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Frustrated, I returned to the bedroom and paced in my gown. I was hungry, but there was absolutely no food in the room. The bedroom was large, but with the door locked, it felt small and cramped. And there was nobody else around.
Feeling on the edge of panic, I slowed my breathing and tried to focus on calming down. Lainule had specifically said we should meditate, so I crawled back onto the bed and leaned against the headboard, pulling the covers up to my chin as I crossed my legs and let my head rest against the headboard. I closed my eyes and counted from twenty to one, feeling my breath come a little easier. With my eyes closed, it was easier.
A few minutes later, I started to relax, counting my breaths. Inhale-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, exhale-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four. Several repetitions and the strain in my neck began to relax. Several more and I found myself starting to slip into that quiet state that precedes a trance, where my senses of smell and hearing and knowing heightened, even as the mask blocked the world away from my sight.
One more long, deep breath, and I tumbled down the rabbit hole.
The night sky spread above me in an expansive blanket of stars as cold as ice. The ice of the far north. The ice that never melted. The ice that existed at the top of the world, in a sheet, built layer upon layer, through the eons, from the beginning of time. Existing outside the world, and yet touching it, this realm breathed a snow-kissed whisper, a reminder of death and darkness and the sleeping hours of the night. To my left stretched a sheen of white, snowdrifts that rolled along like dunes on a desert. To my right, a dark ocean, covered by vast floes, glacial mountains calving their children into the churning water.
I turned, looking for some frame of reference, but nowhere could I find a clue as to where I was. As I strove for understanding, thunder rolled through the air as black silhouettes of blue spruce and towering firs thrust up from beneath the ice, like ancient standing stones. One by one, they rose, creaking, cracking the world apart in their birth throes, until they had created a forest encircling the ocean of ice. Snow clung to the boughs like moss, dripping down in frozen webs, a network of lace and frost.
Behind me, a low rumble shook the ground, and I reached out to balance myself but realized the quaking hadn’t thrown me off balance. It was as if I were a frozen pillar, strong and steady in a world that was buckling around me.
I turned in time to see blocks of ice come flying in, landing in rows to create pillars. The pillars became columns and the columns became walls, crystal clear and unclouded. The walls soared into the heavens, with minarets and turrets, building a castle as I watched. When the last block flew into place, the drawbridge opened and I saw that the chains were silver, but the door, again, was ice.
And then all was quiet.
The silence echoed thick, suffocating, and heady. I opened my mouth to whisper into the slipstream but stopped. Lainule had cautioned me to keep silence. I pressed my lips shut, searching for some sign of what I was supposed to do or to learn.
And then, as I stood there, in the frozen wastes, a faint voice echoed within the recesses of my mind.
Go into the castle. You must enter the heart of Winter and ignite the fire that does not burn.
I steeled myself. I was doing my best to remain calm, but the truth was I was afraid. Terribly afraid. Wherever this place was, it was so dark and wild and inhuman that I felt if I stayed here long enough, I’d turn into a statue, a pillar of ice, unable to move, unable to feel anything except the bone-numbing cold. I’d become part of the living landscape, frozen forever.
One breath…hold…exhale…another deep breath and hold…and three…
As I exhaled for the third time, I forced myself to move forward. At first, something seemed off, and then I realized I wasn’t sinking deep into the snow but instead walking on top of it. Maybe it had a frozen crust? But as I reached down to gather a handful of snow, I saw that it was powdery, icy cold, but not iced over.
Let it be. Let it go.
Nodding, I continued on toward the open gate. The ice drawbridge had lowered across a deep chasm, and I hesitated again, creeping to the edge to look over. The fracture splitting the surface ran on and on, with no end in sight, dividing the castle from the ocean and from me. I cautiously got down on my belly and scooted up, watching for any sign that the snow beneath me might break and slide into the chasm. When I neared the edge, I peeked over the side.
In the blackness of the abyss, twinkling lights shimmered. It was as if I were looking into the night sky, as if this bridge were the only thing connecting two worlds floating in space. Gazing long and hard at the reeling universe that existed in the chasm, I began to feel insignificant, the smallest dust mote in the world, and everything that had been worrying me dropped away as I stared into the mirror of eternity.
Cicely, you must cross the bridge. You must light up the castle.
The words weren’t from Ulean—in fact, I wasn’t sure where Ulean was. I almost called out for her on the slipstream, but stopped. Once again, Lainule’s admonishment to keep silence rang in my memory and I stopped. However, the trick had been won. Whoever had sent me the message had managed to snap me out of the trance that had kept me riveted, and I realized I could have quite easily frozen to death, sprawled on the ice, staring at the panorama below.
I forced myself to my feet and set one foot on the bridge. The entire span shuddered. Another step, another shudder. As I slowly made my way forward, the sound of splintering ice caught my attention and I glanced over my shoulder. The span—the drawbridge—was fracturing, thin cracks racing through it like delicate threads.
Panicking—I was directly over the abyss now—I shook out of my fear and raced forward. There was no going back. I bounded across the ice, with the fractures dogging my heels. The sound of shattering followed my footsteps—the bridge was vanishing behind me in a hail of shards, falling into the abyss.
And then, one last leap, and I was on the other side. I turned just in time to see the rest of the bridge shatter and then go tumbling into the chasm. One second later, and I would have gone with it.
My breath coming heavy from both the exertion and the cold, I stared at the canyon of darkness. There was truly no going back. I couldn’t jump that far. And the abyss went on forever. I was here, in the castle, and I could only move ahead. With one last glance at the plain of snow on which I’d first found myself, I shrugged, turned, and walked into the castle.
From inside, the castle seemed to be faintly lit with a pale luminescence, but there was an emptiness to it that was palpable. Statues of people stood there, frozen. They were in motion, as if they had been walking the halls and suddenly turned to ice and snow. Even the furniture was carved from ice, and there was something terribly familiar to this place. I looked for windows but could see none.
As I crossed the gleaming floor, my boots echoed against the ice. Where was I? I knew this space—I knew that I’d been here before, and yet I could not place it. Searching my thoughts, I wandered from room to room, seeking something to jog my memory. Once, I thought I heard whispering and whirled, but it was only the sifting fall of snow in a corner of the room, where one of the figurines suddenly lost form and crumbled into a soft pile of white.
Shivering now, more from nerves than the cold, I followed a long hallway that curved toward the heart of the castle. The hallway sloped down and the grade grew steeper. I cautiously followed it, wondering that I did not slip. My boots weren’t that great on ice, but I seemed to be able to walk without problem here.
I descended, listening to the creaks and groans of the ice around me, but after a while I became aware of a faint singing. I couldn’t understand the language, but overlaying a hypnotic drumbeat, a sinuous melody from a mandora and a flute beckoned me onward. A woman’s voice rode the soft thunder of drums and the fluttering melody. She vocalized no words but matched meter with the music, becoming part of the melody itself. The melody and voice entwined so effortlessly that after a moment, I wasn’t sure whether it was actually a woman singing or the instruments weaving the sound of the voice.
I followed the ribbon of sound, entranced, summoned by the chant. Rounding curve after curve, I spiraled down inside the castle, totally enchanted. Wherever the song was leading me, I had to go. And deep inside, I felt a quake of fear—was I being snared into a siren song? But no, instinct answered. This was a journey I must take. There was no going back, and whatever lay ahead, I had to face.
I don’t know how long I walked, but I began to be aware of flutterings of spirits riding the wind beside me, following me as I passed. They collected behind me, ghostly formless wisps, in the shape of clouds and fog, of mist and dark shadows in the night. I wasn’t afraid of them—they meant no harm, but for some reason they latched onto me, this train of spirits.
