“That’s so cool,” Brendan had said the first time she’d created a fighting circle. He’d reached out to touch where he thought the barrier was. His fingertips brushed a flexible, elastic, yet impenetrable surface. Instantly, his hand sang with pain and went numb. A flare of purple light accompanied the agony. “Ow! MAN!”
“The circle is a holy shape, sacred to our people,” Saskia had explained. “It is simple. It is perfect. It is eternal. Within this circle, I will attempt to teach you how to defend yourself. The circle will contain you. You may not leave until I permit you to leave.”
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Brendan had quipped on that afternoon, weeks ago.
Saskia didn’t laugh. She flexed her fingers, stretched her neck until it cracked loudly, and then began to mercilessly thrash Brendan. When she’d finally let him out of the circle by scratching away a section of the chalk, Brendan was barely able to limp to the Faerie Terminal. He’d spent two hours in a hot bath at home before going to bed.
Now he was about to take a beating again. He watched Saskia crack her knuckles and his heart sank. He’d never so much as laid a finger on her in ten sessions. She was just too fast and far too experienced for him.
“The circle is in place,” Saskia said. “The pain is a distraction. Avoid the barrier. Defend yourself!” The sparring match commenced.
Another hour of punishment followed. Though he was aching from a hundred carefully aimed blows, Brendan believed he was beginning to follow Saskia’s movements a little better. She came at him from every angle. Her movements were so fast that her limbs were mere blurs.
Brendan was having less trouble staying in warp mode. He found he could connect with something inside him, like a current of energy running under the surface of his skin. He realized that apart from being a pain in the butt last night and keeping him from getting a good night’s sleep, Charlie had perhaps helped him see what he had to do.
In the meantime, Brendan had been scorched, whacked, slapped, and tripped more times than he could count while never landing a solid blow on his opponent. Saskia looked as fresh as ever. Her skin was flushed and slick with sweat, but otherwise she seemed unaffected. Now she was stalking him around the circle in an effort to lay yet another beating on him.
Brendan was exhausted. He was bruised. He was more than a little sick of being a punching bag. He tried to imagine himself moving faster, warping more efficiently, but he couldn’t concentrate. He was in too much pain. He couldn’t turn off the part of his mind that shrilled in his ears that he wasn’t able to beat Saskia and shouldn’t try.
Then he remembered what Charlie had said as they sat on the dome under the stars, watching the Dawn Flyers. Sing a song inside your head. Brendan thought about that. It sounds crazy. I’ll probably just get my head knocked off, but at least there’ll be musical accompaniment.
He decided to sing a song that his father loved. One of Brendan’s earliest memories was of his dad rocking him to sleep and singing the song as he drifted off. It was a Scottish folk song, and probably the only song he knew all the words to. As Saskia crouched for a new attack, Brendan struggled to remember the lyrics.
In his head he sang,
Oh, you’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road
And I’ll be in Scotland before you
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.
He’d been thinking so hard about the words that he almost failed to see Saskia’s attack coming. He ducked under a roundhouse kick and stepped aside. Even so, she managed to clip him on the shoulder. His arm went numb to the fingers. Still, he’d dodged the worst of the blow. Saskia’s yellow eyes registered the slightest surprise before narrowing.
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.
The words were coming easier now. Brendan could hear his father’s voice in his ear. He grinned, imagining what his dad would think if he knew that his son with the tin ear was singing, even in his head.
He tried to block out everything but the song. He tried to conjure the sound of it. His pain faded. He was vaguely aware that Saskia was swinging her fists at him, but her blows were so slow. So slow! His head wove from side to side as the song rumbled on in his head.
By yon bonnie banks, and by yon bonnie bonnie braes
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond
There me and my true love spent many happy days
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.
He was dancing along now. He shuffled and whirled in the circle, avoiding kicks and punches. He kicked into the chorus and felt the glory of the song fill him.
O ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye
But me and my true love will ne-er meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomon’.
Suddenly, a Moment crystallized. He saw Saskia, and it was as though the fierce woman were swimming in syrup. She ducked under a kick and prepared to rise at him with her right hand flat as a blade, driving for his chest.
Brendan almost laughed. It was too easy! He reached out with his left hand and grasped Saskia’s wrist, pulling her toward him. With his left he made a fist and, ducking low, drove it straight out from his shoulder, folding her over with a perfectly placed punch. There was a satisfying whoof as Saskia doubled over, falling backwards. Time returned to normal.
“I did it! I did it!” he crowed. Immediately, dismay flooded through Brendan. “Oh NO! What have I done? Saskia? Are you all right?” Instead of replying, Saskia lashed out with her leg and swept his feet out from under him. He fell to the floor with a loud crash. “Ooof.”
“Don’t let your guard down,” she wheezed. She forced herself to stand up.
Brendan pushed himself painfully to his feet, panic and remorse filling him at once. “Are you okay?” He turned to the spectators. “She needs help!” He ran to get a glass of water from the bar and ran smack into the circle barrier.
The flare of pain singed his nerves from head to toe. He fell to his knees, shivering. Still, his head was full of worry for Saskia. He looked down at the chalk line on the floor that was the circle’s boundary. His urgency made him see it clearly. The chalk line wasn’t solid. He could see each particle of chalk on the wooden grain of the floor, making up a seemingly unbroken line. But he could now see a break, a place where a minuscule span of floor was free of chalk dust. Without thinking, he reached over and wiped the chalk away on both sides with his index finger. He felt the circle collapse, the power draining away, a blizzard of bits of energy dispersing into the air of the Swan. He leapt to his feet and dashed to the bar. “A glass of water and a bag of ice, please, Leonard. Hurry!”
He knew immediately that something was up the way Leonard was staring at him. Nothing ever surprised Leonard. He was the bouncer in a Faerie bar, after all. But he was staring now.
Brendan mistook Leonard’s surprise for anger. Apologies tumbled out of his mouth. “I’m sorry I punched your girlfriend! It was an accident.”
That’s when he noticed the silence. Even BLT didn’t speak. She sat staring from the lip of her glass of diet cola, the straw in her hands forgotten. He realized that there was no sound in the bar save for the low drone of a golf game on one of the big screens. He slowly turned around to see that Saskia hadn’t moved from the centre of the circle.
“What?” Brendan asked. “What is it?”
“How?” she said.
“How what?”
“How did you break the circle?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, confused. “Did I do something wrong?” He looked up to see that Kim and Greenleaf were also staring at him. “Oh no. You all have that ‘Brendan did something impossible’ look on your faces.”
“It is impossible to break a circle drawn by another,” Saskia breathed.
