Cassie shared a sly look with Kim and slapped his back. “You’ll see!”
They jogged up the ramp by the baseball stadium and down into the open space at the foot of the tower. There they found a metal door propped open. The band of Faeries entered a dark room, hooting and shouting at one another, sending echoes all around. As Brendan’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized they were at the bottom of a winding staircase. He looked up but the top was hidden from sight.
A Faerie man with a bright vermillion mohawk waving from the top of his head shouted, “Last one to the top is a Dwarf’s underpants.” Then he sprinted up the stairs out of sight. The others catcalled and shouted after him before setting off in hot pursuit.
“Come on, Brendan,” Kim laughed. “Believe me, you don’t want to be a Dwarf’s underpants!” She pushed him toward the stairs, and soon they were taking the treads two at a time.
Brendan had been to the top of the tower before, but only on one of the super-fast elevators. Running up in the dark was a totally different experience. He’d read somewhere that the staircase had thousands of steps: it was over half a kilometre high.^ 47 In his old life, he would have succumbed to exhaustion after a hundred, if he hadn’t already tripped over his clumsy feet and bounced all the way back down to the bottom. Now he took the steps with ease. He fell into an easy rhythm, pumping his arms and breathing easily. He started to enjoy himself, losing himself in the physical exertion. He easily matched Kim’s pace and even had to hold back a little to avoid outpacing her. Soon they caught up to the pack. They joined the jostling, laughing mass surging upwards through the dark.
Moments like these made him forget the new responsibilities that weighed on him. His worries over his family, the upcoming Proving, the conversation with Merddyn all dissolved in the simple pleasure of his physical existence. He relished being alive and being part of the joy of the Faeries around him.
All too soon, the group reached the top of the stairs. The last runner was jeered good-naturedly as he arrived on the landing. He was a short, wiry Faerie with luminous grey eyes. “I ain’t got long legs, ya know. Gimme a break.”
They were standing at what appeared to be a blank concrete wall. The stairwell simply ended.
“What now?” Brendan asked.
“Watch!” Kim said. The group reached out and grasped hands. Brendan took Kim’s and Cassie’s hands in his. Once all of the members of the group had established physical contact with someone, they began to sing.
The song had no recognizable words. They merely opened their mouths and uttered a soft, breathy sigh. Brendan tried to follow the lead of the others. He was self-conscious at first, but as the moment stretched out, he let himself go. The sound began as a single note sung in unison. Then individuals diverged, some sliding up, some sliding down, until the concrete space was vibrating with a lush, achingly beautiful chord that reverberated through Brendan’s body. He’d never felt anything so gorgeous, and he wanted to stay in that moment for as long as he could.
The chord crescendoed, and suddenly the wall before them shuddered and flowed away. A fresh, bitingly cold wind washed over them. The singers stopped and shouldered their burdens once more. Together, they stepped out onto an open platform. Brendan’s jaw dropped. The whole of the city, the lake, and the islands spread out before him.
“Neat, huh?” Kim laughed at his dumbstruck expression.
“The Dawn Flyers?”
“You got it, Brendan.” Cassie smiled. People were shrugging their bundles off and unwrapping them. Brendan watched as they assembled what amounted to broad kites, like the outstretched wings of gulls with harnesses at the centre. Brendan wandered around the platform, watching the work with undisguised fascination. As the wind whipped around them, they constantly struggled to keep the gliders from being plucked away.
Brendan walked to the edge of the platform. The ledge ran all the way around the central column of the tower. A roof of opaque resin or crystal kept the snow and some of the wind off the fliers as they prepared their equipment. Brendan gripped a support post and leaned out to look down. A hundred metres below, he saw the roof of the observation platform. He’d been there before with his parents and had stood on the glass floor and felt his stomach drop away as he saw the ground so far below. This platform was higher still and nowhere near as safe or enclosed. He should have felt pure terror, but instead he felt exhilarated. He was higher than any Human had been on the tower since a helicopter had lowered the spire four decades ago.
“Brendan!”
He turned to see Kim pulling a set of the wings onto her back. The others were pulling straps and tightening harnesses. The wings could be folded in close to the body like a bird’s wings. Elaborate hinges and joints tensed and loosened as the fliers tested their contraptions.
Kim walked toward him. “There are a couple of extra sets of wings here. You wanna come?”
Brendan shook his head. “Are you kidding me? I’d totally kill myself. Or barf. It’s a mile to the ground.”
“C’mon! Don’t be a big baby!” Kim cajoled.
“No. No way! I’ll walk down and see you on the ground.”
“All right. Have it your way.” Kim suddenly pointed out toward the islands. “What’s that?”
Brendan turned to look. He saw only sky and the dark hump of the Toronto Islands. Lights twinkled here and there. “I don’t see anythioooof!”
Kim slammed into him from behind and pushed him out into space.
^ 47 It’s actually 553.3 metres tall. I don’t mean to be a stickler, but.
THE WILD HUNT
Brendan’s heart was hammering against his ribs. He wanted to scream in terror, but he couldn’t get any air into his panicconstricted lungs. He heard Kim’s hysterical cackle close to his ear. She had her arms wrapped tightly around his chest.
“Here we go! WOOOOOOOOOO!”
“Are you insane?” Brendan screamed, but the sound was whipped away by the air ripping past his face as they plummeted toward the base of the tower.
“Relax, granny!” Kim shouted. “I just need to find an updraft!”
The ground was rushing at them very fast now. The grey concrete was expanding to fill Brendan’s vision. He just had time to wonder if Kim had been hired to kill him when wings snapped open on either side, and with a crackle of taut silk they were swooping up again, skimming over the sidewalk at a height of about a hundred metres. The wind was lifting them steadily. They rose higher and higher up over the rail lines and the expressway, with its trail of red tail lights snaking by below. Then they were over the condos on the waterfront and the lake itself.
Brendan’s stomach unclenched. When he was confident that he wouldn’t lose the dinner he’d eaten earlier, he turned his head to see Kim’s madly grinning face. “What is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”
“Lighten up, Brendan. Isn’t this amazing?”
“It might be more amazing if I hadn’t wet my pants. I almost had a heart attack, you insaniac nutcase! Couldn’t you warn me?”
“Where would the fun be in that?” Kim tipped her right wing slightly, sending them curving out and banking even higher, moving out farther over the lake. “Look! They’re closing off the island.”
Brendan looked down and saw that the surface of the lake nearest the island, usually rolling with whitecaps, was still and smooth as glass. The flat area spread slowly out toward the city beyond. He suddenly understood. “They’re freezing the lake!”
“Yeah,” Kim confirmed. “It takes a lot of Faeries to weave some pretty intense weather Wards together, but it’s the best way to isolate the Ward’s Island.”
Brendan watched as the ice continued to radiate out from the island. He peered closer. He saw tiny figures out on the ice. “Who are they?”