Max was enchanted.
Orson puffed, “I think I know what’s wrong with your dad.”
“Yeah, he’s sick,” Snow Goose said thoughtfully. “And poor Ahk-lut, he went completely wacko. Some of the first generation, the Raven’s children, they look like that. Something wrong with the way they were made, maybe.”
“No!” Huff. “Max, I remembered something. Her dad said that talisman”-puff-”was a satellite that fell on Canada in the eighties?”
“Okay… why?”
“If it’s the one I’m thinking about”-puff-”it had a nuclear plant aboard. If Martin and Ahk-lut-”
“-are both suffering from radiation poisoning. Damn good, Orson!”
“Maybe that’s where… magic comes from.”
Snow Goose considered. “A powerful talisman is one that has traveled a long way. When I was just a cub, I saw a Swiss army knife that had been carried from Quebec, swapped over and over. Guy traded it for a bear fur and six cases of beer. Long nights. Plenty of time to party.”
“Heh,” Orson puffed. “That skyfall talisman… went round and round the Earth… hundreds of times.” Puff; huff. “So we find the Lady Sedna. What do we do then? Or is that a secret?”
“We have to comb her hair.”
“That doesn’t sound very difficult.”
“Well, Sedna is a very choosy lady. It has to be done just right.”
“Great.” Orson called back along the line. “Hey! Is there a beautician in the house?”
Max turned to look, and that sweeping glance revealed something he hadn’t noticed before: the vista, which had stretched out endlessly only minutes before, was all beginning to change. He said, “The sun looks a little bit brighter. I don’t get it. Why would the sun be brighter now?”
The sky had cleared too. The snow had subsided to flurries. Max was sweating in his fur parka, and there were no buttons. “Looks like the snow’s letting up.”
Orson said, “So we comb Sedna’s hair. Then what?”
Snow Goose examined Orson with amusement. “You know, you’ll probably be a lot happier if you think a little bit less about what happens later, and check out what’s happening now. This isn’t exactly safe, and if you don’t stay on top of it you’re going to end up the world’s pinkest Popsicle.”
The dogs trotted heartily onward, crunching the snow underneath the treads. A faint cawing sound grew swiftly louder. Max whipped his head up as a flock of geese arced across the sky, barely a stone’s throw away. He quickly counted a dozen birds, and there might have been more.
“ Bra nta canadensis,” Snow Goose smiled sadly. “Tuutangayak. My Canadian namesake. I used to love them. Almost extinct, now. My brother…” She paused, swallowed. “Ahk-lut taught me all about the animals. That was a long time ago.”
Orson saw an opening, and went for it. “He’s about thirty years older than you?”
“Just about. Daddy’s had three wives… that he’ll cop to.”
The birds swept south and disappeared into a bank of clouds. Snow Goose followed them with a wistful gaze.
It was remarkably easy to get into the spirit of it, to play to the hidden cameras. Max laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “We’ll fix things, don’t worry.”
“Worry for yourself-it’s your world on the chopping block.” The pilot cracked the whip, picking up the pace slightly. Behind him, the refugees had begun to huff.
The snowshoes crunched step after step, rasping as the snow became thinner underfoot. Max stared at his feet, and then at Snow Goose in astonishment. “Dirt! I saw dirt! I was starting to think I’d never see dirt again!”
“Check behind your ears,” Orson hissed.
The dog sled dragged across the brown patches, slowed by friction. As the snow began to recede, Snow Goose reached down, flipped the sled blades up, and replaced them with wheels. The cart wheels bumped against what he could now see was a rude path that they had followed under the snow.
The first small plants were twisting their way up through the permafrost, cracking their way through delicate rivulets of ice. Max plucked one up, rubbed a tiny leaf between two fingers, and chewed it as he walked along. The sun was warmer and brighter now, and he reveled in it. He had taken that golden disk for granted, as most people did, and as it blazed anew an indefinable depression lifted from his spirits.
He dropped back until he was shoulder to shoulder with Eviane. Her eyes were slitted, and she was watching everything around her like a nervous tiger. Something in her gaze resurrected unanswered questions. “Do you know anything about all of this that you’re not telling? Picked up on a clue or something? You’re so quiet that I can’t help but think that you’ve got a little hint for old Max.”
Her answering smile was quizzical. “Clue? I’m just trying to survive, like the rest of us.”
“I still get the feeling that I should stick with you. Does that make any sense?”
She moved a half-step away. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Ah… no.”
“Great.”
He started to-
Something writhed against his back, as if a sizable snake had slipped down his shirt.
His shoulders arched, and he bellowed. He reached back, clawing for the alien thing attaching itself to his shoulder blades, hooked claws reaching for his heart, fangs gnashing for his spine…
Something hard and cool moved in his grip. He pulled it around in front, ready for the worst horror imaginable. Ready for anything but what he saw.
“My rifle?” It wiggled in his hands, moving as if it had become a living thing. He held it out from himself, watching with awed fascination. The rifle was barely recognizable and still stretching, narrowing, taking on a new configuration under his very hands.
The barrel elongated, sharpened. The front sight flattened and the bore closed, flattened into a triangular shape. The framework butt had closed into a tube.
The Remington had become a long, barbed harpoon.
Max suddenly noticed the growing sounds of dismay behind him. The entire group was chattering excitedly, watching each other’s rifles change into spears and clubs.
Hippogryph’s rifle was now an older gun, a flintlock! A brightly glowing object appeared on the ground in front of him. Hippogryph scooped it up, delighted. “Looks like a magical powder horn!”
In almost as magical a transformation, the group which had been somewhat subdued and quiet was suddenly in the air, whooping their approval.
“Do you believe in maaa-gic?” Kevin sang, and his skinny body pranced and twirled like a crazed scarecrow. Trianna caught one of his hands and swung him around once. When his feet brushed the ground she set him afoot and composed herself in improbable dignity.
Kevin’s ears were red, and he stared at her even after she turned away. Hmmm? To Max it looked like… well, young lust, at least.
Suddenly Max noticed Eviane’s expression and the Remington that she still held in her hands. Eviane’s weapon remained a rifle. For the moment before her face went quite neutral, she’d looked grief-stricken? Bereaved?
Several rifles remained unchanged. Why? The spirits must be preparing some, but not all, for situations where spears or clubs would be needed instead.
Shoot a seal with a rifle and it slips back into the water. A tethered harpoon might be more appropriate.
Then again… would some unnamed ghastly rather face a primitive spear than a rifle? If so, then their fighting efficiency had just been cut almost in half…
That thought having crossed his mind, Max sobered up and kept his eyes open.
They kept moving. The National Guardsman was watching, running back and forth along the line, almost like a Rottweiler on extreme alert. His rifle had transformed, and he looked so absurd carrying a war club at port arms that it was all Max could do to keep from laughing out loud.
Maybe because of the increased warmth, or perhaps because of the pace of their trek, Max was beginning to feel out of breath. He would have been embarrassed to ask for a halt… and in all his life he had never needed to. He simply waited.