The demon guards unpacked a tent made of stitched snow, and stretched it over great long icicles that made fine poles. Icy crawled in, beckoning Flach to follow. She brought out an ice lamp whose central crystal radiated cold blue light, just enough to illuminate the interior.
“There be not enough snow for two beds,” she said, brushing the snow into a central pile. “Thou willst have to share with me.”
“I can make a small spell to make mine own—“ he started.
“Nay, that were pointless,” she said, removing her coat. “Thy spell will stop thy heat from melting the snow.”
“Aye, but—“
“And I like thy company,” she continued, pulling off her fine sweater. “I like not sleeping alone, anyway.”
“But—“
“Get thy clothes off,” she said, stepping out of her layered ice skirt. “Dost want to soil clean snow?”
“But I need my clothes to keep warm!”
“Nay, thy spell protects thee,” she said, removing her scant undergarments and hanging them neatly on an ice hook. Her body was now innocent of apparel, and resembled a glass and alabaster statue animated by the Brown Adept as a lovely golem.
“But a man be supposed not to sleep beside a woman not o’ his family,” he protested.
“But thou dost be no man, but a child. Thinkst thou my memory be so brief?”
“E’en so, it be not right to be naked together.”
“So? Were that the way it be with thine o’er self in Proton-frame?”
She had him as handily outflanked as she had on the card game. Nakedness was the norm in the other frame. Of course Nepe was used to it, but he couldn’t turn the body over to her, because she lacked the magic to confine its heat.
Defeated, he undressed. He was tired, and did need the sleep, and the snow did look very soft and fluffy. Though he was clothed with illusion, his apparel seemed to fit the larger body as well as it fitted him, and when he doffed it his apparent body was as naked as his real one, in a more manly manner.
Icy lay on the bed. “Didst say thou was with a Pack?” she inquired.
“Aye. They were kind to me.”
“Then thou hadst a Promised bitch?”
“Aye. When we come of age, we will mate, and go our ways.”
Icy spread her legs. They were as marvelously rounded and symmetrical as her upper features. “Methinks I will show thee how to do it, so thou dost know, when.”
I knew it! Nepe thought. I saw it coming!
How do I get out o’ if? he thought desperately.
Why bother? It’s good information. I’m learning things from her like mad!
Fat lot o’ help thou dost be! he retorted. Aloud, to Icy, he said: “I thank thee for thy consideration, but methinks I had better sleep.”
“Dost remember our card games?” she inquired, stretching her nicely proportioned arms languorously.
“Aye. But—“ Then he caught her drift. “Consequences!”
“Bright lad! Thou dost owe me a mountain o’ them! Come, Flach, I will hurt thee not. I want only to play with thee.”
“But why? I be o’ no interest to thee!”
“Because,” she said seriously, “an I practice with thee, and find what works, mayhap I can surmount my curse and nab a good match of my own kind.”
“Tell me thy curse, and mayhap I can make a spell to abate it,” he offered hopefully.
“Come to my arms, and I will tell thee, though I owe thee not.”
Flach got down on the bed beside her. She turned over, caught his shoulder and rolled him into her. She was amazingly pleasant to He against. His spell served as a barrier against heat leakage, so that neither could hurt the other, but it allowed all other aspects of touch to register. It enabled him to catch a tactile glimpse of what grown folk found in each other, physically.
“Four times have suitors come my father deemed worthy,” she said. She took a breath, and her softness pressed caressingly against him. “Each were eager to be close to me. But each were stricken at the moment he sought to do with me as I would do with thee. Two died, one went lunatic, and one be yet in coma. Now the suitors be nay so eager, and I fear the onset o’ being an old demoness. It be the curse, that strikes down any who would love me.”
“I checked thee for malign influence when I met thee,” Flach said, trying to focus on his words instead of on her breathing. “That be no distrust o’ thee, but ‘cause my mission be dire, and I fear bad magic ‘gainst me. There be no curse on thee I can fathom, Icy.”
“Kind of thee to say so, Adept,” she said. “But then what struck those suitors?”
“Mayhap I can fathom that. I should be proof ‘gainst it, ‘cause o’ my magic, youth, and not being thy kind.” He hoped; that sounded like a dreadful curse, and the qualities he had named were barely protecting him from her wiles. If the curse turned out to be stronger than her blessings, even his magic might not be enough, since he did not want to make a big splash. “Exactly how did it happen?”
