The council members forget their irritation at the king acting on his own, without consulting them. They wait, grim faced and unhappy, to hear my report.
“I traveled up the Hemo, following the river’s banks. I journeyed beyond civilized lands, through the forests of laze trees that stand on our borders, and came to the end of the wall that forms our kairn. But I did not find the river’s source there. A tunnel cuts through the cavern wall and, according to the ancient maps, the Hemo flows into this tunnel. The maps, I discovered, proved accurate. The Hemo has either cut its own path through the cavern wall or the river runs along a path formed for it by those who made our world in the beginning. Or perhaps a combination of both.”
The king shakes his head at me, disliking my learned digressions. I see his expression of annoyance and, slightly inclining my head to acknowledge it, return to the subject at hand.
“I followed the tunnel a great distance and discovered a small lake set in a box canyon, at the bottom of what once must have been a magnificent waterfall. There, the Hemo plunges over a sheer rock cliff, falling hundreds of footspans, from a height equal to the height of cavern ceiling above our heads.”
The citizens of Kairn Telest appear impressed. I shake my head, warning them not to get their hopes up.
“I could tell, from the vast dimensions of the smooth plane of the wall’s rock surface and from the depth of the lake bed below, that the river’s flow had once been strong and powerful. Once, I judge, a man standing beneath it might have been crushed by the sheer force of the water falling on him. Now, a child could bathe safely in the trickle that flows down the cliff’s side.”
My tone is bitter. The king and council members watch me warily, uneasily.
“I traveled on, still seeking the river’s source. I climbed up the sides of the canyon wall. And I noticed a strange phenomenon: the higher I climbed, the cooler grew the temperature of the air around me. When I arrived at the top of the falls, near the ceiling of the cavern, I discovered the reason why. I was no longer surrounded by the rock walls of the cavern.” My voice grows tense, dark, ominous.
“I found myself surrounded by walls of solid ice.”
The council members appear startled, they feel the awe and fear I mean to convey. But I can tell from their confused expressions that they do not yet comprehend the danger.
“My friends,” I tell them, speaking softly, my eyes moving around the table, gathering them up, and holding them fast, “the ceiling of the cavern, through which the Hemo flows, is rimed with ice. It didn’t used to be that way,” I add, noting that they still do not understand. My fingers curl slightly. “This is a change, a dire change. But, listen, I will explain further.
“Appalled by my discovery, I continued traveling along the banks of the Hemo. The way was dark and treacherous, the cold was bitter. I marveled at this, for I had not yet passed beyond the range of light and warmth shed by the colossus. Why weren’t the colossus working, I wondered?”
“If it was as cold as you claim, how could you go on?” the king demands.
“Fortunately, Your Majesty, my magic is strong and it sustained me,” I reply.
He doesn’t like to hear that, but he was the one who challenged
**>£. I am reputed to be extremely powerful in magic, more powerful than most in the realm of Kairn Telest. He thinks that I am showing off.
“I arrived eventually, after much difficulty, at the opening in the cavern wall through which the Hemo flows,” I continue. ‘According to the ancient maps, when I looked out of this opening, I should have seen the Celestial Sea, the freshwater ocean created by the ancients for our use. What I looked out on, my friends”—I pause, making certain I have their undivided attention—”was a vast sea of ice!”
I hiss the final word. The council members shiver, as if I’d brought the cold back in a cage and set it loose in the Council Chamber. They stare at me in silence, astounded, appalled, the full understanding of what I am telling them slowly working its way, like an arrow tip lodged in an old wound, into their minds.