They made a makeshift camp in the heart of another blizzard. They burrowed together in the snow, faces buried in their furs.

In the dim morning light Erwal was shaken awake. Thick with sleep and unwilling to leave her warm nest she slowly opened her eyes. Sura was bending over her, her cheeks flushed under spots of frostbite. "Erwal, we're there!"

"What?"

"The Eight Rooms! It's just as Teal described. Come on!"

Erwal pushed her way out of the snow. Her knees and hips ached. All around her, people were emerging from their snow cocoons. She rubbed a little snow into her face, then took a mouthful of the crumbling stuff and let it melt on her tongue.

For once it was a clear, still day. The snow lay in great mounds to the horizon, and the desolate landscape was punctuated only by the defiant remnants of cow-trees -- and, on the northern horizon, by a building. Erwal squinted, straining to see in the dim daylight. It was a large, plain box, just as Teal had described.

The Eight Rooms.

Her party began to make for the artifact. The children ran whooping, the adults hurrying after. Erwal thought of cautioning them to be careful; but she stopped herself, almost amused. What precautions were there to take? Either the Eight Rooms would save their lives... or they would have to turn back, try to reach the village before the worst of the winter set in, and wait, exhausted, for the cold to kill them.

Either way there wasn't much point in being careful. Stiffly, Erwal made her way through the snow to the Eight Rooms.

The children were soon clambering in and out of an open doorway. Erwal paused some distance from the structure and studied it carefully. She recalled Teal describing his shock at seeing how the building floated, unsupported, a foot in the air; and, bending down, she saw a strip of snowy land beneath the Rooms. She frowned, puzzling at her own un-startled reaction. What was the great wonder? Every child heard stories of how powerful the ancients had been, of how they had built the very world humans lived in; why should a box floating in the air be such a surprise?

She sighed. Perhaps she simply wasn't very imaginative. Briskly she approached the Rooms, paused only briefly at the doorway, then stepped up and over the foot-high sill--

-- and nearly fainted as she entered warm, still air. She felt blood rush to her face, and, seeking support, she reached out to a wall -- and pulled her fingers back, shocked. The material of the wall was warm and soft, like flesh. Arke joined her, running a callused palm over the wall. "Isn't it remarkable? Perhaps this whole building is a living creature."