HEART OF ICE

CHAPTER 1

His name was Tamsen. But it was also Tamrey. He breathed out loudly as he stood upon the dusty, rutted pavement. His broad shadow stretched across the ground in front of him. His silvery, brown eyes followed the dark shape of his muscular form to where it ended below the entrance of the unimpressive, little building. A cool breeze drifted past him, pulling a bitter smell out of the abandoned shop. The old elf recognized the sulphur scent almost immediately.

Beside him, the old storekeeper that had helped lead him through the village shifted nervously from one foot to the other. He rolled the brim of his frayed hat anxiously between his tightly clenched fists. Señor Torres had been caught off guard by the appearance of the bulky figure outside of his shop. One moment he was helping his sons spread soft mortar over the bricks of a new wall when he felt the presence of the stranger looming over him.

"What happened here," the elf named Tamsen had asked, his voice coarse and gruff.

"There was an explosion a few weeks ago. No one was injured, thank God," the storekeeper answered in his native Spanish.

"I'm looking for someone," Tamsen said distantly. "An old friend of mine. De Rosa."

Señor Torres only nodded before turning away from his hollowed-out shop. He walked ahead of the tall stranger who followed a few steps behind. The shopkeeper never had to wonder if Tamsen was still keeping up. The old elf walked with a strong limp, leaning his weight into a dense staff of dark, cherry-color wood that was nearly as tall as himself. The sound of its impact on the cobble stones and pavement echoed between the buildings with each step they took.

"No one has been inside since he disappeared."

"Thank you," Tamsen said softly, barely glancing down at the smaller man. "You can go back to your shop now."

Señor Torres nodded thankfully, nearly stumbling over his own feet as he tried to back away and turn around at the same time. Tamsen didn't watch him leave. By the time the sound of the old shopkeeper's shuffling footsteps faded away, the weary elf was standing at the open door way of the empty workshop. The air inside the small building was cold. The sulphur smell Tamsen had detected outside was even stronger against his nostrils as he peered his head over the threshold. He shifted his eyes upward, noting the lack of bells above the thick, wooden trim.

Tamsen didn't linger at the place where a terrible shadow had revealed itself a few weeks before. There was nothing else to see at the former workshop of Galan the Great. Using his staff to help pull him along, Tamsen made his way through the rest of the village, following a narrow road to a place he'd only seen in photographs. It should have been a house. What he found off one side of the road was nothing more than a pile of muddy rubble. There had been a house once upon a time. The old elf tried to imagine the life of the family that had lived within its walls, of the little girl that had grown up playing in the yard around it.

Tamsen stared at the broken walls, the shards of glass twinkling in the setting sun, and the crushed remains of furniture all tangled together in the shallow crater hugging the roadside. His silvery, green eyes eventually drifted downward. He spotted the tire tracks frozen in the hardened mud. The tread marks were narrow, the small wheels part of a small car. Tamsen knew the car. He'd even ridden in it once. The old elf pivoted slowly, following the tracks away from the ruined property. The rumors were true, after all, he told himself. Galan and his daughter hadn't perished here.

Tamsen found himself suddenly distracted by something above the road. His gaze fixed on a view between two of the rocky peaks nearby. He was looking north, glimpsing a faint, subtle light hovering over a horizon bathed in the oncoming night. It was the second time he'd noticed that light. There was a tightening around his jaw and cheeks Tamsen wasn't used to. He was smirking...the closest the old elf could get to a smile.