Frostlake's Treasure

The first thing Korax noticed was that the ice over Frostlake didn’t quite reflect the sky.

Snow lay piled in drifts along the shore, but the lake itself was a broad, black sheet, smooth as glass, with thick veins of cloudy white frozen in its depths. The mountains loomed around it, their shoulders buried in winter. Above, the sky was a pale, hard blue that begrudgingly promised a clear day.

Apollo snorted, his breath steaming as Korax guided the black stallion down the last rocky slope toward the makeshift camp. Halfway down the slope, the wind shifted so abruptly that it felt like they were riding through an invisible wall. In one moment, there was a sharp, dry breeze from the north, in the next a damp, throat-filling gust out of the east that tasted like snow not yet fallen.

Korax’s shoulders tightened.

“Easy,” he murmured, patting Apollo’s neck. “It was clear an hour ago. Let’s hope it keeps.”

Two large tents were huddled near the water’s edge, their canvas sides flapping in the fickle wind. Between them, a wooden frame rose, built from green-cut pine trunks lashed with rope. From the frame hung a winch and pulley system with chains looping down and across toward a dark hole that had been hacked through the ice near the center of the lake.

Men moved around the structure, bundled in fur and leather, boots slipping on the slick surface. A few were human, most with Duke Wellington’s colors on their cloaks. Two wore the heavier, layered harness of Orc engineers, with tools hanging from their belts. Smoke from a firepit curled up into the cold air, snatched away in sudden little eddies that changed direction without warning.

Korax reined Apollo in at the edge of the trampled snow.

Someone spotted him and shouted. A figure in a patched officer’s cloak turned from the winch and strode toward him.

“Sir Korax?” he called. “We weren’t told you were coming.”

“Message must have frozen in the passes,” Korax said dryly.

He swung down from the saddle, landing lightly despite the numbness in his legs. Apollo stamped, ears pinned toward the lake, nostrils flaring, scenting something that wasn’t there.

The officer was a lean man with wind-raw cheeks and a scar along his jaw. He stopped and saluted.

“Captain Merrow, Frostlake Detail,” he said. “No trouble here we can’t handle, sir. We’ve actually had some good fortune lately.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Korax said. “The Duke doesn’t like surprises that come attached to strange lights, missing caravans, and blizzards that appear from clear skies.”

Merrow’s gaze flicked to the hole in the ice, then to the sky, where a thin ring of cloud had formed directly over the center of the lake, circling slowly against the new prevailing wind from the east.

“We’ve had no caravans vanish since we started operations,” he said. “If anything, we’re recovering what was lost.”

“Operations,” Korax repeated. “That what we’re calling it?”

Merrow hesitated, then gestured toward the lake.

“Come see for yourself.”

They crossed the ice on foot. It groaned under their weight, a deep, animal sound, but held firm.

Apollo refused to step onto it. Korax left him at the shore, where the horse pawed and blew uneasily, eyes never leaving the black surface. A gust tried to shove at his flank and died the moment it reached the horse, as if it had run into glass.

The cold intensified with each step they took on the ice. Korax’s breath came in visible plumes, and the air above the hole felt thinner than the rest, as though the wind didn’t quite know how to pass over it.

Up close, Korax could see the shaft they had melted: a rough cylinder perhaps five feet wide, reaching down through layers of clear ice that had been cut and refrozen at the edges. Steam still curled from its rim despite the chill. A bundle of chains hung down into the darkness, swaying gently even when the wind briefly dropped to nothing.

“First we just wanted to see how deep it went,” Merrow said. “There were reports of wagons going through the ice years back when the pass still saw much traffic. Orc traders. Our own caravans. Thought we might at least bring up some cargo if we could find it.”

“You’ve pulled things out?” Korax asked.

Merrow’s eyes brightened.

“Three wagons so far,” he said. “All frozen in like flies in amber. We used heated iron rods to punch a tunnel down, then lowered chains to hook the axles. Brought them up near intact. Grain ruined, of course, but the metalwork, the chests… We’ve recovered a small fortune in coin and gear. The Duke’ll be pleased.”

“And the orcs?” Korax asked, nodding toward the two engineers fussing over a brazier by the winch.

Merrow grimaced.

“They have a claim too,” he admitted. “Some of the lost caravans were theirs. So we split the haul…. An attempt to keep the orcs from showing their tusks.”

Korax stepped to the very edge of the shaft and peered down.

The ice walls were smooth, the result of melting and repeated scraping. Faint, warped shapes showed in the dimness: the curved edge of a wagon wheel, a bundle of something once wrapped in cloth, a glint of metal that might have been a helm or a chest latch.

Deeper still, farther than the eye should comfortably see, something else loomed.

A shape like a black stone spike driven down into the lakebed, its sides etched in lines and symbols that refused to come into focus. Around it, the water was not quite water. It looked congealed, too dark, as if shadow had pooled there and frozen solid.

As Korax stared, the air above the shaft stirred. A breeze rose from the hole itself, carrying cold that was older than the mountain. Overhead, the thin ring of cloud tightened into a spiral directly above them.

Korax’s stomach clenched.

“How far down does the ice go before you hit open water?” he asked.

“Hard to say,” Merrow said. “We stopped about thirty feet down once we found the first wagon. There’s still something below that. Big. The orc says it’s a stone spire or pillar. He wants to drag it up. Says Veilstone fetches a good price, and the Duke’s men mutter about weapons.”

“You didn’t think to ask why a stone spire was at the bottom of a mountain lake that never saw storms until the year you started digging?” Korax said.

Merrow bristled.

“With respect, sir, we’re not mages,” he said. “We see something valuable, we fetch it. That’s why we sent word to the Duke. We did, you know. Weeks ago. The wind’s been turning strange ever since. We didn’t expect you personally.”

“You’re lucky he sent anyone at all,” Korax said. “Luckier still I got here before your prize finishes calling down a blizzard.”

He crouched, the cold biting through his leggings, and stared hard at the dark shape below. The lines on it shifted when he tried to follow them, not randomly, but like a pattern half-remembered.

He’d seen something like it once before.

In Greybeard’s study, there had been a charcoal sketch pinned above the old wizard’s desk: a stone obelisk planted in the middle of a churning white void, clouds boiling around it, chains trailing from its sides into nothingness. In careful script beneath, Greybeard had written: “Anchor-stone, Stormrift Tear—DO NOT DISTURB.”

“Captain,” Korax said slowly. “This isn’t a pillar someone dropped in for decoration. This is an anchor.”

Merrow frowned. “Anchor?”

“A Veil-anchor,” Korax said. “An old mage’s way of nailing a tear in reality shut. Take out the nail, and you don’t just free a stone. You let the weather remember what it wanted to do when that tear first opened.”

As if in answer, a sudden gust hurtled down the length of the lake, strong enough to make the frame over the shaft creak. Snow ripped off the distant banks and swirled into the air, chasing its own tail above the hole.

Merrow’s face paled beneath his windburn.

“That… wasn’t in the reports,” he said weakly.

“Of course it wasn’t,” Korax said. “Nobody living remembers putting it there. But the sky does.”

He straightened and pointed up.

“How far have you drilled?” he asked.

“One of the orcs says we’re within ten feet of the base,” Merrow said. “We had to stop this morning. One of my men… cracked.”

Korax’s eyes narrowed.

“Show me.”

The man sat in a small tent near the fire, wrapped in blankets despite the heat. The canvas snapped and billowed with each unpredictable gust. His eyes were open but unfocused, tracking things only he could see. His lips moved continuously, whispering to himself.

Korax knelt in front of him.

“Soldier?” he said.

The man’s gaze snapped to him and then slid right past, as if he were looking at someone standing over Korax’s shoulder.

“Almost there,” the man breathed. “Just a little deeper. You can hear it, can’t you? The sky under the ice.” He giggled. “It’s upside down. Clouds hanging like big bellies, fat with snow. They want to fall the right way. If we pull the stone, they can. Everything can. It’s cruel to keep them there.”

His tone was pleading, as if describing mercy.

“What’s his name?” Korax asked quietly.

“Darren,” Merrow said.

“Darren,” Korax repeated. “What did you see when you looked down?”

“Not down,” Darren whispered. “Up. From the bottom. Wind blows different there. No rules. You just… fall.” His breath hitched into a laugh. “You should hear the storm they’re saving for us.”

Korax’s shoulders tensed.

He stood.

“Get him away from the lake,” he said. “As far as you can. Back to the fort if you must. Keep him where he can see ordinary things. Dirt. Trees. His own hands. Maybe the song he hears now will fade.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Merrow asked.

“Then you never drill this deep again,” Korax said. “One mind swallowed is enough.”

On the way back to the hole, he stopped beside Apollo. The stallion tossed his head, ears flattened, as the wind shifted yet again, from east to south to nowhere at all in the space of a heartbeat.

“You feel it too,” Korax murmured, stroking his neck. “Good. Kick me if I get stupid.”

Apollo snorted, as if offended by the suggestion that he would not.

One of the orc engineers, a broad female with her hair in a tight knot and grease on her tusks, met them at the winch. She introduced herself as Korga, an engineer from the self-proclaimed “Orc King”’s clan.

“We were about to try another melt,” she said. “These mountain storms won’t give us many more days before the pass closes. If the stone’s as strong as it looks, we’ll need more time to chip it free.”

“You’re not bringing it up,” Korax said.

Korga’s eyes narrowed.

“What? You’ve seen this kind of thing before?” she asked.

“Enough to know you’re playing with a nail in the floor of a ship that you’re standing on,” Korax said. “You pull it, and you’ll wonder why the water starts coming in. Or in this case, the sky coming down.”

She spat onto the ice.

“Must be worth something, then,” she said. “Veilstone always is.”

“To the wrong people,” Korax said, and left it there.

He stepped past her to the shaft again.

This close, he could feel it: a low, almost-subsonic vibration in his bones, as if the lake itself were humming through him. Overhead, the clouds had gathered into a tight, dark ring directly above Frostlake and concentrated at the point above him. Flurries spiraled down in a column, falling straight into the shaft even when the wind wanted to blow sideways at them.

He needed to show them the danger.

“Lower something,” he said abruptly. “Something you don’t mind losing.”

Korga shrugged and grabbed a spare iron shield from a stack of salvaged gear. Its surface was scarred and dented but whole. She hooked it to a rope and fed it over the edge, letting it sink into the darkness below.

“Careful, just lower it near enough to the stone to affect it,” Korax warned.

They let the rope out until the shield dangled in the water somewhere just above the obelisk. The hum in Korax’s bones deepened, like the moment before lightning strikes. The shield tapped the stone, but hardly made a sound.

“That’s enough,” he said. “Pull it back.”

They hauled the rope hand over hand. As it rose, the wind came with it. A sudden downdraft slammed into the camp, flattening the tents and snuffing half the fire. Apollo screamed from the shore as the shield broke the surface.

Merrow swore.

The metal was wrong.

Where there had been a simple curve of forged iron, there was now a twisted, elongated shape, as if someone had grabbed the edges and tried to wring it like a cloth. The pattern of hammer marks was smeared. The boss at the center bulged outward into a shape that might have been an eye or simply a random swell. Either way, it was uncomfortable for them to look at.

Water dripped from it, but the droplets fell too slowly, stretching into long strands before breaking. When they hit the ice, they froze on contact and skittered away like tiny shards of glass swept hastily by a broom.

Korax let the silence stretch, interrupted only by the ragged flap of canvas and the low moan of the wind circling the lake.

“Do you still want to pull up the stone that did that?” he asked quietly.

Korga’s jaw clenched. Her eyes, though, had lost their earlier hunger. She made a sign against evil in her people’s fashion.

“We would not drink from a well that did this to a bucket,” she admitted.

Merrow swallowed hard.

“We’re sitting on this?” he whispered. “We’ve been hauling men and cargo up and down over that while the sky’s been changing its mind every hour?”

“You’ve been scratching around the edges of it,” Korax said. “Like children picking at the scab over a wound they don’t remember getting.”

He took a breath, felt it burn in his chest.

“Listen to me,” he said. “That stone was placed there by someone who knew what they were doing. It keeps a tear from opening. It may also leak madness and weather around its edges. That’s the trade. But if you pull it, there will be no edge. Only an endless hole. The lake will not just drown you. The storms here won’t know how to stop.”

Merrow looked from the warped shield to the shaft, then up at the circling clouds, then back to Korax.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“You seal it again,” Korax said. “Fill the shaft with stone if you can haul it, or with ice and salt and wards if you can’t. Put up markers. Warnings. Reroute your caravans. Tell the Duke the treasure at the bottom of this lake belongs to something that doesn’t trade in coin.”

Korga grunted for the orcs.

“My King won’t like being told to leave wealth in the water,” she said.

“I know that the orcs have already lost their warriors to holes in the air, and mud on the marches, to the animals that gather in rings to look at the sky,” he said. “Tell him Sir Korax of Duke Wellington’s court says this is a common enemy. Have him consult with Grath, the eastern War-Chief, if he wants to hear it from another orc.”

Korga studied him for a long moment, then nodded once.

“I’ll tell him,” she said. “And I will personally break the arms of any fool under my command who tries to dig here again.”

Merrow let out a shuddering breath.

“I’ll report to the Duke,” he said. “I’ll close the pass as soon as we can get the last of our gear out. We’ll mark Frostlake off limits. Officially.”

“Make the story good,” Korax said. “If you call it cursed, some idiot will want to prove they’re braver than the curse. If you call it sacred, fewer will dare defy it.”

Merrow blinked, then managed a strained smile.

“You’re getting better at this business, sir,” he said.

“Practice,” Korax said. “Mostly from hearing the stories go wrong.”

They spent the rest of the day hauling their tools back from the hole. Korga supervised as they pushed blocks of rough-chipped ice into the shaft, then poured brine and shattered rock over them, freezing the mix into a new plug. Korax helped inscribe simple wards into the surface with a knife and charcoal, not true spells, but reminders: HOLD. STAY. DO NOT OPEN.

As the plug thickened, the wind began to falter. The spiraling clouds above the lake loosened, their tight ring fraying. By the time Korax carved the last stroke, the unnatural gusts had ebbed to a steady, ordinary mountain wind.

By nightfall, the sky over Frostlake was clear again.

Korax stood at the edge of the lake beside Apollo, the stallion’s flank warm against his shoulder. The ice groaned beneath its new burden, but the humming in his bones had faded to a distant, sullen throb. Snow blew across the surface in simple, straight lines, no longer twisting into spirals over the shaft.

“Some storms are meant to stay where they were nailed,” he said softly.

Apollo shook his head, mane tossing, as if in agreement.

They turned away together, leaving Frostlake to its secrets.

Behind them, the wind scoured their footprints from the snow almost as fast as they made them, until there was no sign anyone had ever walked there at all.

The valuable thing beneath the ice remained in place, unseen and unclaimed, doing the quiet work it had been made for: holding the weather, and the world, together, for just a little longer.