Part three of the SANTA Triptych

Your red cloak trails through the snow be­hind you, its hood cov­er­ing your hat and ob­scur­ing your closely-trimmed beard, its long sleeves hid­ing your bare hands. Not the norm for a Santa. You sup­pose they don’t call you Santa, any­more. It’s “Mother” nowa­days. But when you look into the mir­ror, Santa is still all you see.

Like the rest, should you not be name­less? Sim­ply “Santa,” anony­mous if not for your po­si­tions? You’d be sim­ply the North and the South: they’d only call you one, and you’d only claim the other. You had ac­qui­esced to the ban­ning of names for San­tas. It was for the chil­dren, as it all had once been, lest the idyl­lic il­lu­sion, long faded if ever it was, be bro­ken.

“Mother,” Gaius had in­sisted they call you, and again, you had ac­qui­esced. He had claimed it was what you were to him; were you, then, a bad one?

The snow swirling around you con­stricts at the thought of him, but you slow your breath, and the snow re­sumes its gen­tle swirl. You gave the other three a day, and the day will soon end, and with it, Gaius’s time as South­east and head of SANTA. The other three—North­east, North­west, and South­west—ought soon have se­lected a re­place­ment.

The si­lence is bro­ken by loud crunches of boots—heavy and loud, not what they used to be. Your sur­prise es­ca­lates as you’re sur­rounded: Black boots. White beards. Red coats.

Ra­zor-sharp tips of long candy-cane staves force your chin up. The snow swirling about you set­tles to the ground. The quiet be­comes op­pres­sive.

One of them be­gins to speak. You don’t wait to see what the hell they’re think­ing. What­ever id­iocy they’re at­tempt­ing, you know who’s re­spon­si­ble.

Snow smashes against brick some­where in the east. You did­n’t twitch a sin­gle mus­cle, but don’t be pride­ful. Be­sides, you’ve had cen­turies of prac­tice.

They should know bet­ter than to look away: never look away from the one who con­trols the snow. But it’s your lucky day.

By the time they look back at you, the snow has al­ready moved. It only takes a pulse of snowy wind and a sin­gle swing.

Six heads thump to the ground. Then, six bod­ies.

Red blood shines in stark con­trast to the snow. It drips from your blade. You al­low it to dis­solve, blood­stained snowflakes wisp­ing away into the night.

You spare only a quick prayer for their souls, per­haps out of habit. They were do­ing as he told them, whether with or with­out the sanc­tion of the other three, and they would doubt­less obey. They may even be young enough to have been raised in the Acad­emy it­self. You don’t re­mem­ber when he de­creed it; it was os­ten­si­bly to pre­vent at­tach­ments to sib­lings and par­ents.

Were it de­creed ear­lier, per­haps Icarus would’ve bet­ter ac­cli­mated, would nev­er’ve been tempted, would nev­er’ve run. But if you’re hon­est with your­self, the rule would­n’tve made any dif­fer­ence.

“Would­n’tve made any dif­fer­ence for you,” you tell her. You don’t know if she an­swers. If she does, her an­swer can­not reach you.

Bet­ter keep your prayers short: you hear more boots ap­proach­ing.

Jump!

You land on the roof with barely a sound. Your boots are what they used to be. The few hun­dred orig­i­nal mod­els are still around, left­over af­ter the dead are burned, but with SAN­TA’s boom­ing size, they’re not nearly enough.

There’s enough raw ma­te­r­ial for any­thing, but the orig­i­nal de­signs and the skill to im­i­tate them are gone. The new ones are sor­row­ful im­i­ta­tions: still en­tirely in­de­struc­tible, the boots and hats still as ir­re­mov­able as your own, but lit­tle else.

Be­low you, a ver­i­ta­ble sea of red marches down Dasher Av­enue. You’re dis­ap­pointed in Gaius. Close-formed well-dis­ci­plined march­ing may tickle his ego, but sim­ply flood­ing the Ark is hardly an ef­fec­tive way to fight you.

Take a de­tour west: you doubt you’re alone on the roofs. Run­ning to­wards the Sanc­tum down the North Spoke of the Acad­emy proper prob­a­bly is­n’t the best idea.

You jump from your west­ern off­shoot en­tirely off the Acad­emy. The steep roof you land upon is harder to run across. They won’t fol­low eas­ily. Then again, if they’re up here with you, they prob­a­bly have the nice boots, too.

Snow slides from the roofs as you jump from house to house, but never reaches the ground. In­stead, it swings back up and swirls around you in whips of white, not hid­ing you, but ready to pro­tect you; you learned long ago it worked bet­ter as a shield than cam­ou­flage.

You have to give Gaius credit: the march­ing force is im­pres­sive, if im­prac­ti­cal. Their red coats gleam in the yel­low light of the street lamps; snow, kicked up by their boots, winks up at you.

You leap a mo­ment too late. A ten­dril of snow bats the lump of coal away, and the rest shields you, but still your jump turns to a tum­ble as its con­cus­sive shock­wave rams into you.

Wood, brick, and blood blend to­gether. Your cloak takes the brunt of it, not at all worse for the wear.

“Santa?” asks a voice. For a mo­ment, you think it’s a child. Per­haps you were re­mem­ber­ing how things used to be. But she must be twenty. Per­haps even twenty-five. Few sur­vive that long.

You scram­ble into her home, pulling her in with you. The roof creaks as your snow en­gulfs the house, pack­ing into walls of ice feet thick.

Coal ex­plodes against the bar­rier out­side. San­tas scream as shards of ice shoot back at them, crash­ing into their in­de­struc­tible coats.

You hear shuf­fling be­hind you. It’s not sur­pris­ing they’re in­side, too. They live with peo­ple, now. There’s just too many of them for the Acad­emy.

The woman sti­fles a scream as ice bursts through the win­dow and splat­ters the San­tas’ brains across the walls. You glance at their bod­ies piteously.

“S-santa?” asks the woman, the right of her face dot­ted with blood. “It was­n’t me! Please, no coal!”

Her voice is quiet, likely out of habit. You’re rea­son­ably sure a few dozen of her burns must have been ad­min­is­tered by the very San­tas whose blood now stains her face, per­haps up­set with hav­ing been dis­turbed. Gaius gives his mil­i­tary too much lib­erty with pun­ish­ments. You ought to have reigned him in long ago.

“I never dreamed he’d take it this far,” you de­fend, wip­ing off the wom­an’s face with your sleeve, man­ag­ing only to smear the blood. Her eyes are a mix of fear and ut­ter be­wil­der­ment. “He seemed a nat­ural fit.”

The room’s sole chair is off in the North cor­ner, empty as ever, as you sup­pose it is in every other house. You think the San­tas might some­times sit in it. They should­n’t. “And don’t say we did­n’t need a mil­i­tary!” you ad­mon­ish the chair’s owner. Some­times, you think she an­swers. “The God­less could have come. Could still come!”

You turn back to the woman—ought­n’t she be pan­ick­ing? Or is the con­fu­sion too much? You guide her over to a bench. Once, it would’ve been a couch. You guess there’s no room. Or per­haps, like the boots, no­body re­mem­bers how to make them.

“If Annabelle had­n’t—” you start. You glance at the chair. Her soul dis­sects yours from some­where un­reach­able.

You turn to the woman you’ve seated be­side you. “Icarus lacked the re­solve to re­move her temp­ta­tion,” you say. She does­n’t fol­low.

“The Run­ner,” you clar­ify. You call her Icarus. You al­ways felt she seemed more a girl. Per­haps you were just see­ing what you wanted to see.

The woman still does­n’t fol­low. You sup­pose Gaius kept it quiet.

She jumps as a clump of snow shoots from the win­dow into your wait­ing hand. You tap the ball of your hat to it, and it turns into a nice, big cookie. Is she sur­prised? She’s prob­a­bly only seen San­tas do that with coal. She does­n’t re­al­ize it’s all the same, in the end.

She ac­cepts it ea­gerly. You’re not sure if it’s the stress, or be­cause it’s a cookie. You re­mem­ber a time you’d al­ways sneak a few ex­tra. Glut­to­nous, per­haps. But you doubt she gets them of­ten. Prob­a­bly only monthly, to ward of any ill­ness. Per­haps only yearly. There’s not much ill­ness to catch any­more.

“What’s… what’s hap­pen­ing?” she asks.

More ex­plo­sions of coal crack the ice out­side. You pack in more snow. It’ll hold for a bit.

“Gaius,” you say. “The South­east Santa,” you clar­ify. “I don’t know if he wormed his words into the other three’s minds. I’dve thought at least North­east would’ve scoffed at him, much less North­west…”

And South­west? South­west was South­west. You only ever kept her around be­cause… Well, you’re not sure.

“Don’t flat­ter your­self,” you snap, but that does­n’t wipe the smug­ness off the chair.

“He was­n’t al­ways like this, you know,” you tell the woman. “Gaius. South­east. He was a teacher once. Adored me, I think. Prob­a­bly still hears my voice telling him what to do.”

You let some ice form into a glass, then shift some snow into milk. It takes some do­ing, but you man­age to make the glass warm, along with the milk in it. The woman takes it.

“I’m Elise,” she says.

Of course she has a name. She’s not a santa. You nod.

You can’t re­ally blame Gaius. You trained him to be­lieve you could turn on the Ark and all the peo­ple in it; you had pre­pared him for it; armed him. Pro­tect the Ark, you had taught him, from the God­less, and from you, should you in­evitably fall to the same cor­rup­tion that had taken your pre­de­ces­sor.

The chair glares at you de­ri­sively. You give her a with­er­ing look of your own.

You know Gaius is do­ing the right thing, whis­pers the voice that killed her. It’s qui­eter, lately, af­ter Annabelle and Icarus. Or other voices are louder. You’re not sure.

“They’ve noth­ing to do with it,” you in­sist. You would’ve seen what he’s be­come ei­ther way. How could you not?

“He was my best stu­dent,” you tell Elise. “A per­fect study. Al­most a clone of my­self. In­stincts per­fect. Ded­i­ca­tion bet­ter. I don’t know where I went wrong…”

“You… you went wrong?” asks Elsie.

“I did the best I could,” you say. “It seemed the right thing to do. I mean of course now it’s dif­fer­ent what with SANTA con­script­ing half the pop­u­la­tion and the run­away pun­ish­ments and tak­ing the chil­dren— but it had all seemed—“

Shards of brick slam into you. Your at­ten­tion must have wa­vered, you had­n’t re­al­ized—

Again, your coat took the brunt of it.

But Elsie did­n’t have a coat.

Her face is off. Her ar­m’s bent funny. A bloody chunk of brick’s em­bed­ded in the wall be­hind her; a gap­ing hole through her stom­ach lies in its wake.

You hear a small thump as she falls to her knees. A louder one as she col­lapses en­tirely.

The glass lays shat­tered upon the floor, the shards melt­ing into the milk, swirling in her blood.

Red-coated fig­ures march in through what had been a wall.

“You know this is the right thing, Mother,” says a voice, al­most a clone of your own. It booms through the Ark, echo­ing around the cor­ners, into what had once been a house. “You know so very well.”

A blade to the neck snaps every­thing back into fo­cus. You’re on the floor. They’re over you. Far too many. The snow far too dis­tant—

“The other three un­der­stood, too, Mother,” his voice sounds. “You know you should honor their choice. Do the right thing.”

It’s all you’ve ever wanted to do. You con­fessed. You asked for­give­ness. You tried to pay your penance. You sac­ri­ficed so much more than you ever had right to in the name of that whis­per­ing voice that had snaked its way around your heart and had called it­self your con­science. Had it been right all along? If the oth­ers felt so, who were you to fight them? Let it go… The peo­ple would be healthy, if not happy; liv­ing, yet still empty.

Could you have seen some­thing more within Elsie, had you looked? Was she, as the rest, a shell? Named and faced, and still as in­dis­tinct as the army of SANTA sur­round­ing you now?

The room is full of them. Dozens. You can feel each and every one. Can you de­lude your­self into feel­ing in them that spark you had not both­ered find in Elsie?

The death breaks over you: the two sleep­ing San­tas, who had not worn their coats as they slept; the four oth­ers in the room with them; two more in a closet—had they been at­tempt­ing to get what lit­tle out of life that they could? Had they not al­ready been dead?

“I’m sorry,” you say. You are. The army around you is no more alive than the rest. They’re au­toma­tions fol­low­ing or­ders, in­doc­tri­nated long ago into the very mil­i­tary that Gaius had in­vei­gled you into al­low­ing him to cre­ate.

You’re sorry. Sorry for what you’ve al­lowed. Sorry for what you’re about to do.

The ice pierces the wooden floor and the San­tas’ un­pierce­able boots in an in­stant. Rips through their bones. Rup­tures their skulls. Gifts them skele­tons of snow, antlers of ice, all now yours, all be­fore they even had a chance to scream.

Sur­rounded by stat­ues, the night around you is silent once again.

“Shut up,” you say, your eyes fixed upon Elsie. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!” What’s left of the chair in the cor­ner ex­plodes.

You did­n’t mean to. You want her back, her and Elsie—

You see your ice tear­ing off Gaius’s arms and legs, crush­ing his head, burst­ing his eyes, rup­turung his bones, rip­ping out his lungs—

The re­mains of the house shat­ter in an ex­plo­sion of ice. Splin­ters of brick and wood whirl around you, en­veloped in your snowy wind.

You dash into Don­ner Av­enue. Your mael­strom and the im­mense force of SANTA meet.

In whole and in part the army is swept into the storm, the brick and wood smash­ing into them, your ice im­pal­ing them. The red of coats and blood alike twists about you, lash­ing out in light­ning red and white, a rage now un­shack­led, a blind­ing wrath vy­ing for lethal vengeance.

A moun­tain of ice splits the sea of red be­fore you, be­fore it­self split­ting. They ac­cost it with coal and staff, only for their staves to be taken and shat­tered by the ice, and their coal to det­o­nate, rather than in fire, in flur­ries of snow.

You walk the chasm, along the Acad­e­my’s north­ern spoke. You rip apart its gates with nary a thought as you stride to­wards the Pole and the Sanc­tum sur­round­ing it, the hub from which the Acad­e­my’s six spokes emerge.

The ice seals the way be­hind you. Quiet set­tles but for the pound­ing of your feet, and with it, the pound­ing of the ice against the Sanc­tum’s heavy, foot-thick stone doors.

The doors slam open.

He stands in them, bran­dish­ing some­thing—

Your hands move to your stom­ach. Knees buckle.

Warm­ness flows through your fin­gers.

It stretches be­fore you, its white stripes splat­tered with red.

His lance. Your crafts­man­ship. Its never-melt­ing tip of ice freezes you from the in­side.

You think to melt it.

Is­n’t it eas­ier, frozen in­side?

The ground grows dis­tant. Your legs scrape against the snow. The strain against your arms should pain you.

He’s still there. In the door­way. Closer and closer.

The heavy doors shut be­hind you.

They drop you at his feet.

“Pro­tect the Ark, you’d have done the same,” you mut­ter, but your voice can’t find her. There’s only him, here. Your snow strains to reach you, snaking around the Sanc­tum and the Pole at its cen­ter. You hear the walls creak and crack as it squeezes with every faint thump of your rapidly beat­ing heart.

“I want to do the right thing,” he says. His voice echoes through your mind, just as it had done two cen­turies be­fore when he had said the same.

“I un­der­stand,” you had said those two cen­turies ago, “I had some­one close to me.” It had been only months af­ter the Ark had been sealed. Every­thing had been so fresh.

You had done the right thing. Made the right choice. You were sure you had to help Gaius make the right choice, too. Had­n’t you done so?

You feel your­self pulled to your feet. Hear your­self groan as the spear pulls at your stom­ach.

“You must re­move temp­ta­tion, Gaius,” you had said then, the voice that had killed her so bold, so strong, so in­fec­tious.

“How can I?” he asks you. Had he said some­thing sim­i­lar, those cen­turies ago? You can hear him blink away his tears, whether now or then you’re un­cer­tain. His hand lifts your chin, just as yours had lifted his; you can feel your sweat on his palms just as you had felt his on yours.

“It’s not dif­fi­cult, Gaius,” you had told him, as the heat from the coals be­low had bathed his face. He had re­fused to look up to the plat­form, to that per­son with whom he had been close. “Just a tug.”

“Why?” he im­plores you. His face swims into your vi­sion, his long beard sad, his eyes as cold as he can make them. There’s more wrin­kles on his face, now.

“You know it must end, Gaius,” you had said. He had known it as well; you had seen it upon his face, bathed in or­ange, buried be­neath his at­tempts at school­ing it. “You must pro­tect us all. You must pro­tect the Ark.”

You don’t re­mem­ber who it had been, up there on that plat­form. But they had tempted Gaius, just as Annabelle had tempted her Icarus, just as your own love had tempted you those two hun­dred six­teen years ago, now. You had un­der­stood.

“I know I must pro­tect the Ark,” he says. You thought he’d be filled with right­eous fury, an­tic­i­pat­ing the power he would take from you as he took your place. But in­stead, within him you feel only that fa­mil­iar pain. “Why from you, Mother?”

“Do the right thing, Gaius,” you had com­manded, those two cen­turies ago.

“Why, Mary?” he asks.

Your name pierces you for the first time in over two cen­turies. Even your mind had not dared whis­per it in decades. You had much rathered no names, so you would not hear yours, and Gaius had ac­qui­esced.

“Just pull,” you whis­per, the words strug­gling to leave you.

He re­fuses to look away. “I did,” he says.

“Icarus did­n’t,” you say. “The Run­ner.”

Gaius grips the spear, and rips it from you. “The San­ta known as The Run­ner,” he says, “Was led astray. He lacked the re­solve to re­move his temp­ta­tion.”

“So you did it for her,” you gasp, “Just pulled.”

“You’d have done the same.”

He’s wrong. Had Gaius failed, had he lacked that re­solve—if he had only had Icarus’s strength—you know you would have re­al­ized some­thing then, some­thing im­por­tant. You would have stopped it all. Would­n’t you have?

They pull you up the stairs, into the Pole. You can feel it pul­sate as your cold des­per­ately as­saults it, try­ing madly to reach you, as you wel­come the heat you can feel wait­ing for you be­low.

“You know this must end, Mary,” he says, his voice echo­ing from some­where be­hind you. You try to turn to look, but you can’t man­age it. Every move­ment aches. You won’t last long, but still, they push you for­ward, across the wooden bridge.

The floor shifts un­easily be­neath you. Be­hind you, a gate closes. You can feel the San­tas walk­ing away. The bridge is al­ready low­er­ing.

The hot red of the pit be­low dis­torts the air as smoke wafts up through a too-small hole in the ceil­ing above. It warms you, al­most pleas­ant.

“I would­nt’ve done the same, Amanda, I would­n’t have,” you mum­ble. “I did the right thing. You were wrong. You were temp­ta­tion, I could­n’tve—“

The red be­low stares up into you, and in it, you find her. You see her eyes liquify­ing. You smell the smoke leav­ing her mouth as her lungs turn to ash. You hear her screams as the fire con­sumes her.

“I’m sorry,” you whis­per, clutch­ing at the hole in your stom­ach, still bleed­ing, still burn­ing. The hot coals be­low con­tinue their stare. “I’m so sorry!”

“It’s too late for con­fes­sions, Mother,” says Gaius from the plat­form be­low, the coals’ heat re­flect­ing off his face, the rope dan­gling be­fore him.

“Yes,” you say. “I would have done the same. Did do the same. And I was wrong, Gaius,” you say. “And I’m sorry. Be­cause it was all me, I know. I whis­pered into your ear for so long… It was me…”

He reaches for the rope. “I must do the right thing, Mother,” he says.

“I know,” you say.

He pulls the rope.

The plat­form be­neath your feet gives way.

You fall.

You reach for your snow.

It an­swers.

Clos­ing the heavy stone doors be­hind you had been wise. Your ice would’ve bro­ken in even­tu­ally, but be­tween that and the spear through your stom­ach, it would never have done so in time.

Bring­ing you into the coal cham­ber was de­cid­edly un­wise. The hole in the roof is too small to let in enough snow to heal you, much less aid you in es­cape or vengeance, but you have all the snow you need in­side. It’s just a bit solid. And on fire.

When you hit the coals, you burn. The fire sur­rounds you, a whirl­wind of heat. It sinks into you, melts away the hat and boots and coat, burns off the beard, fills your rup­tured stom­ach.

It drapes over you, an inky smoky dress, bil­low­ing be­hind you as you jump up to where Gaius stands.

Whips of smoke grasp him and pull him be­hind you as you as­cend the stairs. San­tas race af­ter you, stum­bling as the en­tire Acad­emy shakes, but a wall of fire blocks their way as you en­ter the room above.

Within, cir­cling the too-small hole in the floor, the con­sole waits. The smoke from be­low wafts up through the hole, in flux be­tween smoke and snow, fly­ing out as flur­ries through its sis­ter hole in the roof.

An un­used coat and hat hangs from a spear of ice jammed into the wall be­side the north­ern bal­cony doors. Be­neath them lay a pair of boots. Be­side those, the small pal­let where you sleep.

You grab her hat, and drape her coat around your­self loosely, over the dress now made of shim­mer­ing wa­ter and ice.

“I did the right thing, Mary,” in­sists Gaius, strug­gling against the smoke that holds him in place. It flashes briefly to fire; he screams as it burns him. “I did, I did as you said, it was the right thing—“

“I thought so, too,” you tell him, your voice warm with wist­ful re­gret.

“I was wrong,” you con­tinue, your voice no longer warm. The smoke re­strain­ing Gaius freezes. The ice snakes up his arms. He screams as it en­ters through his nose and mouth; shrieks as it pierces his brain. You try to be quick, for his sake and yours. You steady your­self as the Pole shakes; you doubt you have long be­fore it col­lapses around you.

You grasp Gaius’s arm. Just be­fore his brain dies, you let him in. He feels every­thing. The Ark. The snow. The San­tas. The peo­ple, sleep­ing and woke.

“You can’t take ‘North’ or ‘South’ from me,” you say. “It can only be shared. I was never North. That was Amanda. I was South. Her… Her part­ner, I sup­pose.” You should’ve been more.

You see his last thoughts spark­ing through his mind. Would you once have known what they were?

“She shared North with me. I… Now I share it with you.”

Your smoke pulls his hand to the ball of his hat. His hand and hat then move to the green but­ton, where your own hand waits, and in it, Aman­da’s hat.

It takes two San­tas to un­seal the Ark: one North, one South. You were both North and South, but you were still only one Santa. Now, you and Gaius both are North and South, and be­tween you, you can do what you now know was al­ways the right thing.

You push the green but­ton.

Feel every­thing change.

Hear the walls lower.

Every­thing be­comes, some­how, warmer.

The room shakes. The walls are falling apart.

The ice and smoke and fire con­sume Gaius. The floor be­neath him crum­bles, and he falls, down into the cham­ber, onto the coals—al­ready dead.

You step out onto what’s left of the bal­cony, her coat still draped over your shoul­ders, her hat still in your hands. You grip the handrail for steadi­ness as the Pole creaks and groans.

Be­low, the army stretches, be­fud­dled. The sun, peek­ing above the hori­zon, lights them peace­fully. When the God­less come, will they fight? They surely will. You would have. And you had taught Gaius in your im­age, and had com­manded he con­script a name­less army in his own.

“I’m sorry, Amanda. I never should have sealed the Ark. I never should have burned you. I should have re­leased you, re­leased us both, like you said… And…”

She had­n’t wanted to be a Santa at all. She had­n’t got­ten a choice. It had been taken from her, and you had only watched.

“I should have stopped him…” you say. “I’m sorry, Amanda. So very sorry… Whether you’d for­give me or not, I am sorry.”

You used to trust in God. That you were do­ing right by Him. Now you trust that, if He ex­ists, you were do­ing any­thing but.

“I am sorry, Amanda. And… I love you.”

Her hat slips from your hands, soar­ing away into the wind. You al­most fall af­ter it as the bal­cony tips side­ways, its sup­port dis­in­te­grat­ing.

You shed her coat and grasp the rail­ing. It’s a long way down, but you’ve got the snow.

Jump.

Close your eyes.

Smile.