the other side was an alleyway I knew well, one outside a banging bar and blues house back in New Orleans, right in the French Quarter.