Then I felt the air grow even colder than it was, as if ice crystals suddenly formed and crackled in the air. The air
grew hard to breath and yet somehow thinner, more of an emptiness. I looked at Gaflus, whose eyes were darting
to and fro. I tapped him on the arm, and signaled to the blast-torch in his hand. He lit the fuse. So did I with mine.
We took a step out in front of everyone on either ends of the arc. The blue on the snow grew even more intense.
Almost blinding. Like it was wafting upwards into my eyes…
I let loose a blast with the torch to see what would happen and I saw myself cut a swath through the blue in the air
as it rose above the snow. And somehow the blue pulled away as well, I even felt I heard something. Something like
a child’s cry from far away. I saw Gaflus cut through the mist with his blast torch as well, and heard the same sound.
But ose and thickened and swirled, but never quite congealed into anything that you could categorize or grasp. Just
something animating the air, but not of it. Moving through it. Around it. The odd tendril would flow around us like
a fragment of a ghost but nothing happened. Just the storm moving and growing.
“Very well,” said Pale-Face.
“ You may stop now,” said Dark-Face.
Galfus looked to me and I nodded. But he did not nod. He kept going, even as the blue kept swirling, it started
making large spheres of itself and hurling itself at the Jones. The ship seemed to shift and shudder under the weight. I
yelled at Galfus to stop, but he wouldn’t. Pale-Face and Dark-Face yelled at the same time.
[Wierd that you didn’t notice that as much at the time…It’s kind of a big deal that they actually have individuality]
For them, maybe. Can you please not go meta right now?
[Sorry, sorry…]
Only the girl was silent, standing in the center, with Pale-Face and Dark-Face to her right and left. Her hair flowed
in the wind that I didn’t really feel but saw moving all around me. Her back was arched and her arms akimbo,
spread wide. The big blue balls didn’t touch her. Norl, hiding in my hood, gave off a psychic shudder.
Any chance the torch hurt them?
[Annoyed is more like]
Thought so. Help me do something stupid, would you?
[Good idea…]
Norl took off in Galfus’ direction and screamed a pyschic burst into his mind that cause him to turn the torch in
one direction, safely away from everyone. I charged him from behind and tackled him just as a big blue ball with
what looked like spikes swept down at him. He fell and his torch, spinning wild, hit the blue ball and dissolved it.
So it did have an effect. And I had an idea.
“Vin,” I said into my collar com.