VICTORIA ARRIVES AT LORD ENRALDORN'S PHANTOM PALACE.

EVERYONE BUT SHE IS UNDER THE ICE DRAGON'S SPELL.

 

Victoria was escorted through long silent corridors walled in marble. The light of hundreds of wavering lamps, suspended by long chains from the ceilings high overhead reflected off the polished walls. Ghostly grooms carried her satchel as they rounded a sharp corner and ascended a wide staircase.

 

“Your palace is quite lovely indeed,” Victoria ventured at length, somewhat timidly because the pale grooms intimidated her—despite their elegant yet silent courtesy. However there was no reply, they simply bowed their thanks and motioned for her to hasten—to follow them further into the depths of the palace. 

 

From thence they entered an upstairs corridor yet more dimly lit, its black marble floor echoing with their footfalls, its high walls hung with ancient tapestries depicting scenes from the mythology of a hundred worlds.

 

All the while, Victoria moved as in a dream. She walked amongst the living phantoms of the Ice Palace passing other ghostly forms, moving hither and yon through the halls, stairways and corridors —going about their phantom business. And so the Court of the Ice Dragon welcomed her after its fashion, and although she had no way of knowing it, she was surrounded by ranks of the undead—fading dimming souls that haunted the great spectral Palace.

 

For the true human forms of the Ice Dragon’s prey were dwindling away—moment by moment—and ever so slowly, they were diminishing and fading. Before long they would become wraiths, eventually passing out of the substantial world all together. When that befell them their fate would be irreversible and the Ice Dragon’s dream spells would take the entire Ice Palace out of the land of the living. It would, forever after, become a haunted place of enchantments, ghostly spirits and the shadows of imprisoned phantom things that once had life and being.

 

At the door to Victoria’s guest chamber, the phantom grooms turned her over to ghostly housemaids who bowed graciously. For a moment Victoria saw that one of the youngest housemaids was ever so slightly more wakeful than all the rest, and that her eyes were somehow desperate, imploring Victoria’s help and assistance. Victoria knew that the Ice Palace should be a place of wholesome safety, so why then should those eloquent eyes beseech her aid?

 

Victoria’s guest chamber was truly sumptuous. A set of broad steps led up between ivory pillars to a luxurious bath set in its own curving apse of glass and tapestry.

 

The maidens explained that Victoria was to bathe and dress, for a midnight masquerade was to be held in her honor. The maids carefully set out proper attire for Victoria, and they drew steaming water for her and offered scented soaps for her bathing. Then they left her in privacy, promising to return within the hour.

 

Victoria reclined in the luxurious tub, surrounded by two tiers of tiny lamps—arrayed all about her in a semicircle. The lather from the scented soaps and oils refreshed her but the veil between the real and the unreal was impossible for her to detect.

 

After her bath the maidens helped her dress while she gazed at her own reflection in a large cheval glass.

 

They clad Victoria in white garments— decorated with opals and pearls, as was the custom of the Ice Palace. Over her garments she wore a blue three quarter sleeved cape with a high jeweled half moon collar fastened with a silver chain. The folds of the cape fanned out behind Victoria upon the floor, but it was so light and glided so smoothly with her every move, that she did not find it cumbersome in the least.

 

Below the cape she wore a flared dress of the utmost beauty. It was a most exquisitely tailored  garment, short enough to be suitable for the twirls and intricate steps of both the madrigal and the minuet. Upon her feet were placed the lightest and most ethereal dancing slippers Victoria had ever worn.

 

Upon the toe of each was placed a glittering chalcedony that sparkled with subtle highlights of  blue and green. The chalcedony’s were set in the very center of a moonburst pattern of intricate silken embroidery. The jewel trimmed embroidery gracing Victoria’s hose matched the pattern upon her gloves and the themes upon her Masquerade mask which the maids had fastened carefully to partially conceal the features of her face. And then at last, she was ready.

 

It was then that someone at the Ice Palace actually addressed Victoria for the first time. “A lovely moonstone ring for your finger perhaps?” offered one of the ghostly handmaidens. “A far more suitable piece of jewelry than that trinket you now bear,” declared another. “You are radiant dear girl but that tawdry band upon your finger does not truly become you,” added a third.

 

Victoria clutched her ring defensively and stepped backward, her heart pounding. “Thank you but no, though you are most kind,” she replied. The phantom handmaidens curtseyed politely and smiled, their faces blank and innocent, their eyes betraying nothing. Once again they fell silent.

 

Dressed in her finery, Victoria glided through the corridors and passageways of the Ice Palace, accompanied by her retinue of ghostly silent housemaids. They guided her with glances and hand signals or she would have soon been hopelessly lost. Many other silent, ghostly forms passed them as they went, all seemingly lost in a world of their own enchantments.

 

At last Victoria and her maidens swept into the cavernous main ballroom of the Ice Palace. The ballroom was fashioned as an immense orb, with a circular dancing floor of sparkling  marble polished to reflective smoothness. From the sides of the dancing floor broad staircases with lamplit balustrades arched upward to access tiers of balconies set about the curving sweep of the walls. Dizzying spiral stairways swept higher still to reach lofty minstrel’s galleries, set just beneath the frescoed dome of a great rotunda—nearly lost in the deep gloom far above the lamplight’s reach.

 

As Victoria swept down the steps onto the great oval dance floor thousands of pairs of eyes turned silently toward her as with one accord. There on the dance floor waited costumed lords, refined ladies, regal contessas, stalwart knights, and haughty margravines. All about them, moving  silently, stepped waiters bearing silver trays containing jeweled goblets of aged Port and fine Madeira.

 

As Victoria carefully descended the steps, her heart thudded and she gave a quick involuntary shudder—she could not help it. She felt something sinister and deadly present there, lingering perilously in the dimness. Victoria paused upon the lowest step, glancing upward where a countless array of masked faces gazed silently down at her from the high overhead balconies and ring galleries.

 

The music began again, and the dim hubbub of the ball commenced all about her as she stepped forward across floor with its resplendent inlay patterns in the very center. Victoria swept toward the raised dais, moving in a dreamlike motion—to where Lord Enraldorn, his elegant Queen and his royal daughters awaited her formal greeting.

 

She paused before the royal dais, and Lord Enraldorn himself left his high seat, graciously descending the steps. He bowed, bending low to kiss her hand in greeting and then turned to present her to the members of his family and his court—one by one, each in their turn—while his great Russian wolfhounds regarded her with their strange, unearthly eyes.

 

Again Victoria’s composure was disturbed and she felt a sudden chill, even though she was trying her level best to be polite and respond properly to the gracious welcome she was given. For there was something about the cast of Lord Enraldorn’s eyes that both dismayed and horrified her.

 

It was those strange, eerie sleepy eyes fixed upon her, that gave Victoria the chills, chills that flickered up and down her spine like the frigid groping of icy fingers. She noticed the stone in her ring flash to vivid blue fire once again as it gave its warning of peril.

 

Lord Enraldorn appeared to be an exemplary and gracious host at the very first—and the eerie sleepy look in his eyes was for the moment veiled and diminished. He offered Victoria his arm and led her down onto the dance floor.

 

As the great ghostly ballroom with its elegant phantom guests began to swirl to a new, freshly composed minuet—Victoria danced with Lord Enraldorn, her heart pounding with fear as she twirled and curtsied.

 

He leaned forward to whisper directly into her ear, “Dear child, it may be that we here at the Ice Palace might require the brief loan of your ring—only for our careful and judicious use—in order that we may direct its powers for our own protection—to keep us safe from the onslaught of the Ice Dragon!” The eerie sleepwalking expression in Lord Enraldorn’s eyes grew alarmingly more pronounced—and despite his courtly manner, his icy hand reached out, becoming almost claw like in its greed, to grasp and tug at Victoria’s ring finger.

 

She drew backward quickly in alarm, lest Lord Enraldorn seize her ring and take it from her by force. But in a moment Lord Enraldorn the wraith was his most gracious and courtly self once more.

 

VICTORIA LEAVES LORD ENRALDORN'S PALACE, AND CROSSES THE BRIDGE TO THE CATHEDRAL WHERE THE ICE DRAGON LURKS.

 

Lord Enraldorn’s queen addressed Victoria. “Dearest child! You are our honored guest and we bid you welcome. Our entire kingdom is before you!” Then turning to her husband with a fond phantom smile of regard she went on, “Isn’t Victoria ever so captivating in her jeweled cape and dancing slippers, my Lord?”

 

“Indeed!” agreed Lord Enraldorn benevolently. “Perhaps even lovelier than when she danced the Saltatrix Angelus, at the culmination of the High Yuletide Festival.”

 

And once again the smile slowly faded from Victoria’s face as Lord Enraldorn spoke, his voice sounding oddly like a voice she had heard before, in a terrible dream in which she had found herself in a dark place conversing with something that emanated a perilous aura of utter evil.

 

 “And my dear, you are infinitely better off as my student—rather than Lord Chelsambor’s!” Lord Enraldorn said persuasively. “For you see, I am a far greater magician than he!”

 

And so the great midnight masquerade, held in Victoria’s honor, commenced and the phantom guests danced to ghostly music played by insubstantial musicians in the high ballroom of Lord Enraldorn’s fading and flickering court.

 

And high above, on a shoulder of mountainside, across the dizzying span of the connecting bridge, in the silent darkness of the Ice Cathedral, the coiled form of the sleeping Dragon stirred as he wove the web of his enchantments ever more tightly about his captives.

 

But like the littlest handmaiden in Victoria’s retinue, a young musician in the orchestral gallery overhead—was last to fall under the influence of his spells. And the manner in which he played his lute projected a magic all its own, which influenced the phantom conductor to change his choice of music accompanying the next madrigal. And that madrigal—though written ever so long ago—was composed with an intent of goodness, and as its notes filled the great phantom ballroom, something began to stir and awaken deep inside Victoria. Something about the music was helping her resist the onslaught of the Ice Dragon’s spells.

 

And it seemed to Victoria as though this madrigal required words to accompany it and it was as though she knew the words but had forgotten them long ago—when she lived in another world altogether. And then the ring upon her finger flared its vivid blue alarm once more—and as she swirled through the throng upon the dance floor, she slowly came fully to her senses.

 

The notes of the music prompted Victoria’s memory for the accompanying words, and it seemed before long that the words themselves were struggling to free themselves in her mind. And then gradually, the words came to her in fragments until finally she came truly awake, her heart thudding, her ring blazing its vivid cobalt fire!

 

When thou treadest the formal dance,

Beware of phantoms, spells and trance.

For the stone within thy ring so fair,

Shall warn thee of enchantments lurking there.

 

And one heart stopping moment later a fully aware Victoria found herself dreadfully alone, lost amidst ghosts and phantoms—in the cavernous ballroom of the Ice Palace. A palace that but for herself, was totally under the sway of the Ice Dragon—for the little handmaiden and the musician had succumbed! And then, as guided by some magical intuition that she could scarcely understand, she strode purposefully across the dance floor, weaving artfully to and fro to avoid the spectral hands that clutched at her from all directions—as if endeavoring to drag her back and divert her from her purpose.

 

So great was her sensation of horror, that she almost wished she was still dreaming the comfortable enchantments again, for now she saw that she was the only mortal in that great haunted palace!

 

High up in the Ice Cathedral, upon the shoulder of the mountain, the Ice Dragon opened one eye and then closed it again as he concentrated all his formidable power upon the  masquerade ballroom below. If he could not bewitch Victoria, then he would stun her with potent spells of sleep. Such was the weight of his dreamspells and the craft and cunning of his magic, that one by one, the phantom throng of guests sank silently to the floor in a slumber far too deep to sustain the illusion of conversation and dance. The minstrel galleries high above fell silent and still, as the musicians paused and faltered, one by one, to finally tumble from their seats. Their ghostly forms now lay senseless upon the floor, beside their instruments.

 

Upon the sweeping lamplit stairs leading to the royal balconies, gracious masked ladies in ermine trimmed gowns and jeweled dancing slippers sank to the floor, while satin clad grooms and pages—bending to catch them—were themselves overtaken to fall alongside them, sinking at once into enchanted sleep. And where the waiters fell, crystal goblets shattered, as fragments of glass tinkled cascading across the smooth marble floor. Spilled Madeira spread like pallid blood in ever widening pools.

 

Still the dreaming dragon wove his spells with all the more malice, and the forms of Lord Enraldorn and his Queen sank down from their high seats to come to rest upon the plush floor of the dais, followed in turn by their lovely daughters—one by one.

 

In order to suppress Victoria‘s consciousness—aided as it was in its clarity by the power of her ring—the Ice Dragon’s spells grew in intensity until every living thing in the environs of the Palace sank into deep slumber. Even the mice in the walls, and the horses in the stables fell into a deep enchanted sleep. It was then that Victoria’s heart leapt in fear to notice that two of the big Russian Wolfhounds had been padding along behind her in menacing silence—their strange gleaming eyes fixed intently upon her. But they too were overcome by the spell, first sitting back upon their haunches with bewildered expressions transfixing their long muzzled faces. They toppled slowly to the side, sinking down upon their flanks to dream and twitch their paws upon the cool marble of the floor.

 

And now Victoria was running, tucking up her skirts with her jewel gloved hands as she went, her cloak streaming out behind her like a mist. She ran across the silent ballroom and back into the inner palace, stepping lightly across its fallen phantoms. Victoria held her ring hand high aloft so that the intensity of its flaming light would guide her.

 

She ran whisper quiet, sweeping down what seemed like miles of passageways, staircases and corridors, traversing great long galleries hung with tapestries and decorated with priceless artworks. She flitted down dim lamplit hallways like a ghost, her cloak rippling silently behind her, heading for what she knew was the very heart of danger—for her ring was directing her straight to the lair of the Ice Dragon himself and she knew with all her heart that he was very close indeed.

 

She ran as silent as a snowfall up the long pillared staircase to the east portico’s entrance doors and then passed under a great arc of hanging lamps that were trimmed low. To her surprise, the great doors opened silently before her and she found herself upon a dizzying bridge of breathtaking height, whose single span arched steeply over a shoulder of treeclad mountainside—leading to the loveliest structure she had ever seen!

 

She ran across the bridge so rapidly and so lightly that it seemed her delicate dancing slippers barely left a trace in the freshly fallen snow. The only sound was the muted whisper of the hem of her cape. Victoria’s eyes were widened with wonder as the towering form of the Ice Cathedral loomed ever more huge in the moonlight and the intricate design of its vast rose window —at least ten stories high—was positively stunning in the artifices of its complexity.

 

Victoria avoided the high entrance doors at the narthex, and instead flitted up a lantern lit side stair winding amidst a forest of fantastically carved flying buttresses running the length of the nave.

 

Here Victoria paused breathlessly upon the stairs, holding tight to the stone balustrade to catch her breath in the darkling gloom, the shape of the door before her leading into the interior of the cathedral scarcely visible in the dimness.

 

It was then that Victoria bravely stepped through the doorway into the faintly illuminated gloom of the Ice Cathedral.

 

At first she could make out very little. But as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she began to discern more. To her right, where the altar rail and chancel led back into the apse, was a vast silver pipe organ, its great bass pipes disappearing upward into the darkness, its slim treble pipes fanning elegantly outward upon each side.

 

She crept forward on silent feet, past a side chapel, where only the pale gold halos of its icons showed dimly through the gloom, for its banks of votive candles had all burned out.

 

To her left, where the great half guessed arch of the nave’s entranceway stood starkly in the darkness, she detected a great high shape—which she took at first to be some tall central column or  overhanging pulpit.

 

In that heart-stopping moment, Victoria realized that the shape was not a feature of the cathedral’s architecture at all. The moon peeped out from behind the clouds to shine through the tall windows—bathing everything in a dim, mysterious light.

 

And to Victoria’s most vivid and spine chilling horror, she saw that the colossal shape was the Ice Dragon looming before her, his head rearing high. Both his eyes were open now—for he was staring down upon her with a palpable malice that was dreadful in the focus of its intensity.