Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett [104]
She tried to move, and now the whiteness gave way. It felt like hard snow, but it wasn’t cold to her touch; it fell away, leaving a hole.
A smooth, slightly transparent floor stretched away in front of her. There were big pillars rising up to a ceiling that was hidden by some sort of fog.
There were walls made of the same stuff as the floor. They looked like ice—she could even see little bubbles inside them—but were no more than cool when she touched them.
It was a very large room. There was no furniture of any sort. It was just the sort of room a king would build to say “Look, I can afford to waste all this space!”
Her footsteps echoed as she explored. No, not even a chair. And how comfortable would it be if she found one?
She did, eventually, find a staircase that went up (unless, of course, you started at the top). It led to another hall that at least had furniture. They were the sort of couches that rich ladies were supposed to lounge on, looking tired but beautiful. Oh, and there were urns, quite big urns, and statues, too, all in the same warm ice. The statues showed athletes and gods, very much like the pictures in Chaffinch’s Mythology, doing ancient things like hurling javelins or killing huge snakes with their bare hands. They didn’t have a stitch of clothing between them, but all the men wore fig leaves, which Tiffany, in a spirit of enquiry, found would not come off.
And there was a fire. The first strange thing about it was that the logs were also of the same ice. The other strange thing was that the flames were blue—and cold.
This level had tall pointed windows, but they began a long way from the floor and showed nothing but the sky, where the pale sun was a ghost among the clouds.
Another staircase, very grand this time, led up to yet another floor with more statues and couches and urns. Who could live in a place like this? Someone who didn’t need to eat or sleep, that’s who. Someone who didn’t need to be comfortable.
“Wintersmith!”
Her voice bounced from wall to wall, sending back “ITH…Ith…ith…” until it died away.
Another staircase, then, and this time there was something new. On a plinth, where there might have been a statue, was a crown. It floated in the air a few feet above the base, turning gently, and glittered with frost. A little bit farther on was another statue, smaller than most, but around this one, blue and green and gold lights danced and shimmered.
They looked just like the Hublights that could sometimes be seen in the depths of winter floating over the mountains at the center of the world. Some people thought they were alive.
The statue was the same height as Tiffany.
“Wintersmith!” There was still no reply. A nice palace with no kitchen, no bed…. He didn’t need to eat or sleep, so who was it for?
She knew the answer already: me.
She reached out to touch the dancing lights, and they swarmed up her arm and spread across her body, making a dress that glittered like moonlight on snowfields. She was shocked, then angry. Then she wished she had a mirror, felt guilty about that, and went back to being angry again, and resolved that if by chance she did find a mirror, the only reason she’d look in it would be to check how angry she was.
After searching for a while, she found a mirror, which was nothing more than a wall of ice of such a dark green that it was almost black.
She did look angry. And immensely, beautifully sparkly. There were little glints of gold on the blue and green, just like there were in the sky on wintry nights.
“Wintersmith!”
He must be watching her. He could be anywhere.
“All right! I’m here! You know that!”
“Yes. I do,” said the Wintersmith behind her.
Tiffany spun around and slapped him across the face, then slapped him again with her other hand.
It was like hitting rock. He was learning very quickly now.
“That’s for the lambs,” she said, trying to shake some life back into her fingers. “How dare you! You didn’t have to!”
He looked much more human. Either he was wearing real clothes or he had worked hard on making them look real.