Ice Home

The cavern began to grow darker and darker from the dying blaze of the demonic hellfire engine.

I had never been in an actual battle before, so I was more attuned to the world now, it was as if I could feel it breathing.

The hellfire engine lay in the center of the icy cavern Amon Till and I fell into. The beast was metallic and huge, with bent tires and a glacial rock crushing the roof of this automated construct.

Amon strode over to the dying beast. Its flaming undercarriage weakly spluttering with waning energy. He hit the back end of the vehicle with a flurry of blows. Each strike powerful enough to make first-sized craters in the metal.

Amon broke away a panel in the back of it. It exposed a corrupted black heart, which pumped oil to the tires igniting the flames. In one fluid motion Amon ripped the heart out of its metal chest.

The infernal fire died along with the beast. Amon’s veins surged black as the thing expired. He closed his eyes as if accepting and unafraid of a rapid rush of energy granted by death.

He dropped the heart and looked towards Ustus, our fallen Shailar companion. He lay dying, a member of an enigmatic race of creatures so acclimated to the tundra parts of them became one with ice.

“Is there any life left in him?” I asked. Amon Till shook his head in the negative. I knew precious little about Amon but I knew that he had an unusual connection with death while I myself was uncertain if I could die at all.

Amon Till looked up to the hole in the ceiling of the icy cavern, a hole I created by asking the universe for a weapon to defend myself. The universe in turn granted me concentrated starlight.

“How did you drop the ceiling on that beast with your eyes?” he asked. I at first thought to be modest, but that was not my way, I had lived by way of cold and calculated truth written on the cosmic canvas of the sky. I had never truly needed to downplay or to lie.

“I asked the stars and they agreed to grant me what I needed,” I said. “So you speak with the stars now? You no longer listen?” “I do listen, I now realize that sometimes the universe asks me questions. I had never thought to answer.”

Amon nodded his bald head, not attempting to over analyze. The cavern was approximately 100 feet high. The walls were sheer ice. There was no logical or easy way to traverse.

“What do the stars say now? How are we to leave this place?” asked Till. I looked to the hole in the ice, to the open sky. Our stories did not end in this place.

“We do not die here, I know that.” “Good to know, do the stars tell you how we leave this place?” I inspected the stars, swiveled, glanced at them from different angles until the celestial dots spoke to me.

I hadn’t seen a way out yet, but I wasn’t worried. I did however notice a point of my death shortly ahead. Seeing the sheer number of times I died this day I now knew these were not my end. For 18 years I believed the stars told me where I died, and it was only until tonight did I realize these stopping points were where the universe asked me a question. It didn’t decide that my fate was written, it asked me if I felt it should continue.

We would face life and death peril in the next few hours. I didn’t yet know what, or how. It took me a very long time to lock minor details down.

“You pulled out that demon’s heart, and it became part of you. Is that how you found me? Because I was dead?” “Yes, I did sense the presence of death.” “Was I dead or alive when you found me?” “You were both,” Amon said as if this was in fact the case and baffling to him.

Amon spoke all the while unhooking rope and attaching a climbing pick. Amon began swinging the pick. Upon looking down at his ropes length he stopped. He had 60 feet it was well over 100.

“I do not recall if I heard what I heard, when I asked you where we were going. I lived this night more times than I could count,” I said. Amon Till closed his eyes and took a deep cleansing breath. I got the impression he was channeling his inner focus not to react to my bizarre questions negatively.

“Ice home, the temple of the Frost Eater monks. I intended to take you there, yes, we did in fact discuss this,” he said showing very little sign he was annoyed by this. “Was this where you were going all along, or was this just the best place to wait out the danger?” I asked. “Both of those things are true. I was already going there,” said Till.

“Perhaps I can cut more holes in the walls and ceilings so that we can climb our way up,” I said. “When it is a last resort, otherwise it could potentially collapse us inside.“

Amon Till put his right hand into his left, right palm open. He bowed his head in serious thought as if his prayer was the ultimate answer. If he was going to a spiritual place. Perhaps it was wise for me to consult the only force I knew that ever listened to me.

I watched the stars for a way out, but there was none immediately present. I asked the universe for help only after It asked if I needed it. Perhaps it was just possible to ask.

I reached out to the stars with my outstretched finger and dipped it in the celestial ink of a star. I wrote on the canvas of the sky in the language of prophecy. I asked the universe for a way out. The stars realigned and gave their reply.

“I helped you once and gave you a fraction of the powers of the universe, even though you did not specify what. The universe favors beginners and fools and you no longer fit into either category. Ask what you will, and do not take for granted the power we bestow upon you to remake reality to your will,” said the universe by moving the stars into language I could comprehend.

“Fine, mighty, Treiodod, give me the power to fly,” the stars smiled. Treiodod was the universe and the universe was him, but in all my dealings with the stars it was this entity that showed me things, this proxy of the universe proper.

“You have not followed the path well enough for such a request, but because you are young I grant you this,” said Treiodod. I felt my feet rise from earth, my eyes bled a brilliant white.

Amon Till saw me rise and hoped onto my back. I lifted into the air with the ease of a cloud. I could move only up and down, but up, was the only direction I needed for now. Amon Till wordlessly and nimbly hopped onto solid ground and barely made an impression on the snow. After my feet touched ground Amon Till pulled me into a run, and we made our way towards Ice Home.

***

A solitary warrior braved the cold of the Sarengal valley. She was but a mere speck of darkness against the fires of a settlement collapsing in on itself. She waded through a massacre with little concern or empathy for those poor souls that lay out dead or dying. The carnage wound down and only a handful of survivors remained. Most were instantly put to the sword, and those were the ones that may count themselves as lucky.

Amongst the soldiers of the conquering army of shadow wraiths were the chaotic remnants undefined shadows that followed them, clinging to walls, hovering close to their owners, not completely held captive to the natural order of physics.

The solitary soldier found her intended destination in what once was the town square of a living breathing place. There, towering over the rank and file was a soldier whose presence commanded authority at a glance even before any word was spoken. He was humanoid possessing arms and limbs, but more than most with an extra pair a foot below the first. His body and torso swayed unevenly as a tree in the wind. His armor was jagged and dark as if it were forged from living shadows, and he stood a full body length taller than the tallest man.

The lone warrior emerged and pulled back her shadowy cloak to be acknowledged. “Is it done?” said the commander in a strong yet wispy voice, like what one may think a living snake might sound like.

“Yes General, she said. “Where is the body?” the behemoth general demanded. The woman trembled ever so slightly with concern, for she hadn’t killed her prey exactly, she only stranded them in a tomb of ice in which they were unlikely to survive.

The general moved, all four of his arms with vastly different purposes commanding soldiers without uttering a word. “Petty, was it?” the general asked the solitaire warrior. The shadow wraith soldier nodded and spoke, “yes general.” “Cyteara will be pleased, lead the way to the boy in question,” said the general with conviction.

When General Crag pointed to her at random and commanded her to destroy the unremarkable boy, he did so in the heat of the moment without the benefit of context or clarity. He had given her what she at first thought was a general battlefield order. She had not attached emotion or urgency to the task. The warrior showed some measure of concern that she had not personally driven a blade into her charge, but she by no means, understood the stakes until now.

Cyteara’s holy warriors trudged through the tundra abandoning the town they had razed. They all followed Petty to the massive crater where she left her target for dead. Only her, the general, and a handful of his elite guards walked over the precarious ice, lest they fall victim to a collapse.

Petty spotted shadow down below and instantly crawled from it. The other soldiers slinked and slithered out of shadows. The longest shadow was reserved for the general.

The looming shadow wraith’s found the downed hellfire engine, its black heart, a dead shailar, but no signs of the boy in question. The general looked to Petty for clarity. Petty scrambled for the explanation that gave her the least culpability.

The general’s patience hung by a thread but had yet to break. She mentioned the boy's monk protector and the impossibly, improbable escape. “A shailar, and a monk, could they be on their way to Ice Home. A monk in the middle of nowhere for nothing seems unlikely. For Ice home, if they harbor the boy and choose not to relinquish him, we shall raze their temple,” spoke the general with cold menace.

***

It wasn’t easy to reach the highest peaks of Ice Home, but as Amon told it even the journey to a monastery should be a task that test the measure of one's conviction.

The sun was rising and we were treated to the brilliant orange glow radiating off slick glassy ice. In the snow men honed their bodies into living weapons. Their ages varied from elderly to adolescent. They drilled in the movements of their martial arts despite the extreme cold… or perhaps because of it.

Some of the monks had missing fingers, or even arms, replaced with limbs of ice. Amon smiled. He clearly found something of what he was looking for.

I respected their dedication even though I had never seen the need for dedication. I always operated under the banner of a predetermined fate, there was no need for preparation and focus when the outcome was written in the stars. Amon unlike myself was only connected to death and the end of things and did not operate under the idea of things being written and inevitable.

Amon approached the monks in training, respectfully waiting to be acknowledged before daring to interrupt their daily momentum. At a lull in the monks routine a middle aged man with two arms made of ice broke formation.

The new monks bowed energetically and smiled, seemingly pleased that someone was capable enough to make the trek up the mountain. Amon eagerly bowed and saluted with traditions stitched piecemeal together from several different orders of fighting warriors.

As I learned from him, which was later confirmed by way of the stars, Amon had never had a true teacher and learned the styles of many, so to see an order of such a size gave him hope that he could enhance his training. I smiled. I was happy for him, but I had quite the opposite effect in this place.

As far as I was concerned these days were amongst the first of my life. I knew my life before and was certain I was destined to die the night before, so I had zero aspirations that reached past that moment.

This was the first day of my new life.

Amon fit in very well in this place, yet I did not. The monks spent much time taking us to various masters. Amon greeted each with excitement and reverence.

Though I myself noticed something slightly different in them that Amon was too close to see. They seemed as if they were appraising us, assessing our worth, for what, I had yet to see until the stars made themselves present once more in the sky.

The temple was magnificent, and cold, every brick hard ice. The monks led us to a courtyard of what looked to be freshly laid snow, only to see the monks tending the area with bare feet and rakes as a zen meditation.

Emerging from the boundless canvas of white the snow collected in a wave. The snow took the shape of an undefined living being, something with purpose, until its features were certain. The snow fell away to ice and the ice was a man, translucent as water, but solid. The man bowed which prompted us to bow in kind.

“Warriors?” said the man of ice. “Yes,” replied Amon, knowing that he had earned that title through years of blood and broken bone. “No,” I said promptly, correcting the ice man.

The man of ice nodded zenly, as if he asked that question so that it might grant clarity to ones own self. “I am master Youeron Po, I am a guide to enlightenment,” he said unpretentiously, which was hard, because anyone else that used those words would clearly have been.

“You seek the means to unlock skills that lay inside of your own soul,” he said clearly to Amon, then he turned to face me. “And you are not clear on the nature of your celestial purpose,” explained Master Po.

“I didn’t know I should even be looking,” I said. “And yet an army dogs your steps for it. I feel it best for you to unlock the secrets of your soul before they do,” said the master. I found the blinking of his ice covered eye fascinating, an enigma, a contradiction to nature.

“Why do you say that?” asked Amon Till. I believed Amon’s wording was deceptive. The more correct phrasing would have been, how do you know that.

“There is little we cannot see on top of the mountain. A platoon of shadow wraiths move up through the mountain like a cancer, higher and higher, they have no other reason to do so than to find someone special… you,” said the Master.

“Perhaps we should move on,” said Amon Till. The man of ice smiled warmly in his cold body. “No, they will come, regardless if you are not here, and you would have learned nothing. Perhaps we can give you time to make your discovery,” said Po.

“How?” I inquired. “Enter the heart of Ice home,” said the Master. “What is that?” “A place of reflection, a place that can tell you what lies inside of your heart. It is quite an honor amongst our order, most do not reach that level of enlightenment to glimpse inside of themselves.”

“I will do this,” I said. I felt as if the stars had led me to this place. The universe as it seemed was there written in the stars, but perhaps it led me to this place to be my cipher.

***

After a day of difficult traversal Cyteara’s shadow wraith army reached the highest peaks of the Sarengal mountains. General Crag towered over his troops and looked into the tundra. Walls upon walls of ice blocks formed nonsensical walls to slow the push of his undeniable force.