Midwinter

Satterly looked up to the hill's highest point, where the LeMans and the pickup waited. Meyer was behind the wheel of the convertible, and Jim Broward was in the truck. At a signal from Hereg, they both released their brakes and began rolling slowly down the hill. Dried leaves and twigs crackled beneath their tires. Broward's truck stuttered in its motion. The engine coughed and sputtered to life, lurching the truck forward. Broward revved the engine and dropped the truck into a higher gear.

Meyer's first shot at popping the clutch failed. The LeMans growled once, twice, then died, continuing its slow roll down the slope. Meyer, his hair blowing in the slight breeze of the car's motion, froze. The car continued to roll forward, now halfway down the slope. In a few moments he would be at the level of the ravine.

Broward honked his horn. Hereg jumped, frightened by the sudden noise. Meyer started, nodded furiously. He jerked the gearshift and leaned backward. The car coughed again and the engine caught, nearly bottoming out on the slope.

"Give it gas!" Broward shouted through his open window. Meyer closed his eyes, wincing. The LeMans eased slowly to life, idling with a steady roar.

"Let's go!" shouted Broward. "We don't have much time!"

They drove the rest of the way down the slope without incident, stopping at the level of the sphere. Their camp was at the far bottom of the hill, where the ravine expanded and leveled out into the forest.

Satterly felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. It was Linda. "Can you believe it?" she said. "It's really happening."

Satterly nodded. He looked to Hereg's left, where Gray Mave lay, tiny runic markings covering his entire naked body.

"Satterly!" cried Mave, catching his gaze. It came out as a whisper.

"Uh, I'll be back," Satterly said to Linda. He approached Gray Mave.

"I can already feel it beginning," said Mave. "I can feel him pulling the life out of me. He's channeling my Gift, pressing it into something larger. More focused. It's beautiful."

"You're going to be okay, Mave," said Satterly, kneeling beside him.

Mave shook his head and coughed. "I'm beyond that now, Satterly. Look." He ran his hands over his chest wound. The skin there was black and rotting. "Those bugganes really got me. It was all I deserved."

"No, Mave. You didn't deserve it. You did what you thought was right."

Mave reached out and took Satterly's hand in his. It was surprisingly soft and warm. "I always knew what I was doing was wrong," he said. "Now, at least I can atone for it."

"Dammit," said Satterly. "It's not true. You don't deserve to die."

Mave tried to sigh but only produced an ugly wet cough. "Satterly, don't cheapen my death. Let me be noble for once."

Satterly sat down hard on the hard ground. Somewhere, a hot wind began to blow.

"Move away," said Hereg, taking Satterly roughly by the shoulder. "Get out of the way."

Satterly stood up and stumbled backward, toward Linda.

Hereg turned to face the sphere and called out a few more phrases in his ancient dialect. The sphere began to shimmer, clouding over.

The wind Satterly had felt on the ground now grew to a gust, racing over his skin like the Santa Ana he'd felt once in Los Angeles, a wall of hot air. The trees around them began to shake and sway, their few brown leaves scattering and swirling in the wind.

Hereg cried out something unintelligible and the sphere began to grow. The wind intensified, and Satterly felt Linda holding on to him for balance. The whisper of the floating leaves grew to a roar as the trees for dozens of yards in every direction started to bow crazily, shaking loose entire branches that dropped to the earth with ugly thuds.

Satterly inhaled a mouthful of old dust, rotten ice, and dirt. The sphere was getting larger, now the size of Hereg, continuing to expand.

The sphere sat precariously now at the top of the ravine. Directly before it stood Hereg, the wind blowing his robes around him. Behind him, Mave lay on the ground, his body beginning to shake. His eyes were closed. Behind Mave, Meyer and Broward were backing their vehicles into position on either side of Mave's prostrate form.

Paul stood alongside holding a length of chain in each hand. When Meyer and Broward were in position, he ran behind the cars, clipping his chains to their frames. He walked along the chains' length, checking their position, allowing them to flow through his hands as he circumnavigated the sphere. When his circuit was complete, he nodded to Hereg, handing him a loop of heavy wire that terminated one of the chains. Hereg's skin crackled when it came into contact with the steel of the wire, but if he felt pain he did not show it.

"Avi ke'ele.!" called Hereg. From what little he understood of Fae thaumatics, Satterly recognized the call to a triggered memory spell, a keyword that launched a previously spoken bit of magic. The sphere changed colors, sparked; electric flashes shimmered inside its depths. It became completely opaque, darkening to black.