Aspect Of Winter

by Tom Early

  “I wonder if a flashlight would do,” Sam mused.

  “Maybe? I don’t know how picky ancient monsters are about their sacrifices.” I got ready to turn the page, when Sam grabbed my hand.

  “C’mon let’s try it out! I don’t want to feel like an idiot if we spend all night going through this book only to find out it’s some kind of trick played on us.”

  I gaped at her. “Seriously? The only thing missing from that speech was you ending it with ‘What could possibly go wrong?’! We have no idea what an ercinee is, let alone how to pronounce those freaky words. I could list the ways this could possibly go wrong, but there are way too many to count.”

  Sam was undeterred. “So what? I’m guessing there’s nothing on the ercinee that the great Google machine couldn’t dig out for us, and we can practice the words without a sacrifice in hand until it sounds right. What have we got to lose?”

  “Ah,” I said sarcastically. “There’s the clichéd commentary I was looking for. Personally, considering the nature of the only thing we’ve ever seen summoned, quite possibly our lives. Also, I’d really rather not go through the whole coma thing again.”

  Sam visibly drooped at the reminder that I had almost died. I felt bad playing that card, but I really didn’t want to get caught in an avoidable dangerous situation.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to try summoning the first thing we see, at least not without more preparation. Maybe tomorrow night, if it still looks like a good test run after we check it out?” Sam pouted, but accepted that it was probably smarter (and safer) that way. I ceded that doing a little research tonight couldn’t hurt, however.

  Sam booted up the laptop she has on her small desk in the corner of the room, and proceeded to make the computer spit out everything it had on the ercinee. A few minutes later, we had a pretty decent impression of what sort of creature it was.

  “So, basically, we’re looking to summon a glowing bird from a forest in Germany?” Sam asked.

  “Yep. Looks like a crane, but with yellow and black feathers that give off light,” I read, peering over her shoulder. “Oh, and it’s thought to be mythology originating from firefly sightings. Huh. That’s kinda cool, actually. I wonder which is more right, then.”

  “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, if you think that either a glowing bird or a bug aren’t too dangerous,” Sam snarked. Which, point. Neither of those things seemed especially dangerous. I was still going to take every precaution, though.

  “What else does the spell say?” I asked. “I mean, summoning probably has more to it than just chanting and offering a flashlight or something.”

  Sam made a thoughtful noise. “Well, do you think it’s more like your sort of magic, in some way? That it takes something out of you to work?”

  I paled. That seemed likely when I thought about it, but I really wasn’t looking forward to coughing up blood if the spell ended up being too strong for me to handle.

  Sam must’ve seen my reaction, because she attempted to console me. “Don’t worry about it. These are all officially “first-year” spells, right? I really doubt any would be powerful enough to bring either of us to physical pain.”

  “I really hope so. It would kind of suck to die on the first attempt at magic. Mind if I take a look?” I asked. Sam shrugged, and passed the journal. The page on ercinee summoning itself didn’t seem to offer any insight, but I kept looking. Turns out the back of the journal had a couple summoning basics written down, before the other random spells started. I skimmed through it. Thankfully, one of the sections neatly took care of that question. Aiden’s orderly script wrote out that:

  The art of Summoning has two main options to it when it comes to the spell proper. The first is to summon the creature with your own energies. This sort of summoning is physically taxing, as the strain of the spell takes its toll directly on your body, expending your life energy as its fee. Depending on the summoned creature’s potency, the effects of this drain can be anything from a light headache to death.

  None of the spells in this journal should be powerful enough to cause more than a sudden onset of exhaustion to the caster, although the potential for a stronger impact exists with those summoning spells I have yet to test.

  The second option refers to the drawing of a summoning circle specific to the being intended for conjuration. This option, while requiring a level of accuracy that is mentally stressful, is far safer. A summoning circle pays the energy required for the summons on its own, leaving the caster out of the energy transfer. At higher levels, it also allows for the binding of beings to this plane of existence, allowing for contracts of servitude to be made. The summoning circle must be connected to the earth, as it is from the planet itself that it draws energy.

  I looked at Sam. “Seeing as we have a determined artist available, I’m insisting that we go with the second option. Especially if it turns out that the ercinee is one of the tougher ones to summon.” She just looked excited at the prospect of performing actual magic, so I counted it as a win. “I’m still going to investigate other safety options, though. I don’t feel like leaving any of this up to chance, if I can help it.”

  I may as well have talked to a brick wall for all the attention I was getting. Sam had found a diagram of the standard circle for lesser summons in the back of the journal and was adapting it to the ercinee specifically. The diagram reminded me of my psychology textbook, in that certain sections of it were left blank with clear portions to replace with certain symbols. Now I knew what the symbols on the ercinee page were for, which was a relief. I didn’t feel like trying a spell that had parts to it whose functions were unknown. That just seemed like a quick way to death.

  The crinkling of paper tore me out of my musings. Sam had unfurled some giant poster paper that was almost as large as her bed and had started sketching out the circle on it. She worked fast, and in a few minutes I was staring at a nearly perfect replica of the diagram in the journal.

  “What do you think?” Sam asked.

  “It looks like something I’d expect magic to be involved in,” I replied honestly. She beamed at me, and rolled the paper back up. “Great! I’ve always wanted an excuse to use my dad’s blowtorch.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “His blowtorch. Weren’t you listening?”

  I blinked again. “Uh… yes? I’m just not sure how you got to ‘blowtorch’ from drawing a summoning circle on paper.”

  Sam rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m guessing that wherever I’m summoning this thing, it probably won’t be inside, and paper doesn’t touch the earth. I was just going to use this as a kind of template. Soak the paper beforehand so the fire doesn’t spread, and then use the blowtorch to move the design from the paper onto the ground itself. Instant perfectly made circle.”

  “Wow. That’s actually really smart.”

  “Of course it is. Don’t forget, I’m the smart one in this duo, and you’re the polar bear.”

  I did my best to growl, and just felt stupid.

  **********************************************

  I went back to school the next day. Like Sam had told me, Aiden was long gone. He literally came only for the one day it took to figure out what we were like and then disappeared. He, according to the Harpies, left a trail of broken hearts behind him. They were each claiming to have slept with him on the one night he was in town, but I’m pretty sure that would have required him to have been in at least five different places at any given time, and not busy attacking me. I made my way through the day, but it honestly didn’t hold my attention in even the minimal way it had used to. After fighting magically for my life, school just seemed a bit more lackluster than usual.

  After school Sam stopped to get gas and we then headed over to my house for easy access to the secluded Naransett Woods. My parents were away on business again.

  My parents were entrepreneurs, pretty successful ones. They co-ran a company that came up with all sorts of cra
zy inventions. The company was best known for an invention that siphoned wine from a closed-cork bottle, so restaurants and the like could check if it was good without breaking the seal. My parents were both workaholics who treated their company like their child. Which, sadly, often meant they didn’t have as much time for their actual child. I only saw them on weekends, for the most part, and even that wasn’t always the case. But they always made it clear that they loved me, so I didn’t begrudge them for it. And sometimes it helped, like when Sam and I needed to do something unobserved.

  Sam produced the rolled-up circle template from the trunk as well as a blowtorch, and we headed out. I threaded us down one of the near-unknown paths that was almost entirely overgrown and headed to a large boulder deep in the woods. I had walked this trail since I was thirteen, when I needed space to think about who I really was. I led us confidently to the boulder and the small overhang behind it. I brought out my part of the ritual, the journal and one of the spare flashlights from my house. After we cleared the ground of fallen pine needles, stray rocks, and a rather irate chipmunk, we set to work.

  Sam laid down her paper, and we used some of the moved rocks to keep it unfurled. She pulled out a few water bottles and wet the paper along the lines. When she finished, she actually cackled, pulled out the blowtorch and… was that a welding mask? Where the hell had she gotten one of those? She pulled down the mask and began slowly scorching marks onto the ground through the paper. It took close to an hour of painstaking use, and by the time the summoning circle was well and truly set, dusk had approached. I pulled out the flashlight and turned it on, opening the journal.

  “I guess I’ll go first?” I phrased it as a question, in case Sam objected.

  She nodded once, and I looked down at the page. The words I was supposed to chant looked like gibberish, but I had practiced sounding them out the night before, so I had a feel for how they were supposed to sound. I opened my mouth, ready to begin.

  When I tried to speak, however, the words just tumbled around inside my mouth. I honestly had no idea how to speak them aloud anymore, not with the circle in front of me. My tongue wouldn’t cooperate, and the words seemed to swim across the page. I spent about a minute just staring down at the journal, when Sam lost patience with me.

  “Well, are you going to cast this or not? The night only lasts so long, Fay.”

  “I… I can’t! None of it makes sense to me anymore. I don’t think I can cast this.” I was honestly perplexed. Why would the spell not work for me, if I’m the inherently magical one in the first place?

  Sam took the book and flashlight from me impatiently, beckoning me out of the circle so she could take my place. It was getting difficult to see at this point, so I almost tripped just stepping out.

  “Just be careful, all right?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be safe, and if not, you’ve got my back, right?”

  I nodded. While Sam had been preparing the circle, I’d been pretty busy myself. I had brought out some water of my own, and had frozen it to nearby tree trunks and the boulder. If whatever was summoned ended up being of the murderous variety, I would have plenty to draw upon to deal with it.

  Sam looked down at the page, and began to speak. I could immediately tell that whatever had gone wrong with my attempt at the casting had clearly gone right with hers. There were a few false starts, and she cleared her throat. I smiled at her and gave a thumbs up. She smirked and tried again.

  This time, it was immediately clear that it worked. In her voice was the whispering of wind through the trees and the harsh cry of a heron taking flight.

  The circle she stood in began to pulse softly, letting out a pale green light. Sam continued, and the swish of feathered wings beat the air. The circle began to pulse brighter, and then – I could feel it – something happened. The air felt charged with power, and Sam’s eyes began to glow, her normally brown irises now a soft purple. I heard the cry of a heron again, superimposed over what sounded like the fluttering of thousands of tiny wings. Staring in awe, I watched as thousands of fireflies, each glowing with the same pale greenish-yellow light as the circle, poured out of the lines burned into the ground. They swirled in the air for a few moments as their numbers continued to increase, and then, at some unseen signal, they began to coalesce.

  A few seconds later, the fireflies had moved until they were pressed into each other, forming the glimmering outline of a bird. Slowly, feathers began to cover the fireflies, feathers of yellow and black the shone softly with a light of their own. A long beak emerged from the soft glow, and two clever black eyes stared unblinkingly at the two of us. Five tails of long, swirling feathers traced patterns lazily in the air behind it, leaving glowing trails of light.

  The ercinee had appeared.

  Chapter Seven

  “Wow,” Sam breathed. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so… beautiful.”

  I couldn’t help but agree. Somehow, the description of “glowing magic bird creature” hadn’t quite clicked in my mind. I was expecting something more monstrous and the ercinee was anything but. It looked like an artist’s interpretation of a heron, with the lines more streamlined and elegant than any real creature’s lines could possibly be. The light seemed to hang in place, forming lines of its own wherever the tails eddied. Where its wings folded in, five separate tails extended beyond, each looking like a luminous golden ribbon. It was floating gently in midair, wings not extended for flight. The ercinee’s long neck curved to one side slowly, and it tilted its head to observe us more clearly. Its eyes were the deepest black, with no irises or pupils. It had a collar of black feathers, and the ends of its wings and tails were also tipped in black.

  Sam took a tiny step forward, reaching out a hand slowly as if to touch one of the ercinee’s feathers.

  “Sam!” I hissed urgently. “You can’t step over the lines of the circle. You need to stay in your contained circle, or else the summoning will break!”

  Sam stopped her hand just in time. The ercinee’s black eyes carefully tracked every movement she made. When she stopped, the ercinee unfurled its wings and let out a cry. The resonant peal of a bell echoed throughout the dark forest and sent shivers down my spine. Its wings were another matter altogether. The feathers were all a golden yellow, each glowing softly and shimmering in the light the almost forgotten flashlight in Sam’s hand cast. Its wings beat against the air slowly. I was mesmerized.

  The ercinee opened its beak and inhaled slowly. Sam and I watched, transfixed, as it seemed to drink in the light from the flashlight, its glow increasing ever so slightly as it did so. The light flowed like water into the ercinee’s waiting beak and when it had finished the battery in the flashlight was dead. Sam hadn’t taken her eyes off the creature for a moment, and I didn’t until my eyes noticed movement. Sam’s fingers uncurled from around the flashlight as she watched, the ercinee staring intensely at her the entire time.

  I looked on, somehow unable to move, as the flashlight fell from Sam’s hand. It seemed to tumble in slow motion until it landed on the ground, disturbing the dirt around one of Sam’s scorched lines and causing a small bridge of earth to cover part of the line. Immediately, the pulsing light of the circle faded away, and I expected that the ercinee would disappear as well. Instead it looked down with an expression vaguely akin to mild surprise on its avian face, and then glanced back up at Sam, who was still so hypnotized by the movement of its tails that she hadn’t noticed a thing.

  The ercinee snapped its neck out, delicately touching the tip of its long beak to the middle of Sam’s forehead. In the same way it had done with the flashlight, the ercinee seemed to inhale and again something followed. A pale white light emerged from Sam’s body and then vanished down the ercinee’s throat. Sam’s eyes, no longer glowing violet, rolled back into her head as her body collapsed onto the ground. The ercinee’s wings beat once and it launched itself into the air, leaving the circle, sounding its bell-like cry one more time as it flew slowly through the trees. Fi
ve trails of golden light followed from its tails as it flew off.

  “Sam!” I ran over to her, rolling her over so her head was facing towards me and shook her furiously. “Wake up! Sam!” No response. Her head rolled around limply. My hands shook as I checked for a pulse at her wrist, letting out a quick sigh of relief when I felt one. No matter how hard I shook her, however, even when I melted some of the ice to splash across her face, there was no response. It was like she’d fainted, but worse. The ercinee had taken something from her. I needed to get it back.

  I stood up and looked around. While the ercinee was long out of sight, the hanging patterns of light it left weren’t. I could see a path clearly winding through the tree. I began to run recklessly along the path, praying that I didn’t trip on a root along the way, seeing as I was practically running blind. The trail weaved left and right, and I followed below the soft glow as best I could. It seemed to be heading toward Red Hill, one of the rocky outcroppings up high in the Reservation.

  I threaded around trees, past large rocks, and hopped over fallen logs. A rushing sound alerted me to the presence of one of the many streams dividing the Reservation, flowing only a few feet in front of me. I didn’t slow down even slightly. The second my foot touched the water, it touched ice instead, gripping it perfectly. I continued running, growing more and more panicked by the second. What if it had really eaten whatever it took from Sam? Was that her soul or something? Could I get it back? I shook my head. Freaking out wasn’t going to help Sam. I needed to focus on running.

  The more agitated I became, the more I noticed a change in the air around me. I saw my breath puffing out, felt the sharp bite of the air as it grew colder rapidly. I glanced back for just a moment, and saw my footsteps outlined by frost, saw the white tendrils creeping up the tree trunks I passed closely by. I gritted my teeth, and ran faster. The glowing trail above my head was brighter now; I was catching up. I sprinted to the top of Red Hill, not feeling nearly as out of breath as doing that should have made me.