THE EIGHTH INTERRUPTION

 

Gathadriel Mithnus was the fairy sort to listen, obey, and heed the signs. But never did he run from a fight, for it was not within his bones to fear the spirits of darkness that whittled away at Rime souls.

He rather enjoyed quarrelling with them, truly.

But on this occasion, he never intended to face off with the legion that swept up from below the snow; long limbs and whispers of curses upon their dry, thin lips. Headed to fetch a Trite, he was. But he had been surrounded, and so, fetch a Trite he did not.

For seven straight sunrises he battled the feasting spirits in the snow, until the skies grew dim each eve and after. The creatures had snapped at his tattooed flesh, catching a rise from his flaming symbols. ‘Twas a war not fought in flesh and blood, but by spirit against spirit. They tore at his wings, bit at his ankles, and spit falsehoods against his truths. Even so, Gathadriel defeated them; two hundred and fifty plus five feastbeggars had turned to black stains of ash upon the glittering white snow, marking the floor of the Glass Woods like burn patches.

Upon glancing at the Winter skies, the fairy counted back his days. Much could have happened in seven days’ time. So, Gathadriel inhaled a breath of cold wind and defeated dark spirits, and he trudged back the way he had come, to alert Porethius of these new creatures.

But when Gathadriel arrived at the factory with its metallic song of working machines, he took inventory of the beating hearts and moods in the air, and he discovered that Porethius’s presence was far away.

Gathadriel looked out at the night with a speck of trouble on his brow, the scarcity of souls a great weight upon his shoulders.

“Edward!” The fairy’s dark skin pulled tight as he turned and marched through the factory, searching the dim halls for his assignment.

In the back of the meeting room, the fairy found the Green once-prince tucked away in a corner, sitting with his arms wrapped about his knees. Gathadriel halted. “Are you ill?”

Edward lifted his eyes, heavy with pink and a leaden spirit. “I have hardly slept since you left,” the once-prince admitted. “All is wrong, Gathadriel.”

A knock on the factory doors drew the fairy back out to the main room where a short, well-aged man with a white beard had let himself in. The man carried a velvet suitcase much too large for any measure of journey, studded with gears and trinkets.

“Doorkeeper.” The fairy edged across the floor, studying the ancient ally he had not crossed since the beginning of time itself.

The aged man blinked his golden irises. “Where is Porethius-Prunella-Sugar Plum?”

Gathadriel straightened. “I will speak in her absence,” he said.

The Guard of Doors tapped a finger against his suitcase handle. Then, seeming convinced, he said a thing that brought the dwarves, the Chocolatiers, and Edward Haid out of hiding—all of whom had been spying from the shadows.

“I come against my better judgement,” the aged man clarified to start. “But even so…I bring poor news of bad tidings about a thing I have seen across the wintersphere.”