T Lain - Plague of Ice

“Wander through rift,” several mephits explained. “Probably not only. Door between worlds open. Strange thiiings happen.”

“If we manage to restore summer,” said Sonja, “such aberrations will die in the sun. Can we undo what Glaze has done if we get the Frozen Pendant?”

“Bring to us,” said one of the mephits, and the others joined it in a chorus. “Bring to us! Bring to us! Bring to us!”

“We know what to with iiiit do,” one of them assured the party.

“Can’t you just tell us what to do with it?” asked Regdar.

The mephits shook their heads in unison, obviously anxious to dispel this idea.

“Too tricky,” said one.

“Too dangerous,” chimed another.

“Only make things worse,” offered a third. “We must do.”

“It’s still down there?” Sonja asked. “Glaze didn’t take it with him?”

“No,” said one mephit. “We search.”

“Not up here.”

“Down there.”

“We sure.”

This made a certain amount of sense to Sonja. If the artifact was kept in a magically heated area deep below the city, it was possible that Glaze, a creature of the tundra but still more capable of weathering temperature changes than these mephits, would leave the Frozen Pendant below. The most likely creatures to seek it would be those like these mephits, composed of ice itself and therefore unable to venture into a hot area. Whether the young, inexperienced white dragon was intelligent enough to make such a plan was another question entirely.

“So you want us to go down and find the Frozen Pendant for you?” Hennet asked. “What do we get if we do this?”

One of the mephits shrugged oddly. “No more ice!” it shrieked with something vaguely like a laugh. The others joined it, until their shrieks were so loud they were nearly deafening.

“Stop!” shouted Sonja. “That’s too much.” The mephits stopped, but the distant reverberations continued for many moments.

“This is too much for me as well!” said Regdar. “Let’s do as they say.”

The mephits led the four newcomers to the cylinder that they explained would lead down to the “hot place” where the Ilskynarawin, the Frozen Pendant, awaited them. Here there was no stairway going up hut only a smooth, spiral walkway leading down into the gloom. Regdar held the magical torch, which blanketed the room’s smooth walls in an unflickering, white light. The mephits refused to enter the cylinder but instead clustered outside the doorway. Regdar noticed that this cylinder, unlike the first, had a door. With a nod to the mephits, he banged it shut.

The moment the door closed on them, Sonja turned to Hennet. “Did you really have to kill three of them?” she demanded, jutting a finger against his chest. “After they saved your life? Did you think that was appropriate gratitude?”

“It was dark, and I had only moments before been staring into the mouth of a dragon! Not to mention that I had just fallen twenty feet onto very hard ice! I felt something buzzing all around me, I heard those little wings of theirs flapping, and I reacted as any one of us would have. I don’t like them, those cold little eyes watching me…”

Lidda stepped between them. “It turned out all right. The question now is, can we trust them?”

“Who ever heard of a creature from the planes that wasn’t happy to come to the Prime?” asked Regdar.

“That may be true of demons and devils,” replied Sonja, “but mephits are neither.”

“So you think we should do what they say?” Hennet asked the druid.

“I don’t relish the prospect of going down there,” she said, casting a fleeting glance at the darkness below them, “but I don’t see what choice we have. And they did save our lives. I don’t have much experience with mephits, but I know them to be aloof in their dealings with humans. Those mephits were desperate for our help.

“That’s one side,” she continued. “At the same time, there are elements of their story I have a hard time believing. I doubt a white dragon, especially a young one like Glaze, would have the intelligence to seek out and activate an artifact the way they described.”

“But you still think we should do what they say?” said Hennet. “For all we know, they’re sending us down there hoping we’ll get killed.”

“One may lie and still have good intentions. We’re not dealing with humans. Mephits may have very different ways from ours. We can’t assume they wish us harm.”

“We can’t assume they wish us well, either,” Lidda added.

The druid ignored the remark. She stood tall to make a pronouncement. “Before we go down there, you all know that I’m not very comfortable in confined quarters, particularly underground. Black walls are the worst of all, the most unnatural. You selected me earlier as leader of this party, but I think I won’t prove a very good choice for what’s coming.”

Both Regdar and Hennet began to speak, but Sonja shook Sonja and Hennet shook their heads and cast each other concerned looks.

“Just as well,” said Lidda. “More glory for me. Observe.”

She drew her sword and sliced it through the air in front of her. The blade barely completed its arc before an arrow shot from the wall to cross the hallway and bounced off the opposite wall. Lidda picked up the missile and inspected it carefully.

“Barbed tip,” she announced then sniffed it. “Not poisoned, though. Anyone fancy adding this to their quiver? Don’t worry; if this is the best these dead wizards had to offer, getting through here will be child’s play. But take this as a warning—don’t step in front of me.”

Lidda walked boldly into the hallway. The others followed more cautiously. Regdar noticed that Sonja walked more slowly than anyone and kept her eyes on her feet as she took deliberate steps. It pained Regdar to watch this woman with such natural grace lose her bearings so completely when she stepped out of nature. He decided to distract her with a few questions.

“You said you encountered mephits on the Endless Glacier? What were they like?”

“What?” the druid stammered. “Oh. My parents and I came across a small group of them living near a frost giant community called Jotaralund. We were spying on the giants to see if they intended pushing their frontier to the west, into the Snowswept Flats, which would have endangered the few mammoths still living in that region. Instead of giants bent on conquest, we found a colony of ice mephits, living unseen right under the giants’ noses. We invited them to help us in our struggle against the giants, but they refused. They weren’t interested in politics, even those that impacted on their lives, nor did they care particularly about protecting nature. They’re insular creatures, but not innately hostile to outsiders. They shared with us their observations of the frost giants and let us proceed unmolested.”

“So you never had to fight them?”

“No, said Sonja. “Hennet is the only one of us who’s done that. They’re magical creatures, and they have certain inborn powers. Ice mephits aren’t the only kind, you know—there are mephits for all the elements and probably the para-elements too. From what my parents said, all mephits have the ability to summon other mephits to their side, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be of the same kind. Ice mephits rarely call for such aid, for obvious reasons, if a fire mephit or a steam mephit arrived, it would scarcely be able to survive in the ice mephit’s cold environment, and the ice mephit could be seriously injured or even killed by the blast of heat that would accompany the new arrival.

“They also use their breath as a weapon, like a winter wolf or a white dragon, but it’s less potent. And they wield magic.”