I woke up, which was surprising. I felt like I had been beaten to death, which was less so. For some time I just lay there, on my back in the dark, feeling the pain. It was something I had done before, a couple times. The aftermath of my initiation into the rangers had felt something like this. My body felt swollen, like even my bruises had bruises, and I couldn’t move. What made this time different was the sharp, mind-erasing pain that shot through my back and chest every time I took a breath. I would hold off for as long as I could, just lying there, not breathing, until my lungs burned. Then I would take a breath and a shaft of burning cold, a spear of frozen fire, would slice through me in agony, and I would forget where I was for a moment. Then I would remember, and the cycle would start all over again. I wondered why I was alive. I wondered what they had told my sister. Even if I wasn’t actually dead, I was as good as a corpse to the tribe. I had just lost my home, and my family, and for what? It hurt, but I let myself cry. There was no one around to see, no point in holding it back. No one cared if a dead ranger wept.

Sometime later, an outline of flickering light appeared in some distance away from me, in the dark. It was a door opening, spilling a little of the light beyond, into the dark of my tomb. I couldn’t move my head to look around, but the ceiling of this dark space, whatever it was, was a tangle of metal tubes. They twisted and looked like vines, each one of a different color, each one marked with symbols I did not understand. Footsteps approached me, slow, and uneven, and a moment later, a weather-beaten, slightly unhinged-looking old man’s face, appeared above mine. I recognized him immediately. He was the Deepseeker. I didn’t know his name- no one did- but he was a long-standing fixture of the tribe, the only Elder of his office that anyone living could remember filling the role. His job was to seek out secrets hidden far below the glacier that covered all the world, and find things that my people could use to survive. We needed all the help we could get in order to survive the harsh cold of the Mother, Ravanur. “Elder,” I spoke, despite the pain required to breathe. “Where am I? And why am I alive?”

The Deepseeker’s expression was unreadable, his wide, mad eyes flickering about behind his ridiculous set of copper-framed crystal lenses. He just stared at me for a long time, not quite meeting my eyes; his only movement was that flickering gaze. After some time, he spoke, slowly, his voice strangely lucid. “You live, ranger. Even I thought there was little chance you would recover.”

“Why?” I croaked, my throat dry as bare stone.

The Deepseeker’s lips parted, and a low, rattling laugh escaped from between his fangs. “Why did the Elder Stormcaller try to kill you? Or are you asking why I saved you?”

I didn’t have the energy to scowl at the ancient madman- and it may not have been a good idea, anyway. “Both,” I managed. I became aware of a nauseating smell, some unholy mixture of urine and corrupted oil. I wrinkled my nose. I wanted to ask what in Palamun’s name could smell like that, but I held my tongue. At least I had an excuse not to breathe as much.

The Deepseeker’s face disappeared for a moment, and I heard him somewhere off to my right, clanking around in the shadows. There was a loud crack followed by a sharp, acidic smell, and a little orb of softly glowing light appeared amidst the metal tubes above me. The Deepseeker reappeared, holding a small clay bowl. The offending ammoniac stench was immediately worse, and I gagged. The Elder didn’t react to my revulsion; instead he spooned up a measure of some tarry, foul substance from the bowl with two of his fingers. He spread the thick liquid on my chest, and immediately the aching pain emanating from my wound there dulled somewhat, and I realized I could breathe more easily. He began to spread more of the revolting mixture on other places I hadn’t even known I had been hurt. As he worked, he spoke, still in that strangely lucid voice but all the signs of his usual wild temper entirely absent from his manner. For the first time in my life, I detected a faint smile around his eyes, as if he were content with his place in life, rather than his usual melange of boredom and bitter rage. “I believe the Elder Council has been corrupted by the Dark Ones.”

Despite my wounds, despite the bad smell of the cataplasm, I felt myself grow immediately cold with fear. “What?”

“You heard me, boy”, the Deepseeker snapped and a little of his usual vitriol trickled back into his voice. “You’re injured, not stupid.”

I swallowed my initial sarcastic response and tried again. “How could this happen? Aren’t the Dark Ones trapped below the ice?”

The Deepseeker looked thoughtful for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “They are. The Dark gods that Ravanur brought down, frozen to her breast, they are still there, cold and still. But…” He met my eyes then, his eyes wide, the pupils dilated all the way, until they almost swallowed the deep brown of his irises and tried to edge into the dark sclera all around. He was somewhere between intense, bone-rattling fear, and almost orgasmic joy. His lips skinned away from his teeth, revealing all of his fangs in an expression somewhere between a mortal Erin-Vulur threat and one of Joanna’s toothy smiles. He leaned in close to me, and I could feel his hot breath on my pallid face. I could smell the sickly-sweet edge of rot emanating from deep in his throat. The next words he spoke seemed to hang in the air in front of me, shimmering with all the encapsulated madness that had boiled the mind of this old shaman into a soupy morass. “Even dead gods dream.”