The journey so far had been long and hard, and the steepness of the mountain had worn us down. We were tired of the slant of the cart, and the two horses had gotten slower and slower. They were sturdy beasts, but the hard journey and consistent miles had worn their bulky muscles into skinny, wiry frames.
But after long weeks, the road finally seemed to level out, and the hardness of the road shifted as well. It seemed to be made of some type of stone, but I could not fathom an entire road made of stone, unless the road itself was carved from the mountain.
Besides the strange road, the trees were largely cleared out all around us, and I began to see more and more signs that the forest had been logged for its wood. We passed abandoned logging mills long since taken over by moss and foliage. I wondered at their age.
For a long time, we continued, silence reigning over our traveling cart and companions. The woods surrounding us on either side were quiet, and as I listened to the sound of the wheels scraping over the road, I felt something on the edge of my senses.
It was as if I had an itch in a place that I could not scratch or if I had seen something in the edge of my sight, and if I tried to look, it was not there. The more I looked around, the more certain of the strange sensation I became. But there was nothing there but the road, the trees, and the slight cool breeze. I was about to say something when Calk spoke up.
"We are here," he simply said. He lurched the cart to a stop, pulling hard on the horses. They neighed in protest as the jolt of stopping ran through the rest of the wagon. I heard Clidale yelp as he bumped into Shay, and the two of them glared at Calk.
He paid them no mind and hopped off the wagon with an alien litheness. Then he walked forward a few steps and breathed in heavily through his nostrils. He grunted and placed his right hand forward, then his left hand, and he held them there.
After a moment, nothing seemed to happen, and I could sense everyone's impatience. But for me, I could sense that something was dissipating. It was as if the itch in my mind was suddenly becoming less severe, and every moment it was as if it had never been there in the first place. Then suddenly, the strange awareness in my mind was gone.
Before us, mist started to form, and then it grew and grew until it coalesced 100 feet up into the air. I could see ice sparkling inside the strange fog, and it was then I felt the strong cold that emanated from the mist itself. The unnatural feel of it reminded me of the day by the campfire when the hot summer day had become winter. The cold pricked my skin, and I shivered. I had never seen anything like it, and all I could do was stare as the most powerful display of magic I had ever seen materialized before my eyes.
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Calk walked up to the misty wall, and he looked up and down. I sensed a strange admiration in him as he turned back to us and smiled. Then he clapped both of his hands together.
A loud boom filled the air, and without warning, a freezing wind slammed into us. I was flung onto my back and fell out of the cart, and the air was knocked out of my lungs. I grabbed the wheel of the cart but not before seeing Rebert knocked off the wagon. He yelled something but was slammed into the ground, and his words were choked off by the force of the wind.He rolled for a few feet and then grabbed
I craned my neck, and I saw Clidale grab Shay. He narrowly helped her avoid being blown off into the air. Somehow, he had managed to stick a knife into the wood of the cart, and he used it as leverage to pull her back into the cart.
Inside the roar of the sudden cold wind, I could hear Calk's high-pitched laughter. It was not the laughter of an old man or even a young one. Instead, it was the laughter of a powerful force freed unto the world without limitations. The winds buffeted us, and the cold was so intense I thought it might freeze into the ground. His hands were clenched in the air, and he stood inside the storm of elements as his robes were pasted to his skin, flapping violently like a flag.
“Behold my creation!” he screamed, shaking his fist in triumph.
The cold in the air was sucked forward, and the force of it threatened to pry my fingers from the wheel. I struggled to understand what was happening as wind, cold, and clumps of snow whirled everywhere in the air.
In front of me, the mist wall seemed to shine and harden, and I could see ice crystals expanding within the thick dampness. Slowly, the mist started to fade, and it was then that I could see what had been created within. It was a wall made from ice, perhaps two hundred feet high. The bottom was thick, but the top was sharpened into what looked like hundreds of glacial spikes.
Calk turned away from the wall after a long moment of staring up at it. “This took me two years.” His voice was thick with pride, and he smiled. He didn’t seem to realize that in the last few minutes, all of us had thought that the world was ending.
I waited for more of an explanation, but he didn’t look as if he was going to explain. Instead, he turned and went up to the wall, whispering something close. Runes and strange letters with curving lines and engravings that seemed to pop out from the ice emerged into a tall shape. After a moment, I realized it was a door.
Calk walked forward and pushed. The ice door opened as smoothly as any door I had ever seen, and I realized that the hinge itself seemed to be made from small moving gold letters.
“Sun god’s breath,” Rebert whispered.
Before us was the largest city and most beautiful city I had ever seen.