"Don't worreee about him," it seemed to say, giving a strange trill to the r's. "Watch."
The dragon bore down on Hennet, teeth snapping and talons clutching forward. Just as it was about to snatch him, a dark hole opened at Hennet's feet, and he was gone.
Above the wheeling, screeching dragon, emblazoned on the side of the tower where the ice had peeled away, stood the emblem of Wee Jas, rigid overlord of death and magic.
Regdar watched from around a corner, with Sonja still limp in his arms. She felt warm and soft, but he had little time to reflect on this. He blinked, trying to figure out where Hennet had gone. It had happened so quickly. Had he fallen into a hole in the ground? That was the best Regdar could figure, short of teleportation magic.
Cheated of its prize, the dragon snarled and circled back and landed to search the spot where Hennet disappeared. Its muzzle snuffled over the snow, trying to uncover a secret door. As long as it kept this up, Regdar thought, the rest of them were safe.
Then Regdar, too, heard a strange voice, accompanied by a fast buzz like the sound of a hummingbird's wings.
"Look to the leffft," it said. "Look to the tower."
Regdar looked for the source of the voice but couldn't find it. He did what it said and saw that a door stood open on one of the towers a short distance away. The dark hole beckoned him.
"Get to safety. Quickly!" the voice instructed him.
Regdar looked to Lidda and saw that she, too, was looking toward the open door. When their eyes met, they shared a look of puzzlement and concern, but their options were few.
The dragon shifted its attention from Hennet's mysterious disappearance to the others. It spotted Lidda first and flew toward her. She scrambled for the open door.
"Hey!" Regdar shouted at the dragon. "Over here!"
The beast turned to face Regdar, then he, too, bolted toward the door. Sonja was light but Regdar felt her weight keenly as he pushed his legs to their fastest, kicking up clouds of snow as he ran. Regdar could hear the smooth beats of the dragon's wings behind him, drawing nearer and nearer.
Lidda was almost at the door. Regdar was sure she'd be safe, assuming that safety actually lay through that door, but he couldn't say the same for Sonja and himself. He thought he could even feel the dragon's chill breath on the back of its neck. It seemed so close and the door so far away. Part of him wanted to turn back and confront the dragon, but he knew he couldn't put Sonja down or draw his greatsword before the dragon would be on him. He ran on, and the cold along his neck was gone and the doorway yawned before him. Either he had outrun the dragon, or it had given up for some other reason. He raced through the dark opening just behind Lidda, and the door slammed behind them.
They were shut in the dark. For the first time in quite a while, they had real shelter. In fact, it was just as cold amid these ancient walls.
"What just happened?" asked Sonja, who slid groggily out of Regdar's arms. She leaned against a wall to steady herself.
"We'll tell you when we figure it out," said Lidda.
"The dragon attacked us," said Regdar. "There was an open door on one of these towers, so we ran inside. I heard a voice telling me to do it."
"So did I," Lidda said. "I didn't know what else to do, so it seemed like a good suggestion at the moment."
"And Hennet?" Sonja sounded desperate. "Where is Hennet?"
"Down below." The voice was the same one both Lidda and Regdar had heard before. They jumped, shocked to realize they weren't alone in the dark. Regdar's hand went to the hilt of his sword, but Sonja put her hand over his.
"What are you?" the druid asked. "Can we see you?"
"I have a light heeeere. Don't be afraid. No fire! No fire."
A magical torch set in a knot on the wall flared into light. Lidda, Regdar, and Sonja found themselves staring into the leering, red face of a great horned creature, its mouth wide open revealing dozens of white teeth. For an instant they thought this mouth was doing the talking, but it was an intricate carving set into the slate-gray wall of the chamber. Its long, thin arms ended in jagged claws, and a set of spines ran along its back and onto the tail that encircled the entire room, where a thin, circular stairway snaked up and down the tower.
The creature depicted in the carving was a tarrasque, the most fearsome monster of legend, but another, very real monster was in the room as well. Crouched on the floor was a thin, ethereal being that was only slightly taller than Lidda. It certainly wasn't any halfling. Its skin was the chill blue of a frozen ocean, and two leathery wings were folded behind it. Two tiny horns topped its hairless head. Its nose was large and angled, and saurian ridges traced along its icy limbs.
Lidda was shocked by the demonic appearance of this being. Was it some sort of imp or quasit, she wondered? Sonja knew better. "You're an ice mephit," she said. "Yeess," it answered, giving the vowel a proud trill, "a mephit." And it offered a little bow.
10
"A mephit," said Regdar. "What on earth is a mephit?"
"A creature born of the elemental ice," explained Sonja. "Like an elemental, only more concrete in form." She turned to the little creature. "You're from the Plane of Ice, are you not?"
The mephit nodded. "The othersssss come with your friend." The mephit's wings suddenly unfurled behind its shoulders but never flapped as it levitated a few feet off the ground. It rose to eye level with Sonja and studied her face intently. "Yooou are warm and yet you are cold. You are not like the others."
Sonja didn't appear uncomfortable talking to this bizarre creature hovering inches from her face.
"I am a druid of ice," she told it. "I used to encounter your kind on the Endless Glacier where I grew up."
The mephit cocked its head in unfamiliarity. "Endless… Glacier? I know it not."
"I'm not surprised," Sonja said. "You're no longer on the Plane of Ice."
The creature grumbled to itself. "Thiiiis we know. The great winds blew us through the hole in the planes. We are stuck now. You must help us."
Regdar and Lidda didn't know what to say as they observed this exchange.
"Sonja," Regdar said, eyeing the mephit suspiciously, "are these creatures evil?"
"Neither evil nor good, in my experience," Sonja said, some annoyance apparent in her voice at being asked such a question in the creature's presence. "They did not aid the frost giants, nor my parents. They lived alone in secret and made alliances with no creature." She turned her attention back to the mephit. "Now you want us to help you?"
"Times are strange," the mephit said. It hovered back to the ground and let out a piercing squeal. Somewhere down in the dark, another squeal echoed.
"Your friend is below with the otherrssss," the little creature said. "We must go down." It unfolded a single wing to indicate the stairway leading down. "There all we will explain."
"What do we do, Sonja?" asked Lidda.
"That's easy," said the druid, removing the magical, smokeless, heatless torch from the wall. "We go down."
She took a step or two down then hesitated as she peered into the blackness. Her knees felt suddenly weak, and she almost dropped the torch. Regdar grasped her arm in support, but she shook him off. She knew she needed to be strong and to lead, no matter how unsettled she was in these close quarters.
The others followed Sonja down the stairway, which wound straight down some twenty feet before stopping at an archway. The opening led to a vast, open area beneath the frozen city. Slender pillars supported the ceiling, and massive, circular walls marked the locations of the towers above, like great roots extending into the earth.
"Yondalla above," said Lidda as she looked around the room. "Whoever built this place didn't do anything small, did they?"