"Oh dear," Quartus said. "That isn't good."

"What do you mean?" Frost said, excitedly. His heart beat rapidly as he witnessed the death of half the Flintlock army. "Isn't that what you wanted to do?"

"It must have been an accident," Quartus said. "We miscalibrated. This is all wrong. Their powder supplies must have been a more powerful mix."

"How can it be wrong?" Frost said. "The Flintlock are defeated. Hailstone, er, whatever that place is, is saved."

Quartus shook his head. Several of the travelers had equal looks of dismay. Frost seemed to be the only one who was happy that their enemies were losing.

Quartus clenched his jaw and tightened his fist. "Stupid boy, don't you see? Alta was sent to sabotage their supplies, forcing their army to retreat and showing them the shallowness of their ways. This will only anger them and start a war."

"You're already in a war," Frost said. "They want to kill all frost mages. I say bring it on."

The elderly man shook his head. His eyes conveyed wisdom despite the fact that Frost failed to see his reasoning. "That is not the way of the frost mage. Only the path to hell."

Frost pondered the point. He glanced at the two sets of ridges lining abutting the River Tempus, recalling Quartus' analogy.

The fire raged on, engulfing more soldiers and horses. It wouldn't be long before the company faced complete annihilation.

"I cannot allow the destruction to continue," Quartus said.

"What can you do?" Frost said. "The fire cannot be stopped. It's out-of-control."

Quartus held up his hand with his palm out in a rapid silencing motion. Then he closed his eyes, breathing in. Frost wasn't quite sure what it was the man was getting at. Did he even have frost powers, or was he more of a "big picture" strategist, as he said.

In an instant, Quartus' eyes opened wide. They glowed bright blue with an intensity Frost had never seen before. They looked like spherical balls filled with pure luminescent energy.

The palm of Quartus' extended hand glowed softly as if it were performing a higher form of frost magic. But what? Frost surveyed the panorama in front of him. In the center of the valley the Flintlock Army was being decimated.

Nothing changed.

In the valley below, the Flintlock continued to scream for their lives, burning to a crisp. Cannons exploded as they caught fire. Depots of stored powder burst into flames, exacerbating the cacophony of destruction.

Beyond the camp, the dilapidated castle looked on silently at the chaos of its attackers. The lone structure he once thought to be Hailstone Keep stood alone. Silent. Motionless.

The massive structure stood as big as a city with ancient stone walls and crenellated towers. Before the bombardment, it must have looked so picturesque. Exactly the way one would imagine an ancient keep to look like. Like something out of a storybook.

Suddenly, it collapsed.

The walls melted, liquifying instantaneously. The stones first turned into slush before converting into cool, transparent water. The entire city, every last brick, melded together in a single pool of water.

Oh, Frost thought to himself. That kind of big picture.

He'd always wondered if there were limits to the size a frost form could take such as that of a trained carpenter, but this far exceeded even his wildest imagination. What was Quartus' profession? he wondered. Maybe a city planner? Or a builder? Who was this man?

The water that went into creating something this large must have been enough to fill a lake. Or a —

Frost's mouth gaped. He nearly fell off his muskox. His hands trembled as realization dawned upon him.

He understood why the River Tempus was a shallow stream. Why it had outsized muddy banks. Why it had very little actual water.

He further understood why this place, as massive and ancient as it appeared, was not marked on their map.

Quartus had used the entire water supply to create the fake Hailstone Keep, effectively drying up the entire river for miles. Somehow, his magic had withered the actual river down to a stream, affecting it as a unified whole. He had pulled the entire river into one massive form. A form that mimicked Hailstone Keep.

And now Quartus was turning it back.

The rushing water burst out like a waterfall splashing down in a torrential downpour. The released liquid radiated in all directions, flooding the valley in a forceful dousing, drenching it in pooling water. The flood immediately created a cold marshland, engulfing the soldiers, their supplies, and the surrounding forest in a shallow, knee-high, slush-filled swamp.

The water slowly subsided as it spread out, coating the Valley of the Sundered Rock like a gentle blanket.

As Frost watch the scene unfold, he understood Quartus' logic. The water put out the fire, saving the remaining third of Flintlock soldiers. Frost didn't profess to understand why Quartus would try to save his enemies, but the man had accomplished his goal.

Quartus' eyes returned to their normal brown coloration as their glowing ceased. The old man took one last look at the drenched valley and then turned to look at other side of the hill.

"What was done here today," Quartus said somberly. "Was a grave mistake."

"I can't believe what I just saw," Frost said, still gawking at the scene.

"It is not the way of the frost mage," Quartus said, a hint of anger in his voice. "This will bring repercussions for generations to come."

Frost was silent. He merely listened with a renewed sense of respect and awe. The once jovial man was now serious, his lips curled downward at the sides. Quartus' hands were firm upon his muskox, which he directed upward toward the top of the hill and down the other side.

As the group of travelers crested the ridgeline, they made their way out of the Valley of Sundered Rock toward their rendezvous point with Frolick.

As their muskoxen hiked down the outward-facing side of the ridge, Frost wondered to himself which side of eternity they would find themselves on.