To Frieze an Angel

Haran solved problems only people in his circles could appreciate. Others admired him for the mountains he climbed. No one cared about a dawn so grey you could chew on it. No one noticed magenta edging a rocky skyline like the rising of world powers. He was paid for the photograph by helicopter at 8200ft. He was sponsored so the supporters could profit from that admiration.

Which was why his gear matched.

It was mostly black with splashes of red on the backpack, coat, gloves, and snow pants. Some accents of silver. Heavy-duty everything. He’d even been professionally barbered before he set out. He was risking his life, braving the elements, and photo-ready.

All of this was part of the trick, of course: keep the mind warm, like rubbing mental hands. Especially with powdered wind and dreamy daylight bringing out so much white that it hurt the teeth.

Haran shook his head.

He trudged.

Think warm thoughts. Half a dozen bodies so far. Think warm thoughts. An arm stuck out from one drift. There was a pile of rocks with a backpack, crouching on the body of its owner like a slug. Fabric and sponsorship logos. Think warm thoughts.

He thought about appreciation. Haran had his fellow climbers, good friends, fans, and media attention. Money. He was something of an extravagant minimalist. Why would he need a grand piano, a gigantic lawn, or a personal library? Such things couldn’t be slung over the shoulder. His work meant travel and he did it in style.

His needs were covered.

Many things were covered here. Including sound. The silence of the breathing tidal wave crept upon the back of his neck. He knew, in the way that a farmer talks to the sun with his bones, that he could not stay or huddle. He could not outrun what was coming, could not dodge it.

Haran ran into the avalanche.

He ran clumsily, on stone nerves. Ahead loomed a cliff face and a gap like a roadside ditch. He dove into the unknown space. If he was lucky, the burden of the avalanche would carry over the gap without filling it in.

He slid, flipped, and rolled past all reckoning of where he was. It seemed every direction was north and he was surprised by his fatigue. At least he was no longer shivering. All that struggle must have gotten the ol’ blood going.

Haran collected himself in the kind of cleft an axe could put into the side of a tree. Raw power from the sliding mountain snows rang in his feet and behind his eyes, and his options narrowed to a cave entrance. It had a subtle lifting of pallor. Turquoise, teal, cerulean, and cobalt grey. Or was it slate grey? Slate blue? Some of it ice, some of it rock.

There was light, whatever it was called. It was resonant.

After all that fighting to stay warm, to control his descent, and to survive, Haran's body hummed with the calm that enveloped the cave. Bewilderment took over; no tunnel system had been reported by the surveys of the helicopters and tech teams in the months before this world-renowned climb.

An image rounded the corner!

He could think of no other word. Some of the form was emphasized by frosted edges, the way a window is suddenly more than a hole in the wall because of that thin film of sublimated ice in one corner. Haran rubbed his eyes. Must have been a trick of the slick, icy rock walls.

Regardless, she watched him. Haran almost laughed because he'd thought she was sheer cold given form. Even now, she might have been a hologram. He had the disquieting impression that she was struggling for words as much as he was -- though somehow in a radically different way.

Start small, perhaps. “Hi?”

Laughter. It was a feminine sound in a winter chandelier. Human in some untouchable way.

As his eyes slid slowly from side to side, he managed to express his feelings and situation: “...uh…?”

“Forgive me,” she said. “I needed a moment. I believe we can help each other.”

“How’d you get here?” he asked. He started stamping his feet, flexing his toes, and shadow-boxing with his hands.

She grimaced. “Please stop that,” she said.

“I need to stay warm.”

“You do not.”

Her face was like the crunch of snow beneath a child about to make a snow angel. He wanted to believe her. In fact, he felt no frigid tension. Just calm. A primal suspicion came from his brain stem, but he dismissed it. “What did you mean about helping each other?”

A gleam of welcome -- or approval? -- filled her. Or she projected it. That was another thing Haran was instinctively resisting: everything about her was on the tip of the tongue. She said, “Let me share my story. It will clarify much.”

Casting looks about him, Haran said, “Now? Do you have a room here, or at least an alcove? I have a hot plate in my bag, if you're stranded. There aren’t even any rocks to sit on!”

“I suspect you will feel more comfortable standing,” she said. “You may call me Angel. I used to think I had become a goddess, and once I was a person. Not unlike you.” Haran had the distinct impression of frosted borders. He couldn't see his breath, but he expected it to show up.

Oddly, he was flooded with nostalgia; Haran recalled making snow angels with childhood friends. Again, Angel scowled, and he had a flash of guilt. As though he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He shuddered. “Okay, but I have a schedule to keep.”

“Please: I know the ice around you makes you think of cold.” It certainly did. It reminded him of exotic photos of glacier caverns. It was all gem-like and glistened so much it could have been liquid. Angel continued: “But I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s fairly comfortable here. Let yourself relax.”

“Don’t you want to know my name?”

“I did not give you my own. But please: take my story. I will try to frame things according to your ways. As it is, even my language has changed to yours. And as you say, you have to...move on.

So she's bilingual and weird. Got it.

Her voice was a ritual: “There was a time. Cities floated in the sky. Entire river systems changed form and dedication. Not coloured water, but colour itself, in floating form. Music could become spirits, have dalliances. Children were born, they were made, many were simply dreamed into being.

“That’s how the magic was.”

Haran couldn’t resist a smirk.

If Angel saw his skepticism, she gave no sign he could perceive. She continued: “Magic was imagination, and using one consumed the other. No one looked at the ones whose imagination was spent. Glassy eyes, monotone voices, grey no matter their actual colour. It was much like your seniors’ homes.

“And just as disquieting to talk about.

“Legendary accomplishments were equaled only by foibles so grand they gave form to devastation. There were horrors. Not creatures, but actions.”

Haran began walking, and Angel’s distress was sharp. This shocked him, but he continued walking. She reached for him, but he brushed the wall of the tunnel to avoid her touch. By her resonance alone, she was enough to have been a living wall to him – assuming she was alive in any sense he understood. Yet she did not – or could not – show high energy or engage in physical contact.

The famous mountaineer thought the two of them might be a streak or glimmer in resin. “Do you know the way out of here?” Haran didn’t look as he asked. He expected an echo. There was none. Only “matte” seemed the right word for the flatness of the sounds here.

There were five tunnels leading away from his entrance. Some slanted downward, others upward. Even within a given tunnel, he could see variations in width and height.

“Every path will take you where you are going,” Angel answered. “But please: we must share our stories.”

“You realize how you sound, right?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Magic? You’re getting all philosophical, right?”

“It is one of the greater tragedies that so much of humanity sees philosophy as trivial. It is the pursuit of wisdom. How could that possibly-”

“Oh, wisdom is great and all,” Haran interrupted. “Now, which one?” He’d stopped at the intersection. She breathed a barely-perceptible sigh of relief.

“All of them suit your destination.” She was both calm and earnest.

He opened his mouth to point out that that didn’t clear things up, but closed it again. “You’re...not connected to the here and now, are you?”

Again that zephyr laugh. “You have no idea.”

Ironically, his feelings of peace made him restless. “I wanted to get to the top of the mountain,” he began, “but I’ll take getting back to safety. Can you get me where I’m going?”

“I will take you to your destination.” Her demeanor was not unkind.

Since he couldn’t explore a whole mountain, he might as well listen: “Finish your story.”

Her smile was as warm as a winter night, clouds brown with the light of the woods. “Imagination was whittled as small as moments, to half-thoughts on the tip of the tongue. Those half-thoughts were like tinnitus; it’s your ear losing a specific frequency you’ll never hear again. In the same way, tip-of-the-tongue moments are losses of some small part of magic, imagination, or both.

“Forgive me. I have dreadfully much knowledge to share, and opportunities are desperately few.

“There came a time. People resented ageing. They wanted true limitlessness. No magic, no combination of magic, nothing could achieve it. That was when sacrifice came to be.

“Many turned their backs on magic. You could keep or improve your imagination with art, but the deeper your craft, the more magic you lost. If you foreswore the arts, you could grow in magic -- but it burned your imagination forever. For most, invention was better. It was harder at first, but you lived a full life.

“Those who held on became great Hierarchs. They leached off the imaginations of others to fuel their magic, minute slivers at a time. Prophecies were painted on cave walls, but their symbolism faded. Now they seem the whims of primitive…”

Haran lost track of Angel's words as he noticed one of the things that was making him uneasy: what she was telling him were circumstances. They added up to something, but not really a story. The ways of the time, or of some other time. Another world. He refocused as he tried to pin down what her game was here.

“I stray. Hierarchs came to see power as the means to the end of gaining more power. They started trying to store magic. Giant statues of faces with buried bodies, snow on the ocean, rainbows, impossible holes, symbols in stone or in plants that could only be seen from above, burial grounds, monoliths, monuments…

“Slowly, they withdrew from humanity and lost their own. They couldn’t risk damaging the imagination they were consuming. Humanity continued to lose imagination and got stuck in patterns. Mythologies grew to entrench the Hierarchs' influence. Money was all the wrong kinds of useful.”

Haran walked a semi-circle before the branching paths. Angel grimaced, but he paid no mind. “Can’t we walk while we talk? It looks like this is going to take a while, and I’m gonna want a campsite or something if we’re gonna keep burnin’ daylight.”

“I’m…” She hesitated. “...deciding. I cannot stay myself, and a path is difficult to right if the wrong one was chosen at the start.”

That seemed fair, but Haran hadn’t forgotten her earlier claim that any path would do.

“What’s this?” He pointed at an elaborate artwork that spanned one of the tunnel’s walls. What kind of chalk could hold to an undulating ice wall? Was it snow? Its artistry was something out of the History Channel. Most of it was intricate loops with occasional stylized circles, but there were images like an ulu with a head. Or a snow angel. Again, the nostalgia; the yearning for that childhood release of wonderment and play.

“A glyph,” Angel answered. “Remember those mythologies? And the Hierarchs, with their armies and societies?”

“I’d need a PhD just to follow the full answer, huh?” That was fine. It could stay here, as long as he didn’t.

“Something like that. Once I’m done with my story, I’ll need yours. For fairness, if nothing else.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Haran said. His jaw tightened. Who wants to swap stories with an avalanche overhead? She didn't carry a pack. How did she get here?

Angel continued: “Humanity needed help. Then a goddess -- a Hierarch -- formed a grand plan. She had a love for ice, snow, frigid winds. Some believe she still remains in the poles, mountain peaks, or ocean depths. Places where cold is now considered extreme.

“She would direct the flow of imagination -- of magic -- through the snow. No one cared about the shape or direction of power, as long as it was theirs. Few realized what she was brewing.

“Nevertheless, she was resisted.

“Rivals, emperors, ever-thirsting gods wanted all that magic for themselves. Their power waned as it was directed into the snows and she was just on the cusp of success. Yet they gathered together. Even united, it was too late to pull their power back.

So they tied the flow of stolen magic in the snows with the life force, or divine energy, of the go-...Hierarch herself. They worked rudimentary magic of imagery into the snow. Little remained; they couldn’t force it.

“So they taught the children to play in the snow.

“It started with snowmen, snow forts, and tunneling. The Hierarch could only slip tendrils of influence out to the wider world. When came the snow angels, the loop was complete.”

Haran registered darkness encroaching. Had he really not noticed it till now? But then, there had already been more light than he’d expected for tunnels. There wasn’t even a threat of cold.

This place could be another wonder of the world! How many were there already? Haran surprised himself; the answer was on the tip of his tongue. “Can’t believe it isn’t cold in here,” he said as he removed his coat. But he felt good. Lighter. Peaceful.

He had the impression that she watched him differently. Angel’s pace picked up as she went on, as though she feared losing his attention. “Her rivals had seeped back into normal human life. They became mundane kinds of power: conquest, corporations, religions, banks, the kyriarchy.

“Regardless: most magic now cycled between the Hierarch and the snow. The imagery children worked into the snow locked her, along with the flow of the magic, into the world. Oh, she’d striven for work-arounds. There was that snowman of song and lore. Visions. Polar lights.

“Her burden was great. She influenced those with mundane power. If the poles melt, the seal weakens. She gave them the ambition of a glacier: so occupied with its own size that it knew nothing of the damage it wrought. Endless until it faded away.

“With the Hierarch and her magic sealed away, humanity’s imagination has been sputtering out. Oh, they do what they can with art. They turn to explosions or the throwing of something rock-like to overcome a surprising variety of challenges. Yet they came away from all this with a vague but pervasive feeling of loss.”

“You’re talking an awful lot about this Hierarch. I thought this was your story?” Haran couldn’t help himself; no one ever paid their power bill with dreams. “Can we leave?”

“No.”

He started. “What?”

“I’d hoped for your help.” She seemed grieved.

He looked around. “Where does this glow in the ice come from, and where is it going?” Dimness swallowed all but six feet by now.

“Magic is important. It’s in the things you can’t measure or explain. Inspiration, dreams, strange weather. Falling in love. The purring of cats. When your steaming cup is inexplicably delicious, beyond what you should have found in the ingredients or methods. When you can see things in the clouds. Games. Hope.

“Stories.”

Haran could no longer make out the friezes, or glyphs, or whatever that artwork was. He swallowed hard. “I should’ve kept moving.”

“No, you did the right thing.” There was love, after a fashion.

He reflected upon their conversation. “I was never going to leave, was I?”

“I am disastrously sorry.”

Silence. Hers hopeful, his helpless.

Eventually, Angel said, “There were never any tunnels.”

His body was beautifully heavy. Odd that he felt so light and carefree. “But I’m here,” he objected through sluggish lips.

“There was no avalanche.”

“Everyone before me.” He remembered the snow angels on the glyphs. “The others who never got home.” He remembered the climbers he’d passed before…“But I remember the avalanche. It was how I got here.”

“It was, in a manner of speaking.” Sadness.

“No amount of power enables you to fix things,” Haran said, surprising himself. “I haven’t scaled so many peaks by building muscle.”

“No one has taken the matter that way before,” Angel answered. There was a sunset somewhere.

“If anything is divine, it doesn’t need human help.” Almost everything had faded to the glow of her silhouette.

“Are you so sure?” She was wistful.

“Wait! Take my story! I was bor-”

She shook her head. “What you experienced as an avalanche was the clash between hypothermia and magic. It's where snow angels came from.”

It was like falling and stillness were the same thing; suspension in nothing.

“Am I making a snow angel?”

...