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Faye hung weightless, bodiless, observing the distant tangled lights of minds awake across Bastion. Cyphers just like her listened for incoming messages, crunched numbers, and organized data into archives. Maybe they were linked to Freelancers or Sentinels in javelin suits, flying at high speeds through the cold night air. A feeling of familiarity nagged at her. She knew she’d done this before she’d gone to the Cenotaph, but couldn’t think why, nor what she’d been looking for in the darkness. As if those actions belonged to someone else.
Faye turned away from the lights and listened to the Gateway, the susurration of Shaper instruments doing their strange and unknowable work, and the distant background thrum of the Anthem of Creation behind everything. Somewhere, in the quietest part of the darkness, she knew she could find them. Impressions, like footprints in drying mud, of her own thoughts left in this space. Her own mind. Her own memories. If she just listened hard enough…
Another sound—louder, discordant, demanding—scraped across her concentration.
What? She tensed. The noise repeated, and she brought it into focus.
Someone nearby was singing an Icetide song. Loudly. And without any regard to tempo, key, or melody. Faye could, in fact, only identify the noise as an Icetide song by the repeated refrain of, “Icetide chill! Icetide chill!”
She pulled the threads of her consciousness back to her body, opened her eyes, and sighed. The world reformed itself around her, coalescing into the strider’s amplifier room, barely wide enough for two people to stand side-by-side, now with… strings of multicolored lights hung all over it, shining in the gloom and illuminating the close walls and low, rusted metal ceiling.
Faye shut down the amplifier and climbed out of the chair, which had been covered with paper snowflakes while she was connected. Because of course it had. The singing, if it could really be called that, was coming from down below her in the cargo hold.
She followed the trail of paper decorations and tuneless singing out into the galley kitchen, edged around the table—dislodging a couple of Haluk’s forgotten breakfast dishes—down a narrow flight of stairs, and found Haluk at the forge, which had been bedecked in more colored lights and paper snowflakes, working on his armor and singing at the top of his lungs. His javelin was remarkably free of Icetide décor, but the boisterous ex-Freelancer, who in all the years she’d known him had never once worn a shirt, was sporting a knitted cap adorned with the most enormous Freelancer-yellow pom pom as a concession to the cold weather.
“Hmmm-hmmm when there’s ice on the ground, scars and skorpions aren’t around, and hmmm-hmmm-hmmm-hmmm, Icetide chill! Icetide chill!”
Haluk did a little dance as he switched out his pliers for a screwdriver.
“Haluk.” Faye crossed her arms and waited. He slowly looked up from the javelin.
“Hey, you’re back! What do you think of the decorations?” He gestured proudly around the hold with the screwdriver, beaming.
“Very…” Faye hesitated while friendship and taste went to war in her head. They reached a tentative ceasefire. “Festive. Did you make all these snowflakes yourself?”
“Well, most of them. I may have gotten the rookie to help with a few.” He set down his tools and leaned against the forge to take the weight off his bad leg. “Was I making too much noise?”
Faye sighed. “It’s not so much the amount as the quality.”
“Are you trying to say my singing is less than perfect?” Haluk put on an expression of exaggerated shock.
“It might help if you learned the words. Or the melody. Or literally any other part of the song.”
“Critic.” Haluk laughed. “All right, fine. I’ll try to keep it down.” His eyes took on a far-away look and he sighed, “You know Icetide is completely different in the Mirelands, right?”
Faye did, of course. She’d heard Haluk make this speech at least half a dozen times. “Yeah, it’s this big, somber reflection on the previous year, and a lot of preparing to face the future.”
He gave a small chuckle. “Not a lot of caroling, you know? So… you got plans?”
“Well…” She paused. This was a test, and she knew it. Ever since they had silenced the Cenotaph, her mind wandered. Or reality did. Faye couldn’t always tell. She could see Haluk trying and failing to hide his concern, watching her to see if she remembered what day it was, what year, his name. She tried to recall what she had done for past holidays and felt something within her stir. “I do have the tapes for this year’s Dawnguard Icetide special. I’ve been saving them for the right moment.”
Emotions rushed across Haluk’s face, struggling for space. Amusement, horror… surprise elbowed the others out and stayed there. “How’d you get your hands on that? It hasn’t even aired in Antium yet.”
Faye beamed. She’d been waiting for months to brag about this. “My friend on the staff sent it to me. They recorded it months ago, they just hold it in reserve until the weather turns. You never know for sure when Icetide will start, after all.” She would have gone on, but Haluk was starting to fidget with his cane, a sure sign he wanted to leave. She asked, knowing the answer in advance, “Do you want to listen to it with me?”
“No thanks.” It came out almost apologetic. Almost. “I’ll be heading out soon, anyway. You can,” he hesitated slightly as everything he was about to say was a lie, but was nonetheless required to maintain the Contract of Friendly Roommates, “tell me all about it later, right?”
“Absolutely,” Faye promised, knowing she would under no circumstances attempt any such thing.
Haluk nodded, relieved that the contract was thus upheld and he’d gotten off the hook of listening to Faye’s radio shows, and headed up to the strider c*ckpit, leaving Faye alone in the hold. She took a deep breath, savoring the quiet. For a moment, she thought the dim cargo hold lit with strings of lights had started to come apart at the seams. Light poured in through the cracks in the world, and a pattern emerged like sound waves rippling through the planes of the room.
It only lasted a moment. The strider engine coughed, sputtered, turned over, and the hold tilted and swayed as the legs began to move. Reality returned with the rhythmic thunder of the feet hitting the ground and shuddering through the hull.
Tea. Tea would help. Faye went upstairs to the kitchen to start the kettle. Then she retrieved her magnetic tape player from her footlocker and set it up on the table. By the time her tea was ready, the strider had reached its destination. Silence settled over the cabin.
She pushed play.
Music blared, and Faye hummed along with it before the narrator’s voice crackled over the tape. “Antium’s elite lancers answer to no one—except the Emperor, Himself. Between the dark of night and the light of day, stands the Dawnguard. The season of Icetide is upon us. What will the chill winds bring for our heroes this time?”
Faye leaned forward in her seat, sipping her tea as the familiar voice of Walker, the Dawnguard leader, came on the tape. “Gather round, Freelancers. We have a mission.” Faye always pictured Walker as a grizzled javelin-armored version of her own mother. Dark skinned, dark-haired, and hewn entirely from steel. An unfamiliar treble voice joined hers. “Members of the Dawnguard, my name is Cypher Mirron."
Faye tensed. Why were they adding a new cypher? Cypher Rada had been with the series for the past five seasons. Rada was Faye’s favorite character. She braced herself for any number of bad one-off-special story twists.
“If this ends up being a dream,” Faye muttered warningly, “I’m chucking this tape directly over Tarsis Falls.”
The new cypher continued, “I have come directly from Corvus with news of most critical importance.”
Suddenly, a reverberating clang sounded through the strider. A motor in the cargo bay squealed painfully, lowering the elevator from the strider rooftop. Faye winced and stopped the tape.
She looked over the railing into the hold. Two javelins stepped off the lift into a space which, any sane person could tell, was not designed to contain even one javelin. The first was a Ranger whose armor was decorated with pink flame decals. The second was an Interceptor painted to look like it was covered in phiranix scales. They peered around the room in a nervous manner, shuffling their steel feet and trying without success to avoid bumping into each other or knocking down any of the decorations hanging perilously close to their heads. The Interceptor had already managed to get a paper snowflake stuck to their arm, elbowing the Ranger in the chest while trying to remove it with their oversized metal hands.
Haluk shouted from the top of the stairs to the c*ckpit. “All right, Freelancers! Let’s make this quick!”
“Haluk.” Faye managed to put into that one word the possibility that she might save her friend the trouble of climbing all the stairs by flinging him over the railing.
Haluk paused midway through the kitchen. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll get them outside so they won’t bother you.” He stomped quickly down the rest of the way to the hold.
Faye stared intently at the cabinet across from her, drumming her fingers on her teacup.
“Don’t get too cozy.” Haluk's voice boomed up from the bay. “I’m getting my suit and we’re going right back out. No sense trying to learn the layout of the track in here.”
This was followed up by a great deal of grunting as he climbed into his Colossus, with more nervous foot shuffling from the two lancers waiting for him. The thunderous clunking of Haluk’s armor stepping off the forge announced that he had at least made his Gateway connection well enough to move this time.
“Now,” Haluk’s voice came out filtered through his helmet, “when we get out there, remember, stay loose and ready for anything.” A pause. “What is it, Verder?”
Faye hazarded a glance down at them.
The already-crowded space was entirely overwhelmed by Haluk’s massive Colossus suit, which was draped in a string of lights he’d accidentally pulled down while exiting the forge. The Ranger lowered a raised hand, and an alto voice filtered out of the helmet uncertainly. “Uh… how do you stay ready for anything? That’s… a lot of things.”
Another pause. Then Haluk said, in what Faye recognized as his most diplomatic tone, “You know what? We’ll work on that. Come on, Ardsley, you go first.” He nodded toward the lift.
“Me?” The voice from the fish-scaled Interceptor was tenor and a little aggrieved. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”
The lift motor engaged again, the squeal even more shrill with three javelins to move. Faye shut her eyes as though hoping she could block out the sound that way. A final clang resonated through the strider as the lift stopped.
Silence.
Faye set down her tea, which had gone cold. She took a deep breath and held it, waiting. Haluk inevitably forgot something. Or one of those Freelancers would come back to use the lavatory. Something.
After another beat of silence, she let out her held breath and pushed play.
“…To answer the Emperor’s concern—” the perpetually worried voice of Lancer Hawking was mid-sentence when Faye stopped the tape again, irritated. She’d missed something. She rewound and hit play again.
The intro music blared again. “Antium’s elite lancers answer to no one—except the Emperor, Himself. Between the dark of night and the light of day, stands the Dawnguard. The season of Icetide is upon us. What will the chill winds bring for our heroes this time?”
The new cypher character began their introduction again, “Members of the Dawnguard—"
The strider’s intercom came to life with a loud burst of static, and Faye narrowly resisted the urge to fling her teacup at it.
“Hey, Faye?” Haluk’s twice-filtered voice sounded vaguely apologetic. “Sorry about this. Could you go up to the c*ckpit and turn up our transmitter? Our signal keeps cutting in and out.”
Faye stopped the tape again with a sigh and rose to her feet. The stairs at the other end of the kitchen led up to the narrow c*ckpit. This, more than any other part of the strider, was Haluk’s room, and it appeared as though Icetide had exploded in it. Haluk had left a stack of unfinished paper snowflakes and a box of tinsel in the driver’s seat, and the control panel was now festooned with plush korox dolls and more colored lights. A knit scarf, easily four meters long, had been stuffed under the console, and Faye could not even begin to fathom what that had been for. Was he going to dress his javelin in it? She found the transmitter board and cranked the power up. Then she turned to use the intercom, which had paper korox cutouts stuck over it.
She stabbed the intercom button hard enough that she nearly bruised her finger. “Done.” Faye’s voice came out much more annoyed than she’d intended.
Another loud crackle from the intercom. “Thanks, Faye! Sorry again for the trouble.”
She cast another glance at the holiday chaos of the c*ckpit, gave a sigh of disgust, and descended the stairs to the kitchen.
Faye glowered at the tape player and hit rewind again. She needed more tea. And snacks. Why was she even attempting this without snacks? She put the kettle on again and waited for it to boil.
In the silence of the kitchen, patterns seemed to emerge from the faces of the cabinets and the floor, rippling along to an unheard sound. Faye squeezed her eyes shut to keep the patterns out. If she didn’t watch them, she wouldn’t hear it, right? She held her breath, hoping, as the chthonian notes of the Anthem of Creation thrummed through the strider kitchen, shivering through her feet and up her spine.
The kettle whistled loudly and clicked off. Faye opened her eyes, slowly releasing the breath she’d been holding. She rose unsteadily, poured herself a new cup of tea, and carried it with exaggerated caution back to the table. She returned to her seat as though fearing she might fall through the chair.
She pushed play.
The lift screamed in protest and Faye immediately stopped her tape again.
Haluk stomped his massive Colossus over to the forge.
Faye moved to lean on the railing, watching him struggle, red-faced, out of the suit, and a warning went off in her mind. “Trouble?” she asked, a hundred angry comments drying up unvoiced.
“Suit problems.” Haluk waved angrily at the empty Colossus which they both knew worked perfectly. “The Gateway connection comes and goes. The limbs started locking up, and then I lost the transmitter. I should find a better use for this old hunk of junk.” He picked up his cane and started up the stairs. “Like a coat rack, or a trash can.”
“It would make an excellent paperweight,” Faye agreed, honoring the terms of the Contract of Roommates, watching her friend take out his frustration with himself by stomping as much as possible on each individual stair. Helpfully, she added, “or a planter, perhaps? Fill it with ferns, it would brighten up the whole strider.”
Haluk guffawed, shaking his head. “Well, I’m going to try to keep on the radio with those kids.” He paused in the stairwell to the c*ckpit and looked sheepish. “Sorry… again. For all the interruptions.”
“You’d better be.”
“I’ll make it up to you!” Haluk shouted down to her from partway up the stairs. “We get back to Fort Tarsis, I’ll buy you an order of those dumplings you like.”
“Make it two.” She sat back down at the table, and restarted her tape.
“Antium’s elite lancers answer to no one—except the Emperor, Himself. Between the dark of night and the light of day, stands the Dawnguard. The season of Icetide is upon us. What will the chill winds bring for our heroes this time?”
“Gather round, Freelancers—"
Sure enough, the strider’s engines reluctantly turned over and the cabin began to sway with the thumping of the feet on the ground. With a sigh of infinite frustration, Faye stopped the tape again. She stared at the floor beside her feet, silently rehearsing the argument she was about to begin with her roommate.
Cracks opened up in the floor, with light pouring out of them. Strange, cold light in which she thought she could see shapes moving.
“Sorry, Faye.” Haluk crackling over the intercom drove away the vision. “There’s a mountain or something getting in the way of the radio signal. Trying to find a better spot.”
Relief and annoyance fought a short, brutal battle in her head. No victor was declared. Slowly, deliberately, Faye rose to her feet. She walked through the swaying cabin, climbed the stairs, and reached Haluk as he brought the strider to a halt. As he disconnected himself from the Gateway, pulling his consciousness out of the strider and back into his body, she grabbed a plush korox from the control panel and threw it as hard as she could at him. It struck him square in the chest with a wheezy squeak and bounced onto the floor.
“Faye!” Haluk looked startled, and he half-rose from the driver’s seat. “Listen, I’ll make it up to—”
She waved for him to stop. “No. Enough.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Do you want me to coordinate… whatever this is you’re doing?”
“Nah, I don’t want to bother you.” Haluk, to his credit, looked immediately embarrassed once the words had left his mouth. “More than… I already have, I guess.”
Faye took a breath to snap at him, then let it out again. “It's no problem. I’ll fire up the amplifier.”
Maybe she couldn’t remember past holidays. She would remember this one.
Haluk sat back down, looking relieved. He leaned over the radio. “Hey, you two, can you hear me? Hang tight a second. We’ve got a cypher incoming.”
Faye walked back to the amplifier and climbed into the chair. The connection engaged and the threads of her consciousness rushed out of her body, the enclosed strider cabin, its colored lights and paper decorations dissolving into the vastness of the Gateway. In the darkness, she could see the twinkling lights of Haluk reconnecting to the strider and the two rookie Freelancers in their javelins. She reached out and touched them, drawing them into her mind, and was soon looking out at the snow falling in Bastion through two sets of eyes and the strider’s optics. She could smell the ice on the wind and feel frost forming on the skin of the strider. The world felt so close and so real.
“All right, Freelancers,” she said, “let’s get to work.”
Through the Gateway, profoundly out of tune, Haluk started humming an Icetide carol. After a moment, Faye sent him the words.
Special thanks to John Dombrow, Ryan Cormier, Cathleen Rootsaert, Jay Watamaniuk, Karin Weekes.