The angry squeaks and grunts slowed and stops as the new crowd disengaged from his usual cohort. A male and female elbowed their ways out of the fray and stood before him before going down on one knee in practiced unison. “Majesty! Frostling units reporting in, Sir!”
Behind them, the new tribe of Frostlings lined up in, if not military precision, then at least somewhat straight lines.
Jack’s legs stopped sending signals to his brain. The points of Lin’s earring dug into his palm. Dizziness swept over him. “I don’t underst—”
Then to crown the madness, the world flipped inverse again and the Seneschal appeared. And there goes the calm.
~*~
“Winter has awakened.”
The statement from the hooded being couldn’t have sounded more smug. Jack could have gleefully punched the thing in the hood, except he wasn’t one hundred percent positive it even had a face.
He shuddered, suddenly aware that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Cold didn’t bother him, but the Seneschal’s presence seemed to be an exception, because he was suddenly so cold his nipples hurt. “God, what now?” He tucked his hands into his armpits and glared at the intruder.
“The Kin of Winter assemble to serve the regent.”
“Serve me to what?” Sure, it might have been a deliberate misunderstanding of the Seneschal’s words, but then again, maybe not. Better safe than lunch.
The hood flapped. “The humble Winterkin assemble to serve the regent as Winter re-enters the field of play between realms.”
“Hey, no! I’m not playing with any of you, in this or any other realm. How many times do I have to make that clear?”
A faint indigo glow peeked out from just beyond the borders of what looked like flecked, soft-nap fabric, until you looked closer at it and saw that the flecks you thought were lint twinkled. And if you let your brain relax its chokehold on perspective for an unvigilant instant, you realized that twinkle came from atoms of hydrogen. Smashed together under enormous pressure, and in great quantities, but very small scale. “The crown-bearer is now in play. Other realms are aware. Winter must engage with strength.”
How do I deal with this as quickly as possible so I can get back to my own life? “Aren’t you supposed to be taking care of this stuff for me? I said I’d hold the crown, not wear it.”
“It was Majesty’s choice to act outside Winter’s boundaries.”
“It most certainly was not my choice!” He tucked his hands more firmly into his armpits. “Nobody warned me that magic circles created by a pair of kindergartners were an occupational hazard!”
“Majesty did not ask.” It might be his imagination, but he swore the being’s robe rippled with evil glee.
For a creature made up of nothing but robe, the Seneschal had a way of inspiring emotions in him. Abject terror, the intense desire to choke whatever was under that hood… “And that’s the deal, isn’t it? If I don’t ask, I don’t have to know, and I’m not subject to it.”
“The agreement applies to that which lies within Majesty’s realm only. No other realm is obligated to honor it.”
Suddenly tired of standing there and freezing his man-tits off, he stomped around the Seneschal and back towards the sleeping area. His shirt from last night was gone—home with Lin, he remembered, with another, tiny woo-hoo of questionable triumph—but this morning’s shirt and all its sweaty workout glory was still in a wadded-up ball on the floor. He plucked it up carefully, wishing something cleaner were out in the open. Experience with these sessions in Seneschal-time had taught him that interacting with rigid things outside of Seneschal-time, like furniture, were a bad idea. Pulling open a drawer at normal speed in Seneschal-time would pull the thing apart in real time. Something about mass and acceleration and molecules moving through time-spaces.
The shirt assumed its colors after a moment of being in his hand and he was free to pull it over his head. Something pinched his palm and he glanced down to see Lin’s snowflake earring. The crystal points had left impressions in his skin, reminding him of last night’s weirdness. If the Seneschal’s words were true—and he had no doubt they were; say one thing, the bastard had never lied to him—but if the Seneschal was right, then the other realms—like the wild realm he’d found himself in last night—would expect him to know the rules. He’d be forced to abide by whatever weirdness affected the Oddlings. Like kids’ magic circles.
“Looks like I was right to become a recluse,” he muttered. “I leave for one night—I don’t even go that far—and I end up having to make deals with things that aren’t supposed to exist.”
The Scarecrow’s message returned to poke his brain. If the thing were to be believed, then he and the Scarecrow—let’s be honest, it was Lin and the Scarecrow doing most of the deal-making while you were busy trying to come up with rhymes—had been dealing on friendly terms. He swallowed against sudden dryness in his throat as he remembered the moment when they shook, er, limbs. The taste of dry feathers and leaf rot, the caw of crows, beating wings inside his head.
~*~
He peered around at the un-light of the loft. The Chillsprites and the Frostlings, like everything else, seemed frozen in tableau. But last night, Lin had been aware of events that happened between moments, as it were. Did the Seneschal’s peculiar power have limits? Curiosity, the need to know and understand, churned in his chest, begging him to let fly with the questions. He bit down harder on his tongue. Casual curiosity had no place here. The price of asking the wrong question was the weight of its answer. What do I need to know right now. What do I need to know?
He let himself breathe again. His heart flopped a beat against his palm and he glanced down into his hand. Lin’s snowflake earring lay in his palm. Like his skin, the crystals and silvery setting were not inverted. Earlier, he’d been agonizing over the fact that he scraped his knuckles trying to get the thing out from under the dresser. Now he would gladly risk scraping his brain if it meant he could shove this entire chunk of his life under there with the dust bunnies.
He chose his words carefully. “What specific action do I have to take to get you to go away. That isn’t ‘take a crown’?”
The Seneschal’s robe stiffened in an irritated snap. “Majesty is now an active participant in the Realms. Majesty must appoint advisors to carry out his will.”
Jack felt a savage grin threaten to break through his teeth. Finally! Outwitted the bastard! “Fine,” he said. “You do it.”
The robe went back to its gentle ripple. “Only a Kin of that realm may act as advisor to the realm’s regent.”
Jack squeezed the snowflake until the points dug into his palm. “Really? So you’re not—” He broke off before he could ask the question, laughing without humor. “Oh ho.” He pointed to the Seneschal. “Don’t think I didn’t just see what you did there.” Oh, what kind of Kin are you, Seneschal, he’d ask, and the damn thing would flip back its hood and show him something so hideous and Cthonic that he’d lose what little mind he had left and end up drooling on the floor until the neighbors found him and sent him to live in a mental hospital. Thanks, but no thanks. “Nevermind. I’ll appoint something from my entourage.” He delivered the statement with mocking emphasis on the pretentious.
“Does Majesty not wish to be informed of the nature of his responsibilities?”
Jack balanced on the balls of his bare feet. The Seneschal’s robe flipped in agitation. Hah. Not used to being outsmarted, are you? “Nah.” He sliced the hand that held Lin’s earring through the air. “We’re done here.”
To his astonishment, it actually worked. The inverse flickered out, resetting all the colors and starting everything up again. He stared at his hand for a second and wondered if this was something new, or something he didn’t know he’d always been able to do.
Jack searched the clump of blue and brown bodies. The Chillsprites were prostrate on the floor, only occasionally peeping up at him in awe and wonderment. The larger Frostlings knelt with heads bowed, but shou
lders back, attempting to stay stock-still, but failing in favor of an over-excited vibrating that made him wonder if they were about to pee themselves.
Save for one, near the back. Her head was bowed, the soft frost-fluff hair hanging down over her eyes, but he saw glints of wintergreen light peeking through the shaggy strands of hair. And she wasn’t vibrating with excitement. “Hey,” he said, crouching down beside her. “You have a name?”
She turned her gaze on him. Her eyes weren’t human eyes, but swirling orbs that flickered with light like Northern Lights. “Majesty makes clever jest to this one, Majesty does.”
“I’m not joking. What’s your name?”
Her eyes weren’t human, but they didn’t need to be for him to read the clear message in her expression. This was getting better and better. “This one serves as Frostling tribe. Majesty.” The last word was bitten out through clenched little teeth.
She’s perfect. “Can you answer questions for me?”
“If this one knows the answers, Majesty, this one must provide them.”
“Great. Come on.”
~*~
He picked his way over the clusters of half-sized little gremlins and back into the sleeping area. The Seneschal said he needed an entourage. Famous people need entourages when they want to be seen.
The Frostling paused at the edge of the screen, an expression of wary uncertainty twisting her delicate features.
Jack waved her forward. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, I’m not going to bite your head off.” He pulled an undershirt on and tucked it into his pants, then threaded his arms into the sleeves of an Oxford pinstripe in light gray and violet. “I just need an advisor.”
“Majesty wishes a Humble to serve in this capacity?” She lowered her head. The gesture could have been interpreted as one of humility, but only if he hadn’t caught the glance she shot his way. “This one will serve…but why?”
Jack crouched down so he could meet her eyes. “You don’t think I make a very good Majesty, do you?”
She swallowed visibly. “M-majesty bears the crown. This one is humble.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He wondered, for the first time, what the other crown-bearers must have been like. He ducked his head further to catch her eyes. “In fact, I bet you think I’m kind of a dumbass, too.”
She began to edge back. “Frostling tribe serves the crown-bearer!”
Crap. Her expression had gone from distaste to terror. He held out a hand. “Stop!”
She froze. Literally. Her body, sapphire blue skin and piecemeal armor made of what looked like it might be fish-scales all paled with a thin frosting of ice that spread over her body and locked her in place.
A curl of uncertainty trailed through his stomach. Did I do that? “Wait—I didn’t mean it like that. You can move.”
The icy rime coating her body splintered with fractures. Tiny flakes of ice-crust fell from her limbs as she shook her arms and legs and glared up at him. “Say as they will about incompetence of the sleeping regent, but Proud cruelty awakens just fine.”
‘They’ were saying he was incompetent? Who were ‘they’ and how were ‘they’ watching? “Hey, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t even know I could do something like that! I’m not cruel.” He didn’t even want the job, what did ‘they’ expect?
“’Tis as much a cruelty to turn a face away in ignorance as it is to gaze upon in carelessness. And twice-cruel to bait a trap and mete out punishment for the entrapped.”
“Well, I’m sorry, okay. It won’t happen again.” He rose, conscious of the way his knees creaked and more than a little embarrassed at his unintentional harm. Definitely not thinking about any guilty twinges at the back of his neck, either. “And I never set out to trap you. Believe me. I just got out of one and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”
“Frostling tribe serves Majesty, at Majesty’s pleasure. The crown-bearer bears the crown with wisdom and justice.” Her little body quivered, but she stared straight ahead when she spoke, like a school kid reciting multiplication tables.
“Come on, now. You don’t believe that any more than I do.” He kept his voice soft, his tone gentle, as he held up a hand to stave off her protest. “I’m not trying to get you into trouble. That’s not how I roll.” He sat on the bed, keeping enough distance between them that she’d at least stop shaking. “Look, I know I’m a bad majesty, and it’s okay to say it. I also know I’m pretty clueless as to what goes on with all you Oddlings.” He leaned down to make his point. “I never wanted this crown, okay? Somebody else would make a far better king for you guys, but I can’t seem to get rid of the thing. So in the absence of being a monumental screw-up, I’m electing to be a do-nothing.”
Her expression turned from fear to puzzled curiosity. “Is Majesty’s nature such that Majesty holds the crown, but cannot act? This is not possible. As Frostling tribe is Frostling tribe, so is Proud Winter naught other but Proud Winter.”
“I don’t get it.” She cocked her head, and a strange thing made itself known to him. “I mean, I don’t understand your words.” The automatic, unwelcome knowledge that seemed to jump into his head any time one of the little critters made language-noises felt conspicuous in its absence. He sort-of missed it—at least the part that answered the questions before the avalanche of consequences hit.
She seemed to become more comfortable with the idea that he was not about to squash her for some imagined slight. Again, he wondered what the guy before him was like. But not yet enough to ask. “Use plain words, okay. And quit looking like you’re going to pee yourself. I swear I won’t hurt you.”
She shifted from foot to foot, then finally set her mouth and crouched down, knees sticking up at angles, not unlike the Chillsprites. She could be easily mistaken for a tree branch, or driftwood, if she weren’t blue. Maybe everyone does see them, it’s just their minds fill in the blanks with what they’re supposed to see instead of what’s there. His old art theory classes based their entire curriculum on that particular illusion.
“Frostling tribe is Frostling, Majesty. As dew made solid under moon’s chilly light. As water upon glass becomes like glass when wind’s bite overpowers heat of sunlight. Frostling tribe walk boundaries between freeze and cold.”
He rested his elbows on his knees. “That’s pretty poetic.” He was getting a clearer picture now. He’d never been given to the fanciful in his artistic style, but he could see how another artist might sketch it out—Frostlings dancing across window panes on cold nights, freezing condensation, or dancing on dewy grass until it whitened with a frost that would melt away as soon as the sun showed its face. If the Chillsprites liked to climb up skirts and down open collars, then the Frostlings seemed to be less…people-oriented.
The little creature’s skin deepened. “Ah…this one is humbled by Majesty’s praise.”
“So now, what do you do, exactly? Er, I mean, how do you serve the Majesty?” He couldn’t bring himself to say, ‘serve me’ because the words would come out sounding like ‘pretentious asshole’ and he wasn’t ready to assume that title.
But this seemed like the right question to ask. She drew herself up. “Frostling tribe carries Winter’s will to the far reaches of the realm.” Her shoulders sagged a bit. “It is not so long a trip as in days gone by, Majesty.”
“You’re telling me Winter is shrinking? Like the polar ice caps?”
“This one should not need to tell this to Majesty.”
Ah, there was the edge again. “You want me to do something about that?”
Her alien eyes swirled, and Jack wanted to squirm away from her gaze. He settled for looking down at the snowflake earring. “I don’t know how the borders are drawn. Hell, I don’t even know if the rules of geography work the same!”
The corners of her mouth pulled down. “’Tis Majesty’s will that Winter carries out.” Resentment came creeping back into her tone.
“Hah. That’s a laugh. I can’t even get you guys to leave me alone for one night
.” Nevertheless, a little curl of doubt wormed its way through him. Ever since the Oddlings first started plaguing his life, he’d been wishing they’d dry up and blow away. Was his wish manifesting?
“’Tis not a thing to laugh at. As Majesty runs from the Realm, runs from the Kin, the Realm and Kin have no choice but to follow wherever the crown leads.” Her expression grew a little more sullen.
This discussion was venturing into uncomfortable territory. “That’s insane.” He ran fingers through his hair. Still, the antagonistic little advisor could at least be reasoned with, up to a point. Much moreso than the Chillsprites. And that might just be a start. “Ok, listen. Maybe…maybe we can work something out.”
~*~
With the Frostling advisor worked out, Jack still possessed an apartment full of two tribes of Oddlings, neither of whom got along well with the other. He emerged from his bedroom into still more chaos.
“Lazy, shiftless, undisciplined tribe of nuisance!” The Frostling that had saluted him before now bawled over a tangle of Chillsprites busy playing with a box of staples. His desk drawer stood open and trashed. Office supplies dusted the floor—pen caps, some of his good paper, and all of his colored pencils—some of which were now acting as weapons in the hands the Frostlings, while the Chillsprites drew on each other’s faces.
Jack smacked his hand into his forehead and dragged it down his face. “This is my fault, isn’t it?”
“Huuut!” The Frostling…Commander, for lack of a better identifier, called his tribe into place. “How may Frostling tribe serve Majesty?”
Jack pointed to the mess on the floor. “By not trashing my place, huh? There’s no royal maid service, you know.”
One of the Chillsprites cleared its throat, sounding like one of Rocky’s old squeaky chew-toys. “Ahh, Majesty…”
Jack blinked. “Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know, and I don’t care. You guys have to clean up your own mess. And put my pencils back. I need those.” Come to think of it, he was coming down with the urge to draw again. It didn’t come as often nowadays. Even while he was immersed in building code inspectors and arguments with subcontractors at Edifice, he was still, at heart, an artist.
WinterJacked: Book One: Rude Awakening Page 13