The Ice Hold

Ice Throne

Walker

Huntress

Shaper

Bearer

Child

Seed

from Feather Witch's castings - MT p. 32

'And so the Errant comes once more, and the Ice Hold rises, with its attendant servants who journey through the realms to war against time. Walker, Huntress, Shaper, Bearer, Child and Seed. And upon the Throne of Ice sits Death, cowled and frost rimed, stealer of caring, to shatter the anxious shackles of mortal life. It is a gift, but a cold one.'

The Throne of Ice

The up-thrust spar was in fact a throne of ice, and on it sat the frozen corpse of a male Jaghut.  Mummified by cold and desiccating winds, it nevertheless presented an imposing, if ghastly figure, a figure of domination, the head tilted slightly downward, as if surveying a ring of permanently supine subjects.

“Death observing death,”  Hedge muttered.  “How damned appropriate.  He collected the bodies, then sat down and just died with them.  Gave up.  No thoughts of vengeance, no dreams of resurrection.  Here’s your dread enemy, Emroth.” (RG)

Hedge stared up at the Jaghut on his half-melted throne.  All thrones should be made of ice, I think.

Sit on that numb ass, sinking down and down, with the puddle of dissolution getting ever wider around you.  Sit, dear ruler, and tell me all your grand designs.

Of course, the throne wasn’t the only thing falling apart up there.  The Jaghut’s green, leathery skin had sloughed away on the forehead, revealing sickly bone -- almost luminescent in the gloom; and on the points of the shoulders the skin was frayed, with the polished knobs of the shoulder bones showing through.  Similar gleams from the knuckles of both hands where they rested on the now-tilted arms of the chair.

Hedge’s gaze returned to the face.  Black, sunken pits for eyes, a nose broad and smashed flat, tusks of black silver.  I thought these things never quite died.  Needed big rocks on them to keep them from getting back up.  Or chopped to pieces and every piece planted under a boulder.

I didn’t think they died this way at all. 

“The Throne of Ice was dying.  Is dying still.  There was -- is -- nothing left to rule, ghost.  Would you have him sit there forever?”  She did not seemed inclined to await a reply, for she then said,  “I have not been here before, Hedge of the Bridgeburners.  For I would have known.”

“Known what, Emroth?”

“I have never before seen the true Throne of Ice, in the heart of the Hold.  The very heart of the Jaghut Realm.”(RG)

Felash : "Omtose Phellack, Captain.  The Throne of Ice, do you see?  It is awake once more –"(TCG)

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