It was the first day of the siege. It was the last day of our people.
Amurite. The word had come to mean so much. Masters of the arcane, yes - but also a beacon of culture and civilization in a world given over to chaos, a force for advancement and discovery when madness and a dark new age rose up against the world - perhaps we were not heroes, as the Bannor had been. But we were PROGRESS, such as only the Age of Magic had ever known - if indeed it had, if our accomplishments did not outstrip theirs! - explorers of the vast reaches of human potential, and we had walked so far down that road we came to believe we had walked farther then anyone else.
Like the celebrations when the last Sheiam summoner had been burned out of his blasphemous temple and struck down by lightning, celebrations meant to herald the end of our greatest foe - we were fools. Fools and children, who thought the edge of the woods was far, who thought the petty cruelty of the village bully was evil.
When we stormed the city, it was empty - empty to the eyes of our scouts. But for those with other senses...it was the call of an unimaginable working that drew us, a pounding pulse of magic like the heartbeat of the gods - a cruel irony, but it is all I know now of humor - that brought our adepts to their knees and killed some weaker of our gifted. As we passed deeper into that frigid place it was our warriors who faltered first, then our firebows, the adepts, the Mage Commanders...at last I walked alone, the prodigy, the archmage, the one once called the Gift of Kylorin and honored as a symbol of what Amurites could achieve. I believed I was ready.
Then, just as the pulse reached its crescendo and I stepped through the palace archway, it stopped - without ceasing, simply... freezing at that ultimate height - and I saw It.
Auric Ulvin? No, not he. Nor did Mulcarn stand before me. It was Ice itself that walked, wearing human shape because It once had and It hated change, and if It had a name - if It would choose Auric, or the old god's call, or some other title to identify Its prayers and Its priests - I did not know it then. I do not wish to know it now.
How to describe it? Its gaze was not a chilling wind, yet it blasted me from my feet and frosted my flesh nonetheless. The ground did not crack and shatter under Its tread - it was ice, as if it had always been. Its power...no, there are not words. I am an archmage. I have touched the might of gods, called their spheres my own; I had whispered inferno into being, and yet before It I was less then the lowest candle, I was...it is impossible. I cannot explain Its scale. Perhaps that is description enough. At the pinnacle of my power, greatest archmage since Kylorin himself, I could not understand what I faced sufficiently to explain its magnitude in comparison to my own might.
I mentioned that once I called inferno as I chose. It is relevant, because of what It said to me.
CALL FIRE, WIZARD.
I tried. Gods - all Gods but one - help me, but I tried. I had seen the glacial wastes It left behind it. I knew what It would do when it reached our fertile magocracy. I had given up everything for the strength to face It, to face all our enemies - I had buried my heart, barely more then a girl when the Illians took her as I brought low the last Sheiam cities, twenty years prior to the day. There was nothing left but my art...
...but as I found under Its empty blue eyes, not even that would be left to me. I could not call fire. Not in its presence. It was too cold. Magic relies only on the will of the caster, yes - no extreme of temperature can diminish its spark. It would be impossible for a mere physical condition to impede magic, assuming the caster's concentration is sufficient, except that on that day it did. My mind was crystallized, heedless of anything but the art, the Fire - yet the cold was more then skin deep. My soul was frozen, and all the power at my command could not thaw any part of it.
I want to say I was strong. Perhaps I was - all my legends agree that I was, though like Kylorin's victory over Winter even the greatest legends can be revealed for lies in time - but if so then Its strength was all-consuming, and before it I broke. I looked into those eyes and saw the endless sphere of Ice, and how it would shape Erebus, and I broke.
"...please...teach...me...." I could only beg. Barely speak, as the cold rose forever.
SPAWN OF KYLORIN. Could It be amused? I don't know. If It could, then It was. YOU HAVE COME SO FAR. YOU HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH. AND NOW YOU WISH FOR ME TO TAKE YOU FURTHER...OF ME, YOU WOULD ASK PROGRESS?
It paused, considering. I would have wept, or screamed, or perhaps taken my own life when I realized the gravity of my error - but it was too cold now for that. I could do nothing but wait. Minutes later, It spoke again.
THEN LET YOUR STUDIES CEASE.I AM ALL THAT MAN CAN BE. I AM THE LAST STEP FORWARD. I AM THE ONLY THING YOU AND ALL HIS WRETCHED PROGENY EVER NEED LEARN AGAIN.
FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, PROGRESS ENDS.
And I froze. Everything did. For miles and miles and miles, the cold took it all, and even the wind held still as It commanded. I did not die, adept. You can see that. You can see how yet I live, though I draw no breath, though it is not my voice but my mind you hear. I have only froze. I did not die...and that is why I have called you.
Please. Once more, just one last time - please, let me feel the warm and vital power of Fire.
-Message of unknown origin, repeated over and over in the minds of arcanists entering the arctic wastes referred to by certain tribes as the Second Tomb of Kylorin (apparent reference to a former civilization he founded)
