A Crown of Many Skulls I. The Rule of Winter

They were halfway through the frozen badlands of Nysul on a glorious quest of murder for their lord Glor when the spell lifted.  Just a breath ago they had been zealots for the cause, struggling through the arid cold to slay Lord Bzer and bring his head back as a trophy.  Now the two were themselves again.

              The taller man was known as the Trumpeter, for he loudly proclaimed his whimsical heart from the mouth of his sterling horn.  In his long woolen coat he hid a great many treasures, junk, others would say.  Wrapped up in his endless ceremonial scarf he seemed the image of a mad priest, if there were gods anymore.  These things he contemplated with gleaming blue eyes set in a scruffy face framed by long and wild blond tangles.

            The other fellow was less ostentatious, except when angry.  Then the Fencer was a demon and violently punctuated his spirit with the blade of crystallized metal slung at his side.  He was cut from the very stuff of winter: ice and stone, cloud and sky.  These features set him apart from the usual entities on the southern continent of Barant and he was more than glad to tell of his lost people, those savage kin-slayers who couldn’t accept reason.  At the moment he too was struggling to come up with an accounting of their recent actions.

            “I abducted all the fair-haired women amongst the rocky kingdoms for that ragged despot,” realized the swordsman.  “Why?  Shouldn’t a person go find their own?”

            “Sounds pleasant compared to standing atop the tall cliffs looking through my instrument,” shivered the Trumpeter.  “Glor must’ve thought it was a spyglass or the like.”

            “Glor,” seethed the Fencer.

            “All he did was ask us to do these things, and we did them,” realized the Trumpeter. 

            Recollection was a rough task.  While some events stood out in the mind, their larger memories felt broken apart and displaced.  Whatever power had commanded their actions had harmed their minds, leaving them unable to fully understand what had happened or why.  Left with floating icebergs of scenes the cold world of Winter made even less sense.  Yet it was certain that these troubles began in the badlands and now the two sought to end them there.

            A fit of personal exploration suddenly possessed the musician.  Struggling with his coat he began to turn out all his pockets in search of something.  At last, after disgorging all manner of petrified hands, magic potions and scraps of paper, he found his memory.  Victoriously he began paging through a green-bound journal.

            “It’s gone!” he gasped.  Only now did the Fencer pay attention, as he had little patience for letters or other such fantasies.  “Ripped right out of the book.  I just can’t seem to remember what was on this page.”

            “My mind is all broken up too, a jumble of rocks and canyons and the petty people living in them.”  The Fencer hefted his sword and looked about cautiously.

            This was not without good reason.  At the moment they were being watched by hungry eyes.  The badlands of Nysul were rife with snuma and carnivorous giraffes.  It was a dry place, with little ice but chald: puffs of water vapor flash frozen in clumps which tumbled about.

            Above them the sky was uniform grey but their eyes knew the subtleties of clouds and currently they had only a few hours before dark and dangerous cold set in.  Turning back upon their own tracks they went in search of answers.

            “I was glad to be asked to play,” noted the Trumpeter in search of noise.     They struggled up a sandy incline towards the higher prominences.  Behind and all around, for as far as the eye could see, reddish rock broke up from the ground in massive blocks shattered by the wearing ice of Winter.  Between these ravines stretched, joining a massive canyon down below, shrouded in mist. 

            “Glor made me hunt down some political enemies,” added the Fencer glumly.  “I marched them over those cliffs at sword point.”

            The Trumpeter stomped ahead angrily upon hearing this.  “You never have any nice stories to tell,” he shouted over his shoulder.  “Why can’t you have better things happen to you?”

            “Need I remind you of the Riddle?” said the Fencer at last, not really loud enough to reach the Trumpeter.  Rare were the good things on the icebound planet known as Winter.  Though complex and difficult, the Riddle, as he understood it, was the summation of all worldly troubles and the savage humanity those engendered, unchanged by magic or charity, immune to kindness, addicted to acts of senseless brutality. 

            Thinking of this, his goal, the Answer, and the monotonous sky, the Fencer’s mood grew dark and he ached to use is weapon on Glor.  He had no absolute knowledge of this villain, but he would do for some sword practice.

            By evening, the sky gone strange and red with indirect sunset, they had arrived back at Glor’s stronghold.  So intent were they on this revenge that neither man noticed the hunter behind them, a thing versed in patience and unafraid of men.

            This place had always been Glor’s home, as it had for his ancestors since his family scion had won the place in a bloody coup.  Through all time the court magician had guided the course of things, propping the old monarchs up until his mathematics decided otherwise and he aided the rebellion with that most decisive of powers: magic.  So things went until the Uplifting.

            Now the savage remnants of a nation squatted in their last stronghold.  Carved from a massive piece of red stone, it had once been a sight to behold, but with the guiding hand gone it seemed cracked and troubled, smoothed over by dust storms and abandoned. 

            Many holes stared out from the rock, some bored by natural action or wildlife, others cut by ancient hands.  A few ornate structures spilled out into the air, latticed balconies and overhanging rooms, expressions of the lavish palace.  Atop it all sat a sort of keep, crowning the dominion.  The architecture was fine, baroque work, layered upon itself to produce extravagant textures.

            Fragments of memory led them to a narrow entrance sunk into the rock.  In the dwindling light they could see two men with long spears guarding in full livery.  The travelers plotted from the shadows.

            “Do we go in through this obvious way or chance a different route?” asked the Trumpeter.  His intent leaned towards the more interesting path, perhaps directly up the cliff face.

            “Give me your scarf,” replied the swordsman.

            “I cannot, on spiritual grounds,” frowned the other man.  “You know it is part of my sacred vestment as ordained by the tradition of the trumpet.”

            “Your coat then.”

            “The scarf it is.”

            With this the swordsman selected a properly sized rock and wrapped it carefully in the tattered wool.  Severed head in tow they approached the front gate.

            “We have returned!” declared the Trumpeter through his instrument, producing an incomprehensible booming.  Startled, the men dropped their spears and fled inside.

            Following, the smell of drunken humanity greeted them.  The rock housed a hidden city.  In here Glor’s ancestors kept their stock of peasants, soldiers, slaves and artisans safe and at their disposal.  Now only remnants populated the halls.  Each night the lord would release a certain quality of loyalty-ensuring wine and declare a bright future.  Dancing sounded in the old days.

            The invaders entered the shadowy interior.  There was no sign of guards, nor the cries of alarm which usually preceded the pair.  Perhaps none cared to hear about invading armies when they could revel through carven splendor. 

            Even more so than without the world within was a work of art.  The tall, narrow entry hall cut directly through to the agora, where the greatest happiness sounded to the tune of bells and drums.  Various other, lower passages provided diversion from the general concourse, which welcomed them in with more civilized temperatures.  The red stone contained a certain mineral which gave off a scent like that of cinnamon when warmed, spicing the air.

            Creeping to the great central plaza—a giant room ringed with balconies and furnished with varied blocks of stone for meeting and eating—the travelers saw that the old practice was underway by the light of luminous plants grown along the ceiling.  Ragged men and women in various states of undress danced and frolicked.  Even the old and young did these things. 

            The Fencer stared in horror as an elderly woman leaped in ecstasy from one of the balconies.  Swaddled infants twitched to staccato notes bleated out at a frenzied pace by musicians with bulging eyes.  All made merry, but in such a way which spoke of insanity and fever. 

            Deciding on another course the two turned just in time to see the guards slinking back to their stations.  Instead of worry or alarm those two men snapped their fingers and hummed along with the music. 

            Already the hunter had crept inside and hid in the dark nearby while listening to the heartbeats of her chosen quarry.  They smelled like interesting men. 

            Taking a side passage they went according to the direction which seemed the most ostentatious.  Following an auxiliary passage they reached a modest concourse, which meandered amongst empty living quarters until it met with a tiled hall.  Long tatters of former glory praised the noble past and the jagged pattern of the tiles pointed towards offices of polished marble and stairs without number.

            Dozens of avenues opened themselves up at this point, but only one led to Glor.  Here the two men stopped and scratched their heads at the possibilities.

            “I feel like I’ve been through here before, but for all the fragments in my mind I can’t seem to make a whole picture,” grumbled the Fencer, pacing.

            “Something has happened,” stated the Trumpeter, speaking of other things.  “There has been a change of feeling in this place.  It is not as it was the last time we were here, just hours ago.”

            “Sensible for once,” laughed the Fencer.  “I feel it too.  The merriment back behind us, that’s new and insane.  My first assumption is that we are somehow the cause.”

            The Trumpeter puffed his cheeks with thought but quickly exhaled.

            “I give up,” he said.  “I am clearly innocent and, since I’m feeling charitable, so are you.  It must be magic.  It must be a treasure we found or need to find.”

            Over their prattle footsteps clearly rang from another room, yet such was the acoustics that neither could be sure from whence they came.  Taking to an abandoned room they waited and watched. 

            A guard passed by in brightly painted armor.  Like with certain birds this uniform displayed grandeur, that of his station in service to Glor and the royal line.  He wore a blue enameled breastplate over a gown of purple chainmail, this in turn covering a long skirt of padded, black leather.  The outfit seemed entirely impractical, except for the invaders, who found the noise it made helpful in hiding their own.

            Unaware of the two men, and moving with purpose, the guard ascended a stairway and continued on through the upper halls.  They followed close behind, and following them all stalked the hunter, amused and hungry.

            Now they realized they were in the upper palace.  It was colder and occasionally windows netted with geometric designs opened upon the rocks and sky of the badlands.  Cold Winter cut through the heady spice of the citadel.

            Up and up the man climbed without tiring, often preening his mustache.  If they didn’t know better they would say he was the noble of this place, and they didn’t know better, except feeling he lacked something, a quality of rulership.

            Lit by censors burning brightly and the weak strains of ending day the palace was full of beautiful remnants in various stages of decay.  It had an abandoned air, a ruin inhabited.  The smell of perfume and spices empowered the upper chambers, places of blue and gold, chipped yet still wondrous. 

            The guardsman stopped at what seemed like his destination.  Up a short ramp and through three layers of silk curtains he moved with almost religious reverence.  As he did so he began to lose his garments, starting with his long cape, then his hauberk, the chain skirt and as he fumbled through the last curtain he struggled out of the leather gown, the veil closing behind him.

            Peeking through the two travelers saw a harem composed entirely of blondes, mostly women, but with a few fair men in the group.

            “You have an incautious eye,” noted the Trumpeter.  “But I admire your attention to detail.”

            The Fencer’s heart seethed at the thought that he had abducted all these beings and his companion had to stop him from making trouble. 

            “We must find the source, or all we will do it give ourselves away.” 

            What the musician said was true, but as he watched the man—now left with only a loose gown of linen—his old demon return to him.  Leaving, they didn’t see the guard, or the fair brothel’s disinterest in him, as he continued on through the room, to a door hidden beyond.

            Sword in hand the Fencer led the way, checking each and every door, looking for a particular kind of trouble.  Then the way became clear.  Each hall was a square, with a stair leading upwards, all to a central point.  Silently, they stalked up towards the throne room.

            Here a man mused on the checkered tiles, counting through a pile of stunningly whole platinum coins, humming to himself.  The two moved with care, lest they sound out over the floor and disturb the accounting.  The reason was the thing he wore on his head.

            The gold of its frame was pure and luminous, forming a circle which would fit any head it graced.  From its uneven spires shone opals, radiant and cool, set in crystal, cut by the breath of the gods.  They knew it held power, vague memories told them so, and so surprise was necessary if they were to remove it and thus have an even conversation with the tyrant they knew to be Glor.  Behind them came the hunting thing, which tasted the air excitedly. 

            In slow motion they worked across the hall, listening to his numbers.  The coins were ancient, as were all works of civilization on the frozen world, and could purchase all the flesh and power one might need.  Never turning around, the man’s music continued, until he grew disappointed.

            “I wish I had a musician,” he said idly to himself.

            The Fencer sensed the Trumpeter stop.  Turning, he witnessed absolute terror as the man placed his instrument to his lips and began to play the sweetest notes.  So stunned was he by this insanity that he let the bundle he held in his hands slip, the scarf unfurling, dropping loudly on the tile.  Unspooling from the woolen vestment the rock tumbled forth, rolling to the noble’s feet.

            In a moment the Fencer had his weapon unslung and the nightmare edge sought the man’s throat. 

            “Put that down!” bellowed Glor, and the Fencer did so, seeing the crown.  Dhala clattered like no material found or forged on any world.  The sound it made was a perfect accompaniment for the breaking of the mind into a thousand puzzle pieces.

            “Treachery!”  The tyrant’s eyes lit up as he said the word, though he was careful not to make it a command.  “I think my instructions were clear enough concerning Bzer the Ornate.  Now, my servants, tell me how it came to be that you would pass off a stone as a skull and murder for compliance.”

            Both men began to speak at once, eyes darting to the opal crown, but their words were lost as the hunting thing emerged from the shadows.  Having gained a taste for the men involved it was now hungry enough to make for the kill.

XII. Cold Infinities

Most keep a box of dreams hidden within their person.  This place can be called the heart, but in some cultures it is the brain and in others an aura visible only to those with the gift of the Art. 

              That there is such a distinction between the icebound and magicians is a telling one.  Minds locked by the ice and the need for survival, mundane creatures keep their box of dreams frozen tight, never to be released, except in small ways.  So, when serendipity manages to thaw their prison a bit of light escapes.  But the talented rarely had to keep such desires hidden, basking indulgent and satisfied by whim.    

            That wasn’t the case for one magician, Omet of the Brilliant Eye, a shaper nonpareil who could capture the lightning bolt furnace of the Lattice at almost any frequency but could never win the heart of his most desired Gobeithia, an independent creature.  His want hounded him through all hours and planes.  In danger of becoming overwhelmed with unfulfilled passion he took this energy and hid it away with his Art, so he could cogitate on more abstract and accessible matters without the trouble. 

            So it was a funny thing that this desire, the physical container itself, became a goal of the Fencer and by extension the Trumpeter.  Now unleashed on a world lacking its most sought after bride, it had found the next best thing.

            “It’s after Zaffa,” said Lew, wishing he had never found her.  His heart swung the other way now, towards nihilism.

            “If we can bottle up its light then we will be saved,” reasoned the Fencer, intent on the action of the birds.  “They will die anyway, those swans.  Their world is gone and soon the careful garden below will fall victim to the same entropy which freezes the joy from the rest of Winter.”

            The cold-eyed swordsman looked back at Lew then while the plot concocted by the amazon, the musician and he took form.  Scathra flew on the back of one of the birds, directing the project with the calls she learned tending the creatures.   

            “We saw the Bright strike the upper tower.”

            Lew made to leave, followed close by the Fencer intent on confrontation, but a cry rang out. 

            The Bright Thing was being hemmed in, fleets of swans carefully placing the mirror panes in a dome-like array around its most perfect and crystallized light.  But as it was concentrated more tactile radiations spilled from its being.  A bit slower than their fellows, a group carrying a lower plate was hit by a rippling haze.

            Even before the burning remnants plummeted to the now exposed garden the Fencer was past Lew, racing down to salvage the project.  Lew didn’t stay long.  He had to find Zaffa, or whoever she was, again, despite any misgivings he might have about their relationship.  He sensed a further plot.

            The maze-like nature of the Impossible Palace stymied his memory.  Was that particular parapet this way, or that?  He had been here years ago, whisked off by his new love to bask in her secret attentions.  In youth the inconsistencies of life and divinity had been exciting and new, now he just wished to find his way back to the upper tower, the place he had last seen the girl. 

            Crossing a wavering hall he suddenly took to a shadow.  The Trumpeter stalked through, gauging a way up, muttering.  It seemed the musician was after Zaffa too, part of the same conspiracy no doubt. 

            Resolved to reach her first Lew let the man pass before following, his footsteps covered by the buzzing, glitching noise of the Bright Thing as it roiled with energy. 

            Possessed of a mad intelligence the musician was at home in the strange contours of this place, but this same tilted nature plagued him with curiosity.  He quickly deduced the way up, a narrow stair hidden behind a fold of stone, but was just as quickly distracted by a side room containing a garden of petrified trees.

            Lew stopped still in his tracks as his quarry turned.  Leaping from the darkness he raised his metal-clad arm.  He was at the edge of his capabilities and one mistake would leave him at the mercy of the Trumpeter.

            Pain rang up his limb as the metal connected with the back of the musician’s skull.  The Trumpeter fell senseless to the ground.  Not wasting a moment to determine if the man was alive or dead Lew took to the stairs.  When he was sure no others followed he broke out running and arrived at the top, in a darker place.

            Now the mirror trap was almost complete and the swans mostly dead.  Some were burned, some collapsed, others petrified or turned to gemstones, vanished, pulverized to dust or blasted to smoke.  There was no end to the light’s emanations, or its beauty.  Such was desire unbound by the flesh, raging across all frequencies.  The night sky seemed closer to the truth of darkness now that the entity was shrouded.  Even some stars showed.

            Of Lew’s daughter there was no sign.  Where the strange ray had hit the parapet, as it had done on numerous occasions since the opening of the Box, the stone showed discolored and pearlescent, gleaming slightly in the dark.  At a glance it was making the girl not into the true Gobeithia, but the notion which fueled the Bright’s existence, the image of its desire.  Looking out over the now broken sea he tried to make out the others, but saw nothing save hint of great wings flapping amongst the stars.  A closer motion caught his eye.

            On a lower balcony Zaffa leaned out past the railing, as if straining towards her lost love.  Like the enchanted stones she illuminated the dark slightly.  He called out to her, but she started up afraid and ran back within the twisting structure.

            For the briefest of moments he thought about jumping down and braving the insane crenellations of the roofs and spires, but sense took hold over passion.  He raced back below, taking the narrow steps three at a time, almost falling on several occasions.

            He found no sign of the Trumpeter at the bottom and grew concerned.  Grabbing a gold candlestick he began working his way through the halls, quick enough that he felt progress was made, but carefully enough that he might not meet the musician by surprise.

            Hearing footsteps he took to a sequence of rooms, bare places where Gobeithia kept numerous small beds, medicine, all warmed by carefully constructed furnaces kindled by her magic.  Empty now, the old sheets and clothing had been left to decay, dust filling the place where children once were.  Everything was cold.  The sounds kept on ahead and he followed quicker. 

            A platform, one much larger than a balcony, opened up, hidden amongst the fake crags and window-pocked viewing rooms.  From places like this the goddess liked to view the world around her, and yet not be seen.  Here Zaffa glimmered, facing him, nowhere else to run.

            “You tricked me!” she cried in obvious pain.  She held herself as if she was trying to hold onto her very skin.  Raven black hair tossing in the wind, she backed up closer and closer to the narrow ledge beyond.  From that gap in the rock the mirror trap could be seen reflecting stars.

            “I was with you, I had no knowledge of their plan,” he said defensively.  Then he realized he was speaking to the wrong being.  “You aren’t Gobeithia.”

            “My devoted is gone and so are the memories,” she said, clinging to the changed flesh.  “I remember power and dream, magic and immortality, worship.  The nursery beyond was once full of the children I had taken from the undeserving and in this place the sacred swans would take the future to Rohpad.  I am the Goddess, the Beauty Beyond Sight.”

            Yet there was terror in her voice that this might not be true.  Backed up against the far edge he now saw past the girl to that one last gap remaining in the mirror trap, spilling insane radiance.  It was a funny prison, as prisoner could still see out, if it had that faculty, while none of them could see in.  He would’ve thought on this more if not for the sharp bit placed at his neck.

            “You hit me!” announced the Trumpeter who was far stealthier than he looked.  “I know you had to, but we needed to make sure she wasn’t going to let that thing out of the prison, or stop us or breathe death rays or something.”

            Lew could tell there was something more, but the turmoil in the tall man’s voice made it difficult to determine.

            Then the world shifted.  Just as the Scathra battled the last pane of mirror into place, sealing itself by the heat of the thing trapped inside, a tremor pulsed through the whole of the Sakram.  Now bottled up by itself the light was rebounded infinitely.  Growing, growing, growing, vast power, crystalline and beautiful, was focused exponentially.  Even though its light could not escape the world went strange.

            Rays, more potent than visible, cut through them all.  Lew fell to ribbons, each element of his being spread out over an expanse of space without matter or time.  The presence of others jostled against his own, colors seeping like ink.  Together they were a wet painting, pliant against the shaping brush of whatever force commanded the firmament.  As one they fell upon the abyss.

            A world rose to catch them.  Soft mountains stretched up against a night sky where the stars all streaked to vertical lines leading to the high moon, burnished silver, pain and perfection.  In the lowlands, all of snow, fine and hard like a coarse, sandy beach, thoughts and concepts lay about in tumbled chaos.

            Most were squares, strips of color, amazon baubles, pyramids, spheres, some recognizable, some not.  Lew found his sons as statues, and his inn broken apart into mansions based on each style he had used in its construction.  There was the Alabaster Glint himself, silly hat and all, a mannequin majesty clad in his faith.  There were things he didn’t want anyone to know, secrets he had hid so well that even he had lost their measure.  All was laid bare on the jumbled plain.

            Nothing was clear, the air vibrated every molecule.  The colors were fuzzy and the cold buzzed in the ear.  Lew swam through this revelation to the shouts of his own fears.  Truth hunted him.

            “Oh you,” bubbled Gobeithia as she rose from the memory matter, her lips clusters of dreams, and her hair the night sky.  Eyes as large as lakes pondered this new existence.

            “How do you live?” gasped the man, his breath streaming into sunlight, life and coiled gold.

            “I don’t,” she said with her non-voice borrowed from the stars.  “All you hear is my echo sounding off the iron bell of your heart.”

            “So what is this place?”

            “The Sakram and all its contents excited to a higher state,” she considered, still forming more of her body.  “Must be a kind of magic.”

            This was the sorceress he remembered, which was fitting because such notions were the blood and bone of this new body.  Collapsed, the parts seemed to make a whole being.  It was beautiful and he began to cry tears of diamond, topaz and sapphire.

            “There, there,” she said but was distracted by the moon. 

            Madness overwhelmed the man.  Lew could find no reason to exist here and knew he would be buried by his memories which shifted hungrily. 

            “I’m surprised there is anything left together of your being at all,” she noted.  “It must be something in the cold.”

            Tall, white mountains stretched into spires, part of a city without reason, outside of time, from some other aspect of Winter.  Feeling Scathra’s thoughts she had seen these before, through the vision imparted by the Bright.  All he wanted was to be back at his inn, with his boys, but those parts were insignificant compared to the freezing metropolis.

            Memories of others, this was the affliction.  He realized what must be elements from the Fencer, the Trumpeter and Scathra.  There were albino narwhals, petrified hands, and frightened elk, crimson rage, silver madness, and midnight sorrow.  These things were his too, he felt and knew them, their beings enmeshed.  Above all there was cold.

            Looking about he realized that Winter’s chill was held in the very sand of this place, the atoms which formed the state.  What then was that other cold?  It lay in a certain direction.

            “You’re not going to stay like this are you?” she asked at last, pulling her eyes from the moon.

            “You aren’t Gobeithia, she’s dead,” noted Lew with realization popping into existence is a globe of light. 

            “That’s right,” she said and became a mountain, some hills and a haze of color like an aurora at the far horizon. 

            Guided by the otherworldly cold he swam through the paradise remnants and, half-drowned, half-drunk, found the source.  Completely unchanged from the prosaic world Dhala stood pierced through a mountain of foes, many so terrible that Lew trembled, his fear becoming a bird.

            The Fencer was there already, climbing the still-twitching mountain. 

            “Why don’t you fly?” asked Lew.

            “I’m no sorcerer, not even in my head,” spat the man.  He wore a cloak of stone, a clasping chain tightening around his neck. 

            In the distance the Trumpeter frolicked with a number of notional entities, while above Scathra flew on her swan.  Here the city opened into a sort of grand square which swam with the tumbled remains of so many minds.  Together the whole glowed with bright moonlight.  Lew noted a constellation of red stars directly above them.

            The summit achieved, the Fencer pulled out the blade.  Immediately the impaled enemies gained life and set about their play. 

            Incredibly the Fencer did nothing but consider the weapon.  Its cold could cut through anything, which meant he didn’t need to think or consider, only act according to that absolute.  Along this edge the universe might be divided into two, a binary constraining the all.

            Fear occurred to Lew as a spilling yellow ink dripping from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth.  This turned to butterflies and tugged at him to flee.  The enemies below were far beyond his capabilities and the Fencer was now consumed by the weapon’s glassine depth. 

            It wasn’t Dhala realized the innkeep while all others were entertained to death by their thoughts.  The cold edge held by the southern swordsman was reason’s ghost, given similar shape in this place, but different in use. 

            “The stars!” he shouted to the swordsman, who took no notice.  So Lew flew himself over the tower-pierced wonderland into vast nothing of black, star-streaked space.  The ground gave way and as its vibrations lessened his thoughts became more lucid. 

            Above hung the source of the cold, a cluster of glowering red stars.  They were eyes here, sightlessly expressing a dream.  Reaching out to them his fear spiked but failed to become a separate entity.  Even as his thoughts gained clarity his own flights of fancy grew difficult, demanding all his concentration to stay airborne.  His will bent towards light, a stream of energy reaching to this chilling heaven.  Jettisoning all other aspects of his heart he strained with all his will towards that one desire that might slow the mad world of the Bright Thing. 

            When the cold became unbearable, infinite and dark, he knew he was there.  Taking a trembling hand he plucked the constellation from raw black space.  

            Instantly he saw the world as it truly was.  About them sprawled the broken mirror lands, a few patchwork pieces still reflecting the night sky, the rest falling into the dark gardens already withering from the cold.  He stood on one of these plates, where the others mused in that other, symbolic world of desire.  There the Fencer clutched at nothing, and the Fencer danced with his instrument.  Scathra lay embraced with a dead swan and poor, strange Zaffa, sprawled as if dead.

            Beyond them lay the imprisoned source of this delusion, the Bright Thing, the Light of Omet.  In constraining its ray within its watching tomb they had inadvertently concentrated its energies and the resulting resonance echoed through this part of Winter, driving them all to madness.  The Bright could see its desire, but was unable to reach out to her.  The plan by all rights should have worked, but there could be no telling the vagaries of magic or the dangerous outpourings of those energies loosed from the Lattice of the heart.

            Dhala burned into his hand, filling him with the terrible absolute of the world as it seems.  All his cares seemed distant and objective.  It would take a turbulent heart to keep its heat against this lick of frost.

            Of course he went to Zaffa first, past the others in their plights.  She had the appearance of death, but up close her back moved slightly with the effort of breathing.  Rolling her over Lew noted her livid pallor, a poisonous blue.  It seemed that normal, youthful Zaffa was so tethered to the notion of being Gobeithia, that if one were denied the other died.  Without godhood life dwindled within her.

            Not knowing what else to do, framed by the mad prison reflecting the stars, he walked over to the Fencer and placed the flat of the icicle sword against the man as he fought with shadows.  With a shudder this inner conflict subsided.

            “I don’t know how, but this horrible thing seems to help,” sighed the innkeep against all his troubles and pains.

            “While its touch is harsh the sight it gives is more clear than crystal,” noted the Fencer, somewhat ashamed at his weakness.  He watched the others dance amongst their hearts.  “We must let it out.”

            Lew followed the swordsman’s frown and saw it lead to the mirror prison.

            “She’ll be overcome at last!” exclaimed Lew.  “We all will.  Can’t battle such a thing as light.”

            “Then let go of my blade and play in its madness,” glared the man, his cold eyes glimmering in the dark, not with the uncanny Bright, but with the intensity his true grey.  “Enjoy yourself while it lasts because I will deny such fantasy.”

            Lew watched his daughter dying of slow change on the cold metal sea.

            “What would you have me do?”

            “We must hold Dhala together, as it is our only remedy,” reasoned the Fencer.  “Then we will join hands with the others and take your daughter-goddess-lover to her admirer.”

            They did this, dispelling the shattered joy from each dreamer.  The Trumpeter complained while Scathra barely awoke, nearly dead with exhaustion.  Carefully they held the icy blade by its jagged hilt and their blood mingled and froze together.  His left still encased by the shield remains Lew was unable to carry his daughter.  Scathra did it, resilient beyond belief.

            Under watching stars the band moved as one across the mirrors.  The few that remained rattled ominously.  Gobeithia’s ancient works were coming undone at last.  The wind was up and sudden gusts managed to rip a few more of the squares off into the air, just as must’ve happened with that first pane they found in the copse.  It seemed forever ago.

            Beset by the wind mirrors shook and screamed around them.  To their right a sheet tore loose and went mad in the air.  Any unlucky bend to the wind would bring its scything edge down on them, or perhaps upend the surface they traveled, casting them down into the dying garden below.  Swans in various forms of death lay about, feathers fluttering.

            If fear was a prophet they all had a vision.  Not more than two panes away from the mirror trap the wind hit them.  Lew would’ve lost his grip on the nightmare blade if it wasn’t frozen to his skin.  The pulling made him scream.  Worse than this he felt their current surface begin to lift up.

            “It’s loose!” said the Trumpeter and broke and ran.

            “Come back you dimwit!” shouted the Fencer after his friend, but knew the musician was far too sane at this moment.  By running to the far edge he balanced their current mirror.  Until they stepped off.

            The last sight Lew had of the man was him running with those long legs, trying to reach the balance point again, where he’d at least have a chance at surviving against the wind’s power.  But he was already babbling mad with the unseen radiance spilling from the Bright Thing.  The Trumpeter fell down into the dark gardens, vanishing amongst the shadowed green.

            Howling a war cry, the Fencer dragged the remainders onward, over the last pane.  Before them loomed the faceted prison in which the Bright Thing searched ever outwards, rebounding impotently and vibrating the Lattice in such a way that the world shook to imaginary pieces.  If it couldn’t have its one true desire then the result would be devastation.

            When they got to the front plate, the last one Scathra sealed closed, the Fencer took Zaffa and pushed the last true amazon away.  Instantly she collapsed into a pile of dreams.

            “What are you doing?”  Now the cruelty had gotten to Lew, but what he saw in the Fencer now was not man.  It was a demon.

            “Stand her up,” commanded the swordsman, pointing to Zaffa.

            Lew began to protest but the Fencer chose that moment to tear the innkeep’s hand from the frozen hilt.  With a scream he was left with a bloody palm, much of his skin remaining on the device.  He saw now that this was part of the sword’s dark material.  Despite the pain he felt unearthly vibrations once more taking him apart and to that other Winter.

            “You haven’t much time now, hold her up.”  The Fencer went to the mirror and saw himself.  For a second he paused, as if considering his cold actions, but then flourished the weapon with the intent to let all that bright insanity out again.

            Lew held his daughter close.  It could be the last time, and while the stars shone in beautiful darkness he felt the cold of Winter cut through not only his clothes and flesh, but the spirit too.

            Like with Dhala’s clarity he knew the full lay of the past.  There had been a time of magicians, who played their dreams on the realm of men.  Gobeithia had been one, assuming the role of a goddess to a group of amazons, girls stolen from the icebound and brought to live in her realm as a sort of playground and indulgence.  She had been his goddess too, part of a short, sharp love which had ended with the Uplifting, when Sol came and both she and the Alabaster Glint had burned out there on the Sakram Trail.  He had nothing left then either.

            Screaming at the blade’s touch the mirror trap opened.  Immediately the Bright spilled out, parts of the grandiose whole.  This was all that remained of Omet, who bottled demons and spirits, energies and flux, but whose greatest legacy was his potent desire, all directed towards slippery Gobeithia.  She had been goddess and lover but was never all things to any one being.  The ray, the Bright Thing left behind by dead Omet, raged at this incomplete lust.

            The metal opened and the Bright came out.  For a moment the grand shape it had assumed while pondering the mirror lake showed in its full polygonal glory, but then it became the streamer of light once more.  Blistering the world with the heat of a billion hearts it leaped towards the girl, who stirred with life now that her shaping spirit was returned.

            Fast and true a shadow intruded.  In silhouette Lew saw the Fencer stand before the Bright Thing and hold up his weapon, not to attack, but with the flat of the blade held before him.

            The bolting entity struck the dark glass and screamed.  Dark shapes blossomed, bubbles full of sorcery, cubes of force, pyramids bottling the remains of the once great.  For a second these impossible notions spewed from Dhala’s crystal.  Like a prism splitting sunlight the weapon’s facets tore apart the Ray of Omet into components incapable of surviving on Winter’s prosaic plane.  They flashed into the Lattice with the cry of metallic tears.

She billowed out with the end of all hope.  Zaffa felt the last affection, an enfolding around her, warm and caring.  Never had this come to her in those years amongst the amazons as they kept to their strictures and competed against each other for the whim of a fake goddess.  There had been much good will there, but nothing as close as this.

            The strange colors left her and that goddess died again at last.  She was not her mother.  She was not the molding forces of Winter or Rohpad.  She was potential unrealized.  In a way this excited her.

            Too much of her life was gone now, burned up by the crazy light’s touch.  Flensed to the spirit she felt the cold and the man holding her held on that much tighter.  She couldn’t breathe and didn’t want to. 

            At last her soma gave up and she spilled back into the Lattice.  In transition she knew memories outsider her experience, tangents in the world crystal intersecting upon her nous.  This was Lew, his spirit merged with hers this close, in this strange death blossom sparked by the dying sorcery.  Goodbye mother.  Hello father.  Hello dream, light, spark, flutter, Lattice.

Omet’s remains broke apart into something which fluttered like snowflies.  From each eye on Dhala’s blade came the things, colorful and buoyant, flaring up then dwindling away.  Only the Fencer knew their name.

            It had been something.  Lew felt the girl come apart in his hands.  She hadn’t died as others, to rot or freeze.  The sorcery left Zaffa and she saw him with sane eyes one last time.  Then she was gone, transformed into a fluttering cloud before returning to the Lattice.  He was half sorrow and half glad, all cold now that the driving force of their journey had been diffused.

            The Fencer had almost immediately collapsed from his feat.  Swooned from the energies washing over him, he became introspective in the face of life without the Trumpeter.

            Lew went to nudge Scathra and she seemed too light.  Already her soul was gone, leaving nothing but a husk.  Such was said of saints and those strong in spirit.  Her eyes stared cleanly into the mirror ground, free and victorious at last.  All exhaustion gone, she slept in balmy eternity, though some said that souls returned to the Lattice would come forth again.

            He lifted her up and took note of her eyes’ true color.  They were jade shot with shards of amber, hazel and fierce to look upon.  The calm in them didn’t last.

            Fighting his way up the Trumpeter came sopping.  He had fallen into the lake below.

            “Wake her up man!” he shouted with happy ignorance.  “We are victorious.  Where is your daughter?  Shouldn’t we share our joy?”

           

They found the box where it had been left on the shore.  It had been quite foolish for the girl to open it, but these were empty times and Lew knew the allure of looking inside.

            The Fencer picked it up gingerly, careful for any lingering sorceries.

            “Afraid it will bite?” Lew asked

            “I do not trust any sort of magic,” said the swordsman.

            “Except your own,” continued Lew bitterly.

            The savage did not respond.  At no point did he even look in Lew’s direction.  He had found the only remnant of his goal: a box of nothing.  Sure the material might be fantastic and its holding properties unchanged, but it was still just the empty vessel for his quest.  Zaffa had won that light, for better or worse.

            “Take it and go,” said the innkeep savagely. 

            Now the Fencer turned his way.

            “You heard me; you aren’t welcome at my inn.”

            “Come on!” began the smiling Trumpeter.  “What of drinks and company?  Yours is the last place for weeks.”

            “I expect you’ll survive,” was all the explanation Lew gave as he made to bed down in the remnants of the gardens.  A bit of warmth clung to those parts, though soon they would freeze.  A cold hand took his shoulder.

            “I expect a reason,” said the Fencer.  The man’s eyes were cold, but concern had crept into his voice.  The ice thawed.

            “Through you I have lost Elac and Zaffa.  Scathra lost her life in your mad play and I can’t put aside your savage treatment of her at the end, despite victory.  I am broken.  All that is left is the ice and I can’t explain it any better than that.  I have a certain sense of proportion; I have gone with you this far, but you may not go with me any further tomorrow.  I suggest you head east.  There will be elk and fish and maybe, some weeks from now, another town will show itself and you two can be their problem.”

            This seemed enough for the Fencer, troubling as it was.  The Trumpeter went anxious and Lew felt a bit bad about that.  He wished the man would play a song.  No luck.  They spent the night in cooling silence, their sleep deep and dreamless.

            The morrow dawned grey and bleak.  Frost-blackened plants told of the future.  Neither group did much to prepare.  This part of their lives was done.

            Taking the box, the Fencer and the Trumpeter disappeared into the rising sun.  Only one thing had been said between them.  The words stuck with Lew as he trudged through the ruins of Rohpad, stopping only to pilfer a bit of food and water and pull a fur over his shoulders.

            “I think she did a good thing,” mentioned the Trumpeter.  “Zaffa saved a lot of lives by burning that silo.  If not for that the Bright would’ve been everywhere.  She endangered us and she saved us.  Very responsible.”

            The words were a cloak worn on that madman’s shoulders as he and the Fencer moved on to other chaos and the far realms of Winter in search of that most elusive Answer.

At the end of all journeys Lew was a broken man.  His right shoulder would never be the same after being dislocated by the Duhg and his left arm was wracked with constant pain once his sons managed to pry the molded steel from his flesh.  The resulting infection kept him laid up for weeks. 

            Yet he had his boys and this was most illuminating.  Part of him, a romantic, secretive, former paladin, that part had gone out, abandoning six sons for the sake of a daughter which never knew him and had been part of a great chaos in his life.  Gobeithia would certainly have sent their daughter to the amazons in any event and Lew would have no purchase on her heart, for she was a mage and her whim was as true as the cold.

            That part was burned out.  Now he was absolved of his past and could recline on the back of the younger generation.  With the Bright gone the Sakram gradually returned to its former, inhospitable self.  Travelers came and went like the passing snows, the wind blowing both on and on.