Fall of Angels

LIV

OUTSIDE THE FROSTED window, the day is dull gray. Even the snow on the fields in the distance is gray. That on the roads below Hissl’s room has been tramped into a frozen mixture of brown and gray.

The warmth from the small brazier in the corner is more than welcome. Hissl shifts his weight on the stool to warm his right side, without taking his eyes from the glass on the table.

Centered in the swirling white mists are the images of the black mage and the woman warrior. Each drags a carcass, but the mage drags that of a snow cat up the slope toward the line of smoke that rises from the tower chimneys.

Two other figures, also on the long wide skis, sweep down the slope toward the pair.

The mage appears awkward on the skis, but he is the one who drags the snow cat. Their breath puffs through the scarves that cover their faces, then falls in the bright light in powdery crystals toward the snow through which they climb.

Hissl’s eyes focus on the bows both carry, then narrow. He smiles. “No thunder-throwers now.”

Neither of the two skiers who stop on the white expanse above the toiling pair wear thunder-throwers, either, and Hissl’s tight smile broadens. He tries not to think about a mage who will stand fast before a snow leopard, and his eyes flick to the window.

The grasslands beyond Clynya are still covered with white, but the days are again lengthening, and even on the Roof of the World the snows will vanish in time.