The Prince of Two Tribes (22 page)

Kim sensed his discomfort and mercifully let go of his chin. “All right, pal. It’s time to blow off some steam. I know just the thing. Follow me.”

She set off across the churchyard, her field hockey stick swinging back and forth on her back like a pendulum. After a moment’s hesitation, he followed her.

He didn’t know where they were going until she turned down a street and the looming spire of the CN Tower rose into the night before them. Year-round, the tower’s elevator shafts that crawled up the sides were lit up, but during the holidays, the lights were bright green and red, transforming the grey concrete finger into a gargantuan candy cane. Even through the cloud of his tension and worry, the sight lifted Brendan’s spirits. He felt a swell of fondness for the city he called home.

As they drew closer they were joined by others heading to the tower. Faeries emerged from the alleyways and side streets until a small group of colourfully dressed travellers coalesced into a throng. Some carried bundles on their backs, tightly rolled tubes of bright fabric and sticks that looked like tent poles.

“Hey, Ki-Mata! How’s it going?” a Faerie called, falling into step with them. She was carrying a multicoloured bundle on her back. She smiled at Brendan. “Hey, Brendan! I’ve never seen you out here before.”

Brendan recognized Cassie, the barista from the Hot Pot. Gone was the bland apron and Human disguise. She was out in all her Faerie glory. Her hair was aglow with filaments of silver wire woven into her dark tresses. She wore a tight jumpsuit of muted sky-blue and grey. “Hi. No, I guess not,” Brendan admitted. “What’s going on? Where are all these people headed?”

Cassie shared a sly look with Kim and slapped his back. “You’ll see!”

They jogged up the ramp by the baseball stadium and down into the open space at the foot of the tower. There they found a metal door propped open. The band of Faeries entered a dark room, hooting and shouting at one another, sending echoes all around. As Brendan’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized they were at the bottom of a winding staircase. He looked up but the top was hidden from sight.

A Faerie man with a bright vermillion mohawk waving from the top of his head shouted, “Last one to the top is a Dwarf’s underpants.” Then he sprinted up the stairs out of sight. The others catcalled and shouted after him before setting off in hot pursuit.

“Come on, Brendan,” Kim laughed. “Believe me, you don’t want to be a Dwarf’s underpants!” She pushed him toward the stairs, and soon they were taking the treads two at a time.

Brendan had been to the top of the tower before, but only on one of the super-fast elevators. Running up in the dark was a totally different experience. He’d read somewhere that the staircase had thousands of steps: it was over half a kilometre high.
⁴⁷
In his old life, he would have succumbed to exhaustion after a hundred, if he hadn’t already tripped over his clumsy feet and bounced all the way back down to the bottom. Now he took the steps with ease. He fell into an easy rhythm, pumping his arms and breathing easily. He started to enjoy himself, losing himself in the physical exertion. He easily matched Kim’s pace and even had to hold back a little to avoid outpacing her. Soon they caught up to the pack. They joined the jostling, laughing mass surging upwards through the dark.

Moments like these made him forget the new responsibilities that weighed on him. His worries over his family, the upcoming Proving, the conversation with Merddyn all dissolved in the simple pleasure of his physical existence. He relished being alive and being part of the joy of the Faeries around him.

All too soon, the group reached the top of the stairs. The last runner was jeered good-naturedly as he arrived on the landing. He was a short, wiry Faerie with luminous grey eyes. “I ain’t got long legs, ya know. Gimme a break.”

They were standing at what appeared to be a blank concrete wall. The stairwell simply ended.

“What now?” Brendan asked.

“Watch!” Kim said. The group reached out and grasped hands. Brendan took Kim’s and Cassie’s hands in his. Once all of the members of the group had established physical contact with someone, they began to sing.

The song had no recognizable words. They merely opened their mouths and uttered a soft, breathy sigh. Brendan tried to follow the lead of the others. He was self-conscious at first, but as the moment stretched out, he let himself go. The sound began as a single note sung in unison. Then individuals diverged, some sliding up, some sliding down, until the concrete space was vibrating with a lush, achingly beautiful chord that reverberated through Brendan’s body. He’d never felt anything so gorgeous, and he wanted to stay in that moment for as long as he could.

The chord crescendoed, and suddenly the wall before them shuddered and flowed away. A fresh, bitingly cold wind washed over them. The singers stopped and shouldered their burdens once more. Together, they stepped out onto an open platform. Brendan’s jaw dropped. The whole of the city, the lake, and the islands spread out before him.

“Neat, huh?” Kim laughed at his dumbstruck expression.

“The Dawn Flyers?”

“You got it, Brendan.” Cassie smiled. People were shrugging their bundles off and unwrapping them. Brendan watched as they assembled what amounted to broad kites, like the outstretched wings of gulls with harnesses at the centre. Brendan wandered around the platform, watching the work with undisguised fascination. As the wind whipped around them, they constantly struggled to keep the gliders from being plucked away.

Brendan walked to the edge of the platform. The ledge ran all the way around the central column of the tower. A roof of opaque resin or crystal kept the snow and some of the wind off the fliers as they prepared their equipment. Brendan gripped a support post and leaned out to look down. A hundred metres below, he saw the roof of the observation platform. He’d been there before with his parents and had stood on the glass floor and felt his stomach drop away as he saw the ground so far below. This platform was higher still and nowhere near as safe or enclosed. He should have felt pure terror, but instead he felt exhilarated. He was higher than any Human had been on the tower since a helicopter had lowered the spire four decades ago.

“Brendan!”

He turned to see Kim pulling a set of the wings onto her back. The others were pulling straps and tightening harnesses. The wings could be folded in close to the body like a bird’s wings. Elaborate hinges and joints tensed and loosened as the fliers tested their contraptions.

Kim walked toward him. “There are a couple of extra sets of wings here. You wanna come?”

Brendan shook his head. “Are you kidding me? I’d totally kill myself. Or barf. It’s a mile to the ground.”

“C’mon! Don’t be a big baby!” Kim cajoled.

“No. No way! I’ll walk down and see you on the ground.”

“All right. Have it your way.” Kim suddenly pointed out toward the islands. “What’s that?”

Brendan turned to look. He saw only sky and the dark hump of the Toronto Islands. Lights twinkled here and there. “I don’t see anythioooof!”

Kim slammed into him from behind and pushed him out into space.

⁴⁷
 It’s actually 553.3 metres tall. I don’t mean to be a stickler, but .

THE WILD HUNT

Brendan’s heart was hammering against his ribs. He wanted to scream in terror, but he couldn’t get any air into his panicconstricted lungs. He heard Kim’s hysterical cackle close to his ear. She had her arms wrapped tightly around his chest.

“Here we go! WOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Are you insane?” Brendan screamed, but the sound was whipped away by the air ripping past his face as they plummeted toward the base of the tower.

“Relax, granny!” Kim shouted. “I just need to find an updraft!”

The ground was rushing at them very fast now. The grey concrete was expanding to fill Brendan’s vision. He just had time to wonder if Kim had been hired to kill him when wings snapped open on either side, and with a crackle of taut silk they were swooping up again, skimming over the sidewalk at a height of about a hundred metres. The wind was lifting them steadily. They rose higher and higher up over the rail lines and the expressway, with its trail of red tail lights snaking by below. Then they were over the condos on the waterfront and the lake itself.

Brendan’s stomach unclenched. When he was confident that he wouldn’t lose the dinner he’d eaten earlier, he turned his head to see Kim’s madly grinning face. “What is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”

“Lighten up, Brendan. Isn’t this amazing?”

“It might be more amazing if I hadn’t wet my pants. I almost had a heart attack, you insaniac nutcase! Couldn’t you warn me?”

“Where would the fun be in that?” Kim tipped her right wing slightly, sending them curving out and banking even higher, moving out farther over the lake. “Look! They’re closing off the island.”

Brendan looked down and saw that the surface of the lake nearest the island, usually rolling with whitecaps, was still and smooth as glass. The flat area spread slowly out toward the city beyond. He suddenly understood. “They’re freezing the lake!”

“Yeah,” Kim confirmed. “It takes a lot of Faeries to weave some pretty intense weather Wards together, but it’s the best way to isolate the Ward’s Island.”

Brendan watched as the ice continued to radiate out from the island. He peered closer. He saw tiny figures out on the ice. “Who are they?”

“Fair Folk are starting to arrive. The Gathering starts when the sun goes down tonight . or tomorrow. You know what I mean.”

Kim tipped her wings forward and they rose higher. The island became more and more indistinct below. Brendan looked around and saw other Dawn Flyers dipping and diving, their wings silvered by the moonlight. The sky was remarkably clear, especially so high up and out of the reach of the city lights. The stars twinkled with cold brilliance.

Kim hung in the air, slowly turning in a circle, like a hawk lazily floating as it waited for prey to break cover below. Brendan became keenly aware of her arms wrapped around him. Her body was pressed against his back, and he could feel every tiny adjustment she made with her shoulders and legs to keep them aloft. For the second time in the past week, he was close to a very attractive girl. Even as he savoured the sensation, he felt a weird pang of guilt. Only a few days before he had held Charlie and comforted her, and now here was Kim with her arms wrapped around him. Why did he feel guilty? He didn’t know; he just did, that’s all.

“Are you sure this thing can hold two people?” he asked.

“The Artificers guarantee them. But don’t worry, if we start to lose altitude, I’ll drop you and save myself.”

“Thanks, Kim. I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

They were silent for a long time. The wind whistled an eerie tune through the flier’s rigging. He took in the stars and the moon hanging almost full in the sky. He looked over his shoulder and saw the city shining below. Brendan suddenly laughed out loud.

“What?” Kim asked.

“Nothing,” Brendan said. “It’s just … this is awesome!”

Kim laughed. “Yeah.” After a moment she said, “I wanted you to see this. I wanted you to see … ”

“What?”

“I wanted you to see that there are great things about being one of us, Brendan. It isn’t all bad. It isn’t all Proving and tests and Quests and trouble. It’s beautiful, too.”

Brendan thought about that. He looked out over the lake and the city. He was seeing it in a way he never would have if he hadn’t met Kim and learned about his Faerie family. And it was beautiful.

He realized something else, too. He hadn’t been aware of how much he’d missed Kim. He felt bad.

“I’m sorry, Kim.”

“For what?”

“I haven’t been there for you at all.”

“You have a lot to worry about. Don’t sweat it.”

“I have a lot to worry about and so do you. But more than that … ” He swallowed. “I’ve … I’ve missed you these past few days.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, but her grip around his chest tightened slightly. Brendan hadn’t thought she could hold him any closer than she already was.

“Holy stars,” Kim said sharply. “Look.”

Out over the lake, there was a loud rumble followed by a clap of thunder, reminding Brendan of a fighter plane at an air show breaking the sound barrier. An explosion of bright light erupted about a mile above the lake, igniting the sky in a flash. The glow started moving across the sky like a comet, cycling through every colour in the spectrum, a hot swirl of shifting light that grew in intensity as it approached. “What is that? A plane?”

“That’s no plane,” Kim called in his ear. “That’s the Wild Hunt! Pûkh has arrived.”

“The Wild What?” Brendan cried. He was having trouble hearing Kim. He became aware of a high keening not unlike the sound of a jet engine.

“The Wild Hunt. When Pûkh travels outside the realm of Tír na nÓg, he always brings his retinue,” Kim explained. “They travel as the Ancient Faerie Lords once did. Pûkh, or Lord Pûkh as he prefers to be called, tries to keep the Old Ways alive.”

The light drew closer, descending from the sky like a comet with a rainbow tail trailing behind. As the Hunt approached, Brendan saw it was composed of many Faeries, at least fifty of them. They were attended by countless Lesser Faeries who swarmed around them in a glittering crowd.

The Faeries were dressed in clothing that Brendan thought wouldn’t have looked out of place in a fantasy movie. Cloaks and capes of brilliant hues streamed out behind them. The men wore tunics of rich brocade and beautiful patterns that changed as the light caught them. Elaborate jewellery of gold, pearls, and glittering gems dripped from their throats and wrists. They rode their mounts with casual grace that was beyond any Human’s ability to imitate.

The animals were another shock. Some of the Faeries rode horses that glowed faintly in the moonlight. Others came on powerful stags bedecked in tack and harness, their massive racks of antlers beribboned and hung with delicate silver bells. The stags put Brendan in mind of Santa’s flying reindeer, but these creatures were not benevolent and lovable. Their nostrils flared and smoked. They tossed their heads and rolled their eyes as if the beings on their backs terrified them. Brendan felt sorry for them.