AN INTERRUPTION

 

‘Twas a vision, no shinier than a silver spoon, no larger than a mustard seed, that had filled the mind of Kaley Bell the moment her hand had received that ancient stone of glory: a spherical orb of revelations and Truth.

The resting spark within her chest took off, ready to embark on the mission of a saint. With fire in its gallop, and a screech to ruffle the veils of darkness in its path, it thundered across Winter’s winds into the Dungeon of Souls with the speed of an arrow, slicing through the laugh of a witch oozing up from the floors.

In the vision, Kaley watched the spark light the dark tunnel. She tasted a sweet flavour which urged her to breathe a message in a different tongue.

“Fear not. I bring you good tidings of great joy.” Her intercession soared into the hearts of the believers where gold and colours had become weak. And she added, “Elowin watches.”

Boys in blackbird coats climbed to their knees to behold the spark, and other believers down the hall rose on wobbling legs. The spark whispered, “Greater is he who sits upon the True throne of Winter, than he who lives in the gutters and shadows.”

One folk cheered, and then another, until the volume of the believers sent the feastbeggars slinking back into the crevices of abandoned tunnels.

“Glory to Elowin!” one such believer chanted.

“Elowin is with us!” another one said.

“We are not alone!”

“We are not alone!”

“We are not alone!” they cried.

 

 

Kaley could not shake the chants from her ears even a measure of days later.

‘Twas youthful Lucas Leutenski who found her standing atop a hill, peering into the whisking snow. The air was white for a great distance.

“Are we almost there?” she asked, thinking of her beloveds across the intersect. But Lucas drew around her, an impossibly wide smile lingering on his closed mouth. He was a measure taller than she, and Kaley was forced to lift her head to meet his gaze.

“I have no apprentice, darling, which means I’m free to take on a charge. And you now need a guardian, so since I’ll certainly be your first choice, I’d like to state my conditions.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Kaley said. “I choose Zane.”

Lucas laughed. “No, you don’t. You choose me. So, back to my conditions—”

“You wouldn’t be able to keep up with me, Lucas Leutenski,” she said. “No offense.”

Lucas blinked as she settled her gaze back on the whitish landscape. He moved in to cut off her line of sight, capturing her in his shadow. “You don’t know me well enough to realize that putting that little bit of challenge in your voice only makes me want to do it more,” he tilted his head, topaz eyes swimming, “darling.”

Kaley bit her lips so she would not crack a smile, but when Lucas glanced past her into the haze of flakes, he stilled. The Patrolman grabbed the staff from his back as a curly-haired figure emerged from the whisking snow.

Eliot Gray wore a silvery coat no longer; a long jacket hugged his body now, a shade of black that looked dangerously close to raven feathers.

“How far is it to the White Kingdom?” Kaley whispered as Eliot approached them with a chipped Patrol staff in his hand.

“Too far to outrun him,” Lucas replied as blades of ice emerged from his weapon.

Eliot stopped at the foot of the hill and raised a hand. “I came to help,” he said to Lucas. “And to apologize. I have information on Nightflesh, and Asteroth, and what they’re planning. I can’t go back to them now that I’ve left, they’ll turn me to snow. Please, Leutenski, I know the rest of the Patrol have been captured and you and Cohen are all that’s left. Let me help you.”

“How did you find us?” Lucas eyed the once-Patrolman, and his presumptuous jacket.

“I followed your footprints. I got to the factory shortly after you left.”

“And Cohen didn’t run you through?”

“Cohen wasn’t there.” But Eliot’s gaze flickered to Kaley. He had an unusual look. “What…happened, exactly?”

“Is your chest feeling a little cold these days, Gray?” Lucas taunted, and Kaley zipped her coat up over the orb.

But Eliot sighed. “Leutenski, I know where this path will lead in a day’s time. Please, let me come. Elowin is the only one who can help me now.”

Kaley’s insides thawed, and she thought of the spark of hope in the Dungeon of Souls. “Let him come,” she said. “But hurry up, Eliot. I plan to arrive by nightfall.”

“Whaaaaaaaaat?” Lucas rounded with wide eyes to look her right in the face.

“He’s just going to follow us anyway.” Kaley turned to head down the other side of the hill.

“Not if I whip his scotcher,” Lucas articulated through his teeth.

Eliot rolled his eyes as he walked past to join Kaley, and Lucas scrambled to catch up, wedging himself between the two. He cleared his throat. “Prepare to be serenaded the entire walk, Gray.”

Kaley and Eliot both cringed when Lucas began to sing.

And so, they set forth—Trite, Patrolman, and once-Patrolman-perhaps-maybe-a-Patrolman-again, skating toward that great barrier beyond which the kingdom of light and colours awaited. Where those who had passed on had found themselves alive again, and those who once were lost, now were found.

But as they reached the great barrier to the dwelling place of Truth himself, Lucas took Kaley’s fingers and tugged her to a halt.

“Someone’s up there,” he whispered, drawing Eliot to glance ahead also.

Two figures battled in the snow before the wall, jumping as high as the sky itself, slashing with wood and ice.

“It’s Zane!” Kaley realized, pulling forward, but Lucas tightened his grip.

“Stay back, Trite,” he instructed. Lucas slid down the hill and inched toward the pair cutting and slashing and heaving and jumping.

“That’s Jolly Cheat with him,” Eliot whispered as he followed. They were close enough to hear the pumping threats, the screaming hearts, the grunts of hits being taken.

Zane slashed his staff, drawing a spiralling worm of ice from the ground and sending it plummeting over the Court magician. Jolly hacked back, turning it to glassy dust. A patch of swollen flesh covered Jolly’s brow, and Zane’s lips dripped with red.

“They’re going to turn each other to snow,” Lucas muttered, drawing his own Patrol staff. The movement caught Jolly’s attention.

Eliot did not draw his weapon.

Suddenly Jolly threw his head back, and a crazed laugh echoed to the sky. “Come! Come, Leutenski, you young thing. Let us all have a merry brawl.”

Zane’s head snapped toward where Lucas stood, and he blinked, shaking the fog from his eyes. “You finally bloody made it,” he called at Lucas. “Cheat’s been hunting you since you left the factory! It’s been a footrace to the border!”

“A footrace I won.” The madman twirled his staff.

“You old snoot,” Lucas called back to Jolly, marching over with his weapon at the ready. “You think you stand a chance against three sputtlepuns?”

But Jolly’s nickel eyes flashed, and he leered. “The odds are more even than you think.”

Lucas paused his marching. And he sighed. “Frostbite.” With a wheel of his heels, he turned in time to block the hook of Eliot’s charging weapon.

Kaley watched them, her hands balling into fists. Glancing at the barrier, she dropped her backpack and broke into a sprint, aiming for that glittering white wall whose light was warm, and welcoming. Her spirit lifted as she slid to meet it—

It nearly turned her nose to a snub when she smashed against the wall, and she bounced back.

The four combatants stopped as ripples of lightening snapped across the barrier. They looked to Kaley, and all at once, the four folk rushed in her direction. Jolly summoned a wave of ice teeth that lunged over where Kaley lay. Zane tried to break it with a wall of snow, but Eliot collided against him.

Lucas though, he made it.

The youthful Patrolman threw himself atop the Trite, abandoning his weapon in the snow.

Kaley’s heart pounded as scraps of black fabric ripped from Lucas’s back where the wave rolled over him. The Patrolman gritted his teeth—the frost’s fangs tore his skin, splinters of ice stained with Rime blood tumbling off.

Kaley gaped as Lucas squeezed his eyes shut. After a heart pumping second or three, she reached into the pocket of Lucas’s jacket and stole a thing; a pearly button which he had stolen from someone else. And as the ice roared in her ears, she lifted to press her warm lips against his.

‘Twas a simple kiss, one no larger than an ink pen’s point. But Lucas did not want a simple, modest, teensy-tiny kiss.

His watery eyes blinked back open, and he kissed her back, pressing his mouth properly on hers. The snow settled around them, but only when Lucas was satisfied did he pull up to let her breathe. Kaley gasped and blinked, then blinked a time again.

Three figures stood over them. When Kaley shook her mind clear, she found three rather confusing looks:

Zane Cohen looked ready to burst. Perhaps that one was not so confusing.

Eliot Gray looked bothered.

Jolly Cheat though, he looked worried. But the most peculiar part was that none of them were fighting any longer. Past them, the barrier shifted with a burst of colour, and the boys turned.

Groaning bounded down the wall—like the echo of a turning ship—and with a surge of glassy light, a tunnel tore open. Dust of gold coiled at the edges, and a warm breeze rushed through.

Zane helped Lucas to his feet, but none spoke. For, standing in the mouth of the tunnel, was Elowin.

Zane tumbled back to his knees. Awe, and a thousand plus a thousand more feelings lingered in the air as the Patrolman peeled away his gloves with shaking fingers.

Colours and songs drifted from the King of Truth, words of wisdom glided o’er his flesh. Bronze, green, and purple tones made a kaleidoscope in his eyes as he looked at them one by one. But his gaze rested upon Zane.

“Can I…Can I see them?” Zane’s voice rose with a deep ache.

A warm spirit moved along the snow. “You cannot pass through until your time.” Elowin’s words sounded like the rustling of leaves in a soft breeze, or the trickle of water over rocks. “Thomas and Mikal will stand to receive you when that day comes.”

Jolly looked as though he had been slapped across both cheeks—blots of flush touched his flesh, and his eyes were penetrating and wild. He stared past Elowin as though he was seeing a ghost down the tunnel.

But Kaley had not come to make a way for others to ask for what they should not have. She approached the tunnel but did not enter.

“I…” she began, piecing her thoughts back together. “I came here for Helen. I want to give her a chance to start a life at home.” The inky laps of colour coming off Elowin danced in response.

“I know this is a strange request but…” Kaley fiddled with her fingers. She was suddenly quite aware of the electric-blue-eyed Patrolman at her left. “I want Helen to forget about Winter,” she said.

Sure enough, Zane’s head snapped toward her. “You bloody what?”

“Not forever,” Kaley clarified. “Just long enough for her to rest, and to forget her fears.”

“And exactly what measure of time are you asking for, Trite?” Zane stood and drew a step closer.

Kaley turned back to Elowin. “Let her forget until…” she paused, her finger tracing the pearly button in her pocket, “until a Rime Folk returns her memories with a kiss,” she decided.

Everyone looked at Zane, who blanched, and Eliot grunted in disgust. Lucas grinned.

“That’s all. We’ll go now, but please ask Helen if she’s willing to let go of her memories so she can get the rest she needs,” Kaley said. She clasped her hands together to stop her fidgeting.

The warm breeze ruffled her hair and flitted over the snow toward Zane, releasing a whisper.

I have heard. Elowin didn’t speak the words, but his music promised it to Kaley’s heart.

His multicoloured gaze settled on Eliot, and this time Elowin spoke aloud. “Remember, forgiveness and redemption are only one prayer away.”

There was a pause; a gust skated across the snow, twirling into Kaley’s collar. Then Jolly Cheat started to laugh; a loud, crazed, chilling hoot that tore Kaley’s attention to the magician. It seemed the sort of laugh that might carry on forever, except that one from the group brushed by like a shadow, the cackles drowning out his footsteps.

A silver dagger slid from Eliot Gray’s pocket, and Kaley shrieked at the blackness of his eyes as he sailed past her and thrust the silver blade at the True King of Winter.

Elowin did not move as the weapon plunged across the boundary. The moment the blade entered the tunnel, it liquified, and Eliot halted as it melted over his fingertips with a sizzle. ‘Twas Eliot who shrieked now, and as he tore his hand back into Winter, the metal froze and clasped to his flesh.

The following moment hung in stillness, the once-Patrolman’s cries echoing o’er the gales in the distance as he held up his silver-tipped fingers.

“Ah,” the madman in red finally spoke. Jolly knocked his staff against the barrier, igniting a fresh array of lightening. “I see nothing I try will work here. It seems we’ll have to wait for another eve to settle our score, Patrolman,” he said to Zane, taking one last sidelong glance at the tunnel entrance. Jolly reached for Eliot’s collar and dragged him toward the hills. “Run, spinbug. Before they decide to catch you.”

The two sailed off into the whisking storm while the tunnel began to close, its creaking competing with the howling wind as it moved to separate the living from the truly living, once again.

“Thank you for meeting with us!” Kaley called into the shrinking gap, and Elowin’s whisper-song offered one comfort more before the tunnel sealed:

I am with you always, even on the darkest of eves. You are not alone.

Kaley found herself reaching for Lucas’s hand as the barrier smoothed out, the creases disappearing and the warm wind along with it. A dot of blood stained the youthful Patrolman’s thumb, and she swallowed. Perhaps he was her Patrolman after all.

“Take me home now, Lucas,” she said.