Chapter TwelveBy the time the Liberators and Watchers had gathered before the small frozen pond chosen for the crossing, snowflakes had begun fluttering through the boughs of the evergreen canopy sparkling in the crisp morning air. A portion of the snow that blanketed the shadow-covered pond had been brushed away to reveal the dark ice beneath and Gairynzvl stood looking down into its frozen depths with intense concentration. Beside him, his fellow Liberators gazed downward with far greater apprehension, uncertain to their very cores about stepping into a portal made of frozen winter water, which might just as easily close around them and prevent their return to the surface than transport them to some secluded corner of the dark realm.
Several paces behind them, the Watchers stood in grim
