Into the middle of his old dream.
First there had been the snow-plain, then as he walked across it, the teeth of ice had begun poking their way up through the granular snow. They'd grown higher as he walked, but what he hadn't known was that they were growing behind him as well. Now he was trapped inside a ring of them. Trapped inside walls of ice, smoother than the smoothest glass, colder than the coldest winter. He couldn’t break out; he pounded on them until his arms were leaden, to no effect. Everywhere he looked - ice, snow, nothing alive, nothing but white and pale blue and silver. Even the sky was white. And he was so alone - so terribly alone.
Nothing soft, nothing comforting. Nothing welcoming. Only the ice, only the unyielding, unmoving ice and the white, grainy snow.
He was cold. So appallingly cold - so frozen that he ached all over.
He had to get out.
Hoping to climb over the barrier, he reached for the top of one of the ice-walls, and pulled back his hands as pain stabbed through them. He stared at them stupidly. His palms were slashed nearly to the bone, and blood oozed sluggishly from the cuts to pool at his feet.
There was blood on the snow; red blood - but as he stared at it in numb fascination, it turned blue.
Then his hands began to burn with the cold, yet fiery pain of the wounds. He gasped, and tears blurred his vision; he wanted to scream, but could only moan.
Gods, it hurt, he’d give anything to make it stop hurting!
Suddenly, the pain did stop; his hands went numb. His eyes cleared and he looked down at his injured hands again - and saw to his horror that the slashes had frozen over and his hands were turning to ice; blue, and shiny, and utterly without feeling. Even as he gazed at them, the ice crept farther up; over his wrists, crawling up his forearms - and he cried out -
Then he wasn’t there anymore, he was somewhere else. It was dark, but he could see; by the lightning, by a strange blue glow about him. Lightning flickered overhead, and seemed to be controlled by what he did or thought; he was standing on a mound of snow in the center of a very narrow valley. To either side of him were walls of ice that towered over his head, reaching to the night sky in sheer, crystalline perfection. Behind him - there was nothing - somehow he knew this. But before him -
'Vanyel!'
Before him an army; an army of mindless monsters-creatures with only one goal. To get past him. Already he was wounded; he twisted to direct the lightning to lash into their ranks, and felt pain lancing down his right side, felt the hot blood trickling down his leg into his boot and freezing there. There were too many of them. He was doomed. He gasped and wept at the horrible pain in his side, and knew that he was dying. Dying alone. So appallingly alone -
'Vanyel!'
He struggled up out of the canyon of ice, out of the depth of sleep; shaken out of the nightmare by hot, almost scorching hands on his shoulders and a commanding voice in his ears.
He blinked; feeling things, and not connecting them. His eyes hurt; he'd been crying. His hair, his pillow were soggy with tears, and he was still so cold - too cold even to shiver. That was why Tylendel's hands on his bare shoulders felt so hot.
'Vanyel - ' Tylendel's eyes were a soft sable in the light of the tiny bedside candle; like dark windows on the night, windows that somehow reflected concern.
His hands felt like branding irons on Vanyel's skin. 'Gods, Vanyel, you're like ice!'
As he tried to sit up, Vanyel realized that he was still leaking tears.
As soon as he started moving he began shivering so hard he couldn't speak. ''I - ' he said, and could get nothing more out.
Tylendel snagged his robe from the foot of the bed without even looking around, and wrapped it about his naked shoulders. It wasn't enough. Vanyel shook with tremors he could not stop, and the robe wasn't doing anything to warm him.
'Vanyel,' Tylendel began, then simply wrapped his arms around Vanyel and held him.
Vanyel resisted - tried to pull away.
He blinked.
The snow-plain stretched all around him, empty - but not asking anything of him. Cold, but not a threat. But lonely, lonely - oh, gods, how empty -
But not asking, not hurting -
He blinked again, and Tylendel was still there, still staring into his eyes with an openness and a concern he could not doubt.
'Go away!' he gasped; waiting for pain, waiting to be laughed at.
'Why?' Tylendel asked, quietly. 'I want to help you.'
He was turning to ice; soon there would be no feeling and nothing to feel - and he would be trapped.
Tylendel took advantage of his distraction to get his arms around him. 'Van, I wouldn't hurt you. I couldn't hurt you.'
He closed his eyes and gasped for breath, his chest tight and hurting. - oh, gods - I want this -
