T Lain - Plague of Ice

“Regdar,” Sonja asked, “did it seem to be blowing faster than before?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Regdar said.

“Then we must assume that the ice and cold will take as long to leave as they did in coming. That’s assuming that the effect will stop at removing the ice it dumped onto our plane and not start sucking in material that’s native to our world. Either way, though,” Sonja affirmed, “we don’t have the luxury of waiting here to find out.”

“What do you suggest we do?” asked Regdar.

“We don’t know how to use the Frozen Pendant properly,” Sonja said. “The ice mephits do. We offer them one last chance to cooperate. If they refuse, we kill them. Glaze, too, if we must. I suspect Glaze watches over the surface from its tower even now.”

“How could we close the rift after that?” Hennet asked.

“I’ll try again to dispel it,” Sonja said, stroking the silver ring from Atupal. “With the effect reversed, the rift may be weaker or at least turned more strongly toward the Plane of Ice. If dispelling doesn’t work, then we take the Ilskynarawin back to Atupal, or Klionne or Vasaria or any other city where someone can figure out how to use it. And we pray that we can do this in time.”

The others nodded at her plan, though they were concerned about personal matters such as whether they would actually survive a trip back across the frozen landscape.

The druid looked squarely at Regdar. “I want you to stay here with the Frozen Pendant,” she declared. “Keep an eye on what happens through the trapdoor if you like, but be prepared to defend the artifact to the death. It cannot fall into the mephits’ hands, and I don’t want to approach them with it in our possession. This is no reflection on the rest of you, but I think it’s probably safest in Regdar’s keeping.”

Lidda spoke up. “I’m the smallest, the most agile. Why not give it to me? For that matter, why not take it yourself, Sonja? You could probably get back to the cities fastest if the rest of us don’t make it out of here.”

“I don’t like either idea,” Regdar objected. “I’d rather stay and fight next to you if need be. I think that’s where I’d be more useful.”

“I can understand how frustrating this may be for you. But it has to be this way. The Frozen Pendant is more important than any of our lives. Just what the mephits could do with it, I shudder to contemplate. If we should die,” she said, pausing slightly, “take it back down there, where it’s magically heated. With luck you can hold them off long enough for the cities to send another group.”

Regdar reflected on this. Cowering underground seemed a poor way to await his fate. He prayed to all the good gods that it wouldn’t come to that. He didn’t have nearly enough provisions to hold out for weeks, especially against a constant barrage of whatever monsters the mephits would send after him. Still, he saw the wisdom in Sonja’s plan. The pendant mattered far more than any individual’s survival.

“All right,” the fighter said, stepping back up onto the platform. “My luck goes with you.”

Lidda jumped up next to him and wrapped her thin arms around his leg. She looked up at her friend, teary-eyed. After all their battles fought side by side, this was the first time she really feared that she might never see him again.

Regdar tousled her brown locks. “See you soon,” he said.

She pulled away reluctantly and joined the others, marching to the black cylinder that contained their route to the surface. Sonja gave him a last, beautiful smile, and it warmed Regdar’s heart.

Left alone then in the dark, except for the tiny slit of fading light shining through the trapdoor, Regdar prayed to all the good gods that this would not be the way he died.

As they passed through the door to the upward stair, Hennet grabbed a piece of debris and used it to prop open the door. If they needed to retreat downward, every second might matter. The flapping of many wings could be heard above them, as well as the shrieking and hissing that constituted the ice mephits’ language.

“They’re waiting for us,” whispered Lidda as they ascended the first steps.

“The mephits won’t attack us first—not while they think we have the pendant.”

“Maybe not,” Hennet said, “but maybe we should.” He patted one of the pockets of his robe. “What about the alchemist fire we found down there? A quick toss and we could rid ourselves of most of these mephits in one blow. You heard how they fear fire.”

Sonja shook her head. “Do you want to knock down the tower with them? Or rain fire down on us? Let me take the lead, and keep your spear ready. I expect we’ll need it.”

When they reached the top of the stairway, weapons in hand, they found a dozen ice mephits crowded into the small room, perched along the magnificent tarrasque carving that was etched into the wall. The mephits were so positioned that the maximum number of them were in front of the black door to the outside.

Each of them looked more less exactly the same, and they all wore the same expression—smug self-satisfaction, with not a trace of surprise at the party’s arrival. For some moments both groups stared silently at the other, each expecting, even daring, the other to speak first.

Ultimately, one of the mephits broke the silence. It spoke the words slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully. “Do you have the Ilskynarawin?”

“Your verbeeg didn’t take it from us, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Sonja said.

“Or that snow lion you set up down there,” Hennet added, clutching his short spear so hard his knuckles were white.

“That’s how you repay us for retrieving your artifact?” Lidda asked, waving her sword threateningly at the mephit nearest to her, who was the right height to look her directly in the eye. “You try to have us killed?”

“So you haaave the Ilskynarawin?” another mephit chimed in. “Do you have it?”

“No!” Sonja yelled the word and it echoed through the stairways above and below. “We left it down below. We left it in a room that gets so hot, so infernally hot, that a salamander couldn’t survive there.”

“As hot as Asmodeus’s bowels!” Lidda shouted, sliding the magic torch back into the knot on the wall.

The mephits shuddered at the thought. Such heat was horror.

“It would melt you,” Sonja said. “In fact, it would do worse than that. It would reduce you to steam in an instant. You would be vaporized without even leaving a wet spot on the floor. And that’s where the Ilskynarawin lies. Go and take it, if you want it badly enough!”

“She liiiies!” one of the enraged mephits screamed. “They all lie! It’s here. It’s close. I can feeeeel it in my skin!”

Another mephit trilled out a nerve-jangling squeal and took to wing. It swooped toward Sonja, trying to sense, to smell, to perceive the artifact on her. “We must have iiit!” cried the creature.

Sonja swung her cudgel and smashed the mephit headon. It wasn’t killed, but it was badly wounded, with crushed wings. The blow flung it backward to sprawl among its fellows. The mephits gasped, startled by the sudden violence.

“No one will have the Ilskynarawin,” Sonja declared, “until we get through that door.”

The mephits glanced to and fro at each other.

“Why?” one of them asked, hovering in the air over Hennet’s head. The sorcerer pointed his spear at it and jabbed slightly, causing the creature to retreat.

“We just want to see,” Hennet cooed, “what’s on the other side.”

“There’s nothiiing to see,” hissed another mephit. “Nothing to see.”

“We want to see that’s there’s nothing to see,” Sonja replied. “If you don’t show us, we’ll force our way through. We can and we will.”