"I know that Cray Ormoru believes that."

"Perhaps when you have come to know a few of us, you will feel the same."

"I know a demon already." She cast a sidelong glance at the icicle floating by her shoulder.

"You command a demon," said Cray. "I think there is a difference."

"Regneniel," she said to the icicle. "Do you con-sider yourself a person?"

"Of course, my lady."

"Regneniel," said Cray, "do you wish to be free?"

"What demon does not?" it replied.

"And what would you do if I set you free?" Aliza demanded. "What mischief would you do me?"

The Ice demon did not answer at once, as if it were weighing various rejoinders, selecting among them for the best. "If you set me free," it said finally, "I would continue to serve you, my lady. I would come when you called and do you no mischief. I would still be your slave."

"You would?"

"Yes."

"But why?"

"You are my lady. I am ... attached to you."

"Can this be true?" said Cray. "An Ice demon that cares about a mortal?"

"I do not understand what you mean when you speak of caring, but I know that I would stay with the lady Aliza."

"What a marvel," murmured Gildrum. "I would never have thought a demon of Ice capable of feeling."

"The worlds are full of marvels," said Elrelet. "There are some individuals who would never have thought a demon of Fire capable of loving a mortal woman."

Gildrum laughed softly. "True enough, my old friend. We should not hold fast to our assumptions whenconfronted with evidence to the contrary. Very well, I will believe that Regneniel cares enough for the lady Aliza to continue to serve her after being freed. Therefore, she might as well free it this moment."

"Regneniel may say anything now," said Aliza, "and because it cannot lie to its master, I am sure it believes what it says. But such belief would not keep it from changing its mind sometime in the future."

"No," said Cray. "You are quite right about that."

"Therefore, rather than setting it free now, as your Gildrum suggests, I think I will keep it slave for a while longer. You may trust your freed demons com-pletely, Cray Ormoru, but I am not so sure that I could."

"As long as you feel that you require a demon slave ... "

"I do. I have only the one, after all, and no knowl-edge of how to conjure more. I'm sure my grandfather would be willing to teach me the art, but that would interfere with my true studies. Far more than this brief journey, certainly, as you must know."

Cray nodded. "It is not an art acquired overnight, to be sure. I had felt sorry for Regneniel, I must tell you that, as I feel sorry for all enslaved creatures. But now that it has confessed such an affection for you, I find that my pity may be misplaced. I have never known a demon before that would serve its master without compulsion."

"But here are four of them all around us," said Aliza.

Cray sighed. "Don't you understand yet, my lady? My relationship to them is not as master, or even former master. They are my companions, and they've come on this journey of their own free will, for a bit of diversion and to help a friend. I would not call that service, any more than my visit to you could be called so. Must these demons all have human forms for you to see them as equal to yourself or me?"

"I feel equal to you," said Elrelet. "And from what I've heard, I'm a better cook than you are."

Aliza frowned. "I don't cook."

"Just so," the Air demon replied. "I can fry an egg when Cray's mother lets me near the pans, and I can even spit a fowl for roasting and turn the spit so it doesn't burn."

"Elrelet is quite fond of food," Cray explained "and lately my mother has been teaching it to cook for itself rather than always badger her into doing so. The last fowl came out fairly well, but I usually find Elrelet's fried eggs a bit overdone."

"I like them that way," said the Air demon.

"A demon that eats food," murmured Aliza.

"An acquired taste," said Elrelet, and chuckled softly at its own joke.

"We enjoy many things that mortals enjoy," said Gildrum.

"Yes,you certainly do," said Elrelet, and it laughed again. "Gildrum is practically a mortal these days. He hardly ever wears a demon form anymore. Unless the lady Delivev's candles happen to be blown out bya strong wind."

"I wear it a little more often than that," said Gildrum, "but Elrelet is correct in essence. My old master Rezhyk made me a human form that my beloved finds pleas-ing. Why should I wear any other unless it is of some use? As now, for instance. My human form would not light our way one jot."

"I could light our way," said Aliza, "at least within Ice. Look." She waved a hand, and all about them the walls of the fracture began to glow with the pale bluish radiance of her palace.

"I prefer Gildrum's light," said Elrelet. "It is more pleasant."

"You are an impudent creature!" exclaimed Aliza.

Elrelet laughed a deep, resonant laugh like distant thunder. "Impudence is a mark of freedom, my lady.

No slave can afford it."

"I have to say that I don't much like it in ... a traveling companion."

"Elrelet means you no insult, my lady," said Gildrum. "That is just its sort of humor. Air demons tend to be a rough and rowdy lot. Elrelet is one of the more courteous of them, in its own way. Almost ...

civi-lized. It's a fine fellow, if you make enough allowances." Gildrum and Elrelet laughed together at that.

Aliza turned to Cray. "I don't understand why they're laughing. The one has insulted the other."

Cray grinned at her. "They're old friends, my lady, and old friends may speak to each other with mock insult. Ah, but you probably don't know about such things, do you?"

"I know that I would not so casually insult a crea-ture with the power to do me harm. Are they so proof against one another?"

"They wouldn't harm each other, believe me. They have been friends longer than you and I have been alive. Far longer. Elrelet, tell the lady Aliza how you and Gildrum met."

"Oh, there was an adventure indeed," it said. "I was a very foolish young demon at the time and I thought I could roam the demon worlds at my pleasure, without ever asking for a word of guidance from my elders. But there is a thick curtain of smoke divid-ing Air from Fire, and in my youthful ignorance I became lost in it on my way from the one to the other. I was there for a very long time, probably moving parallel to the curtain's face for most of it, without the sense to turn a right angle and get out. I might be there still if Gildrum hadn't chanced on me. Gildrum thought my experience quite amusing, only the sort of thing to be expected from an Air demon. They haven't much respect for us in Fire, you know; they consider us the least intelligent of all demons, though of course we dispute that. Even so, Gildrum and I found we had a great deal in common-we were both young and free in those times, and we both had a strong desire to explore. So Gildrum agreed to overlook my excessive cheerfulness, and I agreed to overlook its intrusive melancholy, and we continued our explorations as a team. We were both enslaved eventually, but we've never lost our affection for each other. Friendships made early in life, I think, are the longest lasting."

Frowning slightly, Aliza said, "I've never thought that demons might have friends among themselves."

"It seems there are many things you don't know about us, my lady Aliza," said Elrelet. "Oh, Elrelet," said Cray, "after all, she's only known an Ice demon. You can't saythey have many friends, either among themselves or in the other demon worlds."

"It's a rare Ice demon that has any friends at all," said Elrelet.

"We don't need them," said Leemin. "We are self-sufficient."

"We are self-sufficient, too," said Elrelet. "In the physical sense. Still, we are sociable."

"Your society is not ours," said Leemin.

"And I'm glad of it," said the Air demon. "You are welcome to your way of life, O Leemin, but I would not choose it for myself."

"You would, if you were of Ice."

"Then I'm glad that I'm not-"

"Enough, Elrelet!" Gildrum said sharply. "There's no need to insult one who freely offered us its help."

"I am not insulted," said Leemin. "Elrelet has its own way of life and does not understand mine. It speaks from ignorance. If it dislikes the world of Ice and its inhabitants so, then it will not choose to return there very often, and that is good. We have no great desire for visitors in Ice."

Elrelet's voice was deeper when it spoke again. "I do apologize, O Leemin, even if you truly do not feel insulted. It was unseemly of me to speak so to a comrade in this adventure. I did speak from igno-rance.

I had hardly ever been inside Ice, and certainly not very far inside, before Cray enlisted my help. You have every right to your way of life, just as we all do to ours, and the Water demons to theirs. I am what I am, and that pleases me, but perhaps if I were an Ice demon, that would please me just as well. You see, my lady, we do not understand each other any better than you understand us. And so we take journeys such as this, in the name of a little understanding."

"Don't be fooled by those lofty sentiments, my lady," said Gildrum. "Elrelet takes these journeys out of curiosity, pure and simple. From the very first it had an unquenchable desire to see other places and other ways of life. Why, once when I was guiding it past one of the blazing rivers of Fire, it insisted upon diving in among the demons playing there and joining their game."

"What was it like?" said Aliza. "In a river of Fire."

"Exceedingly warm," replied the Air demon. "But the game, you see, was too interesting to let pass without trying, and the Fire demons were willing enough to let a newcomer try its luck, though they did laugh at my clumsiness ... "

For the rest of the journey to the boundary between Ice and Air, Gildrum and Elrelet took turns relating their adventures exploring the demon worlds, and even Cray, who had already heard most of their stories, found himself entertained and the trip seeming shorter than ever before. He was surprised at how soon he perceived the light of Air flooding Ice, at how soon Leemin opened into a hollow cylinder to display the clear blue of Air beyond.

"Our first destination," Cray said to Aliza, and Elrelet carried him out to the great emptiness. Gildrum and Arvad emerged behind him, but when he turned to see how Aliza was negotiating her first experienceof Air, he saw that she was hesitating at the very end of the fracture, her hands and feet braced firmly against Leemin's curving hollowness. "Come along," said Cray.

Her dark eyes were wide and wary as she watched him approach under his own power, his arms and legs pumping as if he swam through water rather than empty air.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "You can't fall."

"I am not afraid," she replied. "But I'd like to watch you move about a bit before I try it myself."

"Surely." He swam a short distance in one direction, then somersaulted smoothly to return. "It's very much like being in water," he explained, "except there is less resistance to your body. If you can swim in water, you can swim in Air."

"I've never swum in any water," said Aliza.

"Well then, Air is a good place to learn, for you can't possibly drown in it." He sculled to one side and back again. "Come now-you try it. I'll be here to help you, and so will all these demons. Come."

After another moment of hesitation, Aliza allowed herself to drift slowly out of Ice. She moved an arm in imitation of Cray's sculling, and she began to tumble slowly. She moved the other arm, then both legs, and still she tumbled, a little faster now. She began to thrash, clutching for nonexistent support. She made no sound.

Cray let her struggle silently for a time before saying, "I think you need a bit of assistance, my lady. Will you allow Arvad to touch you?"

"Yes," she gasped.

The Air demon expanded into a pallet with arms and deftly fitted itself to Aliza's back, circling her waist with its cloud appendages. Her motion stopped abruptly. She grasped the demon's arms with both hands.

"It isn't quite like being in Ice, is it?" she said, a trifle breathlessly.

"No, not quite," said Cray.

"How long did it take you to learn to swim here?"

"Not long. But then, I already knew how to swim in water."

"I'm sure I could master it. Tell this demon to let me go, and I'll try again."

"Tell it yourself. It's not my slave."

"What was its name?"

"Arvad."

"Very well. Arvad, let me go." The demon withdrew, and Aliza tried again. She did not tumble so badly this time, but neither did she move from her place near Cray.

"You must use your hands as scoops," Cray said. "Air has substance and will resist you if you push at it properly. Keep your fingers tight together."

She followed his directions, and with some effort she was able to paddle a short distance, though not to turn around and come back-for that, Arvad had to fetch her.

"This is very tiring," she said to Cray. "If you do this very much, your muscles must be stronger than they look."

He laughed. "Swimming is only for moving short distances. For any real travel, I ask a demon to carry me. And that is what we'll do now, I think. Arvad will carry you, unless you prefer your own demon."

She looked around and found the icicle that was Regneniel floating very near the surface of Ice. "No,"

she said. "This journey is your idea, so I will use the transportation you provide. That is what you wish, is it not?"

"I wish whatever makes you comfortable, my lady. But I must tell you that an Air demon is a better-padded couch than a creature of Ice."

"Very well, then. The Air demon. Arvad. Regneniel shall only follow for now."

At Cray's beckoning wave, Leemin joined them, assuming its starlike shape and allowing the fracture in Ice to snap shut. Their group now complete, the trav-elers commenced their journey through the vast and empty reaches of Air, skimming swiftly, five demons and two sorcerous mortals. The surface of Ice faded in the distance behind them, merging with the unclut-tered blue of this world, and as it vanished, so did its chill. Soon, Elrelet was able to shrink to an opaque gray ring about Cray's waist and expose his skin to the balmy breath of its native land.

"How large is Air?" Aliza wondered after they had traveled for a time.

"How large is Ice?" countered Cray.

"I've never compassed it."

"Nor have I compassed Air, or any of the demon worlds. They are all vast."