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Trull strode to a shallow pool and crouched down at its edge The saline water swarrey shrimps Barnacles crowded the waterline

‘The ice is dying’

At Fear’s words behind him, Trull rose and faced his brother ‘Why do you say that?’

‘The salt gnaws its flesh We are at the lowest region of the ancient seabed, I believe Where the last of the water gathered, then slowly evaporated Those columns of salt are all that remains If the entire basin was like this place, then the canopy of ice would have collapsed-’

‘Perhaps it does just that,’ Binadas suggested, joining them ‘In cycles over thousands of years Collapse, then the salt begins its work once again’

Trull stared into the gloomy reaches ‘I cannot believe those pillars can hold up all this ice There must be a cycle of collapse, as Binadas has said’ His eyes caught ed, and Trull saw that the warrior had his sword out

‘There is a path,’ Theradas said ‘And a place of gathering We are not the first to have come down here’

Rhulad and Midik joined them No-one spoke for a time

Then Fear nodded and asked, ‘How recent are the signs, Theradas?’

‘Days’

‘Binadas and Trull, go with Theradas to this place of gathering I will rean twenty paces in from the crevasse, a trail cleared of cobbles and detritus that wound between the rough, crystalline colu in a steady downpour Theradas led thee of a vast roughly domed expanse devoid of pillars

Near the centre squatted a low, s surrounded it – shells,which the odd piece of carved ivory was visible Yet Trull spared it but a aze had been drawn to the far wall

A sheer plane of ice a hundred paces or– a wall in which countless beasts had been caught in ht Antlers projected from the ice, heads and shoulders – still solid and is lifted or stretched forward Frost-riht Deeper within, the blurred shapes of hundreds more