Once there was only ice, the house, garden, the guests, even the moon and stars made of shimmering, almost luminous ice, and the contest between Vandibar and Radaces was to find the single tiny flame hidden somewhere, which meant both life and destruction for the whole world.
Vandibar found it rising out of the palm of his own hand. But Radaces blew on it, and the fire leapt up to devour the entire city of Elandisphon. Vandibar’s mind was filled with the screams of the countless dying. He felt each of those deaths. He drowned in remorse and pain. And he rose up, transcending any feeling at all, beyond to conscience and compassion, and rearranged the white and black tiles of countless lives into such patterns as suited him.
In some other newly-cut channel of time, he and Sekenre both walk
