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."

Martine's boot lashed out, but it was a little too stiff and slow to catch the agile creature, which scooted aside. "See, Vreesar, it fears me already," it chuckled gleefully. It skipped back close, watching Martine carefully. "It knows I will make it talk."

"Then do so, pest I hunt!"

With a sinuous leap, the elemental departed into the night as suddenly as it had arrived. The clatter of loosened ice tumbling from upslope echoed its retreat.

Martine tensed as she waited for the last sounds to fade away. The howling wind and distant rumbles from the rift quickly separated them from the world. Human and mephit faced each other at the bottom of the snowy world.

"How will I begin?" the thing across from her chortled, almost forgetful of her presence. "A finger? A nose? A cut here… or there?" With each question, it mapped out its intentions in the snow.

Preparing to spring, Martine drew in a great breath, a breath the mephit mistook for fear. It was time to strike, she knew. Her fingers dug into the snow until they squeezed tightly on her sword hilt once more.

"How-"

The question was cut clean by Martine's charging scream, bellowed out as if to waken her rigid muscles. Snow burst outward as she jerked the sword free in a wild, slashing arc. Her legs were too stiff, her arms too weak as she lurched to her feet and lunged wildly toward the mephit.

If only she'd been faster, unfrozen and unspent, the ranger knew she could have caught the creature in that transitory moment when it froze in surprise. But her legs sagged under the need to move, her arm pulled the arc of the sword just a little too slow. With the blade still in midswing, the mephit lashed out a clawed hand. Martine heard the tear of leather and skin as the talons swept across the shoulder of her sword arm. Fire and ice mingled as blood rushed from the gashes and over her exposed skin. Pain charged her cries now.

The mephit didn't wait for the sword to complete its crippled arc but lunged forward to meet her charge. Its barbed arms sliced viciously at her legs and left her

sprawled in the snow. Springing onto her back, the imp wrapped its hard arms around her like a wrestler. With one arm, it wrenched her bleeding shoulder, triggering fits of pain, while the other wrapped around her neck and pulled at her hood to expose the soft flesh. She could feel its bitter breath, hear its teeth snap as it struggled to tear her throat

Martine writhed and thrashed, desperately trying to reach the sword that had skittered once more beyond reach. like a wild mare, she bucked and rolled, slamming the little imp on her back against the jagged ice.

"Let go, damn it!" she raged, but the imp clung with stubborn determination. Each rolling smash brought the Harper more numbing pain, at best preventing the little monster from biting home. But it seemed each lunge brought her sword no closer.