A Fair Fight

by Perkins, Katherine

  Some way further down, there were things moving down amidst the root network, but nothing Megan could make out clearly. There was also a horrible noise that almost drowned out the music, some sort of echoing scraping noise that seemed to come from all over. Trying not to bother Mab too much, Megan whispered to Ashling, "What's all that noise?"

  "Fingernails," the pixie whispered back. "Down that way is Helheim. We're not going there. Just one of the neighbors."

  "Ah. So... the dead people are scratching at the wood. How's...how's that working out for them?”

  “For them? Not well. But someone's collecting all the chipped-off fingernails for the shipbuilders,” Ashling said.

  Megan shuddered but continued down, following to where Mab had turned the chariot, moving along the surface of the roots. When she finally got onto solid footing, she paused to check her hand again, wishing she had Lani's first-aid kit. Thankfully, it wasn't bad.

  Despite Ashling's assurance that nothing would get out, she kept watching for something trying to grab at her ankles. Though the carriage had little trouble, Megan nearly slipped a couple of times, finally noticing that, while it wasn't nearly as bad as the frozen section of the tree above, the area she was walking on had collected just enough frost to be slippery, while the rest of the wooden expanse was just wet.

  Eventually, they came to a recessed area where several roots had grown together, forming something of a natural, mossy bowl in the wood. The recess was filled with water, with a thin crust of ice formed over the top.

  Mab exited her carriage again, walking up to the water, this time using a pushpin like it was a cane. "We're as close as we're going to get just now. But we can have a look."

  "So, you're going to use the pool for scrying on somewhere?" Megan asked, kneeling next to the recess.

  Mab shifted her pin in her hand, holding on near the point, and using the red circle at the head of the pin to smash down on the ice. The impact mark was small at first, but after two more, a network of cracks started spreading through the ice. "No. I'm going to read the ice. Especially because the ice is misbehaving."

  Megan blinked. "How can ice misbehave?"

  "This time of year? It should know May Day approaches, and its time nears an end. It should be ready to rest... but instead it spreads. In Svartalfheim, it bridges gaps, it grows. Slowly, easily broken... but this ice... it seems to think there should, perhaps, be six more weeks of winter, and then more." Mab said.

  Megan looked between Ashling and Mab. "I think that might be something else."

  Mab smiled. "Just so, dear. Better weeks than three years?"

  Megan looked down at the cracks in the ice, formed from the impact of the pin. "You said it was cold there? But this is different?"

  "Cold it is,” Mab said. “But it will take the cold of the Fimbulwinter before it grows strong enough to bridge the gap between worlds. Until then, well, we can take a look."

  “And until then,” Ashling noted, “The dark elves'll just have to work on their ice-sculpting skills. First snowmen, then world domination."

  "Do they sculpt with anything else?" Megan asked, remembering the obsidian hand in her previous dream, the one that seemed like a living statue.

  "Only ice and shadow...anymore," Mab replied, without explanation.

  "And they're really, really good with ice, which kind of means giving them more of it is extra bad," Ashling began. "Like, their least talented kindergarteners would put those people who make giant ice swans for fancy weddings to shame. Except, you know, people would prefer ice swans instead of ice Professor Moriartys at their weddings, so they couldn't get many jobs. Low job prospects didn't help their mood any."

  Megan tried to picture that, then tried to regain her focus, looking down. At first, she just saw the recess. Then the cracks in the ice started to take on a pattern. For a moment, she felt dizzy, and then like she was falling. She blinked, and the surroundings changed. Now, she was standing on a rocky ledge in a vast cavern, looking down on a labyrinth below.

  While most of the walls were obviously constructed, or at least carved, the work was mostly rough. Large expanses of ground were covered with roots and vines. Other areas held stalagmites, while the high ceiling was dotted with dripping stalactites.

  While there was only one obvious, intentional entrance, moving water made another, having worn away a wall, and now formed a short waterfall, leaving a few rooms partially flooded before too much water reached cracks in the floor and disappeared deeper still.

  As she watched, crystalline threads started to extend upward from the labyrinth, then extended outward towards the walls, or angled up. Some of them broadened, or interlaced with one another. From these meeting points, larger expanses of ice formed, making up bridges and elevated walkways. Many of them bore almost snowflake-like patterns, beautiful and so thin that Megan was sure the lightest touch would disrupt them. Nonetheless, if what had been said was true, if those ever solidified, the dokkalfar would get into Faerie, and onto Earth.

  While the slender, crystalline structures spread, she traced the moving water backwards. As she watched, ice floes started forming in the river, carried along by the current. Moments later, at the shorelines, the water started to freeze. By the time she saw where the water entered the chamber, it was frozen over, though the ice remained thin.

  A towering waterfall, at least a thousand feet high, fed into the room and a vast pond, currently covered with reflective ice.

  "Okay, so the cold of the thimble-thing?” Megan asked. “What's that?"

  "That's the three-year thing Mab was talking about. Specifically, three winters in a row without a Spring," Ashling said. "They'll just keep getting colder, things won't grow, and people start losing any empathy for their fellow man. Great time to be a snowboarder or a psychopath, but otherwise, it won't be a good time."

  Megan shuddered, then nodded. "Got it. And all this icing stuff gets worse and worse, ‘til the dokkalfar join the fight?"

  "And when dokkalfar are comfortable, it's getting just cold enough for the giants to start thinking about wandering out," Ashling said.

  "And then the black ships will sail over freezing seas between worlds. The shores of your world will not be unreachable," Mab added.

  "Okay, so we don't let the winter thing happen. Where is the cauldron?"

  Mab pointed with her pin. "Within the walls, there."

  Megan pictured the labyrinth and its twists and turns in her mind, trying to make sure she had a clear ideas of it, so she could sketch it later. "And how do we get in?"

  Mab gestured to the waterfall. "You had the right idea before, but then, it was in escape. This time, if you do not give up on this quest, you'll go over the falls that cross, briefly, between worlds."

  "That wasn't any fun last time,” Megan said. “This sounds worse.”

  "Much worse," Mab said. "From Tiernan's home, travel west, ever west. When you find a solid wall, seek beneath the water for the hidden way. Drag your boat beneath with you, and through, until the river surfaces again. You must stay with it, traveling deeper and deeper. Then as you approach the falls, you must sleep—any sleep will do—and go over, and there, falling dream and reality will meet, you'll go to the places that aren't places in between... and when you wake, because you always wake before you hit bottom... right?... Oh, all right then, dear... if you wake... you will land in the chill waters that were once frozen over."

  As Mab spoke, that tart, intoxicating voice became fuzzier and fuzzier.

  When Megan's eyes opened, she was under a normal-sized tree, clutching a tablet computer. Her hand was no longer scratched—the area where she'd drawn blood just tingled a little instead. She immediately got out the stylus and began to draw a map. There was a lot to think about, and maps were enough of a habit after all the mazes she'd drawn for Mack and his LEGOs.

  So as she thought about the underworld, pondered yet another way she'd be risking her life and others' with her, she found herself adding detai
ls. She found herself sketching a LEGO version of General Inwar, with inverted shading. She then labelled the picture and its place in the maze with an arrow and, where there was room for the words, 'Here There Be Dragons Dokkalfar.'

  And then there was nothing more to draw, and she knew what she really had to do now.

  Chapter 25: Inheritance

  It didn't get an awful lot more serious than descents into underworlds, did it?

  Megan walked into the house alongside Lani's mother.

  “Megan,” her mother said. “I was waiting. For you. I wasn't expecting company, though. Hello, Kalea.”

  “Hi. I'm just here to help clarify later, Sheila,” Mrs. Kahale said. “Megan's got a lot to say.”

  Megan took a breath as her mother looked back to her. “So to begin with, I've decided to defer enrollment in college. I'm taking a year off.” Megan figured she could start small.

  Her mother's expression was tight, somewhere between a wry smile and a slight frown. “I'd suspected you might say that. You've seemed really stressed lately. It's okay, sweetie. That's an option you have. I'm not going to throw a fit.”

  “Yeah, well, there's a lot more to it than that. Mom, how would you feel if I decided to spend some time in the military?”

  “...Very confused.”

  “But is that an option I have?”

  “I... I suppose I can't say it isn't, but... Megan, why?”

  “Because it turns out there are things I can do. That I, specifically, can do, and people need me to do those things, and the situations are dangerous.”

  “That... that was your favorite pizza place that was on the news, wasn't it? It was ransacked... oh, honey, if you were there... we'll get you some counseling or something. You don't have to—”

  “It's more than that, Mom. Lots, lots more. It's not that I was traumatized. It's that I had a responsibility there. And I've been trying to live up to it, but I can't keep hiding it from you. A lot of it has to do with … having been in contact with Dad for a while.”

  Her mother froze. “I... hadn't suspected that. At all.”

  “I know. I'm sorry. And this stuff... I got into it because of stuff I inherited from him, but he's not forcing me.”

  “So he's alive?”

  “Yeah. And last I checked, he wasn't in the danger right now. Just doing politics.”

  “Last you … politics... and... what exactly is he getting you into that's dangerous?”

  “...Supernatural wars involving the end of worlds.”

  Her mother just stared at her, then picked up the phone.

  “Mom, if you're going to call a doctor, please don't.”

  “Sheila, please don't,” Mrs. Kahale said, finally stepping over and reaching out a hand. “It's not a mental health issue. At least, not the things she's saying now. There were things that some of us weren't supposed to tell you, things people thought you weren't ready to hear—and Sheila, please think of how hard to deal with you could sometimes be, just a few years back. She didn't know if you were ready. It's okay if it's too much now. It is. I'll tell you anything you need, but we can take our time.”

  Sheila O'Reilly looked to the woman, put down the phone, and then stared back at Megan.

  “And...” Megan muttered. “I can switch from head voice to chest voice perfectly.”

  At this sudden shift, Sheila looked even more speechless.

  Megan continued. “I lied about that, and I hated it. I've hated lying to you, but I was so scared of scaring you after…after everything that’s happened.”

  Sheila glanced between Mrs. Kahale and Megan, looking confused, but she didn't pick up the phone. "What sort of supernatural wars? I mean, if you're both here and saying this, I'm listening, but—"

  "But it's really hard to believe. I know. Here..." Megan would have preferred fallen leaves, but a few pages torn out of her notebook, and folded a bit sufficed instead as she went into her favorite song, raising her voice and making her pages dance around her, while she tore out and folded a couple more pages to add them to the dance.

  Her mother was staring, wide-eyed. Even while singing, Megan had to catch her eye, to look for that bright, brittle look in her mother's eyes that haunted their relationship from pre-school through junior year.

  It wasn't there. That didn't mean anything was okay. And yet still, even in shock, Sheila was chiming in softly. “So let's be life-affirming, or is that too big a word?”

  It took some effort to make sure to keep the winds tightly controlled and not knock anything inside the house down, but Megan managed, eventually guiding all of her makeshift leaves and butterflies to her hand.

  "I can do a lot of other things with my voice, too," she assured her mother, quickly realizing that the issue of how making paper dance around was useful in a warzone was not going to be her mother's first question.

  But after a long pause, it was her mother's turn to surprise Megan with her priorities.

  “Why did you lie to me about difficulties switching to head voice?” she asked quietly. “Was … was it just habit?”

  “No! No. I... I didn't want to tell you why I can't sing F#.”

  “Which is why?”

  Megan told her.

  And that was when her mother got angry.

  “Megan Bridget O'Reilly, that is NOT HOW IT WORKS!”

  “But it did work!” Megan protested. “I know it's freaky, but it did! I could tell!”

  “That is NOT what I mean, young lady! You had no right! You are not supposed to hurt yourself taking care of me. And you're not supposed to risk your life taking care of him and whatever he's gotten himself into. We are supposed to take care of you.” Megan wasn't sure if her mother was going to scream or cry. “And I know I wasn't good enough, but—”

  “—Sheila—” Mrs. Kahale tried to interrupt.

  “How did you get into this, Kalea? You weren't here back then. You never heard his stupid laugh, or the stupid scenery he made out of words, or those stupid, stupid duets. You weren't left with a toddler, a note that said 'Off for a few days in the Old Country,' and just... this...hole that'd been eaten into you. You weren't there, and you can't guess, because you were never broken, and you have a husband who always comes back!”

  “Well, I don't know if he's coming back this time.” Kalea Kahale's voice was quiet, but it cracked a little, and Sheila stilled. “I don't know if Lani's coming back. Nothing is okay here, Sheila. Nothing. But it's important.”

  "...And no one else can do this?" Sheila asked, her voice quiet again as she looked to Megan.

  Megan shook her head. "Not all of it. But there's people who protect me. Really, really good people."

  Sheila looked between the two of them. "Like Justin?"

  Megan blushed. "That's part of the really, really old-fashioned bit. I wasn't lying about that."

  Sheila was still trembling, still clearly trying to absorb a lot, but did her best to manage a smile. "I knew I liked him. So where does your father fit into all of this?"

  “Dad's not human. Mr. K's not either. Actually, Justin's the only one of our little gang that's 100% human.”

  “Well...” her mother said with weak dryness. “You can pick them better than your mom. It... it figures. I was always too busy dancing in the winter rain to press him about where he was from.”

  “Not your fault. He should've... I don't know everything he should have done. I'm just trying to say everything I can, because … because no more lying to you.”

  “You better believe no more lying, young lady.” The words were half-growled, but her mother wrapped her arms around her. “You may be graduating, but you're not 18 for almost four months. I can still ground you.”

  “When we've prevented the war, you can ground me all you want, promise.” Megan hugged back tightly. “So... yeah... Dad's a big part of why I'm involved with this. But the fact that I'm not going to run out on people, no matter how messed up everything is, never going to just lay down and give up if it means lettin
g people down... I got that all from you.”

  Sheila O'Reilly and Kalea Kahale were talking quietly on the couch when Megan headed out to Space Ship!

  Chapter 26: A Falling Dream

  Cassia’s living room was littered with all of the supplies Lani could think of and the items Megan had insisted on after her dream.

  “Okay, I get how what Kerr's brought could be useful,” Lani said. “But... I don't get how we're going to make use of it.”

  “Having a brownie may help,” Cassia said, smiling in the manically tired way she'd been since they'd seen her again.

  Said brownie nodded a little and shuffled slightly. “Not just a supply run,” Kerr said. “Of my 12,000 accrued vacation days, I am now taking my eighth and ninth.”

  Lani bit her lip. A hand set on Kerr's wrist. “Are you sure? The first seven were my responsibility, and I feel... I know it's kind of a brownie-scandal...”

  Kerr gave the weird salute—with the hand that wasn't touching Lani's. “It's okay.”

  “Even the chef can take time off, given cause?” Megan asked quietly.

  Kerr answered even more quietly, “I certainly have one.”

  “No offense meant to brownie propriety, but is a vacation really more controversial than going into an extremely dangerous realm in order to retrieve an artifact that has a small chance of helping the peace?" Justin asked.

  "You haven't exactly voiced any objections," Cassia said.

  Justin nodded. "Obviously."

  “So what's the plan?” Lani asked Megan. "And why did we need all of these things?"

  “Ashling, you can help navigate, right?” Megan asked as she passed the map around to everyone. Lani took it and started encasing it in something Megan assumed was waterproof.

  "Sure," Ashling said. "But they have traps, and mystical alarms, and all sorts of things. It's hard to figure out how to be safe and discreet until we've already gone over the falls.”

  “I'd like a plan before that,” Lani said.

  "Most of what the dokkalfar have is magic in some way, right?" Megan asked, looking to Justin. "So the Claiomh Solais should protect us from at least some of it."