Paladins Of The Fall, Their City In Winter

1. The ghosts of bells ringing in the dark.

2. Gloom on the snow, winter shadows.

3. The sound of a leaf falling, but there are no leaves.

4. An ash leaf frozen in ice, one span extended upwards like a sail , gently skeletonised to black in the still air, the frozen remainder gold.

5. A dark reflection in the ice.

6. Your breath forms mazes in the air, you are not meant to be here.

7. The music of falling icicles tracks your steps.

8. The earth black and without scent.

9. Air pressing cold fingers against your face, still clean and old, holding the scents it carried when it died.

10. The walls dark but clean as bone.

11. Flurries of old un-melted snow laid out in waves upon the floor.

12. Snow-carpeted rooms far under the earth where no snow should ever fall.

13. So silent that the unexpected hitches in your breath seem like footfalls in another room.

14. The insect shells arranged in circles round a silent bell.

15. A spider climbing tiny chains of ice.

16. The reflection of your lantern in the hanging ice dies slowly, persisting after you leave the room, reluctant to go. Your path is tracked by that repeated gleam echoing pale lamplight in the places you have been.

17. Life here breeds frost with its touch and its tears.

18. The horns of the empty paladins are hung with bronze, bells shaped like branches and falling leaves. They are still in the frost-pregnant air. Then after you have long passed on you hear the ringing of their movement as they stand and march.

19. The curved soil of the walls has the texture and darkness of teak.

20. A woman, dead, whose tears are frozen on her face in mazes running down her cheeks.