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Part I The Ritual
The arc of sunlight that peaked above the rim of the Earth never reached the surface. Blizzard clouds smothered him in darkness, and Jack estimated, more than saw, the sun’s rising. A steady slew of snow obstructed even the keenest eyes, but he didn’t need to see to know where he was going. That pulsing ache drew him like a slow knife draws blood. He began to run.
Light boots, a fatal idea in these conditions, wrapped his feet as he crunched along the swift-building powder. Somehow, the man running through the blizzard didn’t sludge through the snow, but ran quickly and decisively atop it. He breathed in quick puffs, an indiscernible sound in the torrent. The thick blanket of soaked leather he wore and the biting cold was masked by numbness. What could be felt, though, was that ache. Like a heartbeat, but deeper, more profound…something that itched every fiber inside his body and mind. It was the call of another, something so primordial that he could not resist. Hook-like yearnings, pulling at his everything, goaded him on. As his speed increased, he felt it stronger, spurring his heart into a rhythm so unlike his own. Wonder if I’ll survive this one…he thought in absent-minded banter. Movement! No human eye could see the subtle changes in the present conditions, but Jack felt it move, felt her move. So a woman, then…
As the flurry continued, a dying animal’s moan met his ears. It scratched out and cracked, like ice bearing too much load. It was ice, he realized. Runoff from the white-capped peaks ahead must have formed a lake, and he was pelting along the edge of it. Without aid of vision, he heard and felt it, the shear magnitude of water so dangerously close. The voice of the ice spoke again, a harsh, dry, gunfire report of shattering crystal echoing in the wasteland. Before long, the blizzard let up. Flurries of powder became slow sheets, settling at his feet as they made contact with the surface of the lake.
He saw it in slow motion, like a picture coming into focus. They looked like blue pillars, pillars of ice that rose up to the sky. Interwoven, a net of spikes that clawed at the clouds above. No snow drifted here, it was the eye of the storm.
Deepest blue columns that held up the most beautiful edifice he’d ever seen loomed into his field of vision, now devoid of obstruction. It was constructed like a cathedral, meant to give an illusion of escalation into the heavens. He felt dwarfed, small, a miniscule thing in a vastness he probably couldn’t comprehend. Except he’d seen it many times, in dreams, visions, even when he was awake. They called to him, sang to him in a language old as time. She sang to him. The call was all he could think of now, blotting out the ice cathedral.
He felt giddy, almost happy, as if a surprise awaited him in this place where rainbows don’t form and life had picked up its bags and left. Jack skidded, grasped outward for support and found the nearest ice spike. The lake surface gleamed in reflection of the shroud of frozen needles protruding from the depths. A slow shudder of exhalation met his ears, as they pricked up, doglike, scanning for the sound. And there she was. All the expectation, the shuddering pulse, and strange yearnings led to this moment.
She was shrouded in blue, crystalline fibers that spoke of cold…endless, endless cold. Long sleeves of her robe ended in hands clasped together at her waist. Her eyes, steel orbs, bore into his skull, he thought he could feel his memories, emotions, even dreams crackling as they expanded and froze in her gaze. Jack breathed out a small cloud that escaped his still-red lips. Her lips were pale, though not unattractive. She did not smile, but held a countenance of concentration, looking only into his eyes and standing perfectly still. She would have been a porcelain portrait, milky white skin and a pointed doll-like chin, but for the free-flowing strands that littered her shoulders, blowing in the slow breeze that betrayed neither the temperature nor the strength of the blizzard outside of this calm circle. That breeze played across the expanse of her clothes, a simple robe split at the sides and front, allowing perfectly free movement a familiar voice whispered to him from a distance in his head. Probably the only unfrozen voice inside him, it yelled for him to move, to begin circling around her, slow and steady. The ritual began.