Steam and Silence

The figures trudged on, their silhouettes clenched against the white roar, as if pulled forward by the steam-beast exhaling light and frost in equal measure. Above them, black banners shredded into ribbons, whispering in broken tongues no one tried to translate. The engine’s furnace burned like a single defiant heart in an empire of blue ice, and for a moment the air flickered with some larger covenant—power wrested from cold with a price unpaid. They paused beneath the sign rimed in crystal: *WHERE VOJTA?* Letters carved not merely to question but to accuse, each stroke a wound shadowed by drifting snow. Was he ahead, swallowed by that glowing hull, or adrift where the scaffolds spindle into fog? The march quickens, boots pounding brittle crust like a clock without mercy, yet their search feels both fevered and endless. The beam from the bridge cuts no answer through the storm; the emptiness hums. Vojta remains a name breathed in frost, unresolved, receding.