A Cruel and Burning Ice

by Brian S. Wheeler

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  Fallen Stardust: A boy, an outcast and an alien must find salvation in a world of ruin. Samuel must find a medicine to cure the fever ravaging his village. Markus must find the motive that murdered those he loved. And an angel must find a future in a city crumbled into debris. But something lurks beneath the wasted world, and waking it may doom what little of humanity survives.

  The Sisters Will Dance: Blaine Woosely claws his way back to the living. He has cleaned his blood of his addiction, and an unexpected, family farm home rewards his efforts. Only, the country acres isolate Blaine when a sharp-toothed monster hunts to bring Blaine back to dark. The sad history of Blaine's blood brings magic to the country home's new master, but in the end, only Blaine himself can break his chains.

  Mr. Hancock’s Signature: The dead walk in Monteray. The corpse of a nearly forgotten farmer named Hancock arrives via train. Ian Washington remembers Mr. Hancock and vows to return the body home. Yet Mr. Hancock's body will not rest while Ian works to reopen a cemetery, and the corpse staring each morning upon the doorstep forces the town to choose between the isolation of their fear or the hope of their fellowship.

  A Cruel and Burning Ice

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2013 by Brian S. Wheeler

  A Cruel and Burning Ice

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – Low Is the Tinker

  Chapter 2 – A Queen Carved from Ice

  Chapter 3 – Difficult Farewells

  Chapter 4 – The King’s Hot Gala

  Chapter 5 – A Puddle and a Panic

  Chapter 6 – Chilled Beneath the Second Sun

  Help Spread the Story

  About the Writer

  Other Stories

  Chapter 1 – Low Is the Tinker...

  The second sun named Shea rose to share the sky with her burning, twin sister Leah, thus announcing that age mankind termed the "Bright Cycle," when two suns blazed instead of one. So began that time the Fay called the "Envy Burn," when their kind would again retreat to the solace of their subterranean tunnels, when the heat of two suns would force them to abandon those forest lands they wished to call home for the safer shade of the underground world.

  The second sun rose and hissed that the lean years would follow, when so much of the crop would wither on the vine, when fertile green would transform to withered brown. The second sun lifted into that sky and promised restless sleep to both the low tinker and the high king. Mankind's temper would boil into war, and fair womankind would have no passion for love.

  Priests announced that the time arrived when two of the ancient Kahl-Queens crowded the same sky to heat the earth with rays both beautiful and cruel.

  "You in there, boss-man?"

  Small knuckles rapped at the tinker's door, sending saws and drills shaking upon the hooks that fastened them upon the walls.

  "Hey, Markus!" The pounding repeated upon the door. "Rise and shine, boss-man! Kahl-Queen Shea already stains the morning with her rays! We gotta get going!"

  Markus Kohl tossed in his cot stuffed with straw, chasing an armada of bedbugs into his mattress and into the tangles of his graying beard. He grunted, for the young morning was already hot. Instinctively, he kicked at the other side of his simple bed, but that other side remained empty. He could not blame the warmth that made his slumber difficult on Violet's body sleeping next to his. As he had for so many years filled with sad mornings, Markus reminded himself that his lost wife no longer lived to help him meet his days with stacks of pancakes and slices of sausages. It was a bitter pill he swallowed each morning, but one that had long numbed in Tinker Kohl most of the anxiety he might otherwise have felt upon the return of the second sun.

  "Hey, you in there, boss-man?" Small hands continued to pound upon Tinker Kohl's door. "We gotta get our invention ready for the king's ceremony this afternoon. We don't have time to sleep late this morning."

  Markus shook his head to distract himself from the pain in his hips as he stepped out of bed.

  "I hear you fine, Mad Phillip! Don't touch my door another time! You just recite one of you old Fay poems and be patient while I get to you!"

  Markus winced. The bottle of brandy he kept at his bedside was empty. The pains in his hips, the cramping in his bowels, the burning in his lungs would have to wait before being relieved with another strong pull of the drink. Those pains would have to suffice a little longer. None of the brandy, nor the ale, nor the wine would be getting any cheaper with the arrival of that second sun.

  "Hold on, Phillip! Hold on!"

  Markus's one-room, dirt floor shack of a dwelling had not always been such a hoarded collection of chaos. His Violet had possessed a near magical talent in keeping the clutter of thousands of bits and screws, of springs and cogs, of hammers and awls from piling to the ceiling. Violet may have never made a neighboring husband envy, but she had been the best wife Markus believed a tinker could know. Like Markus, that shack of a home suffered since her passing.

  Rusting saw blades littered the floor. Broken pieces of glass and shards of pottery scattered upon every counter and table. Mold grew white on forgotten loaves of bread stuffed into a pantry corner. Unfinished meals decayed beyond choking scents of ruin into bleached piles of bones picked clean by the rodents and bugs that shared Markus's home. Spiderwebs hung like tinsel from every arched doorway.

  Anyone but the village tinker would have fled from such a home. Anyone but the village tinker would have put all those piles of accumulated junk to flame. But being a tinker was all that Markus Kohl knew, and so with a canny that would have amazed any of the king's advisors, Markus limped his aching bones to his home's single door without stepping on a nail or stubbing his toe against any discarded machine.

  "Come on and open the door, boss-man!" Phillip shouted. "I got too much going on to recite any more poems!"

  "Hold on!"

  Markus grunted against a latch allowed to go un-oiled for years. The mechanism released with a pop, and Markus nearly stumbled into the crates piled behind him.

  "Oh, boss. This place is a mess. You live in here?"

  Markus's morning spirit lifted to look down upon Mad Phillip at his door. Phillip had remained his truest friend and closest advisor since the day so many decades ago when Markus's father had dragged his eleventh son to the workshop to apprentice with Mr. Allbright and learn the lowly tinker trade - a position few in any village respected, but one not considered unwise for a boy who came from a household crowded with so many brothers. It had been Mad Phillip who greeted the shaking boy with a handful of chocolates, who amazed the child with a kaleidoscope containing so many shimmering colors, who always encouraged young Markus when tinker Allbright scolded his apprentice for every one of his young charge's failures. Mad Phillip had introduced young Markus to the wonders that might be uncovered beneath piles of rusted bolts and gears. Mad Phillip had taught Markus of all the treasures a tinker knew, of all the wonder
such a position afforded to those willing to work to achieve it, of a wealth that was not measured by the luster of whatever coin a scowling client, neighbor or king might give.

  Markus continued to marvel at the face of his friend. Phillip's silver hair never betrayed a sliver of gray. Phillip's gray, cool eyes never lost any of their luster. No wrinkle, furrow or age-spot ever marred Phillip's amber skin. Something in the Fay magic resisted giving age any foothold, and so the Fay did not suffer the maladies mankind so well knew accompanied the years. For a time, Markus had resented the Fay for their immortality. He had not thought it fair that he would have to watch Violet succumb to her ailments, while at his shop the faces of the Fay changed not at all. It was too bitter a taste while Violet languished in her pain.

  Yet the Fay had never considered leaving their tinker's side. They had not begrudged Markus for any of the curses he leveled upon them while his wife suffered. The Fay told Markus's hurt heart stories that for centuries they had not shared with any other man. They shared with Markus histories the rest of mankind long ago forgot. Song by song, poem by poem, and fable by fable, Markus learned that immortality possessed a curse unique to its kind, that the Fay too understood enough of loss and of sorrow to help shoulder a true friend's melancholy, no matter be that friend Fay or man.

  In the end, Mad Phillip had become the only brother Markus ever felt he truly ever knew.

  Markus forced his shaggy eyebrows into a frown. "Careful what you say of my home, Fay."

  "This is no one's home," replied Mad Phillip.

  "You ever remember me inviting any of your kind over for cookies and tea?" Markus grumbled as he shifted through a stack of blueprints and newspapers in search of a pair of boots.

  Mad Phillip knelt and gathered a handful of bolts from the dirt floor. "Squinting Stephen was looking for a bolt just like this the other morning. Couldn't find one anywhere in the shop, and here one is, just rolling about your place. This is no way to keep things organized, boss-man."

  Markus stomped into an unmatched brown and black boot. "Well then, Phillip, you stick around here and tidy the place up. I've got more important things to do."

  Mad Phillip cast a gathered handful of bolts back across the floor. "You slept late! Not me! The nerve! You're lucky any of the Fay help you out at all!"

  Markus grinned as Phillip wasted not an ounce more of time in his home and stomped out of the door, cursing and swearing in the ancient Fay tongue no man ever possessed the years to learn. He hoped Phillip's curses might not be too unforgiving. He missed his Violet terribly; and peeking at the mess of his room before leaving for his workshop, Markus wished her ghost might manifest to scold him for poor habits of hygiene.

  "Slow down!" Markus yelled. "You know how my knees ache. I'm but a man, and not blessed with the Fay's longevity."

  Phillip vanished into the street's traffic in a blink. Markus reminded himself to give a special thanks that day to his Fay companions. He would never had achieved so many wonderful creations without their help. He would never have erected the maze of aqueducts that hydraulically powered everything from the king's personal fountains to the miller's stone wheel. Without the Fay's patient hands and nimble fingers, the king's favorite bronze, automaton boy would never have been created from sprockets and springs to captivate the court with his mechanical display of juggling. Markus Kohl would never have drafted the blueprints for the water cabinet clock, upon whose numbered face the realm's sailors could judge their position upon the sea with an accuracy unmatched by any other kingdom. He would never have presented the king's treasurer with the mechanical counter, through which coins jangled to provide an exact tally of the realm's coffers in times of peace and war.

  Markus smiled despite his pain as he progressed slowly towards his workshop.

  "Tinker Kohl!" A voice shouted above the crowd's din. "A moment of your time!"

  Markus cringed. The miller's wife, Lucille, waved a thick arm at him. As it was the tinker's duty to serve the village however, wherever and whenever he might, Markus put on the most passive face he could muster and faced that lumpy woman's ire.

  "The mill's wheel is not running properly, Tinker Kohl," an impatient woman, Lucille met Markus in the middle of the street.

  Markus lurched forward to avoid a buggy bearing upon him. "But, Lucille, I was just at the mill a few days ago, and a week before that, to tune the bearings. The wheel was working good as new both times when I left."

  "I may not be a simple tinker," Lucille rolled her eyes, "but I am a miller's wife, and I know when the wheel is not working as it should."

  Markus took a breath. "Did you or your husband take care to oil the gears as I asked?"

  Lucille huffed. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "It has everything to do with it." Markus answered. "If you or your husband would only take a few minutes each day to oil those gears, your wheel would keep working like new."

  Lucille's face flushed to an angrier shade of red. "Well, I don't see why we have to devote our precious time to do your duty, Tinker Kohl. My husband and I work hard to provide the village with the flour it needs. We have neither the time nor the knowledge to be held responsible for the maintenance of your machines. That is your job. Such things are what you're trained to do."

  Markus rubbed the back of his neck. The second sun was rising high in the morning, and it burned his skin. His workshop, and that special project for the king' celebration of a new Bright Cycle, waited for him. He did not have the time to stand in the heat and listen to the miller's wife berate him.

  "I'll send one of the Fay to the mill this afternoon to look at the wheel," offered Markus. "It will only take a Fay a moment, and one of the Fay would have no problem at all reaching all those little gears."

  "You'll do no such thing!" Lucille's hands tightened into fists. "The last time you sent one of the Fay to our mill, half my sweets and meat pies went missing! I should've known better than to expect a tinker to do his job. Be sure that Counselor Wessex will hear my complaint!"

  Markus doubted that Counselor Wessex would ever have the time to read a fraction of the complaints the village leveled upon the tinker.

  "I'll be sure to feed the Fay before I send any over to help you," Markus jerked away as Lucille reached for his arm. "That's all I can do to help you today. The second sun rises, and the tinker cannot keep his king waiting."

  Lucille's complaint was one of many barked at the tinker that first morning of the second sun. The coachman complained his timepiece, so integral in keeping people and goods moving efficiently upon the king's roads, needed to be rewound. The baker complained his oven failed to achieve a temperature sufficient for the baking of tasty bread. The brewer bemoaned that he could hardly understand the readings of all the valves and pipes as he needed to be confident his latest batch of beer would not prove too bitter. Farmers offering tomatoes and onions in the street markets complained that their plows turned dull. A sergeant stopped Markus to grumble that the ballistas failed to accurately strike their targets during drill.

  Markus promised to do all he could. He offered to send the Fay to tend to as many needs as he might. He asked for forgiveness and understanding. He even asked for patience. He did his best to ignore the familiar curses and glaring stares the village heaped upon its tinker. For the king expected the tinker's latest innovation by late afternoon, and it was in no tinker's interest to keep a king waiting on the first day of the second sun.

  Sweat poured from the tinker's brow by the time Markus Kohl arrived at the workshop's back door, the front door blocked by a crowd screaming one thing after another in need of repair. The sweat stung his eyes and drenched his shirt.

  "You alright, boss-man?" Mad Phillip appeared in a blink to pull at Markus's elbow.

  Markus coughed deeply into his sleeve. "It's just the heat of the second sun. It only takes some getting used to. You Fay are smarter than men for burrowing into the earth when the sky so fills wi
th sunshine."

  "If you say so, boss-man," Phillip tossed Markus an unconvincing smile, "but you should shave that tangled excuse of a beard from your cheeks. That mess has to itch something terrible."

  "But it's tradition for every tinker to grow a good, thick beard."

  Mad Phillip spat upon the street. "That's all I'll offer to mankind's notion of tradition. It's an awful word. It's one of man's words. What does the tinker care about tradition when the second sun is so hot, and when the crowd is so unpleasant in the street?"

  Mad Phillip offered nothing more before bounding into the workshop. Markus grinned. He would miss his Fay. The king's counselors had always advised the tinker to treat his Fay servants more coldly. They had told Markus to treat his workers with the sternness the Fay required to do their jobs in an efficient manner. Only, Markus Kohl could never treat them any other way but kindly. The Fay were too much his friends, and so, Markus often thought, perhaps that was why he never rose very high in his village's regard. If he could not prove a stronger leader of the Fay, then Markus's peers must have thought him a meek man.

  Markus took a breath as his body shivered regardless of the second sun's heat. A terrible cough shook his frame, and Markus frowned to see the small, red splotches left upon his sleeve. He hoped the Fay would not notice that color, for the tinker could not afford that day to distract the Fay any further from their task.

  * * * * *