T Lain - Plague of Ice

Hadn’t he found something else… not a spell, but a magical flame? Was it a memory or only a wish becoming illusion?

Numb hands rummaged clumsily through his clothes, searching. When he bumped against the flask in his pocket, the memory came back. Alchemist fire! Regdar had found it on the corpse in the pit. Hennet fished out one of the flasks with great effort looked at it, trying to concentrate. Did he really want to do this? It could kill him… but he was dying anyway.

It could kill Sonja if she was too close to the blast. She had opposed him using fire magic all along, and she’d been right.

How could he risk killing the woman he loved now that she was just realizing her potential? He recalled her words about heroism, about the heroes of legend who achieved great things because they left their personal concerns behind them. “They were not people and neither must we be.” Was that the foundation of heroism? All his life Hennet had wanted to become a legend. Now he had the opportunity, and no one would survive to spread the tale of his sacrifice.

With all the strength he could muster, Hennet tossed the flask of alchemist fire. He was surprised at how far his stiffened limbs managed to propel it. The sticky fluid inside the flask would ignite on contact with air. All it needed was to burst open and it would set off a firestorm that just might destroy the rift, or at least kill mephit that had claimed the pendant—if it broke. Hennet lost track of it amid the swirling particles, but the cold alone was sufficient to shatter the fragile glass.

The plane itself moaned at the flash of unwelcome heat. Hennet shielded his eyes but gloried in the warmth as the blast rolled across him. The explosion was far beyond what a vial of alchemist fire would have caused on the Prime Material Plane, for fire was an alien force here, unknown and unchecked. The ground buckled, and the sky warped under the stress of fantastic heat. The frozen fog vanished altogether, revealing the endless, wan expanse for just a moment before it was concealed again by clouds of steam that roiled upward and outward only to solidify and rain down as solid ice.

The mephits closest to the blast were instantly vaporized by the waves of fire. These were the fortunate ones. Those farther away screeched in agony as the terrifying flames licked at them and they witnessed their bodies melting into puddles beneath them. Hennet watched a mephit plummet from the sky after its wings melted from its back. It plunged into a steaming pool of boiling water, where it disappeared in a hiss of vapor.

Hennet could see the rift now, for the slow but steady stream of icy material that oozed through from the Prime had been the same color as the pervasive, frozen fog. The rift looked smaller on this side than on the other. What’s more, it appeared weaker. Strain was apparent. He could see how precarious was the balance of forces that maintained the conduit. It shuddered under the weight of the elemental material passing through it. Its designers never expected it to he attacked from this side. Hennet hoped that meant Sonja would have a better chance to dispel it from here.

The Ilskynarawin, no longer the Frozen Pendant since its golden chain melted in the blast of heat, tumbled from the sky and landed with a splash in the center of the cleared area, which was now covered by a shallow pool of steaming water. Hennet couldn’t move his damaged limbs, he could only watch as four surviving mephits swept down from the sky, desperate to recapture the treasure. He groped for another flask of alchemist fire, but his hands, both frozen and burned, could feel nothing. He feared his last gesture might have been in vain.

He wondered: where was Sonja?

His heart leaped when he spotted her, wrapped in white, sweeping out of the vapor toward the rift. She plunged across the wet landscape like a pale ghost, little more than a white flash. No sooner did one of the mephits alight near the Ilskynarawin than Sonja was upon it. Her cudgel cracked against the creature’s skull with such force that the body shattered. Hennet watched in awe. Reborn by the dragon’s ice cocoon, Sonja was the master of these creatures even on their own plane.

Another mephit caught Sonja with its frigid breath, but she ignored it. The water on the ground was rapidly freezing around the Ilskynarawin. The frozen fog crept in. Sonja cast a wary glance upward before crushing the second mephit with her cudgel.

That provided enough distraction, however, for another mephit to slip behind her and free the glimmering Ilskynarawin from its icy cage. Taking to the air, it raced urgently to reach the rift ahead of the druid.

To get through, Sonja knew the mephit would have to swoop low, just as on the other side. If she could get there first, she could stop it, but she couldn’t get to the rift first. For an awful moment it looked as if the mephit would make its escape. It flew down, headed straight for the rift.

With deadly aim, Sonja threw her cudgel. The club struck the mephit in the back, causing it to lose its grip on the Ilskynarawin and propelling it headlong through the rift. It vanished with a tiny flash, and when it didn’t sweep back through a second or two later, Sonja silently thanked Regdar and Lidda.

She pounced onto the artifact as a third mephit swept low above it, blasting her again with its breath. The druid held tightly onto the Ilskynarawin and punched upward. Her fist demolished the mephit’s head, and its body tumbled to a heap yards away.

Moving as casually as if she was in her own garden, Sonja retrieved her weapon. With the deadly cudgel in one hand, the coveted artifact in the other, and the rift silently oozing ice behind her, she offered a challenge to the lone, surviving mephit—if you want it, come take it from me. For half a minute or more the creature hovered, searching the ice druid’s eyes for any hint of weakness or wavering of resolve. Finding none, it decided to leave with its life. As it turned away, Sonja leaped after it. Her club smashed down with terrific strength, and the mephit crumbled.

With her enemies dead, Sonja rushed to Hennet, who stared semiconscious up to the sky as the advancing ice threatened to overtake him. As her face came into his view, beaming with a mixture of victory and concern, the edges of Hennet’s mouth curled stiffly into an approximation of a smile.

“My love,” she said softly, kneeling next to him. Keeping the Ilskynarawin close, Sonja expended all of her healing and protection spells in an effort to keep Hennet with her. Then she took him in her arms and carried his limp body to the rift. Along the way, she recovered his short spear and slipped it safely into his robes.

She did not weep as she looked down on his pale face and kissed his cold forehead. She knew he would live and recover, but she also knew she would never see him again. Fate and nature gave her a different path.

One more thing remained to do. She ran her hands through Hennet’s robes. The cloth cracked and fell away in pieces as she sought her prize—the two remaining flasks of alchemist fire. They were frozen solid, but thawed they might work again. Hennet had proven their power in this place.

Gently, she pushed the sorcerer’s inert form toward the rift. He floated for just a moment before disappearing with a white flash.

Alone on the blasted expanse of ice, Sonja extended her hand—the one that wore the silver ring from Atupal, with one more dispelling charge. She extended it toward the rift, closed her eyes, and let the magic work.

It happened more easily than she expected. There was none of the mental battle she’d faced when she tried, vainly, to dispel the rift from the other side. The portal slipped shut as easily as any wooden door, leaving no trace of itself behind. With the rift extinguished, there was no way for Sonja to return. She was trapped.