“In time?” I asked blankly. “Snowflake is lost forever! We can not brace snow demons, even if they have not yet eaten her.” I felt the hot tears burning mine eyes. “Yet if there is a chance—“
“A white foal they will save—for a while.” He mounted and led the way along the slope.
We made our way deeper into the snowy region, and the breath plumed out from the nostrils of our steeds, but still I was not cold. Then the blue stallion halted, sniffing the snow, and pawed the slope. I knew we were near the lair of the demons, and I shivered with fear, not with cold. Al-most, I preferred to let the foal go—but then I thought of the demons devouring her shivering flesh, and horror restored my faint courage.
A snow demon appeared on a ledge above us. “Whooo?” it demanded, with sound like winter cutting past a frozen crag.
The blue lad did not answer in speech. He stood upon the back of his stallion and spread his arms, as if to say “Here am I!” I was both impressed and concerned. It was clever of him to keep his balance like that, but he could so readily fall and hurt himself. Though he acted as if the demon should recognize him and be awed, in fact it was a foolish posturing. An ogre or a giant might awe a demon; the lad was pitiful in his insignificance.
To my astonishment, the demon drew back as if confronted by a giant. “Whiiiy?” it demanded. The lad pointed to the Hinny, then moved his hands together to indicate small size. He had come for the foal. The demon scratched its icicle-haired head in seeming confusion: no foal here! The blue lad then did something strange indeed. He brought out a large harmonica—I had not known he carried such an instrument—and brought it to his mouth. He played one note—and the demon reacted as if struck. Sleet fell from it like droplets of perspiration, and it pointed down the slope. I looked—and there, in a patch of green in a narrow valley, stood my beloved Snow-flake. The poor little filly was huddled and shivering, for nowhere in the White Mountains is it warm. The demon faded back into its crevice, and we made our way down the steep slope to the valley.
The way was tortuous, but the blue stallion picked out footholds where I thought none existed, and slowly we descended. It was like being lowered into a tremendous bowl, whose sides were so steep our every motion threatened to start a snowslide that could bury the foal. Oh, yes, we moved cautiously!
At last we reached the patch of green. I dismounted and ran to Snowflake, and she recognized me with a whinny. The warmth that encompassed me seemed to enclose her too, and she became stronger. “Oh,” I cried, hugging her. “I’m so glad thou art safel I feared—“ But my prior worries were of no account now. The blue lad had enabled me to rescue Snowflake, even as he had promised. Then I heard a rumble. Alarmed, I looked up—and saw the snow demons on high, pushing great balls of snow off ledges. They were starting an avalanche—and we were at the base of it! It was a trap, and no way could we escape.
For the first time I saw the blue lad angry. Yet he neither swore nor cowered. Instead he brought out his harmonica again and played a few bars of music. It was a rough, aggressive melody—but what good it could do in the face of the onrushing doom I knew not. Soon the sound was drowned out by the converging avalanche. The snows came down on us like the lashing of a waterfall. I screamed and hugged Snowflake, knowing our end had come. But as I braced myself for the inevitable, something strange happened.
There was a blinding flash of light and wash of heat, like as an explosion. Then warm water swirled around my feet. Warm water? I forced open mine eyes and looked, unbelieving. The snows had vanished. All the valley, high to the tallest surrounding peaks, was bare of snow, with only water coursing down, and steam rising in places. We had been saved by some massive invasion of spring thaw.
“It must be magic!” I cried, bewildered. “Unless this is a volcanic region. But what a coincidence!” The lad only nodded. Still I recognized not his power! We walked up the slope, escaping the valley and the deepening lake that was forming at its nadir. I rode the Hinny, and Snowflake walked beside. It was a long climb, but a happy one.
At the high pass leading to the outside the cold intensified. From out of a crevice a snow demon came. “Yyoooo!” it cried windily, and with a violent gesture hurled a spell like a jag of ice at the blue lad.
But the Hinny leaped forward, intercepting that scintillating bolt with her own body. It coalesced about her front legs, and ice formed on her knees, and she stumbled, wheezing in pain. I leaped off, alarmed. The blue lad cried out in a singsong voice, and the foul demon puffed into vapor and floated away. Then the boy came to minister to the Hinny, who was on the ground, her knees frozen.
