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explain further.
    “Appalled by my discovery, I continued traveling along the banks of the Hemo. The way was dark and treacherous, the cold was bitter. I marveled at this, for I had not yet passed beyond the range of light and warmth shed by the colossus. Why weren't the colossus working, I wondered?”
    “If it was as cold as you claim, how could you go on?” the king demands.
    “Fortunately, Your Majesty, my magic is strong and it sustained me,” I reply.
    He doesn't like to hear that, but he was the one who challenged me. I am reputed to be extremely powerful in magic, more powerful than most in the realm of Kairn Telest. He thinks that I am showing off.
    “I arrived eventually, after much difficulty, at the opening in the cavern wall through which the Hemo flows,” I continue. “According to the ancient maps, when I looked out of this opening, I should have seen the Celestial Sea, the freshwater ocean created by the ancients for our use. What I looked out on, my friends”—I pause, making certain I have their undivided attention—“was a vast sea of ice!”
    I hiss the final word. The council members shiver, as if I'd brought the cold back in a cage and set it loose in the Council Chamber. They stare at me in silence, astounded,appalled, the full understanding of what I am telling them slowly working its way, like an arrow tip lodged in an old wound, into their minds.
    “How is such a thing possible?” The king is the first to break the silence. “How can it happen?”
    I pass a hand over my brow. I am weary, drained. My magic may have been strong enough to sustain me, but its use has taken its toll. “I have spent long hours studying the matter, Your Majesty. I plan to continue my research to confirm my theory, but I believe I have determined the answer. If I may make use of this parfruit?”
    I lean further over the table, grab a piece of parfruit from the bowl. I hold up the round, hard-shelled fruit, whose meat is much prized for the making of parfruit wine, and—with a twist of my hands—break the fruit in half.
    “This,” I tell them, pointing to the fruit's large red seed, “represents the center of our world, the magma core. These”—I trace red veins that extend outward from the seed through the yellowish meat to the shell—“are the colossus that, by the wisdom and skill and magic of the ancients, carry the energy obtained from the magma core throughout the world, bringing warmth and life to what would otherwise be cold and barren stone. The surface of Abarrach is solid rock, similar to this hard shell.”
    I take a bite of the fruit, tearing through the shell with my teeth, leaving a hollowed out portion that I exhibit.
    “This, we will say, represents the Celestial Sea, the ocean of fresh water above us. The space around here”—I wave my hand around the parfruit—”is the Void, dark and cold.
    “Now, if the colossus do their duty, the cold of the Void is driven back, the ocean is kept well heated, the water flows freely down through the tunnel and brings life to our land. But if the colossus fail…”
    My voice trails off ominously. I shrug and toss the parfruit back onto the table. It rolls and wobbles along, eventually falls over the edge. The council members watch it in a horrible kind of fascination, making no move to touch it. One woman jumps when the fruit hits the floor.
    “You're saying that is what's happening? The colossus are failing?”
    “I believe so, Your Majesty.”
    “But, then, shouldn't we see some sign of it? Our colossus still radiate light, heat—”
    “May I remind king and council that I commented on the fact that it was the
top
of the cavern only that is rimed in ice.
Not
the cavern wall. I believe our colossus are, if not failing utterly, at least growing weaker. We do not yet notice the change, although I have begun to register a consistent and previously inexplicable drop in the average daily temperature. We may not notice the change for some