Revenge of the Sylph
The Yeti Uprising, Part 2
By P. Edward Auman
Copyright 2014 P. Edward Auman
Cover Art Image by Nejron Photo - Fotolia.com
ISBN: 9781311480712
Discover other titles by P. Edward Auman at online e-book retailers, in print, and www.PEdwardAuman.com.
Learn more about stories featuring faerie folk and the IPMA (The Institute for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts) at www.TrollBrother.com.
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Dedicated to George and the others who inspired me with media when I was young. I hope I can do the same for another with my own stories and vision.
MEMORANDUM
December, 26th
To: Board of Directors, Institute for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts
CC: Dr. Wilhelmina Rheinhart, President
From: P. Edward Auman, Historian
IPMA, Eastern U.S. Regional Offices
Subject: Discord in the northern latitudes resulting from Yeti Uprising of 2013. December 25, 2014, Event # 2014-Q-006
Dear Madam President and Members of the Board:
I have recently received report that Mr. Belschnickel, (AKA: Santa Claus), and others who were in attendance during the IPMA Agent-assisted event at the North Pole during Christmas Season, 2013, were involved with revenge tactic assaults on one, Mr. Jack Frost. As a result, Mr. Frost has contacted me earlier today and requested asylum at our Alaskan facility, having been turned down previously by facility directors at both the Norwegian Regional Offices and the Severny Island Research Facility, Russia. It is my recommendation that Mr. Frost be granted his request with terms which might simulate that of a house arrest condition. Clearly, his intentions, following the attempted coup last year, must remain in question. But it would be invaluable for our own research and for interaction with other magic-capable beings in the Northern regions to have him within observed proximity of our organization.
Below is my accounting of the events on the eve of December 24th as best as I can gather from those parties which have initially responded to my investigation to this point so far this afternoon regarding the catalyst for Mr. Frost’s contact with the IPMA for your consideration of his request.
Thank you.
Western End of the Aleutian Islands, 3:00AM local time
Belschnickel had just about finished the routes ending with the last village on the Aleutian Islands by about 3:00AM on the morning of the 25th according to actual local time. But before he would turn his delivery clocks in his sleigh back to normal Earth time he had one final delivery to make. And Santa always delivered the last packages, despite his use of aerial drones to assist in his 1.2 billion deliveries each year his operation had grown to in the last century. He threw the last empty sack in the back of his sleigh and called out to the reindeer pulling it, “Alright boys, back to the shop!”
Pixie, one of the great, great grand-daughters of Donner himself fussed at the pronouncement. Not to the stables? she seemed to be asking the jolly red elf. But she carried on, hoping that she had simply misunderstood the old white-beard. It wasn’t as if he spoke any faerie tongue very well, let alone one that she would understand sufficiently. It was a source of amusement for her and some of the last generation of Belschnickel’s flying reindeer. Why was it they stayed so loyal to a gifted human that seemed like such a Buffoon anyway? Half the time one of the reindeer would have to correct him on which packages he was taking into the current stop, and a lot of times he acted as though he was lost. Being gifted magic abilities didn’t seem like a reason enough for the reindeer to maintain employment with him. The original Belschnickel? Sure. He was gifted the magic from the Northern Water Sprite tribe for a reason. But this descendant seemed more interested in sneaking video games into the shop than actually respecting the office of Santa Claus.
Still they loved him none-the-less. Perhaps it was his compassion. Perhaps it was his love for the tiny humans, the infants, the only ones the animals seemed to get along with much anywhere in the world anymore. Or perhaps it was mostly due to the wonderful food and care they received at the hands of the little North Pole gnomes, a handful of friendly Yeti and the big red man himself. It didn’t really matter, as long as things went along well enough, and not like the year before when the cruel Jack Frost attempted to take over the entire village the last nine generations of Santas had built up at the North Pole.
Back at the shop the deer came to a soft landing on the snow in the main street and stopped near the shop’s main door. This building still had all the effects of classic northern European architecture and a warm, earthy fire burning in the hearth making all the windows seem as if they were glowing with candles, unlike the fluorescent-lit packaging and delivery hangars. Santa hopped out of the sleigh, hoisted his belt a little on the left side and headed indoors. A few of the reindeer tromped at the snow and ice with their hooves as if to remind Santa he still needed to put them into shelter for the season, but it was no use.
“Qanik?!” he hollered as he stepped into the living room and smelled the hot cocoa that Cooper, one of his lead elves was probably brewing for him to help him sleep for the next couple days and restore his magic. It was a temptation, but he had agreed, and it was best to get this last delivery over.
A beautiful vision flowed down the stairwell at the end of the hall, nearly floating as water, though she had coalesced a pair of legs to greet Santa. Qanik was not wearing the faux winter clothing she had for the children and IPMA agents she had the previous year. Instead she had formed a beautiful, reflective gown over her soft, flowing blue skin. Her face was smooth and sparkled the fireplace and other lights like stars. Her hair was white as ever and her voice seemed to echo and reverberate like crystal as she responded.
“Belschnickel,” she smiled as she approached. “Are you ready then to conclude our arrangement?”
“Aye,” Santa replied, a little begrudgingly, despite himself. “Let’s get this done before that Agent Bartholomew or anyone else with the Magic Artifacts fools finds out what we’re up to and tries to stop us.”
Qanik slipped her blue arm into his and walked with him out to the sleigh. The front door to Santa’s shop squeaked shut warmly and reassured Belschnickel that it was going to be okay. After all, old Jack Frost sort of deserved it for multiple reasons, not the least of which was his take-over of the North Pole with subjugated Yeti minions the year before. But he should also know better than to get involved with a water sprite. Jack’s own parents should have taught him that much.
The pair sat quietly into the sleigh’s seat and the deer huffed a little in anticipation of what Santa had in mind. While children were dreaming of sugar plums dancing in their heads, the deer were contemplating carrots and apples and hay with a gentle brushing and grooming before their own long winter’s nap. Instead, old Belschnickel snapped the whip. There was only a half a second of hesitation but the reindeer moved on from the shop and pulled the sleigh up into the air with only a couple, semi-intentional bumps.
~~~
“So, have you a package you want to use, then?” Santa asked Qanik jovially. They were just flying over Ellesmere Island’s first courses of land from the north, headed straight to the glacier head which Jack called home.
Qanik nodded and grinned. “I’ve been practicing.”
She then held out her hands before her an
d from the light snow about them and the water below she slowly formed a box shape, frozen as it formed with ice, shaping ribbons and a finely-laced bow atop. The whole thing sparkled like Qanik herself did in low light and looked like it was created by the very spirit of Christmas itself. It wasn’t terribly large though.
“Will you fit?” Santa asked with one eyebrow raised. “I mean, what if he decides to not open it for a few days?”
“I’ll be fine,” Qanik’s echo-y voice replied matter-of-factly. “Even if it is a couple days. But it won’t be.”
She remained silent long enough that as Santa Claus began the decent with his sleigh and doublechecked his reduced-time delivery clock to make sure he had enough magic left to complete this final package, he asked, “What makes you so sure?”
Qanik looked at Belschnickel with just the slightest look of pity upon her visage and then replied simply, “The only one who has ever given him a present, aside from me, was his mother. He will probably guess that it’s from me and that might make him even more prone to open it. He’s quite vain, you see. He will want to make sure I’m not making a peace offering.”
“And you don’t think he’ll suspect anything else?” Santa asked.
She thought about it for a moment. “No. He is very smart. But he’s also very prideful. I’m very sure he will want to open this box and see what is inside it, just for curiosity’s sake. He wouldn’t imagine I might try to harm him.”
Belschnickel hesitated as the sleigh landed a few hundred feet from an oddly shaped pile of snow which seemed to have window and door openings, right on the very edge of the head of a long and crackling glacier. He made no move to exit the sleigh immediately.
“Now…I thought you weren’t going to be harming him.” The old white bearded man had cocked his eyebrow once again.
“Oh, I am not,” Qanik said with a very pleasant smile. “It is only his ego that may be bruised.”
Santa nodded a few times not entirely convinced and hooked the reins of the sleigh into their slots in the cabin. The slender water sprite placed her ice-box on the floor of the sleigh and propped the lid slightly open. Then her body and clothing seemed to blow apart as if a strong wind had whipped up freshly fallen powdered snow from a drift. It swirled about her and she closed her eyes to concentrate. And in the next half a second she seemed to flow as one rush of ice and water into the box.
As he came around to her side of the sleigh and Santa looked into the box it seemed to be filled with a solid block of ice, the top of which was crusted with a little bit of snow. He closed the lid and picked up the package. Though sprites in general are very light weight and the box wasn’t particularly heavy, it was heavier than it looked. He chalked it up to being the full essence of Qanik packaged in a small-looking container. And it was beautiful. The way the box and ice ribboning upon it sparkled even Belschnickel himself had a hard time not wanting to open the box and take a peak again. He decided he’d better hurry and be done with it.
~~~
Hurrying to the top of the loosely constructed dwelling in which he knew he would find Jack Frost sleeping, Santa found a small opening through which he would be able to use his magic to enter the premises. With the box in the crook of his left arm and his right thumb upon his nose, the jolly man in red mumbled some words in ancient faerie. It was an Alven phrase that could convert faerie to energy and back again, and yet the mostly-human Santa Claus males were able to use it as well for their Christmas Eve shenanigans every year.
Instantly, Santa Claus found himself standing in the middle of an igloo-looking living room with soft snow chairs, upon one of which an almost innocent-looking half-Alven-half-water-sprite, small-looking and blue-skinned Jack Frost was snoring away the night. His head was propped upon one clenched fist, and there upon his cheek seemed to be a frozen tear.
Did Jack actually cry himself to sleep tonight? Santa thought to himself. If so, it would be entirely unclear if it was anger at not having possession of the North Pole, or not having someone to share Christmas Eve with this year, or perhaps even a tear of joy for some reason. Claus decided it was best to not think about it. Jack had put this act of revenge from his ex-girlfriend, princess of the water sprites into effect on his own, and he certainly had no pity for the misfit faerie since he had nearly ruined the big man’s plans himself for Christmas 2013. It had forced Claus to rely on the meddling IPMA agents for the third time in less than a decade and it hadn’t been pleasant for Claus either.
Let justice be served, Santa gave it one last thought, and placed the Qanik-present under the ice-formed Christmas tree.
Interestingly enough, Jack had set out a plate of cookies and milk beside the tree. The milk had of course frozen, but Santa took up one of the cookies and crunched it for a moment. Perhaps the last thought hadn’t been had about Jack.
Staring at the box he had just placed under the tree sitting next to the sparing collection of meager things it appeared Jack had given to himself as presents, Santa felt one last stirring of the spirit of the season. And that was certainly one spirit he didn’t feel like tempting tonight. Especially at the end of his deliveries.
He reached into his pocket and picked out the item his yuletide magic seemed to call forth for the occasion. It was an awl from his workshop. It had the standard labeling the elves and Santa’s crew usually tied to stocking stuffers. So, he crept over to Jack and placed it according to the promptings he was feeling.
Then with his thumb to his nose, Santa Claus left his final delivery for the year with a whoosh out the tiny hole in the hovel’s roof. Within a few seconds the Reindeer’s ornamentary jingle bells sounded quietly away.
~~~
Jack awoke with a start. It was a sense that something not quite right was going on. But then, he’d had that feeling a lot for precisely one year now. Christmas morning had arrived and he still was on his own, without minions, without the magic of the North Pole, and because she sure knew how to hold a grudge, without the company of the only woman who had ever agreed to go on a date with him.
Enough! The faerie nearly screamed out loud. He was not going to dwell on his failures anymore. He’d start his New Year’s resolutions a bit early and devise a new plan for conquering territory in the north as well as locating other sources of power. He wiped away the crust of the frozen tear he seemed to have still upon his cheek and stood up, snatching at his cup of cocoa which, like the milk, had also frozen while he slept intending to take it to the kitchen and clean house and pack away the Christmas decorations for good.
But there, just under the boughs of the ice-tree was a box he knew was not there when he slept. Can it possibly be afterall? Jack thought to himself. But that in turn made him begin questioning all over how he could possibly deserve anything from Santa Claus.
And then too, he noticed that although the milk still stood frozen solid on a side table made of ice, the cookies he’d left with it were indeed absent. His first instinct was to look for the couple of gnomes that resided nearby and whom he’d given access to his home in lieu of real friends. They might have eaten them and would have likely done so not realizing they were intended to fulfill the Christmas Eve tradition.
But the box. It was beautiful. And it seemingly kept calling to him, turning his attention. He tread across the snow dusted floor of his living room in his blue ice-formed and pointed shoes quietly and slowly, as though the box might pop up like a Jack-O-Lantern and scare him, he picked it up. Perhaps it housed a little puppy Belschnickel might have intended to help warm his heart. That would be just like the crudgy old human’s nature, to think he could convert someone from one path to another with the power of love.
“Bah, humbug!” Jack said and then smirked. He liked the thought of Ebenezer Scrooge at the moment, turning away some soft-headed attempt at winning him over.
Finally, the crystalline box with its sparkling bow was in his hands. Though ice it did in fact fe
el warm in his hands. He carefully lifted the lid, preparing himself to shut it quickly should a little black puppy nose stick out suddenly and take a whiff.
In the box appeared to be the depths of the ocean, dark blue and swirling, and yet in it he thought he caught a glimpse of a beautiful pair of eyes. And then, in a flash, he was frozen, stuck holding the box but encased in a perfect block of ice himself. It took him a moment to realize what had happened and he had to adjust the focus of his eyes to be able to see what was going on. His heart was beating fast, for he knew he was in trouble. She had found him.
“Well Jack,” The sprite princess Qanik said in a low voice with a playful yet ominous look upon her brow. “Your treachery has finally caught up with you.”
Jack blinked. There was enough of a gap around his face to permit him to breathe, at least for the moment. And he could respond with his eyes and his facial expression. But the ice had formed closely enough to his chin that he could not actually speak. If he did he wasn’t sure he would be heard either. Perhaps Qanik had left only a crack of space from the outside through to his ears.
In fact, that was all she had done. But as she strutted back and forth before him pondering how precisely she wanted to proceed conversationally, she decided to permit him a little more opportunity. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Jack’s head and shoulders were freed with a wave of Qanik’s hands and he attempted a reply. “My dear! Qanik, you are more beautiful as ever! I love to see you in your true form rather than trying to dress or blend with the self-righteous and self-absorbed humans.”
Qanik continued to pace around the room, taping her chin at times and alternating to folding her arms before her. “Jack Frost, of the Alven Faerie Folk. You are accused of feigning emotion and tradition of courting in a knowing fashion in order to gain illegal access to knowledge and to magics required to organize a coup de ’tat of the North Pole facilities and it’s magic reservoir which you also know to be designated territory by all inhabitants of Earth for the family lineage of Belschnickel and their covenant to perform the role of Santa Claus for all time.”