Teri McLaren
Saelin smiled, bowed, and dropped the blindfold neatly back over Rotapan's head. As they moved through the frozen corridor, the air seemed strangely warmer and smelled different. Rotapan felt water beneath his feet. Then he heard a peculiar sound.
Like the thawing of a river. Like the cracking of ice.
Saelin heard it, too. There was half a mile of corridor left to go. The assassin ran for his life, splashing down the long maze, leaving the half-ore to stumble blindly into the melting walls, the roof of the corridor already dissolving at a rate far faster than a natural thaw.
Rotapan tore off the blindfold and raced after the assassin, Saelin's footprints a fresh trail in the sugary, ice.
Exhorting Chelydrus's mercy the entire distance, Rotapan coughed and wheezed through the slippery corridor, the roof raining icy water down his neck, but holding up in spite of the sudden thaw. The half-ore slid the last several feet out into the courtyard, barely avoiding a drenching puddle of slush, picked himself up, and looked around for Saelin. The assassin had vanished.
Leaving Rotapan with nowhere to go. Except home. He wrapped his thin cloak about himself disgustedly, set himself in alignment with the sisters, and proceeded through the melting courtyard and down the mountain.
Behind him, Drufaiden's crystalline kingdom seeped into dirty rivulets that became muddy streams, which then emptied into the rivers below. By the next day, ice that had stood in walls a hundred feet high would flood the land below the mountain and end up pouring into the Silver Sea. Rotapan paused as he passed by the remains of the magnificent sculpture of Chelydrus, now a featureless lump amid a growing puddle.