Glass Winter | Chapter III

Despite travelling together by sled for over two days, Quinart still only saw Sevt as a mystery. He might have already known everything there was to know about the man, perceiving his insolent grit and perseverance. And yet there was a secrecy about him. Quinart no longer dreamed of any tangible vision save for a timeless darkness between his waking hours, but he could not recall the dancing lights causing such distress as they now did for Sevt. His sleep would be restless, awaking with violence to wander beyond their resting site before returning to bed an hour later. Quinart might have better explained the prophetic disposition of dreams in a place like this. Probing Sevt the following morning on what had disturbed him so would only result in dismissive remarks.

“One can twist anything into prophecy.”

This is why he believes his dream of Faith is merely a reflection of a memory.

The air grew colder as they rode on day after day, resting only once between sleeps for the huskies to catch their breath. Whether Sevt was grateful for his rescue or not was too an enigma. Aloofness would be followed by respectability, but neither overwhelmed the other. His was a bitter force hanging onto half-blinded faith, because he knew the alternative would be to rot. Quinart had given up hope of escape long ago, learning to love the barren as it were. To dance in its misery.

Hope came in the form of the commune with others like Quinart and Sevt. Its men knew of a passage through the Mountain Wall where the dancing lights would often guide those unburdened by fear. Many chose to stay behind, to feed on the fish of the icy river or the species of lichen forever hibernating under the snow. The prospect of escape before a massif so portentous was overwhelming. Quinart had not bothered to inquire after those that made it back intact with accounts of the other side. The passages were not the end, it seemed. The lights would guide you on long after the mountains should you survive through them in the first place.

“I think I see trees.”

A wall of spruce marked the horizon, their canopies nigh invisible against the sky but with trunks black against the snow underneath.

“We’ll be nearing the vale in less than half a day. Watch for distorted stars, those will be ice pillars guiding us to the highway.”

Sevt seemed to understand well enough, and soon they saw a vertical band of bending sky a hundred feet high. Upon reaching the first row of pines a column of ice came into view, one side of its length honed to a blade, resembling a crude exaggerated shaft indicating the direction they should travel in.

“Quite the engineers.”

Quinart chuckled, “For men such as yourself did they stack and carve these blocks of ice, so you could find your way. If we hadn’t met, you might have reached this forest and later the commune.”

“Idealists. They stake a lot of hope on my finding this.”

“If the lights only travel one way—”

“And I don’t hate them for it.”

There he goes again. Contradicting. Or is he defending…?

More likely than not it was the cynical humour of a man that had survived more than he had hoped to. They followed the arrows for an hour to the east, each a mile apart. Quinart had been off by more than he liked.

“They’ve been here awhile, then? To have made so many.” Sevt studied each pillar closely as they skidded past on their sled.

“Nobody truly knows how long we’ve been in the dark. Perhaps it’s in this way we retain what sanity we have left – by keeping our hands busy!”

The highway soon revealed itself, a snow-laden track cut through the forest, flanked by two ice arrow pillars at its entry. The dogs recognised the road home and picked up their pace. Sevt would claim he heard wolves grunting among the trees, as if following their sled. Quinart knew otherwise, but upon reaching the cliffside of the vale below and the commune within, he would, too, hear a voice on the wind. This one was human, and she was singing.

One of the locals has scaled a mountain?

The only explanation for how such a song could resound through the valley, with the jagged massif in question, thrusting the sky miles ahead, the most likely source. Neither Sevt nor the huskies reacted to it.

“Quite a voice she has…”

Quinart noted how none of the words were native to the vernacular of the commune, and he himself could not understand them. At their mention, the singing faded away, swallowed by the wind.

“I don’t hear a thing.” Sevt was looking around, before studying Quinart’s own look of perplexion.

“Your head still square on your shoulders, Quin?”

A trick of the wind, no less.

They carried on, taking the track that gently sloped down to the east end of the vale about two miles away. More than once had Quinart experienced auditory trickery when traversing the barren, but never so close to home when all his thoughts would, by habit, be warm and occupied. The dogs seemed no different than usual though their pace had slowed from when they were pulling the men through the forest. When the lights danced in the skies they would suffice as an illuminative source for the commune’s inhabitants, and even now their green and blue shimmered above the men’s heads. Even so, Quinart could not remember a time when no light at all came from the village. Observing it now from the clifftop it stood completely dark.

“Something’s different, I think.”

He explained the situation to Sevt. The other’s grip tightened around his signature staff.

“Nothing to be concerned about,” Quinart directed the huskies left upon reaching the end of the track, driving their company into the vale, “I only wish for honesty between the two of us, and now it’s been said.”

Sevt maintained his grip, “You know these people better than I do. I’m just the passenger.”

“You’ll lighten up. They don’t have much, but you learn a clever recipe or two over the years. Plenty of fat to be found in the hooves of reindeer, you know? With the right herb it can make for a hearty meal.”

“I assume that’s your role here.”

“Of a kind. Everyone has a role here. Even the little ones, helping out the adults with gathering or building, and the like. I scavenge the barrens for seal – they can’t swim out here, you know? Now we have bear, though on occasion they might pop into town. I bring exciting things from the outside world. A bringer of gifts, if you will! Makes a trapped life like this all the more bearable.”

“And yet you no longer dream? You’ve settled into the ‘trapped life’ quite comfortably, then.”

Quinart did not know how to respond.

I’d think I’m happy enough where I am.

And yet his bitter passenger seemed the more hopeful of the two. They rode in silence until they reached the watchtower just outside the commune; a shoddy but durable structure hastily cut from mountain stone. No light was seen in its windows nor arrow slits.

“Must be between shifts, though it is odd. I can recall once, maybe twice, when I did not greet the sentry.”

Sevt was studying the town, eager to enter, it seemed, “Perhaps they went out like your other men, through the passage in the Mountain Wall?”

“We’d not leave the commune without a watchman.”

“Well in that case let’s ride into town. I’ve been waiting for weeks to get out of this frozen hell. You said there’re folks in there who have seen the other side of the mountains, right?”

They were never the same after they returned.

And yet it was true. Quinart had upheld his word, and he would see it through to the end. He made a sharp whistle and the huskies were off again. They rode through open gates. The houses on the main street, wattle and brick, were all dark. Quinart tugged on the reins, halting the sled. Sevt wasted no time, already on his feet in the snow, revealing the fading lantern to cast the company’s long shadows across the street’s façade. The main plaza was just up ahead, and though not a vibrant place it would always still hint at life. Now it was silent.

“You’ve a shy community, Quin. Sure they didn’t know of my coming?”

“This isn’t the time for jests. This is… very odd…”

“Extremely. News from beyond the mountains that made everyone drop everything and go?”

“If that were so they might have waited for me. And I’m not the sole musher out in the barrens either.”

“Don’t be so sure, Quinart.” Sevt was making his way down the street, knee deep in snow which had not been cleared for days, “A desperate man would be willing to eat his own friend should the situation arise. Just give it enough time.”

Quinart did not often resort to anger, “And how desperate would a town’s entire populace have to be to all make that decision?”

Sevt had made his way into the round plaza. He had stopped.

Quinart, after instructing the dogs to sit, caught up to the other.

“Did you hear me…?”

“Quite desperate, clearly.”

Quinart stopped when he too caught sight of what had halted Sevt. From the ceremonial tree, from the spruce lampposts encompassing the circular plaza with ornamental ramparts, from the houses themselves, hung the denizens of the commune. Each from their own noose, each frozen by the elements.

“What…?”

Words failed him. Quinart looked back at the empty street, cold and dark. He looked at the plaza. It was easier to look back.

“I don’t…”

~~~~~~

I hardly understand it myself.

The population had not been large, if they could all fit into the plaza. The shadows caused by Sevt’s light stick made the sight all the worse. Quinart had moved away, muttering something to himself.

When people are all desperate enough…

And yet women and children were among the hanged.

The lights overhead were fading, and had been since the two men approached the town. They managed to reflect off the ice of the distant mountains enough to capture the silhouette of a crouching figure atop one of the lampposts, replacing the lantern in question. When the albedo weakened with the movement of the overhead lights, Sevt saw what he deemed an illusion, an imprint on his eye – the crouching figure himself seemed to radiate in a faint glow.

“Did you do this?”

“They’d done it themselves…”

The gallows groaned. Sevt heard Quinart turn to face the stranger as well. His was too far away a complexion to discern. Sevt saw that the man was lightly dressed, wearing only what seemed like a plate-feathered tunic, some shirt, and two angular pauldrons.

“One can only live in despair for so long, but sleep offers respite in perpetuity. With no hope for escape nor for the sun, they all made the easy choice.”

“Who are you?” Quinart cried from behind, “You know what happened, is what you’re saying? Who are you?”

He’s not your friend, that’s for sure.

Something did not sit right with Sevt about all of this. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the huskies and the sled. Both waited patiently in the middle of the main street. Both exposed.

“I came while they slept. I had felt their desperation from the beginning. Like a gnawing sickness it only festered as the years passed. Not even the birth of a new generation could bring hope to an old and withered lot such as this.”

“Come now,” Sevt took a step forward, “You’re not a local, are you? You and I are therefore alike.”

We’ll play this game for now.

As if on cue at the thought, Sevt saw the crouching stranger’s head turn in his direction. His hair seemed to float on the air. Sevt dismissed it as foolish; he would not be distracted.

“You wouldn’t happen to have discussed anything regarding the Mountain Wall with these people, have you?”

Quinart was starting to boil, “You’re to inquire about this now—?”

“What may lay on the other side, perhaps?”

Sevt saw it. The stranger’s hair was floating on the air.

“You and I are not the same. You hold onto your faith; I merely show things as they are…”

Sevt cocked his head, “My ‘faith’, huh? You wouldn’t be the first to use such a phrase with me.”

The stranger spoke as if he could not hear the other.

“I chose the most learnèd woman of the commune – the sanest. Cool as air, and the daughter of the town official. She, like many others, yearned for light bestowed by a forgotten sun. A sun they will never again see, and whose memory grows fainter by the day.”

Quinart’s breathing had become so audible Sevt could hear it standing several feet away.

“In the commune’s final days, I was her bright and radiant sun. She prayed for light every night afore her sleep. And there I was. But nobody believed her account. It was all the more reason to go once it was determined that the commune was losing its mind…”

“To go?”

“To go.”

Another gust of wind pulled at the hanged. The nooses strained.

“So desperate, each and every one of them. For so long. So dark. And the dreams, despite the visions of what lay beyond the mountains, grew quieter year by year. Hope was a distant dream for all, the day they performed the ceremony of mercy.”

The dancing lights had vanished, though in their final moments they had revealed the face of the one who spoke. His smiling pale expression, his empty glowing eyes.

“…but so brightly I shone in their final moments on the noose, such that all saw and wept…”

Quinart could be heard collapsing in the snow behind Sevt. His hand readied at his dirk.

Should the need arise, I could hit that crouching bastard from here.

“Quite proud of your work, aren’t ya—?”

The stranger’s arms opened into blinding wings of light, pushing the air so that the plaza’s snow rolled in a glowing wave towards Sevt, ready to swallow. In a few steps he reached Quinart, pulling the two of them behind a building as the wave roared past. Sevt’s eyes were burning.

“Bastard’s using the snow to reflect his light and blind us. The albedo will be our end before any of his illusions will.”

Quinart was not responding. The stranger voice echoed in the plaza.

“I didn’t do more than what they were willing to do themselves.”

Quinart raged. Sevt held him back, kicking the front door of the house they were leaning against and pushing him inside.

“Don’t fall for his tricks, Quin.”

“What tricks? A week ago, this was a bustling commune. I had a family with these people, Sevt!”

“Whatever that thing is that aborted this village’s future, it’s not human. That much I could see from the plaza.” Sevt shook the other as he started to falter, “Listen to me, Quin. He’s an illusionist. For all we know he’s done this all himself.”

“Don’t be so confident.”

Sevt spun around with his staff. A single claw on the end of the stranger’s arm, a folded wing, caught it with ease.

“Did you not preach on the desperation of man the moment you entered this commune, chum?”

“I say don’t fool around with a man’s faith—”

“Something you’ll greatly need now.”

The second claw had flashed for his belly, impaling Sevt’s forearm instead which had blocked the attack in the penultimate moment, his hand failing to reach the dirk at his side. He gritted his teeth, before the world turned into a blur coupled with the sound of shattering glass. Sevt’s mouth was full of snow, and the winds picked at the hundreds of grazes now marking his face.

“Smiling bastard…”

“You like using that word, don’t you?”

He still gripped his staff, using it to deflect an incoming rush of blinding white snow, reverberating with a clang from the inhuman’s hooks.

“I’d keep my fingers out of other people’s thoughts. Word of advice.”

A dark blur rebounded off a wall, “No fingers needed!!”

The thumbs of its wings caught hold of Sevt’s staff, “But I’ll gladly take yours once our ‘game’ is done.”

Out of the corner of his eye through the broken window, Sevt saw his partner clasping his head, keeled over.

It can’t be that nobody survived.

There had to be some that did not give in. Sevt tried to pull away.

His grip is too strong.

Sevt slid the lamp end of the staff towards his mouth, blowing embers into the inhuman, pulling away once the other was stunned. With a jolt the lantern’s chain reached its full length, and Sevt proceeded to spin the staff over and before his head, melting the snow beneath while acting as protection.

“You couldn’t have convinced them all to take their lives. Not everybody would be willing to take themselves and their family to the next life so willingly. Some would have resisted. Some might have even left for the mountains and their promise.”

“Then find them.”

In an instant the inhuman had spread his wings and circled behind his opponent, before Sevt swung his flaming lamp at the last moment.

He’s fast.

Sevt faced the huskies, who were barking and shaking snow off their fur. The inhuman had reverted into the plaza and quickly returned as the other turned to deliver a burning blow in the nick of time. Rolling past the human and crashing into one of the cottages, its windows alighting in striking white, the demon shot towards Sevt once again. He managed another deflection until all was a blinding brightness to painful to bear. The snow reflected the inhuman’s power, and Sevt could hear it circling around him in that glaring void, invisible to the eye.

He hasn’t touched Quinart nor the dogs, and they’ve yet to attack the foe.

Sevt suspected that even if they showed no aggression, after his death theirs would be next, albeit a slow descent into madness not unlike the denizens of the commune.

If I die, all of this will fade into nothing.

He was desperate enough in the moment to realise the importance of staying alive; he found the prospect of Quinart’s dooming anguish too much to endure. The man would be needlessly fooled like the village into sacrificing himself for something he could not bear to believe – the reality of despair.

If a bitter washout like myself with no past nor future can find the will to keep going, I won’t let another fool themselves.

It would not make sense to him. He would have to endure what was yet to come. And so, he planted his staff, still burning, into the snow, and with shielded eyes made his way for the nearest wall. He used his mantle of unknown origin to muffle the sounds of the outside, something it insulated against with almost magical ease.

This is craven.

But he knew his limits. In theory, the inhuman would torment him until he submitted. Sevt would not let that happen. Even if it meant crawling his way to the Mountain Wall with his and Quin’s eyes glued to the earth, sharing their rations of bear meat.

Outside his cloak, the muffled winds deepened in tone as something approached.

Rather, he could make use of an opportune moment. The inhuman could read his thoughts, he had made that clear. He could not anticipate an impulsive reaction akin to Sevt’s deflective attacks which had already saved the man more than once. If Sevt was to garner an advantage in the current fray, he would have to think of his counter at the subconscious level, vague and incomplete, allowing it only to surface at the moment of execution. It was a risk he was willing to take.

Unsheathing his dirk, Sevt listened to the softened growls outside his makeshift shelter; crackling and clacking, the crunching of snow. The winds stilled and a great inhale followed, like that of a behemoth’s breath, groaning and growing louder. Sevt threw off his mantle and shanked the inhuman’s torso. The street turned empty and dark in an instant. Hearing wings on the air he looked up to the skies, their dancing lights replaced by a white bat flying off into the night with its side spraying blood, its body faintly aglow.

“Remember the harbinger of despair…”

The breeze had a voice, though only for a moment.

For now, it was over. Sevt sighed, sheathing his dirk. Darkness would never be far behind in a barren so cold and lifeless.

The huskies were still, softly whining in the snow.

Sevt made his way to the plaza and the house where Quinart was hiding.

“It’s over, mate. You can get up.”

The man eyes were unfocused, watching the floor. He did not speak.

“Come now, we can’t hang around. I bought us some time by catching the thing off-guard. But he’ll be back, be sure of it. We can’t stay here if he knows where we are. There’s only one way to go.”

“It’s over, indeed.” Quinart rose to his feet, “Life as it made sense, is over.”

“Yeah, but yours isn’t. I’d consider that a victory.”

The other said nothing. Sevt could not respond before the sound of snapping wood alerted him to his dirk. It came from the opposite end of the plaza.

After retrieving his light stick Sevt made his way across the court, trying not to look directly at any of the hanged, but there were too many to turn his eyes away from. Quinart was following.

“What did you hear?”

One of the doors of the houses had caved under the weight of the initial wave of light. It finally splintered and collapsed as something made its way out into the open. A young girl with dark hair and large eyes. Hers was a quiet, yet resolute, voice.

“It’s really gone, isn’t it? I knew it. I knew all along something so terrible couldn’t exist.”

“Aurora.”

Quinart walked over and lifted the girl in his arms. She, too, seemed to recognise him, and returned the embrace.

Seems not everyone crumbled. But now we have an additional mouth to feed.

“I told everyone that my older sister was right, sir.” She was addressing Sevt, “And she was, just nobody believed her or me. I believed her. The sun did shine over Utopia. Just not the sun we needed.”