Snow. Snow and ice, as far as the eye could see.

Step after step the lone figure fought against the whipping wind while feet wrapped in thick fur waded through a sea of ice crystals.

Few things in this desolation would have attracted adventurers, neither treasures to unearth nor fair maidens to safe. Yet something drove the masked figure that made this five-mile hike through the icy hell worth it.

While the minutes passed like his steps did, shapes slowly carved themselves from the thick veil of snow. Too even for one of the sparse dead trees, watching with gnarled branches, and too big for a snowdrift.

The figure raised its head, a notebook squeezed to its chest - two watchful eyes flashed behind the heavy pelts. Bright and grey they were, sharpened after years of looking for details that didn’t want to be found. Not by men like him.

Breathing heavily, he leaned against an archway crowned with ice and icicles that led into a quiet forecourt. His gaze wandered over the image spread out in front of him.

A still life of dead flesh it was in his eyes, a stone square filled with frozen people, animals and plants...and every single one of these stiff protagonists had a story to tell.

Heat welled up in the young artist. Rubbing his gloved hands together he strode, now free of the wind, over the glittering surface of the courtyard with wide steps, turning as he walked and admired the spectacle around him.

A story, yes, and one he would tell. A masterful stage play he now finally found the source of inspiration for.

Finally he arrived at a frozen rose, it’s stalk still in the hand of a young man kneeling before his adored, ere the horror snuck onto his face and literally made his blood run cold. The pelt-wrapped stage poet chuckled at the play of words that just came to his mind, whipping out notebook and quill to write it down. When he was done, he looked around, searching for the next drama. There was plenty of it here, captured for eternity.

Back and forth he rushed, his ecstasy growing with every weeping line and every sketch redrawing the twisted faces. The more his morbid preoccupation cast a spell on him, the faster time passed. Minutes grew into an hour, then two, then three. Finally, exhaustedly, he had to pause when inspiration left him and then the quill his numb fingers.

Fire, he thought. I need fire.

NO! Spoke a second voice. No fire! It’ll ruin everything!

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His thirst for drama forced his thoughts back to the peerless scenery while his body longed for heat and nourishment.

Torn back and forth, the young artist now found himself in his own drama until finally, the hunger for embers and bread won.

It’s for the best, he thought, and the rumbling in his head gave way to the one in his stomach.

For the moment.

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A small fire crackled, kindled between the chiseled remains of a house. The few logs of wood in his pack sufficed to provide him with rest and meal while his head continued to fill with ideas, with dialogue, intrigue, death and love.

This would indeed be his masterpiece, he told himself. A bittersweet tragedy that would leave every spectator in horror and awe, in reverence of his work of art.

What was left of the embers finally perished and it went on. No drama left unsavored, no love without painful farewell. Everyplace he looked offered him a sight of fear and the inevitable, and when he pushed open the heavy leafs that blocked the way inside, even he felt a shiver run down his spine.

Here, too, there was ice as far as the eye could see. But this one was crimson, like the blood it was frozen from. In streams of glass it silently flowed from under the door on the far end of the room, in perfect harmony with the icy-green tendrils of ivy that crawled along the walls.

The artist fell down to his knees, overwhelmed by the beauty of this picture. Was he even worthy to carry this on? Was his audience worthy to feast its eyes on something so indescribable?

For moments he kneeled there, his breath the only thing filling the room with life. Finally, he sent a quick prayer to his muses, thanking them for making him such a precious gift. Then, slowly and reverent, he continued towards the door that would prelude the climax of his piece. Rivers of blood, hearts of stone, for mankind will never atone.

hastily he noted his idea, then continued forward. Whatever curse had overtaken this region, it had its beginnings behind that door.

Quickly creating a sketch of it, with stylized icicles crowned with the words “THE LAST ACT”, he prepared himself for it. Then, brimming with anticipation, he opened this last path for himself.

It was breathtaking. A symphony of flesh and ice, blood and glass that betrayed the eye. A throne room it was, with a king high above everyone else.

Impaled with icy spears, his blood seeming endlessly rich as it flowed from his veins.

Below him, knights and nobleman, outraged and in fear of his last curse that he had uttered before his death.

When the stage scribbler had recovered from this overwhelming scenery, he walked around to make sketches of all this, to fill pages with ideas until he curiously paused in front of a nobleman with a scroll in his hands. His eyes went wide when he read what was visible - Betrayal! Intrigue! Law and injustice!

Like a small child he joyously hopped around, thrilled by his find. A king that betrayed his people and was tried by them. Delightful! And with his last breath he had cursed everyone and everything.

These were truly words worthy of being spread.

And his audience was perfect for the composition of ice and blood he had in mind.