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immediately against it.
    The king sees their concern, stirs in his chair, seems about to come to his own defense. I slide into the breach before he can say a word.
    “His Majesty proposed that we inform the council and receive their approbation, but I opposed such a move. Not out of any lack of respect for the members of the council,” I hasten to assure them, “but out of the need to maintain calm among the populace. His Majesty and I were then of the opinion that the drop in the river level was a freak of nature. Perhaps a seismic disturbance had caused a section of the cavern to collapse and block the river's flow. Perhaps a colony of animals had dammed it up. Why needlessly upset people? Alas”—I am unable to prevent a sigh—“such is not the case.”
    The council members regard me with growing concern. They have become accustomed to the strangeness of my appearance, and now they begin to discern changes in me. I am aware that I do not look good, even worse than usual. My black eyes are sunken, ringed by purple shadows. The eyelidsare heavy and red rimmed. The journey was long and fatiguing. I have not slept in many cycles. My shoulders slump with exhaustion.
    The council members forget their irritation at the king acting on his own, without consulting them. They wait, grim faced and unhappy, to hear my report.
    “I traveled up the Hemo, following the river's banks. I journeyed beyond civilized lands, through the forests of laze trees that stand on our borders, and came to the end of the wall that forms our kairn. But I did not find the river's source there. A tunnel cuts through the cavern wall and, according to the ancient maps, the Hemo flows into this tunnel. The maps, I discovered, proved accurate. The Hemo has either cut its own path through the cavern wall or the river runs along a path formed for it by those who made our world in the beginning. Or perhaps a combination of both.”
    The king shakes his head at me, disliking my learned digressions. I see his expression of annoyance and, slightly inclining my head to acknowledge it, return to the subject at hand.
    “I followed the tunnel a great distance and discovered a small lake set in a box canyon, at the bottom of what once must have been a magnificent waterfall. There, the Hemo plunges over a sheer rock cliff, falling hundreds of footspans, from a height equal to the height of cavern ceiling above our heads.”
    The citizens of Kairn Telest appear impressed. I shake my head, warning them not to get their hopes up.
    “I could tell, from the vast dimensions of the smooth plane of the wall's rock surface and from the depth of the lake bed below, that the river's flow had once been strong and powerful. Once, I judge, a man standing beneath it might have been crushed by the sheer force of the water falling on him. Now, a child could bathe safely in the trickle that flows down the cliffs side.”
    My tone is bitter. The king and council members watch me warily, uneasily.
    “I traveled on, still seeking the river's source. I climbed up the sides of the canyon wall. And I noticed a strangephenomenon: the higher I climbed, the cooler grew the temperature of the air around me. When I arrived at the top of the falls, near the ceiling of the cavern, I discovered the reason why. I was no longer surrounded by the rock walls of the cavern.” My voice grows tense, dark, ominous. “I found myself surrounded by walls of solid ice.”
    The council members appear startled, they feel the awe and fear I mean to convey. But I can tell from their confused expressions that they do not yet comprehend the danger.
    “My friends,” I tell them, speaking softly, my eyes moving around the table, gathering them up, and holding them fast, “the ceiling of the cavern, through which the Hemo flows, is rimed with ice. It didn't used to be that way,” I add, noting that they still do not understand. My fingers curl slightly. “This is a change, a dire change. But, listen, I will