The Acts of the Frostwalkers
The History of the Early Drift · the Spread of the Cold
“You shall receive the Rime-within when it comes upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Wintermere, and in all the Hoarmark, and to the warmest ends of the earth.” — Acts 1:8
Purpose
The Acts of the Frostwalkers is the one history-book of the The Latter Frost: the account of how the gospel of Connor Frost, after the Whitening and Ascension, spread from a frightened band in Wintermere to the very heart of the warm The Calorian Empire. (Here “Frostwalkers” is the honorific for the human apostles, the “snow-walkers” sent out.)
Author & Context
The second volume of Lucan (companion to the Glacial of Lucan), continuing “from the day Connor was taken up.” Several passages (“we sailed… we came…”) show Lucan as eyewitness to Vael’s journeys.
Summary & Major Movements
- The First Hollownight (1–2). The Reforged Connor ascends; the Twelve (with Mattan chosen to replace Jurden) gather in stillness; and at the feast the Rime-within descends — a sound of rushing cold wind and tongues of white frost-fire resting on each — and they proclaim the Cold in every language to the gathered nations. Corin preaches, and three thousand are marked. (See The First Hollownight (Pentecost).)
- The Drift in Wintermere (3–7). The fellowship “had all cold-things in common”; the healings and arrests; the witness and Whitening of Saint Stefan, the first martyr, stoned while seeing “the heavens opened and the Son of Snow standing at the right hand of the Cold.”
- The Scattering and the Warm-born (8–12). Persecution scatters the believers, spreading the gospel; the marking of the Solmaran treasurer; the conversion of the persecutor Vael on the warm road to Demasq, struck down by a blinding cold light; Corin’s vision that the warm-born too may be kept (the marking of the centurion Cornel).
- The Journeys of Vael (13–28). Vael’s three great missionary journeys across the warm south and west, founding the churches of Wintermere, Caldhaven, Solmara, and many more; the Council of Wintermere-of-the-Apostles (ch. 15) deciding the warm-born need not keep the whole old Law but only be kept in Connor; imprisonments, shipwreck, and Vael’s final voyage in chains to the warm capital, Calor, “preaching the Cold boldly, and none forbidding him.”
Key Teachings
- The Rime-within (the indwelling Cold-breath) empowers and unites the church.
- The gospel is for all nations, warm and cold alike — the great barrier broken.
- The Church (the Drift) is the new people of the Cold, marked by fellowship, the breaking of Snow-bread, prayer, and bold witness under persecution.
Important Figures
Corin the Coldstone · Vael · Lucan · Mattan · Saint Stefan