The Forgotten Tale Part 2

  The Polar Express cut through the Arctic night like a vessel of steel and steam sailing over seas of eternal snow. Tifa, perched on César’s shoulder, watched with him through the window as the world transformed into a plain of endless white. The forests of frost-laden fir trees looked like armies of silent shadows saluting the passing train, and the full moon—huge and silver—lit up untouched fields of snow stretching as far as the eye could see.

  The carriage they traveled in was lined with polished wood and red velvet seats. A cast-iron stove at one end radiated a comforting warmth. Erina had clumsily settled across two seats, her wings folded with difficulty, while she observed every detail of the train with childlike curiosity. Drosselmeyer, seated across from them, worked on his Fabergé egg with tiny tools he drew from his cloak.

  “Observe,” said the jeweler without lifting his gaze.

  “This is how a masterpiece of engineering and art is created.

  "Each gem a meaning, a memory; each piece of gold the labor of man; each gear an ode to ingenuity and science."

  "To craft something worthy of fantasy—something capable of reminding those who behold it that the world can still be joyful and bright, of turning an adult into a child with a single glance, of returning the memory of a loved one, of offering hope in the darkest night of the most hards of trials."

  "How does one represent the magic and love of Christmas in a single object? It’s impossible—but my passion is to get as close as I can and leave my mark through it."

  "Twelve months of work this piece has cost me, and even now I’m still refining the details."

  "But Such is the endless passion of the craftsman.”

  The train began to slow. Outside, a small village appeared, its log houses glowing with warm window-light like kind eyes in the dark. The Polar Express came to a stop with a gentle hiss of steam.

  First stop: Village of the Whispering Firs

  The carriage door opened, letting in a rush of icy, pine-scented air. Three children—still in pajamas and wearing slippers on the snow—climbed aboard hesitantly. A girl with blonde braids held a rag doll; her two younger brothers clutched each other's hands, their eyes wide as saucers.

  “Are we really going to the North Pole?” the older girl asked the conductor who was helping them climb aboard.

  “If you believe, yes,” the engineer replied with a smile that crinkled his eyes. “Everyone here believes.”

  In the following hours, the train made several stops in places that seemed to spring out of nowhere. At each station—just a simple wooden platform in the middle of the snow, sometimes with only a solitary lantern—children boarded. Tifa watched them from César’s sleeping shoulder.

  Every child who got on had the same gleam in their eyes: a mixture of disbelief, wonder, and an absolute faith in the magic of the night. They headed toward the forward cars, where soon laughter, carols, and the sound of bare feet running through the corridors could be heard.

  “So they’re all going to see Santa Claus?” Tifa murmured, feeling a pang of tenderness.

  Drosselmeyer, who had been working on his Fabergé egg with tiny tools, looked up. His nimble fingers had been adjusting clockwork mechanisms inside the jeweled egg, but now he put his tools away in a velvet case.

  “Santa Claus,” the toymaker repeated, an enigmatic smile spreading across his face. “Or Saint Nicholas. Or Sinterklaas. Or Father Christmas. Or Ded Moroz. I once heard people even call him General Winter during a cruel war."

  "So many names for a single legend… or perhaps for different faces of an older, darker truth.”

  Erina tilted her head, her feathers producing a soft rustle. “Dark? But he brings gifts and joy.”

  “That is how he is now,” Drosselmeyer nodded, adjusting his eyepatch.

  “But legends, like toys, have layers. And sometimes what we find beneath the shiny paint is old wood, marked by time and battles.”

  Cesar stirred in his sleep, and Tifa placed a tiny hand on his cheek, where the blood had dried. The boy opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented before remembering where he was.

  “Are you talking about Santa?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “It seems we’re about to begin a story,” said Drosselmeyer, taking out a pipe carved in the shape of a dragon.

  “A story they told me when I was just a bit older than you, on a night like this, in the Bavarian Alps. The elders told it by the fire during the longest nights of winter. It is certainly not the same story they tell now.”

  The toymaker lit the pipe and let the smoke form small rings in the air of the carriage. The smell of spiced tobacco mixed with the aroma of hot chocolate that a conductor had just served. Outside, the train crossed a bridge spanning an abyss of ice, and for a moment everyone held their breath at the majesty of the landscape.

  Centuries ago, long before Christmas became synonymous with peace and joy, Saint Nicholas of Myra was a Roman priest. Born into a wealthy family and known for helping others, he was the kind of man who simply could not resist aiding someone in trouble—and that very curse of being a good man was what drove him to travel the world. He aided Emperor Constantine during his struggles, on another occasion marched to Egypt when he was pursued by enemies, and even fought against a nobleman of RA who wielded a magical mirror. But for the story that concerns us today, it happened much later in his life, when, compelled once again by the need to help others, he traveled to the northern lands—lands of Vikings, barbarians, and strange tribes.

  By then, he was already known as a feared warrior in the Nordic lands. Beneath his red fur garments he always wore a chainmail hauberk over travel-worn clothes hardened by ice. He did not carry a sack of toys, but a battle axe forged of winter-forged Nordic steel—Gjallar, a gift from a Viking people he had once saved from an invasion of frost giants, just after battling Odin’s Wild Hunt.

  Erina tilted her head, intrigued. “A warrior? Why?”

  Because in those days it was impossible to be a traveler without knowing how to defend oneself. Nikolas might have been a good man, but good men must also be strong when evil appears—and he knew this. He trained with an order of paladins after he rescued them from famine during one of his journeys, giving them the little grain he had.

  The toymaker looked out the window, as if he could see the scene unfolding in the snowstorm beginning to form.

  And because especially in those times, Christmas was a dangerous night. The boundaries between worlds thinned, and it wasn’t only angels and miracles that crossed over. Dark and strange creatures slipped out as well. Even the Devil himself—so they said—used that night to steal souls.

  One such night, while Nikolas was fighting alongside other warriors against demonic creatures from the underworld, there was a child in the village he protected—one that had given him shelter. A good child, with a pure heart, who cared for his sick mother and shared what little bread he had with the winter crows. On Christmas Eve, as the child prayed for his mother by a dying fire, a figure appeared inside the cabin.

  “One of those demons?” César whispered.

  “The very same—Lucifer, as he was once known. But not as people paint him, with a trident and red horns. No. He appeared as a noble traveler, wearing fine clothes and a smile that never reached his eyes. He offered medicine for the mother in exchange for a simple favor: that the child step outside with him for just a moment to receive a Christmas gift.”

  Drosselmeyer lowered his voice to nearly a whisper, and the others had to lean in to hear him over the sound of the train.

  “The child, innocent and desperate, agreed. He crossed the threshold… and the noble traveler transformed. His clothes turned into living shadows, his smile into a cruel expression of triumph. He seized the boy and, as the mother dragged herself toward the door screaming, he opened a portal to Hell itself— a hole in the world that smelled of sulfur and despair.”

  “And Nikolas?” Tifa asked, completely absorbed.

  “He arrived too late. He saw only the portal closing and heard the Devil’s laughter echoing with the mother’s sobs. The poor good man blamed himself for his failure, despite his innocence. He had done nothing wrong—but he couldn’t stop thinking that if only he had moved faster, if only he had fought harder, if only he had been wiser and realized the battle had been a distraction… the guilt tormented him endlessly.”

  “But he defeated him,” César said, with the certainty of someone who knows how stories end.

  Drosselmeyer smiled—though not entirely joyfully.

  “Nikolas then did something no Viking had ever dared. He took up his axe, donned his heaviest armor, and carrying the head of a frost giant—one of the fiercest warriors of the J?tunn—he went straight to his other enemy, Odin himself. Alone, he marched to the gates of Asgard and challenged the Allfather to a duel, demanding the right to use the Bifr?st to reach his next destination: Hell itself. But Odin, being a poor sport, altered the destination at the last moment and sent him to Alfheim instead.”

  Luckily for the good man, he arrived at the elves’ village just as it was being besieged by the same invaders who had attacked his own home. And seeing the people suffer, he did not hesitate. He gripped his axe tightly and hurled himself at the enemies before him with fury and wrath.

  Three days of intense combat was all he needed to clear the plains. When the elves looked out over their walls, they saw the man dressed in red resting upon a rock, axe in hand, and a thousand defeated foes at his feet.

  The elves of Alfheim, grateful yet still beset by greater shadows, saw in Nikolas not only a savior but a bridge between worlds. Mysterious beings—spirits of the ancient forest and centaurs with frosted manes—approached him. Through ice mirrors and carved runes, they revealed the hidden path: a tear in the world, a place where despair itself had thinned the fabric of reality, leading directly to the very gates of Hell. Nikolas did not waver. With Gjallar in hand and the fury of the Nordic winter burning in his heart, he descended.

  The toymaker paused, watching how the moon’s reflection on the snow seemed to dance beside the train.

  Hell’s labyrinth was not what you imagine. The demons, thinking carefully about how to stop the intrusion, hid their pools of fire and floors of blood, replacing them with the torture of cold. A vast, empty plain. The most terrifying winter storm ever known. Fast winds striking as swiftly as the train we ride. An eternal darkness with no direction. Nikolas marched forward, battling his own despair at being lost—utterly isolated, with no company beyond his own faith. He had nothing but his axe and a lantern borrowed from the elves. Yet he continued without stopping, driven by the absolute will of one who holds the most essential need to help another.

  “He reached the Devil’s throne. And there he fought the final battle. It was not a clash of strength against strength, for the Devil is ancient and cunning. It was a battle of wills. Nikolás did not fight for glory or for riches. He fought for a single child. For the belief that no innocence should ever be stolen—least of all on the night meant to be the most sacred.”

  Drosselmeyer paused, letting the silence fill with the sound of the train and the distant carols from other wagons.

  “In the end, with Gjallar buried in the floor of Hell and his armor in tatters, Nikolás had the Devil at his mercy. And the Prince of Darkness, humiliated and astonished to be defeated by a mortal, begged for mercy and offered a bargain. Exactly. The Devil—or a part of him, or a servant given his form—would work for Nikolás one night each year. That creature—Krampus—would take the truly wicked children, the ones whose hearts had darkened beyond mere mischief. Not to torture them eternally, but… to teach them. To show them the abyss toward which they were heading, and give them the chance to change.”

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  “And he agreed? But why?” asked César.

  “Why did he agree?” the jeweler repeated, and his voice took on a curious tone. “Well, because from where they were, returning was nearly impossible.”

  The direction in which they had dragged the child. The portal was closed. He did not know the way back. This was not a hell of fire and geography, but of despair and labyrinth. He could wander forever across that white, silent plain, and the boy would die of cold or fear long before he ever found a way out.

  Nikolas looked upon the chasm without bridge that opened between the ruined throne and the road home. His face was streaked with infernal frost and battle-blood as he lowered his axe, Gjallar, from the throat of the Defeated One.

  “Your servitude will have limits,” he roared, his voice as rough as grinding glaciers, “one night a year, only for hearts already surrendered to shadow — and as a warning, not an eternal doom. And you, Serpent, will open a portal for me back to the gates of the village I left.”

  The Devil, with a smile that was more surrender than triumph, accepted; and thus, carrying the freezing but still living child, Nikolas crossed the threshold back into the snow of the world.

  When he reached the village, the finest warriors bowed to him in respect — to the fearsome foreign warrior who had saved them from so many dangers. That same night, to celebrate the recovery of the mother and her reunion with her child, they honored the victories and feats of Klaus, the name the warriors granted him as a sign of reverence. Champion of Midgard, lone besieger of Asgard, savior of Alfheim, slayer of j?tnar and j?tunn — and all of that was merely a list of deeds already long before those titles were ever earned.

  But for Nikolas there was no rest. As he tended his wounds beside the village fire, the very elves of Alfheim came seeking him once more. They had followed a great lion called Aslan and begged his help again — for a rescue, for a new battle in a distant land of the edge of the silver sea, where a White Witch froze hearts and halted Christmas. He was needed once more.

  Nikolas looked at his axe, then at the child who now laughed, nodded, took up his weapon, and rose to begin his journey again.

  “And that’s where it ends?” asked César, bewildered. “How did he go from that to delivering gifts?”

  Erina nodded, equally perplexed. “And what about the sleigh and the reindeer?”

  Drosselmeyer smiled, tucking away his pipe with a slow movement.

  “Ah, impatient young ones, I never told you the story of Santa Claus. But I did tell you how he met the elves who would later help him carve toys instead of weapons — and that is only one of his adventures. How he went from that to founding his first home in Smeerensburg, the gifts, the reindeer, and his journey to the North Pole… well, that is another tale. One for another night, perhaps, when the road is longer and the chocolate hotter.”

  The tale continued, enveloping the carriage in the aromatic smoke of Drosselmeyer’s pipe and the echo of ancient legends. But in the world outside — in the shadows clinging to the flanks of the train cutting through the night — another story, more visceral and urgent, was unfolding.

  A harsh scraping sound, like metallic claws raking the paint of the carriage, shattered the calm. Then another, and another still, coming from the roof. It was not the sound of frost or wind. It was a dragging noise — of living, malignant weight.

  Erina was the first to rise, all her feathers bristling at once. A low, instinctive growl escaped her throat.

  “Them,” she whispered, her amber eyes dilated with recognition and hatred.

  “The rat-men. The King’s servants. They followed the trail of the train.”

  César stiffened, his good hand instinctively gripping the edge of the seat. Tifa fluttered upward and perched on the luggage rack, her tiny eyes scanning the window. In the upper frame she saw a quick, hunched shadow pass by, followed by the sickly green flash of a stone tied to a crude weapon.

  At that moment, the sliding door of the carriage burst open. It wasn’t the conductor. It was the Engineer, his once-kind face now hardened into a mask of steel. In his eyes there was no surprise — only the professional resignation of a man who expected trouble on a route that crossed impossible lands.

  "Intruder alert in the cargo wagons!" he shouted into a strange brass tube beside the door. His voice echoed metallic through the communication system. "Gamma Section, vertical assault. Perimeter defense protocol. Security personnel, please report immediately."

  The answer came not through the tube but from the rear wagons. A sound that did not belong to that world of snow and legends: the distinctive click-snap of firearm bolts being cocked, followed by the dull thud of boots with spurs on wooden floorboards.

  The Engineer looked at the group. "Stay here. Lock the door. Security will handle it."

  But before he could finish the sentence, the hallway window shattered inward in a rain of sharp splinters. Through the holes burst three gaunt, swift figures: the Skaven. They smelled of mold, rusty metal, and an ignoble kind of fury. Their red eyes gleamed with greed when they saw Erina, who stepped back, shielding her bag with the tips of her metallic wings.

  "The bird-thing and the crystals—yes, for the King—yes!" hissed the leader, brandishing a serrated knife.

  Drosselmeyer moved with sudden elegance. His pipe vanished. From within the folds of his cloak, his gloved hand emerged holding his elaborate revolver with delicate engravings. Without even taking careful aim, he fanned two shots so fast no one saw his hand move.

  Bang! Bang!

  Two dry, almost polite detonations filled the wagon. Two of the Skaven tumbled backward, cleanly holed in the shoulder and the leg, squealing in pain and surprise. The smoke from the gun smelled of fine gunpowder and bergamot.

  "Pardon the interruption," Drosselmeyer said calmly as he reloaded with fluid motions. "But etiquette in this wagon requires permission before entering."

  However, more Skaven were climbing along the sides. The attack was coordinated. From the tail wagon, a new voice rose, dragging the words with a hint of endless prairies and dusty roads.

  "Hey, boys! Looks like we got varmints on the roof!" came the shout from the other wagon.

  And then, they arrived.

  Through the rear door of the carriage burst a tall man, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a thick wool poncho. A wide-brimmed hat hid part of his face, though not the bristling beard nor the clear, determined eyes that scanned the scene in an instant. In his hands, a Winchester rifle gleamed under the lamp light. Behind him, four other men with faces weathered by sun and storm spread out with the deadly calm of predators in their own territory. They were cowboys—but not from any desert or plain known on ordinary maps. They were gunslingers of the Polar Express, guardians of a route that crossed realms of ice and shadow.

  “Well, well,” said the leader, spitting ceremonially into the sand bucket for fires.

  “This reminds me of that time in Deadwood, with those two-headed varmints. Less dignified, though.” Said the Man with No Name.

  A strange noise outside caught everyone’s attention.

  “Up, damn it! Bats! Enormous goddamn bats!” roared one of the younger cowboys, aiming his Winchester at the shattered window.

  Erina, with a primal shriek of recognition, recoiled. “The iron bats of the Rat King! They put harnesses on them and poison them with green crystals!”

  Through the gaps in the broken glass and from the roof, grotesque silhouettes appeared. Bats the size of small horses, with hide like tanned leather and metal riveted into their skulls and the joints of their membranous wings. On their backs, Skaven riders strapped with grimy leather harnesses wielded hooked short spears and single-shot pistols of infernal make. The green flash of their ammunition—or of their own stones—lit their twisted faces warped by hatred and greed.

  The cowboy leader, the one with the poncho and the wide-brimmed hat, didn’t flinch. He spat on the floor, next to the bodies of the Skaven wounded by Drosselmeyer.

  “Well, ain’t that a sight. Rodents flyin’ on rodents bigger’n ’em. This job just keeps gettin’ stranger.”

  He turned to his men, his voice a roar of authority that cut through the panic.

  “Boys! Window positions! Miller, Jenkins, cover the rear door! Morgan, you’re with me on the starboard side!"

  "Remember the drill—conserve ammo, aim true. They ain’t ghosts this time, they bleed.”

  The carriage turned into a hell of flashes and thunder. The cowboys, with the deadly efficiency of men who had defended convoys from things far worse than bandits, took their positions. The Winchesters spat orange fire, each shot a dry detonation that rattled the remaining glass. A bat, approaching the window with its rider brandishing a hook, received a clean bullet to the chest from Arthur Morgan. The beast screeched—a sharp, pained note—and dropped out of view, dragging the Skaven who screamed as he fell toward the snow.

  Drosselmeyer, standing in the center aisle like a master of ceremonies of death, was a spectacle of grotesque precision. His dueling revolver, with its long barrel and engravings that seemed to shift in the firelight, thundered with a sharper, more cutting sound than the rifles. “On the left, Herr Morgan,” he indicated calmly, and fired. The bullet brushed past the cowboy’s shoulder and embedded itself directly in the forehead of a Skaven who was trying to climb down through the window frame. The rat-man fell headfirst into the carriage.

  “Much obliged, mister,” Arthur growled without lowering his aim. “Fine piece you got there.”

  “It is a matter of art, not merely function,” replied Drosselmeyer, pivoting on his heel to face a new threat at the front door.

  “Hold the line! The train doesn’t stop for anything!” shouted the Engineer from the doorway, now brandishing a gleaming Webley revolver, cared for as meticulously as his pocket watch.

  Erina, overcoming her panic, fought in her own way. With a powerful flap, she raised a storm of papers and dust, blinding a group of attackers. Then, using the sharp edges of the blades hidden in her wings, she delivered quick, deep cuts—more fitting for a swordsman than a bird—to the exposed limbs of her enemies.

  Tifa, clinging to César’s neck, watched the scene with a mixture of terror and fascination. It was the wildest, most mythical West, transplanted into an arctic train car, fighting against a nightmare plague.

  Erina, pushing through her panic, fought in her own way. With a powerful beat of her wings, she raised a storm of papers and dust, blinding a group of attackers. Then, using the sharp edge of the hidden blades within her wings, she delivered swift, deep cuts—more fitting for a swordsman than a bird—into the exposed limbs of her enemies.

  César saw a particularly large and agile Skaven slip into the wagon and knock down one of the cowboys. It managed to snatch his revolver and was now lunging toward Erina, acting on pure instinct to finish off its prey—the bird.

  The boy looked at the weapon. It was huge, made of cold metal and oiled wood. Then he looked at the door. A Skaven, wearing armor pieced together from twisted cans, had hacked its way inside, its red eyes locked on Erina, who was fiercely defending her bag of crystals with furious, slicing wingbeats.

  “No,” César whispered. He couldn’t let them hurt Erina. He couldn’t let anyone else be injured for protecting them. A strange calm—cold and determined—took hold of him. It was the same calm he had felt when he protected Tifa in the factory. Without thinking anymore, he crawled toward the revolver.

  “César, no!” Tifa shouted, but her voice was lost in the chaos.

  The boy grabbed the pistol. It was terribly heavy. The barrel wobbled. He didn’t know how to use it; he had only seen the cowboys pull the trigger and fan the hammer with their other hand. With superhuman effort, he raised it and aimed at the dark mass of the advancing Skaven.

  He closed his eyes, pulled the trigger, and hammered with his hand; he fired.

  The recoil was a wild monster that struck him with brutal force. César fell onto his back, his hand aching as if it had been smashed with a hammer, his ears ringing. But the thunderous blast of the massive revolver was followed by a shriek of agony. When he opened his eyes, he saw the large Skaven staggering, a dark, wet hole blooming in the center of its tin-plate armor. The rat-man stared in disbelief at its chest, then at César, and collapsed.

  The silence that fell over the wagon was brief but absolute. Everyone—cowboys, Drosselmeyer, Erina—stared at the boy lying on the floor, smoke still rising from the barrel of the gun he held in trembling hands.

  Arthur Morgan slowly lowered his own rifle, looking at César with an unreadable expression, a mix of respect, pity, and grim acknowledgment. “Hell of a first shot, kid,” he said, his voice rough. “A hell of a first shot, no doubt,” he repeated when he noticed the caliber of the weapon the small boy had fired to help.

  The carriage fell into a heavy silence, broken only by the groans of the wounded, the crackling of the fire in the stove, and the steady rhythm of the train on the rails. The battle was over. César set the revolver on the floor as if it were burning him, and shuddered. The smell of gunpowder, of cold blood and fear crawled into his nose, his clothes, his very soul.

  Arthur Morgan approached, crouched down, and picked up the weapon with a slow, deliberate motion. He looked the boy in the eyes. “You did what you had to do, son. In this world, sometimes that’s all there is. Don’t mean you gotta like it.” He placed a heavy—though not unwelcome—hand on the boy’s uninjured shoulder. “But you saved that bird-lady over there. That counts for somethin’.”

  Drosselmeyer, meticulously cleaning his revolver with a silk cloth, nodded toward César. “Courage wears many faces, Sir César. Some are darker than others. What matters is knowing why the weapon is raised.” His gaze shifted to Tifa, now perched on the boy’s shoulder, as if he understood the depth of the pain reflected in the fairy’s eyes.

  Tifa, perched on his shoulder, felt the echo of the gunshot rumble far beyond the train car, all the way to the depths of time.

  In her childlike eyes, dazed by the blast, she saw not only the horror of what had just happened, but the reflection of a dark and inevitable future. This was not a terrifying exception, but the first of many—lives taken in exchange for lives saved. The path of the hero she loved was not paved with glory, but with this kind of heartbreaking decision, where saving one life often meant becoming the executioner of another. And she, from her tiny stature and with her heart in shreds, could do nothing but watch as the love of her life began, wound by wound, to forge the painful legend that would one day protect her from the victims of his weapon.

  The Polar Express climbed along a spiral of rails carved from the mountain’s very frost. The clamor of battle faded, replaced by an expectant silence. Suddenly, the train burst into a vast glacial amphitheater, and there—set into the flank of the world’s summit like a jewel on the brow of night—appeared the workshop.

  It was not the gingerbread cottage of modern legends, but a fortress of wood, metal, and glass, with towers rising like spears against the aurora borealis that had begun to dance in green and purple above them. From its countless windows, a warm golden light spilled across the snow, and in the frozen air came—faint but unmistakable—the distant chime of a bell, the rhythmic hammering of a thousand anvils, and the echo of a choral song of deep and high voices that was not merely carols, but a march of purpose.

  It was a place of wonder, yes, but also of an ancient and relentless industry.

  Perched on César’s shoulder, Tifa felt the child’s heart quicken—not only from awe, but because in that distant glow they both glimpsed, for the first time, the true home of the legend that had brought them here: not a refuge of simple joy, but the command center of an army whose legacy was to save children from the horrors of the world.