Claus: The Trilogy

by Tony Bertauski

  They love me. They really do.

  The intro, flawless.

  Jack would be sure to tip that elven singer when it was all over. Or at least let him slide on taxes. (Taxes, that was his next decree after the fried cod and walrus-on-a-stick. Someone had to pay for this party.)

  The platform heaved and tipped forward as the ones in front slumped under the weight.

  “Easy there,” Jack called. “Slow and easy or you’re swimming with the fishes before the night–”

  Spotlight.

  Cheers.

  Showtime.

  They walked into the open and the adoring cheers wrapped around Jack like a bedtime story.

  He stood.

  “I love you, too!” Jack blew kisses to the adoring crowd. “Oh, I love you, too!”

  A band of children were herded to the platform by guards. They leaned away with terrified expressions. The guards shoved them forward.

  “Here we go, children.” Jack pelted them with a handful of seal-flavored hard candy stamped with his face. “Eat up, eat up. All yummy in the tummy.”

  The kids covered up to avoid the hailstorm of candy as Jack fired away while grinning at the crowd and waving with the other hand. He got bored and, to the children’s relief, kicked the barrel off the platform and spilled the candy on the floor.

  Halfway to the stage, he reached behind his chair and pulled out a long tube with a trigger.

  “Daddy’s got something for everybody!”

  He pulled the trigger and a cloud of smoke exploded from both ends. Tightly wadded shirts rifled into the crowd, slamming a teenage elven over the back of his chair. His friends laughed. They unfurled the shirt, a big blue face plastered on the front.

  I HEART JACK!

  The lucky winner was still unconscious.

  Jack fired ten more. The crowd took cover. The last shot shattered a chair.

  The band welcomed their blue-skinned leader. The singer lifted Jack’s arm and the two paraded around the stage to nonstop insanity. The volume didn’t quite match the excitement of some of the faces, but Jack couldn’t see much through the sunglasses.

  Jack approached the mic stand and leaned into it. The noise began to wane. He said, with a sultry tone, “Do you have time for one more, boys?”

  Applause! Applause! Applause!

  The signs lit up.

  NOW!

  The crowd stomped.

  And Jack took the mic and announced to the band this one would be in the key of C (he had no idea what that meant). The band nodded.

  “We’ll be doing a favorite of mine. I’m thinking of making it our national anthem. It’s a little song I like to call… ‘Silent Night.’”

  The party was just getting started.

  C L A U S

  72.

  Jessica let Nog study the map without bothering him. She looked at the rest of the pictures and picked up things that looked like art projects from the third grade, a repository of memories.

  While she did, the music grew louder and harder. She could feel it in her butt, and her butt was getting numb. She realized the alarm wasn’t going off.

  Have they forgotten about us?

  “Strange,” Nog muttered. “Either this thing isn’t working or… everything is gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The map says the entire palace is empty and powered down except for one place.”

  Jessica listened to the music again. It had to be loud if it was vibrating all the way to the edge of the palace.

  Nog was shaking his head.

  “What is it?” Jessica asked.

  “There’s something else.”

  Jessica waited. “What?”

  Nog looked up. “I can’t find him anymore.”

  “Who?” But Jessica knew.

  Nog closed the map. “His thought algorithms have stopped.”

  Jessica leaped out of the secret room, sliding into the dark in the direction of the music.

  C L A U S

  73.

  Silent night!

  Silent night!

  Silent night!

  Silent night! Silent night! SILENT NIGHT! SILENT NIGHT!

  Those were the only words.

  Jack just hit them, over and over.

  “Siiiiiiiiilent NIGHT, YEAH!”

  He imitated one of the band members and finished with a flourish of arm-swinging and hip-gyrating. The crowd, having grown oddly silent during Jack’s one-chorus song (something he thought was out of respect for the song), regained their energy for the band.

  Jack stood with his arms over his head. He noticed the band was taking a bow, too.

  “All right, all right. We don’t need you anymore, get off. Go back to wherever you came from.”

  They dropped their instruments and started off.

  They ran when Jack chased them.

  “Sit.”

  Jack lowered his hands. The crowd was looking at each other warily. No one wanted to sit, not on those chairs.

  “Sit, now!” Jack screamed into the mic.

  An elven dropped into the chair with a hesitant scowl, expecting the worst. When there was nothing but the hard, cold surface, others around him took a seat.

  The signs changed from SIT to QUIET.

  “Thank you.” Those words felt strange on Jack’s lips. But he meant it from the bottom of his cold blue heart. “I’m glad everyone could make it to this momentous occasion. I’m sure you’d rather be nowhere else. I know I don’t.”

  Jack chuckled.

  Silence. Until the signs changed. CHUCKLE.

  “Listen, let’s get honest.” Jack’s voice echoed in the great room. “You didn’t like me at first. You liked that guy, right there.”

  Jack pointed at Claus.

  QUIET!

  “Come on up, brother. Come on.”

  Claus moved like he just woke up. He started toward the center of the stage. Someone clapped. It was once. Jack glared, pointed, and the offender was hastily removed by security.

  Jack slung his arm over Claus’s shoulder.

  “Here’s the guy, right? Your former leader with his nice, clean coat. You look great, brother, you really do.”

  Jack stared into Claus’s gaunt eyes. The cheeks more gray than ruby.

  “You were all for peace and love and other stuff, but you let us down. You let us down.”

  Jack started a slow pace around the perimeter of the stage, speaking as he coasted.

  “The world needs elven. It suffers from an infection that HE” – Jack stabbed a finger in Claus’s direction – “couldn’t handle. Your leader, the big teddy bear in the ridiculous red coat, did nothing about the spread of warmblooded humans and we just let them spread, elven. We did that. You and me. We let our leader fail the planet.”

  Jack shook his fist.

  “I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t going to stand for that.”

  APPLAUSE.

  “I don’t know about you, but I love this planet.”

  APPLAUSE!

  Jack spun into the center and threw up his hands.

  “AND I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!”

  CHEERS!

  And he got them.

  Some of the crowd was on their feet. Jack was certain they didn’t get zapped and that meant he won some of them. He wasn’t alone, after all.

  They really do love me.

  “Let’s take a look at the infection!” Jack aimed his short finger at Nicholas. “Come up here, warmblood.”

  BOO.

  The crowd responded to Nicholas’s slow approach with jeers. Nicholas towered over the two elven. Jack yanked him to his knees. He blew his icy breath into Nicholas’s face and dusted it with frost.

  LAUGH.

  “What’s your name?” Jack pushed the mic in front of his face.

  Nicholas’s lips opened and closed. He stared vacantly, trying to remember.

  “The dummy doesn’t even know his name!”

  LAUGH!

  “Do
n’t be too hard on him,” Jack said. “He’s not all bad. His name is Nicholas something or other. And he’s going to help us destroy the warmbloods. Aren’t you, buddy?” Jack shook his shoulders. Nicholas’s head bobbled. “That’s right, first we’re going to clone you a dozen times, infect you with typhoid, plague and, oooooh, I don’t know, maybe smallpox. And then we’re sending you out to explore. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

  Nicholas stared in silence. The words were going in, but nothing was making sense.

  “Hello?” Jack knocked on his head. “Nobody’s home, huh, folks?”

  LAUGH!

  “All right, enough of you two morons. Let’s get to the real show, the reason you’re all here tonight.”

  SILENCE.

  Jack stepped away from Claus and Nicholas. He bowed his head and folded his hands over his belly. There was a long pause. Not a creature was stirring.

  “Hundreds of years ago,” he started, head still bowed, “some of you lost friends. Some of you lost family. We’ve spent our time worried sick about their safety and whereabouts, hoping that they would one day return.”

  Jack looked up. Tears twinkled on the brims of his eyes.

  “We’ve all suffered greatly, haven’t we?”

  NOD.

  “Yes, we have. We’ve all suffered because of one person. The one person that formed the revolt, the one that convinced the elven to leave our great city and wander the Arctic without ever visiting or calling or even writing us a letter. One elven responsible for all that.”

  Jack held up a single finger. He turned in a complete circle so everyone could see it.

  “And that one elven is with us tonight.”

  APPLAUSE.

  “Please welcome…”

  APPLAUSE!

  “All the way from a dark and cold rebel camp somewhere in the Arctic…”

  CHEERS!

  “Myyyyyyy MOTHER!”

  Horns blared.

  Spotlights glared.

  And from the tunnel, all alone, dressed in gray with a long white braid, appeared an old elven woman.

  Beneath the signs that called for BOO! there was a collective gasp. The jeers hit a wall, but Jack ignored it. Some wept quietly, hiding their faces behind others. Others closed their eyes.

  But none dared call out her name.

  None dared express the heartache they felt when Jocah stepped on stage.

  And Jack took her hands.

  C L A U S

  74.

  Merry was cautious.

  She stopped outside every wall and scanned the other side before jabbing the melting dart into it. But every room, every hallway, in every direction… was empty. A ghost town. Pretty soon, she stopped melting holes in walls and walked right down the middle of the hall like it was home.

  The market was empty, too.

  Stalls once filled with trinkets and fragrances and fruits and T-shirts were closed and locked for the night.

  “What’s this?” Tinsel tugged on a poster plastered on the wall.

  Merry and Jon looked over her shoulder. There was a big blue face giving two thumbs-up.

  “Let’s party like it’s 1899?” Tinsel read along the bottom. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it’s that way,” Jon said, pointing at the blue arrow on the floor.

  No more caution.

  They were sliding full steam ahead in the direction of the music. Merry wasn’t certain, but it sounded like someone screeching “Silent Night” over and over.

  Like he forgot the words.

  They raced up the ramp. The music had stopped. Cheering was replaced by a passionate speech.

  They approached double doors flanked by ushers. They slid on by, said good evening with a head nod and continued around.

  “What’re we going to do?” Tinsel asked.

  “For starters, relax.” Merry relayed their position to the other teams that were closing in on the 1899 party. A few elven passed them without much notice. Merry pretended to be showing the kids where their seats were located.

  When they were gone, Tinsel took up a lookout to the left and Jon scouted the right. When the coast was clear, Merry jammed the dart into the wall behind her. A hole opened slowly and the rich smell of deep-fried food wafted out.

  “Is there, uh, a carnival in there?” Jon asked.

  They crawled inside.

  Merry first.

  She popped up behind the back row at the very top of the room and no one seemed to notice. She waved the other two inside and sealed the hole. They couldn’t quite see over the elven standing on their seats and went to the nearest aisle.

  Down below, too far away to make out any detail, it looked quite like a circus. There was a center ring and an elven barking out commands. Merry recognized him only because he was bluish. And he was holding the hands of another elven, this one with a long white braid.

  Tinsel squealed.

  She slapped her hands over her mouth as elven began to stare. She looked at Jon and back to the stage. There was an enormous man down there, too. He stood next to an elven that Merry hadn’t seen since the Fracture had begun. An elven that wore the red coat of pride and respect.

  Claus reached into the pocket of the bright red coat.

  “Hey, what’re you doing?” Jack’s voice echoed throughout.

  Merry gathered Tinsel and Jon next to her as the cold whoosh of air was sucked toward the stage. She recognized the swirling air currents and watched, perhaps, the largest abominable she’d ever witnessed in her life.

  “Everyone!” Merry called to the other teams.

  “CENTER STAGE, NOW!”

  The center of the arena was enveloped in a torrent of ice and snow, consuming the four figures inside it. Merry, Tinsel, and Jon descended the aisle against the tide of elven rushing to escape.

  C L A U S

  75.

  Jack had a speech prepared.

  He’d practiced it in his head a thousand times. He’d lie awake at night, imagining the things he would say to his mother if he ever saw her again.

  At that moment – the moment he saw her face – that speech was lodged in his throat like a peach pit.

  She was older than he remembered.

  Somehow, he thought his mother would live forever. She was already the oldest living elven in history, why would he think any different?

  It wasn’t so much the lines that carved the corners of her eyes or the spots that darkened her cheeks. It was the way she walked. It was so slow and careful. So mindfully aware of each precious step.

  Hunched over with her cane, his mother approached.

  Jack’s mouth worked a string of spit between his lips, but that was about all it did. No sound could get past the peach pit. A tiny ice cube – about the size of a diamond – fell from his eye and tinkled at his feet. He didn’t want to cry. Not here, on stage, in front of the whole world.

  This helplessness, this total lack of control… he looked like a frightened little cod gasping for air. It angered him.

  The floor crackled around his feet.

  Jagged lines of ice bolted across the stage.

  Jack ignored his feelings and the warmth of emotions that flushed his cheeks and stirred his chest. He was numb again and it felt good.

  She was making him feel warmth. She, his mother, it was her fault. She ran away from him when he needed her most. She loved Claus more than she loved Jack. She loved the elven more than she loved Jack. It was her fault he was like this. Her fault he was so cold.

  So, so cold.

  He swallowed the speech.

  There was nothing to say, after all. He reached out his hands. He wanted her to feel the depth of his loneliness. The hardness of the cold.

  Claus stepped between them.

  His hand in his pocket.

  “Out of the way, brother,” Jack said.

  But Claus didn’t step away. He unveiled the shiny globe with etched lines, holding it on the tips of his finge
rs, the grooves pulsing with light. Jack felt the pull of its gravity, felt the swirl of air.

  “I KNEW IT!” Jack jabbed his finger at the A-bomb. “You’ve been holding out on me, just like I said! JUST LIKE I SAID!”

  The sphere rolled off Claus’s fingers. Hit the ice.

  “Hey.” Jack backed up. “What are you doing?”

  His ears popped. The barometric pressure dropped.

  The ceiling and floor shook.

  An abominable took shape. Its enormous legs straddled the stage. Jack looked up at the thing and the thing looked down at him with cavernous eyes. It lifted its mighty fists above its pumpkin-shaped head.

  Jack looked as frozen as one of his cod treats.

  But the abominable stopped. It looked at Claus; then it twisted its arms and dispersed its body around the perimeter of the stage, forming an eyewall of snow and ice in hurricane force. They were locked inside the eye of a storm.

  Everyone else was locked out.

  C L A U S

  76.

  Claus never wanted to use the A-bomb.

  The colony had their A-bombs for protection. Jack would use one to destroy. But Claus invented one and hid it from Jack. He wanted it, just in case he needed it. Just in case the end was near and he had no choice but to use it. He couldn’t let his brother destroy the world.

  As Jack grew colder and the end more imminent, Claus knew the time had come. He would release the unfathomable power of an abominable to put an end to his brother.

  To end all suffering.

  The abominable would eat the snow and ice from the arena to build a massive body and destroy Jack. Claus was sure he wouldn’t survive either. He’d have to be close to Jack when he released it. Close enough to be sure it worked. Close enough that he would go with his brother to the bottom of the ocean.

  He accepted that fate.

  Claus downloaded his own memories so that they would live on. His people would need a leader when it was over. If Claus couldn’t be there, at least his memories would be there to guide them. He didn’t copy them, no. He downloaded the memories – all their wisdom and knowledge – so they were pristine. So that they could be embodied by someone else.