there, all the time muttering to itself. Eyeing her weird captor, the ranger tried to match the creature to all the fiends she'd ever seen or heard of. With its stunted size and shimmering skin, it looked like a malevolent sprite sculpted from
ice. Its form lacked gentle curves, each joint capped by glittering little spurs. Nothing about it matched her experiences nor any of the tales she'd heard. Glacier lore was not her strong suit.
While the strange creature capered in the ghastly light of fading magic, Martine discreetly probed the snow for her gear, a search that turned up her sword and pouch but little more. Jazrac's cinder was still there, she noted with relief, along with his dagger. She thought of staking it in the snow in hope Jazrac might be at his crystal ball at that very moment, but she couldn't. Calling for his help now was admitting her own failure and she still had hopes of succeeding. All she needed was a little time to get away.
'Who are you?' she called to the impish thing. The question was partially a stall and partially curiosity.
'You talk-you talk again!' Sliding and bounding, the ice sprite careened down the slope to land not far from her feet. A stream of dislodged ice and snow clattered down after it.
'Who are you?' she repeated.
'Me? Me?' The thing sprang about in glee, all the while grinning in cold, false modesty. 'Hot Breath, you were captured by Icy-White the Clever, Icy-White the Quick-'
'The greatest of the…' It was a thin trick, but Martine was banking on the thing's simpleminded vanity to finish the phrase.
'Yes, yes. The greatest of Auril's children, the greatest of the mephits. Clever warrior I am to capture you. Vreesar will be much impressed with me.`
Auril, mephit, Vreesar… Martine seized on the three clues, even as she nodded in false awe. Auril was the Frost Maiden, goddess of cold, and supposedly worshiped by the people of the far north, not that the Harper had ever seen one of these so-called ice priests. Mephits she knew even less about some type of elemental imp or fiend. Still, it was enough to confirm her suspicion. Shifting closer to her sword, she asked anyway.
'Ibis isn't your home, is it?'
The mephit stopped and looked all about, head snapping to and fro in nervous tics. 'Home? Oh, no. Oh, no. This place is too warm. But Vreesar found the path and wanted to explore. Dragged me with him, he did. Made me come.'
Her guess was right; something had passed through the rift. But how many, and how dangerous were they? She needed to know if all her work to seal the rift was too late. 'Vreesar?'
'Vreesar's mean, bosses me around, thinks he can tell Icy-White what to do, but now look who caught Hot Breath. Now Vreesar's just 'The mephit's gaze strayed upward, looking at something behind Martine, and as it did, the bold words in its throat choked off in a stunted gurgle. 'Vreesar is very clever and quiet,' Icy-White concluded in a squeaked whisper.
The mephit had barely spoken before Martine, her fighting senses coming back to her, scooted around to the side so she could see both the mephit and where it gazed, pressing her back against an upturned ice block
Towering over both of them, a good two feet taller than Martine's five-foot frame, was an overgrown version of the mephit that had captured her. The beast had the same armor-sheened skin, smoothly flowing over its body to taper off into sharp-edged flares. The icelike carapace rendered the creature insectoid, even though it stood like a man. The look was further enhanced by the fact that its frame was overly thin and elongated, yet that same thinness made menacingly powerful the hard bands of muscle that swelled like cables across its body. It was the effect one might have gotten, Martine imagined, if you pared all the soft parts away from a normal creature, leaving nothing but the hard masses behind.
The creature's head was triangular, tapering at the chin into a beard of icicles that grew out of its flesh. The barbed ridge of its brow was crusted with more of the same, veiling the deep pits of its eyes. A mouth, small and precise, set below two narrow slots that were its nose, gaped eagerly, revealing a formidable line of spinelike teeth.
'What iz thiz?' the creature buzzed in one rapid breath. It stared at Martine, pivoting its head on a virtually nonexistent neck 'What have you found?'
'Vreesar, I captured it,' the mephit boasted with a prattling squeal. The ice-bred imp sprang forward to show off its conquest, staying just out of Martine's reach. 'It breathes smoke and steam, hot enough to burn me, but I captured it.' With those words, the mephit danced about in triumph, waggling its long claws overhead. 'I captured the Hot Breath! Me!'
'Simpleton! It iz a human!' The creature's buzzing snarl rang through the cold air like the scrape of a cutlers grindstone. With a fluid stretch that defied its angular legs, the creature stepped off the slope to place itself before the Harper, twisting its head this way and that as it eyed her. The little one found you?'
Martine nodded slowly, doing her best to meet the creature's gaze. Her previous confidence was fading fast. It was one thing to be the bold prisoner of a small, silly mephit, but the smooth power and evil of this creature raised the stakes dangerously. You should have tried to contact Jazrac, a small part of her whispered. Martine doubted her strength or speed could ever hope to match this creature's.
'Did you do thiz, human?' The creature leered straight at her with its frosty face till its icy breath, colder than the glacial winds, burned her skin.
Martine bit the inside of her lip. Silence was her only plan, even though she had no idea how the creature might react. Perhaps it found the answer in her eyes, or perhaps it saw her determination, for the fiend drew back. 'Do you see what haz happened, human?' The creature turned its gaze to the tangled floor of the rift, shifting and wavering in the last light of enchantment. The sapphire-colored fire was gone from the sky, although it still seemed to tinge the color of the stars as they washed the glacier in weak light.
'You have trapped me!' the beast shrieked, its voice ringing from the sides of the bowl. A hundred fiends seemed to stand among the distant ruins, echoing back its words. 'You have closed my door!'
In a blur, it sprang over Martine, straddling her. Clawed hands pressed against her parka. Its hoary face hung over her, thin lips pulled back in the menace of a smile. 'What did you do?'
'Nothing.' It was a desperate surge of bravado. She tensed her body for the strike.
'Iiez,' it hummed, pressing its claws against her harder. 'You and your friendz did it You will tell me how to reopen the path.'
Friends? she wondered.
'No.' It was only her determination not to fail in her mission that gave her defiance voice.
'No?' the beast shrieked. 'You defy Vreesar, one of the great elementalz? My brotherz waiting to come will not be halted by your little trickz. I will learn how to reopen the gate.' In its rage, the creature raised up one taloned hand to strike. Martine, ready for her last desperate act, closed a hand around the hilt of her sword. I will not die easily, she told herself fiercely.
'Vreesar, the Hot Breath is my prisoner! Mine!' screeched the mephit from its perch up the slope. 'You cannot kill it!' In frustrated rage, the imp pelted the larger creature with fistfuls of ice.
'Cursed mephit!' the fiend roared, batting away the
missiles. With its claws finally removed from her ribs, Martine took advantage of the distraction to jerk loose her iceencased sword. Before she'd gotten the blade free, the shadow-cloaked elemental seized his little tormentor and whirled back on the Harper, swinging the mephit about by its scrawny neck. The dark fiend, lit by the last flashes of blue, trembled and twitched as its vile passions warred within it. The mephit writhed helplessly in the great creature's strangling grasp.
The monster's head tipped left, then right. Finally stopping, the gaunt monster looked curiously at the mephit, now nearly limp. Evil light glistened in the ice-bearded eyes, and with a callous gesture, the gelugon hurled the mephit at Martine's feet
The little ice imp flopped feebly on the ground, gasping for air, and Martine seized the opportunity to scramble backward, putting more distance between her and her captors.
'Icy White, I forgot your great might to have captured so powerful a human,' Vreesar mocked as it crouched down spiderlike before the mephit, looking beyond it to Martine. 'Waz foolish, yez, to think thiz human waz strong enough to close the gap. There must be otherz who did thiz and I will find them. Keep your prize, Mephit. Make it tell you of the otherz.'
'I will do this, Vreesar.' Long claws scissored the air as the creature sidled over to Martine until it could reach out and chuck its taloned tips under her chin. 'Me Hot Blood will talk. It will tell me everything.'
