The Icy Quest

Chapter 24

After an hour of trudging through deep snow, the group was exhausted.

"We're never gonna get there like this!" Tilepátheia complained, breathing heavily. "How much farther do we have to go before we get to stop for the day?"

"Pretty far," Pozhar informed her wearily after consulting his map. "I was expecting us to be able to travel faster than this."

"Back in the desert, all I wanted was some snow so I could go sledding, but now I never want to see snow again!" Tilepátheia wailed.

"Tilepátheia, you're brilliant!" Pagoniá exclaimed. "We need a sled!" She quickly used her powers to make an ice sled big enough to transport the three of them and all their bags.

"Climb on!" she commanded, tilting her head toward the sled. Tilepátheia and Pozhar happily obliged. When going uphill, Pagoniá propelled the sled with her powers, but once they crested the top of each hill, she took a break and let gravity do the work for her. Pagoniá and Tilepátheia were having a fabulous time sledding, but Pozhar was completely disgruntled.

"Why did I ever want to leave the desert?" Pozhar lamented, shivering and huddling into his jacket. "The cold in Antarctica is miserable."

"I understand completely. What you're feeling is probably similar to how I felt in the desert." Pagoniá commiserated.

"Speaking of that, I was just wondering why the ice people live in the desert anyway?" Tilepátheia inquired, raising her eyebrows. "I mean, they are ice people."

"That's a good question," Pagoniá responded, tilting her head. Both girls immediately glanced at Pozhar.

"Why do you think I would know?" Pozhar replied defensively. "I'm not omniscient."

"Well, fire people know most of the things that they keep hidden from normal people, so you might..." Pagoniá trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. "What I mean to say is that the fire people have a lot of restricted information and knowledge that they only share with other fire people."

"That's not entirely true," Pozhar corrected her. "The leaders of the fire people keep secrets from the rest of the fire people as well. I have no doubt that there is plenty of history that has been selectively erased to maintain the positive image of our government. The average fire person is manipulated into believing that ice people are to be feared and distrusted. We are only taught the skills necessary to fight ice people and keep them under control. You both grew up in the land of the fire people. You have some idea of what I'm talking about."

Tilepátheia's mouth suddenly fell open. "Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to something on the horizon directly ahead of them. It looked like the remnants of an abandoned town. As they got closer, they could see the crumbling remains of very old stone buildings. The buildings were very small by current standards. They were only one story in height and possessed very few rooms. There appeared to be countless places where ice had originally been incorporated into their construction. There were scratches on much of the buildings' stone exteriors that made them look as if they had been scribbled on.

"Antarctica used to be populated," Pagoniá marveled, looking around. "It had to have been by ice people. The popular belief about where ice people came from originally must be true."

"What happened?" she wondered out loud. "Why did they leave?"

"I'm going to look around," Tilepátheia declared, quickly disappearing behind a building. Pozhar and Pagoniá chose to wander the streets together.

"Look at this," Pozhar said somberly after a few minutes. "I found something." Tilepátheia appeared seemingly out of thin air, having been reading their thoughts as usual.

"What is it?" Pagoniá asked.

"Scorch marks," he explained. "And they look like they were made by a fire dragon."

"How can you tell what they were made by?" Pagoniá asked. "Aren't there lots of things that can make scorch marks."

"Yes, but only dragon fire can burn stone," he informed them, pointing to the tell-tale ashes on the stone. "The ashes mean that a dragon had to have made the scorch marks."

"The ice people who lived here were attacked?" Pagoniá hypothesized. "The fire people forced them out?"

Pozhar nodded in agreement. "That's what it looks like."

There was a moment of silence as they all contemplated this possibility.

"We have to get moving," Pagoniá reminded them, gathering her thoughts. "We have a weapon to find. Which way do we go from here, Pozhar?"

He quickly consulted his map. "That way," he indicated, pointing towards a mountain in the distance. With their route confirmed, they loaded themselves back onto the sled and headed back out into the open tundra in the direction of the mountain.

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So, the ancient ice people lived there. Maybe they wouldn't have been attacked if you had voted and commented.