The druid wasn't listening. Her eyes were closed in concentration.
"Sonja!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. Getting no response, he grabbed her ring finger and pulled the magical ring off of it. Sonja looked at him, shocked,
"I think I have it," croaked the halfling with a parched throat. "I think…"
She cawed in triumph, deftly hopping backward as the black door to safety flew open. With lightning speed everyone jumped through it, Regdar sparing barely a moment to kick his super-heated breastplate through the door into the next room.
When they were through, the door rolled back toward the close position. Hennet thrust his short spear through the diminishing opening, leaving the heavy door open a crack when it came to a rest. Exhausted and gasping, everyone sprawled on the floor, breathing deeply of the blessedly cool air. Sonja magically filled their boiled-dry waterskins with cold water, which they sucked down desperately, saving the last to splash on their faces.
In a few minutes, heat from the adjacent room stopped rolling through the open doorway.
"I've heard of going from the frying pan into the fire," Lidda quipped, pulling herself to her feet, "but I've never done it quite like that."
Finally, feeling recovered, they looked around to see where they were. It was another room like the last, a large cube in form, but this one wasn't empty. It was almost completely filled with supplies of all kinds. Everywhere they looked, something glinted or glimmered in the magical torchlight. Suits of golden and silver armor hung on the walls, glowing magical weapons rested atop carved teak and mahogany cabinets, potions were stacked in cabinets, and pedestals supported devices of strange antiquity and unknown power.
Lidda and Hennet broke into a smile and took a few disbelieving steps forward. This was what every adventurer dreamed of discovering beyond every dungeon door: an unmolested treasure room. This was the find of a lifetime-the treasury of an ancient society, long past caring or seeking revenge, and filled to the brim with loot.
Behind them, Regdar slipped the silver dispel ring from his pocket and handed it back to Sonja. The druid took it wordlessly and slid it back onto her finger.
"We're rich," said Lidda with a disbelieving smile.
"Riches aren't what we're here for," Sonja reminded them. "We're here for the Frozen Pendant."
"And we've found it," said Regdar, pointing to a corner of the room. Amid a fallen suit of armor and a spilled pile of smashed potions lay another adventurer, dead, his corpse covered with a light layer of blue ice. Frozen on his face was a look of stark terror. Clutched in his hands was a delicate, gold necklace, and dangling from that was a lump of black ice that shimmered with unholy magic and radiated a coldness they could feel from across the room.
12
For perhaps thirty seconds they stood and stared at the frozen body and the artifact clutched in its dead hands.
"He's a rogue," Lidda pointed out, noting the singed lockpick set at his waist. "He must have picked his way through that room the same as we did."
"The scout always survives the longest," Regdar said, tousling Lidda's hair.
Lidda smiled back at him. "He may have lived the longest, but that still wasn't long enough. Traps got his friends and they got him, too, in the end." The halfling pointed out a small dart protruding from the man's neck. "He must have pulled the Frozen Pendant off that pedestal there," she pointed out an empty one, "and triggered a poison dart trap. So much for him. I wouldn't touch anything in here for the moment. There are almost certainly more traps."
"So the pendant didn't kill him," Hennet noted, wedging the magic torch into a tight space between two crates. "It just iced him over after his death?"
"Apparently," said Lidda. She prodded the corpse with the edge of her short sword. The weapon broke a layer of ice around the dead man's leg. "Sonja, in that story of yours, all the bad things happened after the Sultan touched the item, right?"
"That's how I remember it," Sonja said. "If the story is to be believed then it would seem it is activated by touch."
"So if it's already been activated, the pendant must be safe to touch now," said Hennet, and he reached for it.
"I wouldn't do that," said Sonja, grasping the sorcerer's arm. "I suspect very strongly that when this rogue picked up the pendant, he activated the rift above us. I don't know what would happen if you touched it now."
"Are you certain anything will happen?" Regdar asked. "The mephits seemed to think it would be safe enough for us to handle it."
"The mephits lied," she stated. "They said that Glaze activated the Ilskynarawin. That clearly didn't happen."
"Dragons aren't known for their lockpicking skills," said Lidda. "Either our dead rogue and his companions led Glaze through, or-"
"Or Glaze was never down here," said Regdar. "Look around you. Does it look like a dragon was in here? Glaze would have torn everything to pieces."
"But why the deception?" asked Hennet. "You're our expert on mephits, Sonja-why did they lie to us?"
"Easy," replied the druid. "They want the Frozen Pendant. I think they can pass back through the rift anytime they choose to do so. They aren't trapped here at all, they've just decided to stay in the hope of finding some way to recover this device. If we handle it and inadvertently make the rift larger, that won't bother them at all. They don't plan to stay here, anyway. Once they have the pendant, they'll disappear back through the rift to the Plane of Ice and leave us behind with our problems. That's how I see it.
"And," she added, "I don't appreciate being used this way."
"I think I understand," said Regdar. "They want the Frozen Pendant. They can't come down here themselves because it's too warm and also because they could never get through all the traps and locked doors. Now that we've cleared the way for them…"
"Have we cleared the way?" asked Hennet. "Aren't the locks still intact? That door closed on us all by itself, and so did this one." He pointed to his short spear, still keeping the door open a crack.
"The doors probably lock themselves," Lidda agreed. "It's a magical thing. I've seen it in mages' dungeons before. But who knows how long that takes to work. As it is, the doors, or rather the door, may still be more sensitive to being opened by force."
"I tried to force the far door," said Regdar. "It didn't work."
"But you were forcing it from the inside," Lidda reminded him, "and it opened into the room. It may be easier to force from the other side."
"So what do we do?" asked Hennet, growing increasingly frustrated. "Those little winged bastards lied to us, tricked us into doing their dirty work for them, and we're still thinking of making the delivery for them. I should have killed more than just three of them."
"Hennet," said Sonja, "we don't know what their intentions are. Maybe-"
"Maybe they want to turn our world into an outpost for this Plane of Ice. Sure, they didn't open the rift, but I bet you anything they shed no tears over it. They probably want this amulet to widen the rift, to let more of their friends through. And I'm damned if I'll deliver it to them on a platter!"
"What do you recommend instead?" Regdar demanded of the sorcerer.
"I recommend we take the artifact, we figure out how to use it, and we seal that rift ourselves." Hennet leaned over the corpse, grasped the golden necklace, and pulled it back, shattering the ice lining the man's body. A few fingers snapped as Hennet wrenched the artifact from the dead fist. Sonja muttered a half-hearted protest, but it was no good. Hennet moved toward the light and closely inspected the hunk of black ice that was the Ilskynarawin. To stop its swinging, he cupped it in his hand.
The ice shone brighter for just a moment before erupting with a brilliant flash of light. When this faded away, the piece of ice was the same, every contour identical, but for the color-it was transformed into a brilliant white. Hennet looked on it in awe. He dropped the cold lump of ice from his palm, leaving the necklace dangling around his fingers.