Plague of Ice

4

They pitched the tents early. Hennet, wounded by the gnoll priest's spiritual weapon, rested in a tent with Lidda while Sonja worked her spells on Regdar in the other. Sonja needed a certain amount of quiet for her spells to work. They only hoped that their fire wouldn't attract unwanted attention from gnolls or anything else. In their favor was the near-white out condition. Between the haze and blowing snow, visibility was almost gone. It was only Sonja's excellent sense of direction that would keep them on the right path from that point on.

Lidda was cleaning the crusted gnoll blood from Regdar's greatsword when Hennet asked, "How long have you known Regdar?"

"Quite a while," Lidda said, looking up from the sword. "We were both fledgling adventurers when we first met. I was having some problems with the militia in a small town. Regdar and another friend, a priest named Jozan, helped me out. He saved my life, but don't tell him I said so."

"Then you owe Regdar," Hennet suggested. "Do you travel with him out of obligation?"

"Not at all. I travel with him because I like him. Everyone becomes his friend in time. You will too; there's no reason you shouldn't. He's not as immediately likeable these days as he once was. Lately," she confessed, "I've been concerned about him. He's not the same as he was when we first met."

"I've been meaning to ask you something," Hennet said. "An indelicate question, to be sure…"

"Could that be," Lidda responded, "what's with him? Why is he so abrupt? Doesn't he ever say 'please'? Is he always like that?"

"I would have put it more diplomatically," said Hennet, "but yes."

Lidda considered before answering. "He can't be with somebody he loves."

"I know how that feels."

"But you're with the person you love," she said, pointing to Sonja's tent through the snow. Hennet twitched.

"Sonja, yes, but in the past it's happened that…" Hennet trailed off, suddenly unsure of how to finish his sentence. He changed the subject. "Does Regdar always fight so rashly, rushing into danger like that? I'm surprised he's lived this long."

"No," Lidda replied. "That's something new since Naull disappeared. I'm worried about him. Naull's disappearance has had a real effect on him, that's for sure. I guess he feels disconnected from other people, even me. I'm worried this behavior might get really get him hurt."

"You say I'll get to like him in the end?" asked Hennet.

"I guarantee it," said Lidda with a smile.

"Say," said Hennet, "we've discussed the romantic status of the rest of our little party. What about you?"

This surprised Lidda. Her stature often made humans, Regdar included, forget that she was an adult woman. For Hennet to bring it up now touched her greatly.

"Most of the men I meet are just a little too tall for me," she said. "Really, they couldn't even kiss me without making themselves look ridiculous. But if you should happen to know any available men of any race who happen to be under four feet tall…"

Their laughter echoed across the stark white landscape.

Across the camp in the other tent, Regdar awoke from the magically induced sleep Sonja had placed on him. His eyes crept open and beheld the face of an angelic being of light. The wind outside howled threateningly, but Regdar felt safe and sheltered from the storm. Sonja's once-immaculate white robes were splattered with bloodstains, but this did little to diminish the feeling of peace she inspired in Regdar. Her smooth, white features, her smile, open yet mysterious… he was enraptured. Never, not even at their tenderest moment, had he seen Naull the way he was seeing Sonja now-healer, druid, warrior, angel.

"Welcome back, Regdar," she said. "That was some fight."

"Yes, it was," the fighter replied. "Is everyone all right? How's Lidda?"

"Safe. Uninjured. Hennet took a few thumps from the gnoll priest's magical morning star, but he's fine now, too."

Regdar ran his hand over his neck and shoulder. The pain was nearly gone. "My sword?" he asked.

"We have it. You know, Regdar, if you keep fighting like that, you might find yourself beyond all my spells next time."

"They would have killed Lidda," he explained. "She was helpless. I did what needed to be done."

"I know, Regdar, I know, but in the future, please, an ounce of caution." She smiled down at him, and he gave up all resistance.

Her hand was on his chest. Regdar felt close to her indeed.

This was the first time they'd been together away from Hennet. He felt a warm rush of embarrassment. When Jozan healed him all those times, it was a quick, dutiful thing, then it was back to the fray. Now, supine and incapacitated under Sonja's tender care, he felt his cheeks burn red.

Part of him liked it quite a lot.

When Sonja healed his leg at the bridge, Regdar thought that it felt different from ordinary healing, more personal somehow. Now he was sure of it. In a way that was hard to express, he felt Sonja must have put something of herself into him. The closeness of it touched him deeply.

"We should get going," Regdar said, reaching for his armor only to cringe at a lingering pain in his shoulder.

"No you don't," said Sonja, gently pushing him down. "It's getting dark. We're here for the night. The Fell Forest isn't far off, if Hennet reads the maps right. Tomorrow we should reach what I think is the center of this cold zone. There we should find whatever brought on this 'plague of ice,' as the gnoll called it. I like its turn of phrase. It suggests contagion."

Something sank inside Regdar, and he felt a profound insignificance amid the scope of this crisis.

"Sonja, let me ask you something."

"Anything."

"Before we met on Berron Bridge, Lidda asked me about something she called an ice age. Sages say that this whole world was covered in ice in ancient times. She wondered if this was the same thing happening all over again. I didn't think so at the time, but now I'm starting to wonder. I don't know what to think. Is this some sort of replay of the distant past? The beginning of a new ice age?"

"I'm not a sage," Sonja responded, "and I don't know much more about ancient times than you. Maybe the world was covered in ice during some forgotten era. If it was, I promise you, it was a natural phenemon. I do know that nature is a pendulum. Sometimes it swings toward chaos and evil, sometimes toward order and goodness. It could just as easily fluctuate between heat and cold. But what's beyond these tent walls is not natural. It offends nature, and it offends me.

The druid reflected for a few moments before continuing. "Can I share something with you? It's something I haven't shown the others yet. I'm afraid it might unnerve them. I don't want to alarm them with something that I don't entirely understand myself."

Regdar nodded eagerly.

"I discovered this earlier." She reached beneath her robe and pulled out a small, delicate flower, cold violet in color.

"What is it?" asked Regdar.

"Cryotallis. When I was a little girl I called them 'snowblooms' and never picked them. I found it poking its sad head over the layer of snow, just as snowblooms always do."

"What's the problem?" the warrior asked.

"Snowbloom grows where I came from, in the glacial lands of the far north. It does not grow here. It cannot. Furthermore-" she looked at the little blossom-"this flower shows weeks of growth. The cold zone was not at this extentweeks ago. This flower should not be here."

A chill passed between the druid and the fighter. He did not have to ask her the implications of this. He understood them all too well.

Truly, foul magic was at work.