Chapter 106: Arrangements in Darkness
In the great hall, while the children laughed and celebrated Lord Ritchel’s gift of ice cream and Nyrielle teased Ashlynn with a variety of flavors, Paulus took the opportunity to leave the hall without joining in the revels.
The sight of Lord Ritchel and Hauke, laughing and indulging in sweet treats with the vampire and her pet human, had turned his stomach even more than the sight of children forming convictions to grow into warriors that would fight in the vampire’s endless wars.
His feat carried him into the deepest part of the castle, past the neatly carved corridors and halls, deeper than the cellars that held enough supplies to last through even the most bitter winter, until he reached the natural cave the entire fortress had been erected to protect.
His horn glowed dimly in the cavern, illuminating a sheet of ice more than ten feet thick that protected the cave from foreign invaders. Even if the fortress walls were breached, passing through the final sets of barriers would be almost impossible unless the Eldritch Lord of the High Pass or one of his Elders led the way.
"Descendant. Pays. Respects," Paulus intoned formally, slowly descending to one knee despite the pain in his joints before pressing his horn against the ice. The moment he did, energy surged in his horn, reflecting and refracting through the ice like a snowstorm of blue and white lights before a tunnel seemed to melt through the barrier, just tall and wide enough to allow a single Frost Walker to pass through.
On the far side of the ice wall, the cave opened up into a vast chamber, large enough that thousands of Frost Walkers could have assembled without even pressing together. Instead of a gathering of the living, however, this place belonged entirely to their most honored dead.
As Paulus stepped out of the tunnel and into the chamber, a wave of bone-deep cold washed over him. Even his thick fur and tough hide did nothing to keep out the cold that penetrated all the way to his core. His breath crystallized instantly in the frigid air, forming delicate ice crystals that tinkled like wind chimes as they fell to the ground.
The sound of his footsteps echoed through the chamber, each step producing a -CRUNCH- as the ancient ice beneath his feet protested his intrusion. When he entered the chamber, for a moment, he could hear whispers, like dozens of voices speaking in tones too faint to make out individual words, but those whispers stilled the moment he fully entered the room, leaving a silence broken only by his movements.
The cave had been carved into three concentric steps, each one a hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep. On the highest step, ice statues of revered Frost Walkers stood proudly atop blocks of ice that bore their names and deeds. The statues had been carved with exquisite care to reproduce every detail of the honored person’s appearance. Atop the statues’ brows, the horn belonging to that Frost Walker had been carefully mounted where it glowed faintly in the dim light of the cave.