Its freaky working close to it, knowing if anybody jostles you into it, youre instantly dead. Creeps me all kinds of out but I got a job to do hooking up speakers while Dancer gets everything else up and running. The long, wide, scorched black trail behind it is a constant reminder that it would char me to cinders if I so much as touched it. Although the IFP emits no actual heat, no snow accumulates on the barren soil, as if where it passed it has left the earth antithetical to cold.
The faceted funnel is taller than the abbey, at least a hundred feet wide at the top, and tapers to forty or so at the basemore than big enough to swallow one Hoar Frost King. The earth beneath it is baked to a slick, shiny black finish, though the fire-world fragment doesnt throw off heat. A ribbon of glowing wards twist around the base, securely tethered to a black loop on a black box etched with symbols about twenty feet away. I skirt the IFP, eyeing the black box suspiciously, thinking how the feck is that tiny thing that is roughly the size of a Rubiks cube keeping an IFP from drifting? It cant weigh more than half a pound. I kick it gently to see how far it moves and just about break my toe! I cant resist trying to pick it up.
I cant even budge it on the snow!
What? You got some kind of ultradense metal I aint never heard of? I say grumpily, but if he hears me he doesnt respond. How does Ryodan always have the coolest stuff? Where the heck does he get it?
I look back up at the funnel. Its eerily beautiful, crystalline planes and angles reflecting the dazzling purples of the aurora borealis. I will a silent thought to the universe: Let this work. Weve all had a tough gig lately. Let there be no casualties tonight.
Kats outside again, watching us. Ryodan told her she has to move the sidhe-seers out into the snow once we begin. It almost made her nuts! She took it as the equivalent of him saying the abbey was an accepted casualty, but I know him. He wasnt saying that. He just takes the possibles into consideration and knows that trying to move nearly three hundred women in the middle of a crisis is a nightmare. Ive tried to move them during times of peace and quiet and had the luck of a broken mirror nailed beneath an upside-down horseshoe with a ladder nearby that a black cat just walked under. Like sheep, sidhe-seers herd by nature, until you want them to go somewhere. Then theyre all fluffy bottoms and broken legs.
Since were just about to start, I guess theyre all inside bundling up. Freeze-framing the equipment into place is the only thing keeping me from shivering. Well, that and nervousness about overshooting my mark and ending up a crispy critter might be heating me up, too. Some of Ryodans dudes are getting fires going, and a few sidhe-seers begin to straggle out and gather around.
I look at Kat walking toward me from the abbey. She looks so slightwith her hair blowing back from her face and her body like a reed that could be too easily broken. I worry about Kat. I know she didnt want to run the abbey but everybody insisted. Kat exudes something peaceful and strong that makes you feel at ease even when you probably shouldnt. She says faith is a rock and as long as you have your feet planted firmly on it you cant falter.
Dani.
Hey, Kat.
Its too close to the abbey. Set it up closer to the IFP.
Cant. When the Hoar Frost King comes, if the IFP is too close to the speakers, the funnel could get iced before we can cut the tether and use it.
If its not closer, the Hoar Frost King could appear, ice, and vanish before the IFP even gets to it.
I dont say nothing. I already took that into consideration when Dancer and me did our time calculations.
Do you really believe this has any chance of working?
I plug two speakers into a generator and begin piggybacking the connections. Which part of it?
Any.
Well, Im pretty sure were going to end up drawing it here. I dont know the exact sound itll come for, but well make it eventually. By the time Dancers done, the music is going to vie with arena-rock for sheer decibels. We shut everything down in and around the city and Dancer dropped the signal to our decoys once we got here. If sound is the Hoar Frost Kings Scooby-snacksand Im not wrong about thisits going to be starving and were leaving it only one source of food. I give attracting it ninety-nine percent odds.
And destroying it?
I ponder that. I been pondering that all the way out. I hear the IFP incinerated everything in its path, even boulders and concrete buildings and stuff, right?
She nods.
The IFP is part of Faery so its not like were trying to incinerate a Fae monster with human fire. Were trying to burn it in fire from its own world. I think that increases the odds substantially.
But who says fire will win over ice? You said its not even made of ice. What if its made of something fire has no effect on? What if you summon the Hoar Frost King here and it ices the IFP?
I been trying not to consider that possibility. Then were all in a world of shit and probably dead, Kat.
She gives me a look.
I flash her a gamine grin. But then at least we got rid of the IFP!
She gives me another look.
I spread my hands, palms up. What do you want me to say? Im not going to lie to you. Youre like Christian. You know anyway.
The faceted funnel is taller than the abbey, at least a hundred feet wide at the top, and tapers to forty or so at the basemore than big enough to swallow one Hoar Frost King. The earth beneath it is baked to a slick, shiny black finish, though the fire-world fragment doesnt throw off heat. A ribbon of glowing wards twist around the base, securely tethered to a black loop on a black box etched with symbols about twenty feet away. I skirt the IFP, eyeing the black box suspiciously, thinking how the feck is that tiny thing that is roughly the size of a Rubiks cube keeping an IFP from drifting? It cant weigh more than half a pound. I kick it gently to see how far it moves and just about break my toe! I cant resist trying to pick it up.
I cant even budge it on the snow!
What? You got some kind of ultradense metal I aint never heard of? I say grumpily, but if he hears me he doesnt respond. How does Ryodan always have the coolest stuff? Where the heck does he get it?
I look back up at the funnel. Its eerily beautiful, crystalline planes and angles reflecting the dazzling purples of the aurora borealis. I will a silent thought to the universe: Let this work. Weve all had a tough gig lately. Let there be no casualties tonight.
Kats outside again, watching us. Ryodan told her she has to move the sidhe-seers out into the snow once we begin. It almost made her nuts! She took it as the equivalent of him saying the abbey was an accepted casualty, but I know him. He wasnt saying that. He just takes the possibles into consideration and knows that trying to move nearly three hundred women in the middle of a crisis is a nightmare. Ive tried to move them during times of peace and quiet and had the luck of a broken mirror nailed beneath an upside-down horseshoe with a ladder nearby that a black cat just walked under. Like sheep, sidhe-seers herd by nature, until you want them to go somewhere. Then theyre all fluffy bottoms and broken legs.
Since were just about to start, I guess theyre all inside bundling up. Freeze-framing the equipment into place is the only thing keeping me from shivering. Well, that and nervousness about overshooting my mark and ending up a crispy critter might be heating me up, too. Some of Ryodans dudes are getting fires going, and a few sidhe-seers begin to straggle out and gather around.
I look at Kat walking toward me from the abbey. She looks so slightwith her hair blowing back from her face and her body like a reed that could be too easily broken. I worry about Kat. I know she didnt want to run the abbey but everybody insisted. Kat exudes something peaceful and strong that makes you feel at ease even when you probably shouldnt. She says faith is a rock and as long as you have your feet planted firmly on it you cant falter.
Dani.
Hey, Kat.
Its too close to the abbey. Set it up closer to the IFP.
Cant. When the Hoar Frost King comes, if the IFP is too close to the speakers, the funnel could get iced before we can cut the tether and use it.
If its not closer, the Hoar Frost King could appear, ice, and vanish before the IFP even gets to it.
I dont say nothing. I already took that into consideration when Dancer and me did our time calculations.
Do you really believe this has any chance of working?
I plug two speakers into a generator and begin piggybacking the connections. Which part of it?
Any.
Well, Im pretty sure were going to end up drawing it here. I dont know the exact sound itll come for, but well make it eventually. By the time Dancers done, the music is going to vie with arena-rock for sheer decibels. We shut everything down in and around the city and Dancer dropped the signal to our decoys once we got here. If sound is the Hoar Frost Kings Scooby-snacksand Im not wrong about thisits going to be starving and were leaving it only one source of food. I give attracting it ninety-nine percent odds.
And destroying it?
I ponder that. I been pondering that all the way out. I hear the IFP incinerated everything in its path, even boulders and concrete buildings and stuff, right?
She nods.
The IFP is part of Faery so its not like were trying to incinerate a Fae monster with human fire. Were trying to burn it in fire from its own world. I think that increases the odds substantially.
But who says fire will win over ice? You said its not even made of ice. What if its made of something fire has no effect on? What if you summon the Hoar Frost King here and it ices the IFP?
I been trying not to consider that possibility. Then were all in a world of shit and probably dead, Kat.
She gives me a look.
I flash her a gamine grin. But then at least we got rid of the IFP!
She gives me another look.
I spread my hands, palms up. What do you want me to say? Im not going to lie to you. Youre like Christian. You know anyway.
