The cave was considerably colder than the tunnels which connected to it. Its 
walls glistened with the opalescent sheen of ice, and icicles stretched down from 
the roof. At its center was a pool of water that had somehow managed to stay 
fluid in this chill temperature; as Jyabil watched, a drop of water coalesced on 
an icicle and fell to the pool, producing an oddly musical sound as it hit. 

"It seems I have gotten better at telling the music from the noise," he said to 
apparently no one. 

"Or maybe you just got lucky and found this place in two hours instead of a 
couple weeks," came a voice from the tunnel behind him. 

It had not been an easy walk for Jyabil. He was unused to traveling with a 
companion, and had to stop several times so that she could catch up to his almost 
inhumanly long strides. Kim emerged from a tunnel right behind him, only to stop 
and gaze around the ice cavern in amazement. 

She shut her eyes, taking a few deep breaths, and seemed to be in a much better 
mood when they were opened again. "So. Got any requests?" she asked with a smile, 
swinging her guitar around from where it had rested on her back. 

"You are the Master of your craft, not I. It is not my place to tell you what to 
play." Jyabil seemed to consider that the end of the conversation, and he walked 
to a spot on the floor that was fairly clear of ice and sat down, crossing his 
legs. 

Kim arched an eyebrow, realized a few seconds later that nonverbal communication 
was not very effective on someone with his back toward you, and walked up to 
Jyabil, tapping him on the shoulder. "Mind telling me what you're doing?" 

Jyabil looked up at her. "It is easy enough to make a few shards of crystal dance 
to a tune, but in such a large place the effect may not be something so visible. 
A man may readily snap a twig, but that does not mean the same will happen when 
he tries to break a tree." His eyes shut again, and he relaxed, his breathing 
slow and even. 

Kim sighed, and looked about for a likely spot to play in, finally settling on a 
rather couch-like rock formation near the center of the cave. She sat down, 
thought for a bit about a fitting song, and began to lose herself in her music. 

*** 

They were dancing. 

Jyabil had not seen anything like it before. He had expected a small change in 
the Spirits of this cave, perhaps a faint swaying in time to whatever Kim played, 
but they were dancing, a frenzied whirl that brought back memories of festivals 
and people who were so glad to be alive that they pushed themselves to the limit, 
almost flinging themselves through the steps of a dance which was more a 
whirlwind than any sort of human motion... 

Something cut his cheek. 

Jyabil snapped out of his reverie, leaping out of his meditative position more 
out of reflex than anything else... and saw the maelstrom. 

She was at its eye, her music reverbating off the cave walls. Jyabil could make 
out very little through the swirling screen of water, but it appeared that she 
had lost herself to the song. It was not unheard of for a Master to become so 
submerged in the creating they could not see their creation... 

Jyabil watched with an odd fascination as an icicle fell from the ceiling and 
shattered almost instantly as it hit the ground; the glistening shards were drawn 
up into the maelstrom as the Spirits danced on. 

He yelled at the top of his lungs for her to stop, but he could barely hear 
himself over the din, much less hope to reach her through the curtain of water. 
And still the maelstrom raged, growing thicker and higher... he could not tell 
which one of them it would sweep in first. 

He drew his sword. The blade pulsed with a deep reddish glow for a few moments 
before flaring in a veritable explosion of light which reflected from wall to 
wall and turned Jyabil's world a piercing white, forcing him to shut his eyes. 

*** 

When he could see again, the dance had come to an end, and Kim was seated a bit 
unsteadily on her rock, which was now surrounded by a moat of freezing water and 
glistening ice shards that the maelstrom had carved from the bedrock. The ice 
still danced, slowly drifting around in an echo of its earlier revel. 

Jyabil extended his hand to help her across the channel. "It seems I was wrong. 
Perhaps this place reacts more strongly then I had thought." 

Kim sat for a few moments, then gathered herself and leaped, easily clearing the 
ice, and began walking toward the tunnel that lead back to Heart. "Perhaps I'm a 
better 'Master' than you thought." She paused for a moment at the entrance, then 
turned. "Are you coming?" 

Jyabil sighed, then walked silently into the tunnel after her. 

*** 

A few minutes later, the ice in the moat clinked silently as it rose, swirling 
into a foot-high echo of the maelstrom in a few seconds before collapsing just as 
quickly...