Aelar Brightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

The elk led Aelar down the far side of the ridge to a hollow between two walls of ice. A spring sat at the bottom. But the water was frozen solid, a thick gray sheet with no crack, no ripple. The elk lowered its crystal antlers and touched the ice. Nothing stirred. Aelar knelt and pressed his bare hands to the surface. Somewhere below slept the spirit he had climbed all this way to wake. The frozen spring hid the way down, and he had nothing to break it. He scraped at the ice with his fingernails. He found a loose stone and struck the surface until his arm ached. The stone chipped only white dust. The sheet held. He sat back, breathing hard, and stared at his raw hands. The elk watched him with its dark, patient eyes but could not help. Green light spread across the ice. Aelar looked up. Sylvana stood at the rim of the hollow, the forest spirit who had first sent him after the elk. Leaves trailed from her white hair. Her green eyes found his, and she smiled the soft smile he remembered from the empty glacier days. "You climbed farther than most," she said. "But you came with empty hands." She stepped down the slope and set a worn backpack at his feet. It bulged with tools. He saw a knife strapped to one side, water skins, a small folding pick. "I should have given you this at the start. You'll need every piece of it before the end." Aelar pulled the pack open. "The water's frozen. I can't reach what's below." "Then use what's in your hands, not your bare skin." She crouched beside him and tapped the ice. "The glacier hopes you'll quit here. Prove it wrong." He drew the folding pick. He set the point against the ice and swung. A crack ran out from the strike. He swung again. Chips flew. The elk stamped and lowered its head, and Aelar worked faster, driving the pick in a slow ring around the darkest patch of ice. Sweat froze on his neck. His arms burned. He did not stop. The ring gave way. A slab dropped into darkness below, and cold air rushed up through the hole. Aelar leaned over the edge. Far down, faint blue light pulsed in the dark, slow as a sleeping heart. Steps of black stone spiraled down toward it. "That is the spirit's resting place," Sylvana said quietly. "It has not been open in a hundred years." Aelar shouldered the pack. The elk would not fit through the hole. He looked back at it, and it dipped its antlers once, letting him go. He set one foot on the top stair. The blue light waited below, close now, and the way down at last lay open.