He saw nothing but the fire, the circle of light, the towering tall brothers, the snow.
'I am listening,' he whispered, and there was a silence, as even the winds of the storm ceased for a few moments and the voices whispered softer, 'Listen.'
He tried. He cocked his head to one side and the other, and heard only the distant crack of a breaking branch, and then a picture seemed to form in his mind. He saw blocks of packed snow begin to form a circle. He felt warmth, safety.
A sprig of living needles fell into his lap and, as he listened with his mind, he munched them.
'Now, now,' the voice whispered.
He used his knife. The packed snow abraded his fingers, sent the freezing cold into his being, but he was true to the pictures in his mind and the packed snow blocks circled him and then, after he'd raised two tiers of them, he dug out the packed snow and a rain of living branches began to fall, some missing him narrowly. He laid the living branches with their soft needles in the circle of packed snow blocks and then began to cut more blocks, working by the flickering light of the fire. The dim light of dawn came, and aided him with the last tiers of packed snow blocks. Before him was a small dome of snow. Inside, the frozen ground was covered by fresh needles from the tall brothers. His fire was burning well, with no shortage of dead-wood, for, as needed, it fell from above, although, he saw, as the day went on and he closed in the dome of his ice house, he would have to walk farther and farther from the ice house to gather the wood, for the tall brothers nearby had begun to clear themselves of dead branches.
The storm still howled. A section of the overhead canopy gave way not too far from his ice house and a cascade of broken branches and snow thundered to the ground. Duwan rested. He ate of the living needles from the tall brothers, considered his situation. The cold was intense, so that he had, continuously, to go back to the fire to be warmed. He was weak, in spite of the new supply of food, food more nutritious than that he'd found on the northern side of the frozen lake.
In early darkness he crawled into the ice dome and closed the opening with packed snow. It was cold, but, gradually, his body heat filled the small space and, covered by all his clothing, he slept. He awoke and pushed aside the snow that blocked the opening. The hiss and sigh and roar of the storm told him that there would be no traveling that day. He felt much stronger, alert enough to remember the strange events of the previous night, the whisperings, the pictures that had formed in his head and had saved his life.
He stood beside his rekindled fire and looked around. There were only the tall brothers, and the solid covering overhead. Had it really happened, those whisperings, his name being called, 'Duwan, Duwan, Duwan?' The legends said that in the Land of Many Brothers there was no death, until the coming of the Enemy. In the Land of Many Brothers Drinkers were of the earth and for the earth, there being no wasting disease, no hardening until an old one simply ceased to live. Could such things be believed?
'Brothers,' he said, spreading his arms, 'I thank you.' A small sprig of fresh needles fell into one of his outstretched hands, and he looked up.
'Brothers, did you speak?'
There was a warmness in his mind, and then a picture of vast distances and howling winds and iron cold.
Duwan fell to his knees and raised his hands. 'I salute you, brothers, Drinkers of old. I praise you, and I give you my thanks. You have helped me. Now I need further help. I need guidance, brothers. I have far to go. Will I go now?'
A softness in his mind, a picture of his little snow hut, the taste of the needles in his mouth and something else, not yet identified, and then a sense of the passing of many days and a picture of the land without snow.
'I am to remain here, then?' he asked, and the soft, reassuring feeling came over him.
There was no more. He was alone. He left the fireside and walked toward the south and was assaulted immediately by the cold, a cold that caused his breath to freeze and tinkle in little icy crystals, a cold that sent a burning upward from his feet. Ahead was only the vast, unchanging forest. He went back to the fire, warmed himself, crawled into the ice hut and saw that wiry tendrils had grown upward through the frozen ground, making small cracks in the surface. He lay so as not to crush the tendrils and, as he mused, and wished that he was back with his own in the valley in the far north, he saw an ooze of liquid from the end of a tendril, touched it with his finger, sampled it to find it tasty and nutritious. Another drop of the liquid welled up at the end of the tendril and he bent to suck it away with his mouth, to savor all of it, and the flow became continuous. There was no time. There was fire, and cold, and the endless storms. There were the fresh needles that fell as he hungered, and the constant supply, on his demand, of nutritious sap from the tendrils growing within his hut. He fattened, stored energy, exercised by taking brief walks. He discovered that the character of the tall brothers changed in all directions after a brisk, short walk, and became the same as those on the northern side of the frozen lake. His feelings changed, too, when he left the whispering grove. Within it, he felt safe and protected. Outside it he was alone.
Time. The days were growing longer. More and more often wet masses of snow fell, broken limbs mixed with it, to the forest floor. The iron cold abated until he could explore for a half day without ill effect. He was swollen with nutrition, eager to resume his journey, and yet there was the feeling that it was too soon. That feeling was borne out by one of the worst of the storms, a wind and snow that broke through the canopy itself and littered the ground with fallen limbs and piles of accumulated snow and sleet. He resigned himself, waited until the light of Du, penetrating through holes in the canopy, was bright, and made shining things of wonder of the drops of melt water that, as the days passed, made for an unceasing rain in the grove.
