"Don't consider very long, Cray Ormoru. I have very little patience just now!"

"I'll let you know my decision shortly."

"Veryshortly!"

Cray disappeared from the gap, and through the translucent ice, Everand could see his form as a dark blur, moving into the sky, dwindling till it was gone. Then the wind began.

There had been a stiff breeze since the wall had begun to rise, a stiff, cold breeze that turned his breathto frost and pulled shivers from his body in spite of fur and woolen wrappings. But it had been nothing com-pared to this. This was the gale that his clouds had felt when the Air demons scattered them.

Beyond the gap in the dome, and dimly through the dome itself, he could see demons churning together in a vast, dark cyclonic storm.

"You'll consider it, will you?" Everand shouted. "Liar! You'd free me, wouldn't you? You'd turn me to a statue of ice with your demons! No, no. You're wrong about that!" He abandoned the roof of the keep and raced down the stone stairway to the empty courtyard. There, in the midst of that broad open space, with the icy dome all around, he invoked his most powerful defense.

Copper. Copper bracelets on his arms, copper necklaces at his throat, copper anklets, a copper band about his brow. He spoke to the copper that orna-mented his body, and through it he spoke to the copper in his walls. Copper wire, all of it drawn labori-ously by his hands, obedient to his will, lined his castle. Now he called to it with all the strength of his being, and it drew power from him and began to grow warm. All around the perimeter of the castle, where copper strands reinforced the mortar that human ser-vants had laid upon the stone, where copper outlined jagged crenelations, window slits, and gate, the metal grew hot. Upon the ramparts, frost on the stones melted and turned to vapor with that heat, and mortar long set began to dry excessively, to crack, to crumble. Everand called and called again, and the copper obeyed, until it began to glow dully, lines of fire upon the battlements. Then the dull glow brightened to orange, to yellow. To white.

The ice began to melt.

Everand could not see the first daylight break through the dome from where he stood. But he did hear the crackle of flames as the wooden gate of his castle caught fire from its copper-clad hinges. And when the gate had burned away, the charred fragments falling inward, there was a hole in the ice beyond, large enough for a man to pass through.

"You'll rue this day, Cray Ormoru!" he cried exul-tantly. "And she will pay for your deed!" In his pride and fury, he sent a bolt of pure hate toward Aliza's soul, commanding it to kill her. Slowly.

"He is too much for us," reported Berith, the young Ice demon that had helped with the making of the Mirror of Heart's Desire. "We can't keep the dome frozen against all that heat. It's patchy already, and I can't guarantee that it will hold together much longer."

"Keep working at it," said Cray.

"We need more Ice demons," said Elrelet.

"This was all that would come," said Berith. "Of the many that were asked."

"Ask again," said Cray. "They owe me their freedom, and this must be the repayment of that debt."

"I'll try, but we'll need more than a few. Is there time?"

"There has to be time," said Cray.

In the depths of Ice, Sepwin, Gildrum, and Leemin beat upon Aliza's crystalline walls and called her name over and over again. Gildrum even rang the bell that had so shivered through the whole body ofIce, and Leemin did not complain but merely redoubled its pounding with a hammer made of its own substance.

Aliza did not answer.

Inside, in the heart of her castle, the cradle room, Aliza sat on the crystalline floor, her knees drawn up to her chin, the old stuffed animal clutched under one arm. She had heard the pounding and the calling.

She had tried to answer, tried to open a doorway for her visitors, but she could not. Both exits from the cradle room now led to milky-walled stairways, and both stairways were sealed at the top with mirrored panels. She could not open them. She could not make the smallest hole in any of the cradle room's walls.

She was locked in.

There was a spider locked in with her, a tiny mite, brown with white stripes. It had woven its web be-tween the legs of her rocking horse. Aliza knew it was Cray's spider. Touching the web, she called to him, called for eyes and ears outside the room, knowing that he must have something important to tell her or his friends would not be pounding so heavily on her walls. She touched the web, but it remained simply a web, with a spider sitting at its edge, waiting. Just as Aliza herself was waiting, locked in the cradle room, waiting for she knew not what.

"I hear you! Gildrum! Feldar Sepwin!" she shouted. And she knew that they could not hear her.

"You must journey to Ice," said Berith. "Only you can convince it. It won't listen to me."

"Who?" asked Cray.

"The Old One. The eldest of all Ice demons. Its master died recently, and it has the power to help you, but it won't listen to a child like me."

"Very well," said Cray. "Quickly."

Berith changed places at the dome with the Ice demon whose portal lay closest to the Old One's resi-dence, and in a short time Cray and it were there, with a Fire demon for light and Arvad for warmth.

To Cray's eyes the place was no residence at all, just a crack in the body of Ice, without furnishings or orna-mentation, without distinction from any other frac-ture. Its whole extent was taken up by the body of the Old One, the largest Ice demon Cray had ever seen, five times the height of a man and bigger around than the bole of an ancient oak.

"My lord demon," said Cray, bowing awkwardly as he braced himself with both arms and legs in the narrow fracture opened by his Ice demon escort. "I am Cray Ormoru, he who sets demons eternally free, and word has come to me that you are between masters at the moment and, therefore, eligible for my services. If you would allow me, I offer them to you."

The Old One's voice was as deep as distant thunder, and its words were not easy to make out. "I have often heard of your existence," it said. "But I have never believed. These young demons are selfish, lying creatures, seeking new slaves for their masters, betraying their own kind."

"My lord demon," said Cray. "I wear no rings, nor will I ever wear them. I have freed a thousand andmore demons in my life, and I will not stop till there are no more who desire freedom. You are free now, but you could be enslaved at any moment. I can prevent that."

"You could enslave me now," rumbled the demon.

"My lord," Cray's icy escort said in a small and timid voice, though it was not a very young creature, as demons counted age. "The human speaks the truth. He freed me twelve years ago, and I have never had to answer a summons since."

The other two demons murmured their agreement.

"I could crush you, sorcerer, where you stand," said the Old One. "Nothing of your power could stop me. I am the Old One of Ice, and it bends to my will."

"You could crush me," said Cray. "I am at your mercy. Yet my offer remains, and if you doubt me, I can show you a vast number of demons beyond these three who will swear that what I say is true."

"Where are these demons?"

"If you will come with me to the human realm, you will find them all gathered together in one place, giv-ing me aid for a brief afternoon."

"Giving you aid? And yet you say you command no demons."

"They give me aid in gratitude for their freedom," said Cray. "But they are equally free to refuse it."

"Payment," said the Old One.

"A small payment."

"And what would be the price of my freedom, as-suming you would actually give it to a creature as powerful as I?"

"Your help in the same endeavor, my lord. A few moments of your time in exchange for a lifetime of independence."

"It is true, my lord," said Cray's icy escort. "I have been helping, but we younger Ice demons are not adequate to the task. Your power would make all the difference."

The Old One shifted its huge body slightly within the confines of its home, and Cray felt the substance of Ice shiver all around him. "I do not like human beings," the Old One rumbled. "I have been enslaved too many times for that. And lately you creatures have been moving through our Ice, making terrible noises and disturbing the brief freedom I know now. I would not deal with one of you by choice. Yet I have not much life left to me, and I would not spend it as a slave. Bring a few more demons to me, and let them assure me of your good faith, and I shall consider the matter."

"My lord," said Cray, "they are engaged in a matter of the highest importance to me, and I cannot ask them to leave it to come here. If you will accompany me, you can question any or all of them to your satisfaction. But, my lord, please hurry, for I need your help this very moment, and if you delay much longer, I will have to withdraw my offer of freedom. And believe me, I have no wish to do so." "So I must decide now, must I?"

"My lord, I am pressed. You must decide now."

The Old One moved again, and this time the shift-ing of its huge body was an earthquake in Ice. Cray was tossed about his small space like a rag in a high wind, in spite of his bracing arms and legs. His icy escort groaned.

"Do I receive my freedom first?" asked the Old one.

"There is no time, my lord," said Cray. "You must help me first."

"As I thought," said the demon. "Very well, I will speak to these other demons. Lead me."

Water and Ice demons circled the dome, over and over again, pouring, freezing, yet they could barely keep pace with the heat of the copper. No sooner would they repair one gap in the dome than another would melt through, and the whole structure was showing signs of weakness, threatening to collapse in spite of the reinforcing spiderwebs.

"You see how much we need you, my lord," Cray said to the Old One as they floated well out of the way of the hurrying demons. The Old One had assumed a starry shape, but larger than any other demon, a bris-tling hill in the sky. The sun, which was beginning to set, glittered redly from its spicules, and these in turn were reflected in the curve of the dome. "The heat of the copper is too strong for these demons,"

said Cray, "even though some of them are powerful indeed."

"The only heat too great for me is the heat of Fire itself," said the Old One. "He has no Fire demons, this Everand?"

"None."

"Then let the Water demons pour, and the dome shall not give way before mere copper. And mark you, Cray Ormoru." It breathed softly at him, and he felt his face go numb with that chill. "Mark you, I believe these demons, but if you withhold my freedom later, for whatever reason, you will not sleep easy for the rest of your life. I have power in Ice, and the demons you have already set free will become your enemies because of my wrath."

"My lord, you will be free, I swear it."

"Come demons!" rumbled the Old One. "We kill a mortal this day!"

Everand had never known such cold. He could not bundle himself sufficiently against it; only the coils of copper wire he wore about his person kept him from freezing, and even so, the air that sang in his nostrils was sharp and bitter as ice water. The dome was all but repaired, and though his copper glowed white-hot, it could not melt the freshly made ice. White-hot the copper was, and then, under his continued urging, hotter still, till it softened and began to run, dripping down the castle walls like porridge and pooling on the ground, useless except to make the soil sizzle and the tortured stone crack and pop.

And the wind had intensified, buffeting him like a mailed fist, frigid and shrieking. He could scarcely walk against it. Above the hole at the top of the dome, he could have seen the demons still circling in a wildvortex, had he looked up. He did not, though, for lifting his chin from his chest let a freezing draft inside his cloak. The cold stung his eyes and his throat, but he knew he could stand it. And in a few moments, when he had reached the keep and his workshop, he would wind more wire about himself, a mask for his face, mittens for his hands that were now stuffed into his sleeves, good copper wire that would keep him warm and comfortable against all that Cray could mus-ter. He could survive the cold; Cray was mistaken if he thought Everand the sorcerer could be frozen into submission. Or frozen to death. But right now it took all the strength he had just to keep moving, just to stand upright against that terrible, ripping wind.

He staggered toward the keep, and his whole body seemed to agonize at that effort. Above him, the sky was darkening, and not simply because the dome was thicker now; the sun was sinking. He felt that this had been an exceedingly long day, a sapping day, and as the keep drew erratically nearer, he found himself thinking that all he really wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. It wasn't the cold, he knew.

Aside from his nose and cheeks, he was warm enough, without any numbness of the extremities. He was just very tired. And a little dizzy. Fortunately, the wind had begun to abate. Yes, it was definitely dying away, and he moved more easily, though his route to the door of the keep seemed just as erratic as before. The dizzi-ness. He needed rest. But more, he realized, against the background of his spinning head, he needed to go back to old Verdrinar's books and find some proper way of striking back at his enemy. Killing Aliza was well and good, but it wasn't true revenge. True re-venge was a direct blow at the enemy. Verdrinar had been very powerful. Everand had barely penetrated the surface of his powers.

The books, yes. Revenge for the cold, the terrible wind-borne cold.

He gained the door of the keep, though not without some groping for the handle. He entered and, beside the stairway that led up to his workshop, he fell to his knees, his hands scrabbling at the stones of the floor. He managed to lift one, exposing a pair of iron rings linked together by a massive lock; the stone had been hollowed to fit over them without rocking. He closed his fingers over the lock, and their flesh froze fast to the bitter metal. Looking down at them, in anger, in wonder, he suddenly realized that his chest was drenched in steaming redness.

Then he pitched forward into unconsciousness.

Regneniel called to the demons that whirled above the gap in the dome, the Air demons that by their cyclonic motion had drawn all the air out of that sealed space, leaving nothing to sustain Everand's life.

"You can stop now. He's dead."

They did not stop, but three of their number left the demon storm and dived through the gap to test Everand's barrier. They found it vanished and, diving deeper still, led by Regneniel, they found his lifeless body.

Cray opened the dome to the sky and air and de-scended with Elrelet to see for himself. What he saw was a gaunt old man, blood still leaking from his nose and ears, frozen into his pale beard, frozen upon the cold stone and the cold metal beneath him.

Cray pushed the body aside with his foot, but it would not roll far, for the hands were frozen in place.

"What's this?" he asked Regneniel, pointing to the iron rings.

"His secret place. The lock opened only to his hand, and no one else was ever allowed inside, not even his demon. I saw him enter once, though. The room is small and full of books."

"A secret place," repeated Cray. He bent to exam-ine the lock. He was wearing gloves, and so thebitter metal could not trap him. "We'll ask a Fire demon to melt this off."

"You needn't bother," said Regneniel. "A spell seals the vault now. No demon can open it."

"But Everand is dead," said Cray. "His spells have died with him."

"He was very jealous of his books, Cray Ormoru. He would not even let Aliza read them unless he was standing by her side. Would such a person let other sorcerers take them from the ruins left by his death?

No, it was his very death that set the spell. It is a powerful one, I grant you. But I tried to teach him many powerful spells in our years together, and this one, at least, he seems to have learned thoroughly."

"If you taught it, then you can breach it," said Cray.

"No more than you could uncook an egg."

"Regneniel is right, Cray," said Elrelet. "I can feel the strength of this spell. It's proof against us. Do you really need those books?"

"I wasn't thinking of the books," said Cray.

"Her soul is not there," said Regneniel. "It never was."

"Then it is in her own palace, isn't it?"

"You've guessed."

"It was the only other reasonable place."

"It lies in the cradle room," said Regneniel. "Come, I'll show you right now, and then you can complete your side of the bargain."

Regneniel's portal in Ice opened a short distance outside Aliza's walls. As soon as they emerged, the demon's body spreading a fracture wide to accommo-date the human, Cray heard the racket that Sepwin and his companions were making-shouting and hammering and ringing that piercing bell over and over again. He could not see them.

"Stop!" shouted Regneniel, moving swiftly in a jag-ged path to join them, nudging Cray along as if he were a dust ball before a broom. Cray was glad enough for the speed, though, for he had left Elrelet behind to thank the other demons, and without its protection he began to shiver almost immediately in the terrible chill of Ice.

Sepwin turned as they approached, recognized Cray through the intervening Ice, and waved; his voice was muffled till Regneniel's opening merged with that of Leemin, but it was audible. "She won't answer, Cray. We've done everything we could think of to catch her attention, but she just won't answer."

As the spaces pried open by Leemin and Regneniel became one, Cray felt a flood of warmth, Gildrum's radiant heat, and as if he had approached a hearth, he put his hands out to it and rubbed them vigorously.