Piers Anthony - Phaze Doubt

“I can see that,” he said, awed even at his age in the spectacle of her frozen splendor.

“We be traveling together, methinks.”

Icebeard’s daughter! He realized he shouldn’t have been surprised. The demon chief had said she was twenty, which was adult, and that he was trying to set up her marriage, but he had neglected to say she was beautiful by any standard. “Aye,” he said after a moment. “I be Flach.”

“I met thy dam, the ‘corn,” she said. “I were but thine age then, but she were beautiful.”

Flach hesitated, not knowing the appropriate response. ley’s the same! Nepe prompted him.

“No more so than thee,” Flach said.

Icy smiled, and that confirmed the compliment, for her smile made her seem almost warm. “Methinks we shall get along well enough,” she said.

Told you! Nepe put in. Way to a woman’s heart is flattery.

So it seemed. He would try to remember that, for the time when it might count for him. “That should be nice. Who rides the sled?”

“Thou—and I. So we had better get along well!”

“Aye.” He looked around, to make sure that no other demons were listening. “Thy father says I must pretend to be older, so I will make a spell o’ illusion. But thou must remember I be but a child.”

“Aye. But thou dost be distressingly hot. Canst make thyself comfortably cool?”

“Aye. I will seem cold, but will not be cold. I will not melt thee, and thou willst not freeze me.”

“I be glad o’ that!” she said, laughing. “We folk associate not much with thy folk, because o’ their oppressive heat. An they e’er change their ways, all will be cool.”

“Aye,” he agreed, not caring to argue the point.

On the following day they started off. Flach had generated an illusion that doubled his age, so that he looked and sounded eighteen instead of nine. He seemed larger and heavier, but he retained the strength and mind of his true age. His image moved exactly as he did, magnified appropriately. He was rather proud of the spell; he had never done this before.

Icebeard looked him over and cracked a slow smile. “An that not fade in thy sleep, it be suitable.”

“It will remain till I counter it,” Flach assured him. “My spells fade slow. But an I have to do a man’s work, I needs must use magic to amplify my strength.”

“Nonesuch be required. The story be this: my daughter has a mission to the Pole, and thou too, to help her complete it. Thou willst tell her what needs must be done, and she will tell the guards. The dogs not will attack thee.” He paused, then lowered his voice. “Canst tell me what thy business be at the Pole?”

“I know it not, only that I must go,” Flach said, appreciating why he had not been told. He could not blab the secret to anyone. “I hope to discover why when I get there. Then mayhap it will be known to all.”

“Mayhap,” the demon chief agreed, disappointed. “Come, needs must I introduce thee to my cub, lest she mistake thee for other.”

“I met her yesterday,” Flach said.

“In this form?”

“Nay, in mine own.”

“Then the introduction be needful.”

He had a point. Flach now looked completely different. He had the aspect of a powerful young man. He hoped he would be this solid and handsome when he really did grow up!

Icy was evidently impressed when she saw him. “I knew not that warm ones could be so rugged!” she exclaimed, eying him in a way that made him uncomfortable.

You should be! the inner voice that was Nepe told him. Thai’s one ho! snow demoness! She’s going to find out just what is possible, before this trip is done. She formed a mental image of wolves sniffing tails, then making ready to mate.

Flach shrugged. Nothing was possible, of course.

They got on the sledge, which was shaped to allow them to sit comfortably side by side, their backs supported by the supplies behind and their legs moderately bent in front. Icy took the reins. “Mush!” she cried, and the dogs took off.

But they were high on a mountain slope. The sledge careered down and to the side, skidding toward a drop-off. “Yiii!” Flach cried, grabbing on for dear life.

The sledge turned just before the ledge and zoomed along its edge. Flach hung on, afraid to look down into its dark depths. They seemed about to bounce off the snow and tumble right off the mountain.

“Well, now,” Icy said, her frozen breath tickling his ear. Flach opened his eyes.

She was what he had grabbed on to! Hastily he let go, steeling himself to sit upright and ignore the horrendous scene just beyond the sled, and the breathtaking one on it.

The demons skiing behind laughed. So did the racing guard dogs. So, in a moment, did the harnessed dogs. They had done it on purpose, to make him react.

Flach relaxed. If they were so sure of their footing and ley’s safety, he might as well be sure too. They surely knew every inch of these mountain slopes, and could handle them precisely. They had had their fun with him, but he would keep his nerve better from now on.

Soon they were beyond the mountains and heading north across a relatively flat plain. The dogs ran indefatigably, and the skiing demons kept the pace. It quickly got dull.

“Dost know any good games?” Icy asked with a toss of her ice tresses. “We have long to ride.”

“Well, there be tag—“

“And which o’ us gets off and runs to do that?” she inquired archly.

“It were a stupid notion,” he admitted. “I could conjure cards—“

“I have played e’ery game there be for cards!” she said crossly. “A chief’s daughter has much time on her hands.”

There’s one she hasn’t played, I’ll bet, Nepe thought. I don’t know what it’s called, but I remember how it goes.

Flach conjured a deck of playing cards. “Mayhap I have one thou hast not.”

“Willst bet on’t?”

“Bet what?”

“Consequences.”

Flach wasn’t sure he trusted this. “What consequences?”

She shrugged. “I’ll decide, after I win.”

“Suppose I win?”

“Then the consequence be thine to decide, for me.”

“I have a mission to accomplish. I can’t be diverted to—“

“Innocent tasks,” she said. “Like saying ‘I be a warm ogre bottom!’ or mayhap standing on the sledge and sunning the guards.”

“Sunning?”

“Mayhap thy kind calls it mooning.”

This was beginning to sound like the kind of challenge a person of his generation couldn’t turn down. “An thou dost lose the bet, I define a consequence for thee?” he said, making quite sure.

“Aye. So long as it be harmless and delay our travel not.”

This creature is dangerous! Nepe warned admiringly. But you better accept her challenge, or she’ll come up with worse.

“Agreed,” Flach said. “The bet be whether I have a card game thou hast ne’er played before.”

“Aye. Name it.”

“I can’t name it. But—“

“Then thou dost lose!” she exclaimed.

“Nay, that be not the bet!” he protested. “I need not name it, only describe it. An it be a good game thou has played not before, I win.”

She reconsidered. “Aye, that be fair. Describe it.”

Drawing on Nepe’s information, he described it: “Several can play, or only two. The dealer lays down cards according to a secret rule, and first to guess that rule becomes dealer.”

She considered. “I ne’er heard o’ it,” she confessed. “But be it a real game? Who wins it, who loses? How be points scored?

“The dealer wins, long’s he holds his place. It be like king o’ the hill: the one atop wins till he loses. But we could play for points an thou wishest: each wrong guess be the dealer’s point.”