Twelfth Night—or What Ye Will Find

The last day of Christmas greets ye, mortals! My Yuletide Adventure concludes below—& as a bonus, I included another memory of the FIRST Christmas! Aye, there were Four Wise Men, & one were written out of the tale…

Need to catch up? Read all of this year’s Yuletide Adventure, or revisit last year’s, right here!

“…And Be Merry.”
Part III: The Gift
Containment

I enter the strange facility without incident; the golden guardian outside took no notice of me, gleaming silently in the strange Moon-light. The Other Pole is a quiet place, with none of the joy that warms Santa’s Workshop. Inside the building, no eyes see me, nor hearts can I hear. A vast entryway yawns before me, dark, & icy. I ignite my wand, & peer about into the shadows.

I espy a large desk—perhaps to greet visitors? Not a temple, then, this place, nor a fortress. Feels more like those wretched holes mortals hate to waste their lives in—the coldest places on Earth—an office building! Past the front desk, I notice it remains unfinished & abandoned. Many expensive tools lay about, untouched by living hands in decades or more.

I wander further, & the half-laid floor begins tilting downward; I descend uneasily. The bits of flooring give way to hard-packed snow. Built atop a natural cave? Or did they dig, then build above, to hide something away?

Down, down, into the blue-cold gloom. I pass crates of supplies—paper, staples, water, rations. It seems they hoped at some point to people this half-ruin, but—ho! Ahead, a door, laid into the snowy walls; I can hear the clanging of a hammer beyond it. I ready a fireball, step through—

—& what I find, chills my very soul. A tomb & smithy, in one. A plaque on the wall proclaims this the C.I.A.’s “OPERATION SCROOGE.” In a massive block of ice, the mummified corpse of what must be the bastard Allen Dulles. Hammering away, at an anvil, two odd creatures; they beckon me to join them.

We speak a while, as I hold tools, work the bellows, & attempt to understand my discovery. They explain that they are “reindwarrow,” & I gather they are some misbegotten hybrid, boiled to imperfection in a laboratory somewhere beneath Langley. They tell me of their “Grand White Leader,” pointing at the corpse in the ice. They assure me the dead man shall soon wake, & they will show him their invention—a new Kringle-stone, more potent than the last!

That is what I just helped them construct, a second Kringle-stone? More the fool, me. I ask if they understand what it is they crafted; they tell me, no. They sat around for forty years, awaiting the awakening of the “Grand White Leader,” then one day decided to execute plans they found. They spent a decade forging the first stone, & delivered it to Santa this past November, setting this all in motion.

I explain the effects of the Kringle-stone, of the misery it wrought, of the horrors it inflicted, how it nearly derailed this world’s Christmas. They look at me a moment; then they look at their “Leader” in ice; then they laugh. Their hammering resumes, at double-speed, to my disgust. They know full-well, now, what they do, & they care not. They seem to feed on the pain, in fact.

On Twelfth Night, I have no taste for blood. I loathe it most days already, but in Christmastide, could I truly destroy these two little devils? Nay—food & drink abound down here here, & they seem to wish only to hammer away at evil little toys. So, let them do it, for all time, alongside the frost-burnt corpse of their “Grand White Leader!”

I tell the reindwarrow to “keep up the great work,” & assure them they are “vital in the fight against Communism.” Their gleeful giggles haunt me as I ascend back up through Scrooge Base. When I reach ground level, I launch fireball after fireball; the snow melts, & re-freezes as ice almost immediately. I lay down several circles, sealing the ice against teleportation. Then I exit the base; with Bigby’s Titanic Hand, I topple the golden guardian down onto the building, burying the ice under ten tons of rubble & twenty tons of gold.

A final act of Santa-tage, to round out my quest.

When I return to Santa’s Workshop, I resolve not to tell him what I found at the Other Pole. The knowledge that ancient plans & hatreds, still echo down to today, casts a shadow o’er mine heart—will mortal-kind e’er free itself from the dark deeds of dead men? I would not burden Santa with such melancholic musings.

I am greeted, to my delight, with cookies, & cocoa, & Elf-song & Claus-cheer. The gladness of Twelfth Night casts away the shadows—if only for one night, well, ‘tis better than none.

In bedeviled days of war & misery—in a Christmastide marred by grief & terror—Santa & I remind each other that e’en immortals must make time to eat, drink,

“…And Be Merry.”

All’s well that ends well, especially at Christmas! But the First Christmas, ‘twas a bit of a disappointment—for me, at least. As I mentioned before, I set out with the others, & we were the Four Wise Men. “But,” I hear ye grunt skeptically, “the story only has Three!”

As soon as we left Herod’s palace, we began to clash. They were three devout Zoroastrians, in a crisis of faith, on a mission toward a prophecy they considered world-changing. I, on the other hand, simply wanted to avoid execution, & I thought we were headed to a birthday party.

I decided, foolishly, to invent the notion of a “gag gift.” They carried gold, frankincense, myyrh. I, by contrast, nicked a cask of wine from Herod’s cellars as we left. The baby, obviously, would have no use for wine, but I thought this Joseph fellow might! I also included a card, in English, as the other Wise Men told me of the baby’s divinity. I thought He would find it amusing, to receive a gift from an immortal with some knowledge of the future; the Wise Men thought me illiterate, & disparaged me as a barbarian.

Once my camel laid down, & refused to get up, protesting the weight of the wine barrel, I knew the jig were up. The Wise Men & their servants took a vote, booting me out of the traveling party. Being younger, & more arrogant, I took some offense at this. I insulted them in a fit of anger—’tis hard to translate, but essentially: “To the Men who call themselves Wise, yet reek of myyrh: let me know if that baby loves frankincense & money; I shall wait here for thine hallowed return.” Pretty rude; they were classier than I, so when they arrived, they made no mention of the strange Fourth Wise Man, which was more polite than I deserved.

But truly I tell ye, I were…nearly…there…

Thank ye for reading, mortals! & thank ye extra-much to the generous mortals who can & do support our works here with coin!

I hope ye enjoyed this year’s Yuletide Adventure? ‘Twas a grand labor of love, & I hope that shone through. Wednesday, I shall write ye with news of this week’s episode! ‘Til then—be safe, be well, & remember, massacring children is never the answer.

Cheers,
Amœnus Franco
Wizard, Writer, Vizier Emeritus