Harpy Thyme by Piers Anthony Page B

mean?”
    “Yes,” she said with naughty determination. “I'm going to kiss him. It's in a decent cause, even if it's not completely nice.”
    Cynthia suited action to word. She reached down, put her hands on the Magician's shoulders, and hauled him up with the kind of strength a centaur could muster. He rose board-stiff, his feet still on the floor. Then she put her head down, aligned her face with his, and planted her lips very firmly on his for a wild wet kiss.
    After a moment she lifted her head. “Hy hips are hrozen,” she gasped.
    In a quarter of a moment Gloha made sense of this. “Your lips are frozen,” she repeated. “I'd better take over while you recover.”
    “Hyes.” The layer of ice was flaking off Cynthia's face, but her lips remained attractively blue.
    Gloha stood on tiptoe to reach the Magician's angled face, and planted her warm lips against his slightly thawed ones. She kissed him as firmly as she could. The cold struck through, but as her lips congealed she felt his softening. It was working! When she felt she had no more warmth in that region to give, she withdrew, and was gratified to see a thin trace of vapor issue from his mouth. He was starting to breathe again!
    Meanwhile Cynthia had been breathing hard and smacking her lips together to get them warmed. She couldn't use her hands because they were holding Trent up for the kissing. “I think I can go another round now,” she said bravely. She put her mouth to his mouth again.
    Gloha's hands were free, and she used them to waggle her lips and flake the ice off them. Then she flexed them and breathed rapidly, using the warm air to complete the job. By the time her mouth had recovered, Cynthia's had iced up again.
    But now Trent's mouth was clear of ice and his breath was pluming nicely. So Gloha tackled his right eye instead, which was frozen shut. She kissed it, and as the warmth loosened the ice, she licked it off. When it finally opened and blinked she knew it was thawed. But her mouth had congealed again, and her tongue wasn't speaking to her.
    “Good idea,” Cynthia said. “His mouth is done, and part of his tongue, but he needs his eyes too.” She kissed the left eye.
    His tongue? Gloha didn't inquire.
    After that they worked on his nose, and his ears, and finally his face was done. Then they worked on the remainder of his body, taking turns hugging him close and chipping away the rest of the ice as it thawed. His clothing was hardly even wet; they had managed to get most of the ice off before it did more than melt around the edges.
    Trent moved. “Hthank you, hladies,” he said somewhat coldly. But the coldness was of the body, not of the heart. “There are whorse things than being khissed and hugged to Ihife by two Ihovely young lhadies.”
    Gloha and Cynthia exchanged a solid glance and a half. Then they exchanged a half-body flush. That was a significant achievement for each of them, because the centaur's clothing and fur normally concealed any such expression, and Gloha's skin was goblin dark. But in a moment steam was rising from both their faces.
    “Don't waste that heat!” Trent cried. “I'm still cold.” Indeed, he was shivering.
    “In for a nickel, in for a dime,” Cynthia said through her burning chagrin. She was referring to archaic Mundane coins reported to have the magic properties of getting things started or suddenly stopped.
    They hauled the Magician up again and hugged him from either side, giving him the heat of their embarrassment. Soon enough he had been warmed. “I thank you both for saving my life,” he said. “But perhaps we won't speak of this elsewhere. Others might not properly understand.”
    They emphatically agreed. It would be their secret. But even more secret was Gloha's private feeling. She had never actually kissed a man of any kind before, not directly on the mouth like that, and certainly had never done anything like licking off his face. Trent, rejuvenated as he was, had the body