““Begun in fire, ending in ice. The poet was wrong; ice was a better destroyer than fire, particularly if you were in the mood for vengeance. Fire was quick and clean, a leap of flame, a wave of heat and then nothing but a pile of soft and formless ash, dispersed with the first breeze. Ice was slow, heavy, corrosive, relentless, grating. It took a long time to get where it was going, and when it got there, it left behind a towering confusion of rubble to be sorted and identified and disposed of. Ice left baggage.””
