Ximena dives with the camera down into the cold, fresh air at the edge of Satchen Lake, first feeling the vertigo of the fall, then the smell of the winter fields of old Moravia.
The shore is teeming with Napoleonic-era cavalry soldiers in chaotic disarray; they look tired, their blue and white uniforms dirty. Only a handful of them are still wearing the high military hat of the Russian dragoons; the horses seem spent, sweating despite the cold.
And leading them all, the man himself: General Kutuzov, sitting still on his horse, studying the desperate situation with cold-blooded calmness. The French are closing in from all sides, blood-thirsty. Contact is a minute away.
Kutuzov gives the order. “Over the lake! Spread out to spare the ice. Slow walk.”
The soldiers immediately abandon their chaotic stance and get into a wide formation behind the general. The horses move in unison, carefully stepping over the ice.
And the ice holds.
The disciplined soldiers motion their horses deeper over the frozen lake, the staccato of their hooves echoing across the auditorium.
The scene zooms in closer to the center of the formation, where three soldiers ride side by side: the general in the center, a captain on his right, and a lieutenant on his left. Ximena leans forward as she recognizes their faces: General Kutuzov is actually Willem! The captain is Edda, her sixteen-year-old self once again, somehow sized to fit the uniform of a gallant Russian officer. And the lieutenant… Ximena leans forward with fascination. The lieutenant is the expressionless, white-eyed Anika.
They are approaching the center of the lake. In the background, the French have reached the shores.
“General, the enemy does deploy cannons,” Anika says in a strange voice—still feminine, but flat, devoid of Anika’s warm intensity.
“Trot!” Willem orders without hesitation. The deafening hammering of hooves against ice grows louder as the horses thump forward. The pressure on the ice creates some cracks, but it is a thick pre-industrial winter ice.
It holds.
Edda looks back. Ximena feels her anxiety—her fear of death—in her own guts. Behind them, far away on the shore, the cannons begin spitting smoke. It takes a few instants for the thunder-like blast to reach her ears, and a few more instants for the cannonballs to rain around them with deadly precision.
The ice breaks mercilessly under the hooves of their right flank. Many men and horses disappear silently under the ice in an instant.
“Gallop, Edda!” Willem says with uncharacteristic passion. He is no longer a general, but a father. “Straight to the shore! Anika, take her!”
Edda obeys with the instinctive discipline of a soldier. She kicks her horse forward, galloping hard over the cracking ice, while Anika keeps up without visible effort, almost like her horse is floating over the vanishing ice.
As they escape forward, Willem maneuvers the remaining dragoons into a hard turn, aiming deeper into the heart of the lake; obviously a distraction.
Edda and Anika finally reach the safety of the other side of the lake. Edda stops the exhausted horse and turns around to discover in horror that Willem is not following right behind her but is still deep on the surface of the lake.
“Dad!” She dismounts and runs to the edge of the lake, fear transforming into terror. Terror of loss. Terror of being left behind. Alone. A fate worse than death, Ximena realizes with surprise.
Anika, silent as a ghost, stands on her right. With no discernible emotion on her face, she stares at the far shore with her eerie white eyes. She raises her right arm and points at the French troops. “Do look, Redeemed van Dolah,” she says. “The cannons are aiming at your father.”
Edda exhales loudly, tears of fear and frustration running down her cheeks. She seems unable to speak.
“Do remain calm,” Anika says with her strange, leveled voice. “Do detach your emotions. You are dreaming.”
“What?” Edda gapes at Anika with confusion and desperation.
“You are dreaming, Redeemed van Dolah. Do trust me. I am here to assist you.”
Edda gives Anika a long gaze, as if just aware of her presence. “Who are you?”
“That is of no relevance at the moment.” Anika points at the galloping dragoons. “Your father is about to die. Do focus your will on what matters.”
Edda glances back at the drama unfolding on the frozen lake. “What can I possibly do?” Her voice trembles.
“Do remain calm.”
“What?” She glares at her mother-thing. “Dad is up there, and you expect me to—?!”
Her words are cut short by another barrage from the French cannons. The violence of gunpowder rumbles louder than ever, as the cannonballs fly towards Willem and his hapless dragoons with ballistic, death-bringing inevitability.
“Do detach your emotions, Redeemed van Dolah. Do trust me. Do detach your fear and focus your will on the cannonballs. Do reach out with your senses and feel them.”
Edda’s eyes flinch over the lake where the cannonballs stand out with sudden vividness, impossibly made visible from that distance in a way that only dreams allow. They move with slow elegance, still rising through the freezing air.
Edda blinks and her eyes widen with sudden realization. “I’m dreaming!” she says.
“Very good,” Anika says. “You do control the pace. The cannonballs do slow. This is your dream. You can save your father, Redeemed van Dolah.”
“But how?” Edda asks, voice drenched in anxiety as the cannonballs keep falling, slowly but inexorably.
Willem’s cavalry stops their gallop as they realize the futility of their situation. They raise their eyes to meet death head on, with the dignity of warriors of any era. All except Willem, who turns instead to look straight into the desperate eyes of Edda, a sad smile on his face.
Edda gasps in horror, powerless.
“You do not will those cannonballs to reach the ice,” Anika’s slow and patient voice says, trying to slip through Edda’s panic. “You do not will the ice to break. You do not will the horses to fall into the lake. You do not will your father to
