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Save Point: On Top Of Old Smokey

Somewhere In The Northern Icefields

Descending crystals of melted and refrozen icewater, ever recirculated, branch into structures of such fantastic complexity that Cleo could almost suspect they were biologically mediated. There are limits, alas, even to the eyes of a cat that see everything, and there's no way to tell.

If Terrowne was here, he would probably hold out for natural process, but then he always favors geology over biology, except of course when she's around. The icy growths are so fragile that they start to melt from the heat of her body and the faintest hint of her warm breath when she tries to lean close enough to find out for sure.

At least there are no icicles forming on her whiskers, down here in the ice caves. The glacier ice descends and breaks around the volcanic intrusion of the mountain, the heat of the depths below melting out into the overflowing ice until a sufficiently insulative air gap has opened, creating an ever shifting and changing cave system that runs outward from the upper slopes all the way down to the outer rim of the cone, always with ever so faintly warm stone present underfoot and walls of translucent ancient meltwater holding the light from far above.

In some places the new caves intersect genuine volcanic ones, that run down dark into the rock, and they avoid these because they are narrow and probably don't run where they want to go.

Likewise, there are openings in the ice that run upward, often with complicated branchings of their own, letting in fresher colder and allowing the slight heat of the earth to escape. It is beside these vents that the descending ice-rime glitters like part of a living thing.

The caves do have an ecosystem of sorts, although admittedly a low energy one. Small low plants of various sorts, some with quite colorful flowers, grow across suitable surfaces and cracks in the stone, feeding on hilts of sunlight filtered through the ice, traces of moisture carried on the breeze and the tiny amount of warmth. It is a difficult balance and the plants must be shifting, quick to restore continuity through the rootweb as tunnels shift and change, and new vents open.

There are animals too. Although they do not make themselves too apparent, she catches her brief glimpses and tracks the marks of snow hares, occasional small birds flitting past in an abrupt spin near the entrances and exits, and a delicate number of the small blue forest cats that seem to be everywhere in the woods in this part of the world, when conditions are more clement. It must be so fragile here, and prone to sudden collapses.

At least there aren't any bears, she congratulates herself. There's just not enough here to sustain an apex predator, even herself. The animals she can see have strange patterns compared to their outside dwelling cousins, with less blankly white snow camouflage and more colourfully rippled stripes, some of which seem to glow with a faint luminescence in the darker expanses. A natural selection has been at work here that favours the shifting colors of the ice.

The few of them who are still with her travel more slowly now, finding the variably-lit caves to be almost warm and welcoming beside the icy plains outside. They proceed slowly and carefully, and rather than lighting torches, she creates tiny compact balls of flame like small suns in the palms of her hands, adjusting the intensity as necessary. It's hardly even a chore now, and they'll need all the torches they have spare if they get separated or are forced to flee without her.

The air has a faint, faint tinge of sulfur but it's easy to overlook and ignore, having wrinkled her nostrils once but not again as they get deeper in. A small amount of volcanic vapor must escape, even the absence of open vents, and it has nowhere to go but these caves as it makes it way out. A scent of ice and dry stone easily overpowers the more homely breathing of the mountain.

Small sprays of frost develop on the near extremities of her armour. She huffs hot breath at them impatiently but they refuse to melt, unlike the fragile jagged crystallizations they so resemble. It's probably not at all good for the bone plates to be this cold for this long, but the armour's been hard to kill for as long as she has, and she's certain that if she can simply arrange a warm bath for the both of them, eventually it'll recover from the sparkling blooms that threaten to fracture the surfaces. It goes without saying that trying to use her fire on it would probably be unwise.

There is something about the sparseness that charms, something she's felt before in the remote places, in overcast deserts, in empty swamps, on distant shorelines where the clouds and the rain and the waters edge cannot be separated from one another. A cleanliness that is hostile to life, in places where the living should not go and cannot stay. A terrible patience, in the very rocks, in the diffused light that filters down from the outside in all directions, making it hard to tell what time of day it is, other than now. The mountain is waiting for something.