Plague of Ice

8

The farther they traveled toward the core, the colder it became. They weren't there yet, but Hennet could not imagine anything being much colder than he was. Pelor's sun barely shone in the sky through the impenetrable clouds. The snow was up to his knees. He wrapped a fur around his face and looked out from behind it only to keep himself from walking into one of the stumps and falling face down in the snow. Sonja knew several spells that could increase their resistance to the elements, but the magic's duration was short.

Walking indefatigably into the wind, her white face bared to the onrushing cold, blonde hair whipping round her head, Sonja didn't look like any human being so much as a snow sprite or some other, otherworldly creature born of ice.

Soon they discovered a cave at the base of a cliff which was reasonably sheltered from the weather, and they decided to rest there a while. In this place they discovered a used torch that seemed fairly new, it left a black line of charcoal when Lidda ran it against the cave wall. It must have been left by the other party of humans who crossed through this area slightly before the plague of ice began and whom Savanak had mentioned, they decided. Was that group responsible for all this? The cave itself seemed too perfect to be a natural formation. The walls were smooth and rounded, suggesting a magical origin.

They couldn't stay long in this shelter. Sonja wanted to reach the "towers of ice" before dark, so after healing wounds and recovering spells, they set out into the snow again.

Regdar carried Lidda on his broad shoulders. Hennet considered offering to do this himself but realized that his slender shoulders were far less appropriate for Lidda than Regdar's. The snow on the ground was too deep to be traversed by her short legs. Regdar matched Sonja's pace, and Lidda leaned over to ask her something.

"Sonja, do you get cold?"

"I'm cold right now," she explained. "I'm not immune to low temperature, but I generally don't mind the cold. Take me to some tropical beach and the story might be entirely different."

"So being an ice druid…"

Sonja finished Lidda's sentence."… grants me considerable resistance to the cold, yes, but not immunity. When I was growing up, cold was neither bad nor good, it was just how things were. Cold is not uncomfortable for me, at least not generally."

"So you've never really felt cold?" asked the halfling.

"Once," said Sonja.

"When was that?" asked Lidda.

She was interrupted as the druid started suddenly, surprised by something overhead. All eyes turned to the sky where, barely visible amid a torrent of snow, a thin, white form was passing almost directly over them, just at the limit of their vision. Its color was more like enamel than snow and glistened in the light. Its wings were streaked with light veins of blue and purple. Their span somewhat greater than its length, which was scarcely the height of a human, and they were flapping furiously in the heavy crosswind. The sound of that flapping was the thing Sonja noticed. If the dragon was aware of the party, it showed no signs.

The druid whirled to face Hennet in time to see him launch a magic missile directly at the dragon. The bolt zipped to its target and blew a small hole in one leathery wing. The beast let out a high-pitched, reptilian squeal and turned to face its attackers. It spotted the party instantly then pointed its nose down and launched a sharp dive directly for them.

Sonja, Lidda, and Regdar fumbled for their weapons as Hennet readied another spell. For a moment he contemplated using the wand of fire, but Sonja had cautioned him to preserve that if at all possible. A white mass of sticky fibers flew from his hands toward the dragon. This spell was usually used at close quarters to entrap and incapacitate, but Hennet was trying a new application for it. The web exploded in front of the dragon to trail fibrous strands across its face and body. Suddenly unable to flap its wings or even see, the beast plunged downward. At the last moment it tore through webs and spread its wings, pulling out of its dive just feet above the ground. As it whistled past Hennet and the others, the speed of its passage kicked up a thick cloud of swirling snow.

They stared into the wall of snow, ready for the dragon to burst out and launch its icy breath against the party. A shriek sounded from the cloud, but no dragon appeared, only the end of its tail which for a moment snaked free of the wall before pulling back. For a full minute they waited, watching the cloud of snow filter out.

Hennet stared at the empty field ahead of them, puzzled. "I scared off a dragon?" he asked in disbelief. "I scared off a dragon with a web spell?"

"You shouldn't have attacked it at all," growled Regdar. "Remember what Sonja said before? On the wing, it could have killed us with ease."

"Hey," shot back Hennet, "I saw a monster, and I reacted. Let's not forget that I was the only one who thought quickly enough to save us back there."

"You wouldn't have needed to if you hadn't put our lives in danger to begin with," protested Regdar.

"I think we're missing the larger issue here," said Lidda, still perched on Regdar's shoulders, which were now heaving with anger. "Why didn't the dragon attack us? It looked pretty angry to me."

"Perhaps it saw a family resemblance," Regdar muttered.

Lidda ignored him. "Something made it retreat, and we should figure out what. Sonja?"

The druid's brow furrowed. "It may have been acting on orders."

"Orders not to kill us?" asked Hennet.

"Maybe just orders not to let itself get distracted," Sonja explained. "The most important question would be, who's giving the orders?"

"Frost giants?" asked Regdar. "Are we talking about frost giants?"

"By all the gods, I pray not," said Sonja. "My parents very rarely fought frost giants directly. They're fifteen feet tall and have legs like tree trunks. With the combined powers of us four, we might be able to defeat one of them. But," she added, "they very rarely travel alone."

Sonja's words left the party demoralized. Hennet took it on himself to put things right. "Remember why we became adventurers and not merchants or tanners or cobblers. We all had a choice. Let's remember why we chose this."

Lidda smiled slightly, and even Regdar was inexplicably cheered by Hennet's insight.

"So let's get moving," the sorcerer said. "These towers of ice can't be very far now. The gods know it cannot get much colder than this."

Lidda rested on Regdar's shoulders as they plunged through the snow, covering her eyes to protect them from a barrage of hard snowflakes. She considered this undignified, the kind of thing humans did with toddlers, but it was necessary for the moment. She recalled an old fable that her grandmother once told her. It concerned a young halfling named Burrowling. Burrowling feared the cold more than anything in the world. When winter rolled around, he'd lock himself in his room and refuse to come out until the spring thaw. He barricaded himself in with supplies enough to last the season and never even poked out his head to see what was going on. He was utterly convinced that the cold would be his death. Burrowling missed out on playing with his friends, going to school, learning his trade. In the summer he was a friend to everyone, but in the winter he never set foot outside of his home.

One year, Burrowling met a beautiful female halfling named Endra, whose skin was white as snow. They fell in love. But as he felt the days growing shorter and the wind growing colder, Burrowling realized he didn't want to spend another winter locked in his room, so far away from her. Knowing that Endra would never agree to spend the winter in his room, he suggested they leave the village and go south to a place where it was never winter. Endra agreed, and they set off.

Burrowling gave up everything he ever knew when the two of them went south together. They walked through human and dwarf lands where halflings were regarded with amusement or slim tolerance, and they continued on. Ultimately they came to a sunny land called Calandra where the locals swore that winter never came. There they settled down. Burrowling built a house for Endra and hoped they would be happy for all time.

When the first day of winter came, it was as balmy and warm and sunny a day as Burrowling ever knew. Endra asked him for the first time why he was so scared of the cold. Burrowling admitted that he didn't know, which made Endra weep.

"Why are you crying, Endra?" asked Burrowling. "Is it because you are so far away from your home and your family?"

"No," Endra said. She put her hand against Burrowling's cheek. It was cold as ice.

"I am the cold," Endra explained. "I took halfling form to wander the world, and I fell in love with you, the halfling who fears me more than all things. Why? Why do you fear me so much?"

Burrowling cried, and his tears froze. He clutched Endra's cold form in an embrace, and together the two of them transformed into solid ice. Their house changed into ice, and the ice spread over all the land. No longer the hottest of lands, Calandra felt its first winter, and its cold lingered ever since. The frozen forms of Burrowling and Endra, fused together for all time, stand there still.

As a child, Lidda had been greatly puzzled by the story of Burrowling and Endra. Perhaps its meaning was that people shouldn't be afraid of the cold, but the image of Burrowling and Endra transformed into ice made Lidda fear the cold more. Many years had passed since she'd thought about it, but now it came back to her. Probably it meant nothing and was only a tale to entertain listeners. She wondered if she should share it with the others.

They heard a heavy, stomping noise in the distance. It was a series of hard clomps, one after another, emerging loudly from the snowy gloom. The haze was so thick they could hardly see in front of them, and the reverberations caused the snow to tremble all round them.

"Our dragon?" asked Hennet, "back for more?"

"No," said Sonja. "It's something on the ground. It sounds a little like a mammoth, but something that large couldn't pass easily through these stumps."

"So what could it be?" asked Lidda.

"Shh…" said Sonja. "It's coming closer. Get ready."

Regdar swiftly strung his longbow and readied an arrow. On his shoulders, Lidda did the same with her crossbow, while Hennet prepared to launch an arsenal of magic at whatever might appear from the white veil in front of them.

When it did arrive, the image was so nightmarish and unexpected that all of them hesitated. Even Sonja stared openmouthed at this new threat. A great scorpion was approaching them from the snowy gloom.

Lidda was the first to react as the monster scuttled forward. She fired her quarrel. It struck the frost-encrusted scorpion on one of its pincers but bounced off harmlessly, barely having made a mark. Regdar's arrow struck harder and embedded itself in one of the creature's legs but didn't slow it at all. Hennet launched a spread of magic missiles, but these, too, had no apparent effect on the advancing monstrosity.

As it drew closer, they could see that this was not a giant scorpion coated in frost. Rather it was actually composed of solid ice.

"What do we do?" Hennet asked Sonja. She shook her head.

"I have a suggestion," said the sorcerer. He pulled the wand from Atupal off his back. "Fire should do the trick."

"Everyone get back!" the druid shouted.

They needed no more urging to speed away from the giant ice monster. Regdar clutched Lidda's ankles with one hand, pinning them around his neck to keep her from being jounced off his shoulders. Looking back over her shoulder, Lidda saw that their foe nearly matched their pace. Its eight legs carried it above the tangled stumps at surprising speed.

Hennet also risked a look back. "Shall I do it now, or are we too close?"

Sonja shook her head. "We need more distance."

But they didn't seem to be increasing the distance. The scorpion showed no evidence of falling behind, and in fact it seemed to be gaining on them.

Looking back at this image of frozen fear, Lidda observed that it didn't walk like a normal scorpion, small or large. The scorpions she'd seen generally kept their bodies close to the ground with their legs arched above. The stumps that littered the ground made that impossible here. Instead, this beast raised itself on its spindly legs to lift above the obstructions. She could see its belly, and that made her think… even a creature made of solid ice probably was more vulnerable on its underbelly than anywhere else.

"You want it slowed down?" Lidda asked. "Watch this."

Swiftly she stood on Regdar's shoulders and sprang backward to land feet-first. The snow reached up almost to her neck, but she used this to her advantage. She dropped to her knees and burrowed below the surface of the snow to conceal her exact location from the icy behemoth. She felt the cold intensify as the monster approached. When one of its legs speared through the snow beside her, she sprang forward and plunged headfirst under the icy body.

For all its terror, the scorpion was a thing of beauty when seen up close, like an intricate, gorgeous ice sculpture come to life. Every leg, tail section, and pincer looked as if it were carved from a single block of impossibly pure ice. Lidda could see right through the thing. The sight was distorted but unobstructed by any visible organs that might be vulnerable to attack.

She drew her sword and thrust upward with all the force she could manage. The blade penetrated the ice with a shower of chips, and Lidda pushed it in hilt-deep. No blood flowed, and the scorpion never made a sound, but it reacted in obvious pain, shuffling backward and trying to dislodge Lidda and the sword. The halfling held onto her weapon with all her might. She heard the clack of Regdar's arrows striking the scorpion. She watched Hennet's magic missiles strike the scorpion's midsection. The ice refracted the image so that it looked to Lidda like a kaleidoscopic comet exploding into a carnival of light above her.

The scorpion tried to smash its body downward to crush Lidda, but the stumps beneath it prevented its weight from falling on her. Frustrated, it chased after the others but paused to lunge downward again any time it entered an area with fewer stumps. Lidda knew that it was only a matter of time before it found an area sufficiently bare to flatten itself, and her, against the frozen ground. She yanked on the sword but couldn't free it, so she let go and slipped into the snow. Moments later, the creature maneuvered over a clear spot and flopped down, but all it succeeded in doing was driving Lidda's sword even farther into its insides.

Lidda raced through the snow, plowing through drifts almost as tall as herself. She climbed atop one of the broken trees and leaped from stump to stump while waving furiously to the others. In its preoccupation with her, the scorpion had fallen behind the others, giving Hennet the room he needed to launch his fireball, if Lidda could get clear. Her short legs were no match for the nimble ice monster's, though. Even with her sword driven into it, the scorpion was able to keep up with her. Part of her wished Hennet would just broil the damned thing and let her take her chances.

Regdar's arrows and Hennet's spells did little to deter the monster's relentless pursuit.

"We have to stop it!" shouted Sonja. "It will catch Lidda and kill her!"

The druid looked at Hennet, standing at the ready with his wand of fire, wordlessly asking her for permission. She shook her head-there was too much risk of Lidda being caught in the blast. Sonja considered trying to draw a lightning bolt down from the storm, but she rejected the idea for the same reason. Her control over the spell was too coarse. She would only put them all at greater risk.

A cold smile crossed her face briefly. "Save that fireball," she called to Hennet before sprinting away from the others and toward the unearthly monster.

"What's she doing?" asked Regdar.

Hennet shrugged. He had long since stopped asking that question. He was just happy that she seemed to have some plan.

As Sonja ran, she extended her hands in preparation for a spell. When she thrust them forward, the scorpion burst into blue fire. The brilliant, azure flames shimmered across its icy back.

"What?" Regdar stammered. "How can ice burn?"

Hennet laughed, understanding instantly what Sonja had done. "She's clever! It's not real fire but faerie fire. No heat, no smoke, just light. Pray that the monster doesn't know the difference."

The giant scorpion had never seen fire before, let alone been engulfed by it. As a creature of ice, however, its fear was instinctive. Too wide and bulky to roll over, it spun instead, desperate for some way to tip itself onto its back. Lidda was forgotten. Sonja rushed back to join the others, and Hennet lifted the wand, readying it to launch the fireball.

Lidda tried not to look back to see what Sonja had done, but when she heard the sound, something between a camp-fire crackling and a lion's roar, her curiosity won over. She spun on the top of a stump just long enough to see a blood-red sphere of flame rocket across the field from Hennet's wand. It struck the ice scorpion with thunderous force. The explosion sent a wave of flame roaring out in all direction, incinerating stumps, evaporating snow, and scorching the frozen ground. She felt a blast of heat against her face. The warmth was jarring. When the flames flickered out, the scorpion was reduced to a puddle of hissing slush.

Relieved, Lidda waded back to the others, avoiding the scorched area. She could hear Hennet's exclamations of glee long before she reached the sorceror.

"That was beautiful," he shouted. "It worked perfectly!" His arms were wrapped around Sonja. "That thing didn't know what hit it!"

"What was it?" asked Regdar. "That's what I'd like to know."

Lidda congratulated Hennet with a sincere "Well done."

"Many thanks." He bent down and clutched the halfling by the waist before lifting her up to his eye level. "What about you?" he gushed. "Diving under a giant scorpion with nothing but a short sword? If that's not heroism, I don't know what is." He kissed her on both cheeks before plunking her back onto the ground.

"Unfortunately," continued Hennet, "that's it for the wand of fireballs. When they gave it to me in Atupal, they told me it had only one more blast in it. I hoped they might be wrong, but they weren't. That's it for the big fireworks." He tossed the spent wand aside.

"My sword!" Lidda said, looking back at the scorpion's molten corpse. "Do you think it survived?"

"Maybe," said Hennet. "We should look for it before that melted mess can freeze solid again."

Hennet and Lidda's jubilation faded when they saw the concerned expression on Sonja's face. Regdar stepped up next to her, looking every bit as stern. "We can celebrate later, you two," he said. "We need to know what that was, and we need to know if there are any more. Sonja?"

"Whether there are any more I can't say," the druid said. "Nor am I entirely sure what it was. I've certainly never seen anything like that on the Endless Glacier. But I've heard stories…"

"What kind of stories?" asked Lidda. She wondered if there might be some connection to Burrowling and Endra.

"I've heard that many creatures native to this plane have equivalents, like them in most ways but wrought of solid ice, living elsewhere."

" 'Elsewhere'?" Hennet asked. "You mean, as in other planes?"

"Cosmology is not my specialty," Sonja said. "Like all of you, I'm sure, I've heard of the elemental planes. There are planes of fire, water, air, and earth, each of them populated by elementals and other creatures of those elements. On the borders of those planes are other, smaller, and less-known regions where the elements mix. Perched between the planes of water and air is the quasi-elemental Plane of Ice."

Regdar looked both perplexed and disturbed by Sonja's conjecture. "You think that creature was native to the Plane of Ice?"

She shrugged. "I can't be sure, but that would be my guess. If someone or something opened a portal to the Plane of Ice, that could he the source of the scorpion, the winter wolf, and all this ice and snow. That doesn't explain everything. It doesn't explain how a fully grown snowbloom turned up in an area that wasn't even cold a few days ago, but at least it's a theory, which is more than we've had so far."

"Sonja," said Hennet, "aren't you jumping to conclusions? Maybe that ice scorpion was created in some evil mage or priest's laboratory. Isn't that possible? We don't even know for sure that this Plane of Ice exists."

"I know," said Sonja. "It exists. I've been there."

Stunned silence fell over the others. "When? How?" asked Lidda.

"All of those wishing to be druids must pass through some sort of extreme test of endurance. Many initiates die, and the ritual is seldom spoken of. My test was to spend time on the Plane of Ice. My parents opened the portal for me."

Sonja looked at Lidda. "You asked me before if I was ever cold, and I said I was once. This was the time." She closed her eyes as if trying to block out an unpleasant vision. "I don't know if I can describe it to you. There's no sun, no moon or stars. There's no natural heat from any source. Fires won't burn. The wind never ceases howling. Blizzards last years, icebergs are the size of continents. The cold there is simply unimaginable.

"I was there for only a day. When my parents retrieved me I was frozen nearly to death. I have seen the Plane of Ice, my friends, and I have no desire to see it again."

Hennet's exhilaration over defeating the ice scorpion was soundly demolished. "What happens if we don't seal the portal?" he asked.

Sonja answered, "Our plane eventually becomes like the Plane of Ice."

"Then we must not fail," Regdar said with utter conviction. He lifted Lidda onto his shoulders. "C'mon, Lidda. Let's go find your sword." They left Sonja and Hennet alone.

"Don't be so crestfallen, Hennet," Sonja said. "Remember why you became an adventurer."

"I always try to," replied the sorcerer. "Still, at moments like this, I wish some other adventurer were doing this instead of me."

"Hennet," she asked, "do you love me?"

Hennet was taken aback at the question. Instead of answering, he simply stared.

"It doesn't matter," said Sonja. "It doesn't matter if you love me or if you don't or if you're envious of Regdar or he's envious of you. It doesn't even matter if I love nature and despise civilization. In the face of this, none of our concerns matter. The worst things we dared to dream are all true, and it's up to us to set it right."

"That's very humbling, Sonja," said Hennet.

"Is it?" she said softly. "I think rather the opposite is true. The heroes on whose stories you were weaned had no personalities, no personal concerns. They were not people, and neither must we be. If you want to be a hero of legend, the hero who saves not just the girl, but also the world, this is your chance. But if you become a legend, you'll no longer be Hennet."