by David Niall Wilson

In the mountainous sovereign state of Rozinia, the atmosphere was festive. More than a dozen visitors from at least three foreign nations, a gathering such as they had never known, had congregated in the coffee shop of Rozinian Olympian, Mephistopheles Doufis in anticipation of yet another unprecedented event in his unprecedented life.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs had been so busy that he’d put in paperwork for his retirement. Fortunately for the kingdom, the Under Secretary to the King, whose job it was to handle such requests, was busy directing a new and more sophisticated rendition of the Rozinian National Anthem, and the retirement was on indefinite hold. Mephistopheles was thankful that the minister’s paperwork was delayed, because the last time a Rozinian minister had retired due to Mephistopheles and his athletic career, the job had been handed over to Mephistopheles himself, who was now not only the owner and operator of Rozinia’s one coffee shop, but the Minister of Historic Archives as well. He had used up half of the spiral notebook allotted to him for his position, and had no idea how to requisition another.

One hundred and seventeen invitations had been meticulously hand signed by the King himself, inviting athletes from every country in the world to compete in the first Rozinian Winter National Championships. Being a mountain nation, and the home of some of the deepest snowfalls and least passable slopes in the world, it seemed only natural that Rozinia should assume her rightful place among the great alpine athletic nations of the world. The fact that no Rozinian in his right mind would attempt to climb those slopes, or had ever used a snow ski for anything other than a bed slat was universally overlooked.

Preparations had begun long before the first snowfall when Mephistopheles, unhitching the donkey from the royal coach, had ridden the animal up to the highest peak and attached a large pulley to the trunk of a very tall tree. The rope he wound around this had been carefully dragged back down the trail and attached at the bottom to another pulley, which was attached to a large wheel by carefully carved wooden gears. With this device they hoped to drag skiers and bobsledders to the top of the mountain, leaving them with the choice of skiing back down to glory, or hanging onto the rope for dear life and being dragged back down. The lift was powered by the same donkey, who was forced to stop at intervals to perform his part of the Rozinian National anthem.

When the great wheel began to spin, and the rope slid up, and then back down the mountain, Mephistopheles watched with great admiration for the engineering prowess of his nation. He made no effort to test the device. He felt that if he had only one great downhill time in his soul he should not waste it prior to the championships.

Instead he spent his time preparing guest quarters for visiting athletes and sprucing up his coffee shop, where the Olympic torch he’d carried into battle with the orange-robed Buddhist of questionable faith hung proudly from one wall. True, there were dried peppers and a large sausage dangling from the shiny cylinder, but it did nothing to diminish his glory. Beneath the torch, on a small shelf, rested the cursed “Red Ball Keds,” which had nearly cost him his honor and dignity, two things he was ill-prepared to part with any measure of.

Mephistopheles had been perusing the various National Championship web sites, and past photo galleries of the Winter Olympic Games, and though the babes were dressed in much more complete Lycra than had been the case at the summer games, he knew that such attire did little to hide their trim, athletic forms, and hew as nearly giddy at the thought of racing down the mountainside in hot – or cold – pursuit. Every man must have his dreams.

In the end, most of the preparations were not necessary. Of the one hundred and seventeen invitations that had been meticulously written, signed, and mailed, only two foreign athletes had responded. One was a forty year old woman from the neighboring land of Botswania who intended to compete in the Rozinian figure skating competition. The other was a man who called himself only “The Hawk.” “The Hawk” was an expert in the fine art of the luge, but his tiny island nation in the Bahamas had no championships, and though he’d found times and places to practice, he had not competed internationally, and was thus ineligible for the Olympics. He hoped he would be able to place high in the Rozinian nationals and make a name for himself.

As Mephistopheles had no intention of competing in either figure skating, or the luge, he welcomed his fellow athletes with open arms. This was an unfortunate greeting, it turned out, as the woman, Anna, weighed in at nearly three hundred pounds and crushed at least three of Mephistopheles’ ribs in the process. The Hawk, eyeing Mephistopheles friendly advance warily, backed out of the embrace and muttered something under his breath that could have been an insult questioning his host’s sexual preferences, or some obscure Bahamanian blessing. It was hard to be certain, and Mephistopheles chose, in the name of international peace, to consider the glass of his guest half full. The Hawk outweighed him by forty pounds and seldom smiled, and it seemed imprudent to provoke him.

The donkey had been hitched to a makeshift ice-scraper and put into service hauling it about the small lake in front of the king’s palace in anticipation of Anna’s program. Axelhoff, an olive farmer who had been temporarily promoted to Zamboni operator, eyed the Botswanian skater skeptically. The donkey weighed in at a hundred and fifty pounds, the cart at another two hundred, and Axelhoff himself tipped the scale somewhere around two hundred and twenty. The ice held, and there was no difficulty in smoothing it, but Axelhoff was not jumping, or whirling gracefully, and he had his doubts what would happen if Anna somehow managed to nail a double axle in the center of the small pond. Just in case, he attached a long cable with grappling hooks attached to the end to an olive tree and coiled it out of sight. It never hurt to be prepared.

After serving his guests coffee and Rozinian pastries, Mephistopheles visited the local cabinet maker’s shop and admired his skis. They were hand made from the finest olive wood their mountain could boast. Admittedly, they seemed a bit old-school, with their curling tips and bright red leather boot straps, designed to fit his winter-model PF Flyers firmly, but they shone with olive oil polish and, when he looked at them just so he was certain he caught flashes of gold in their depths, and the ghost images of Lycra-coated groupies. His event would be the downhill. It made sense to him that, once having ridden to the top of the mountain on the donkey – powered rope that he must come back down the hill. The logic was simple, and thus it was tailor-made for Mephistopheles, who had no time to learn the intricacies of curling or the resources to construct a half-pipe.

Satisfied that his skis were ready, he returned to his coffee shop and began preparations for the evening’s festivities. The King of Rozinia himself intended to come from the castle to preside over the opening ceremonies, and the Under Secretary to the King would lead the king’s wives, daughters, mother and the donkey in the new rendition of the Rozinian National Anthem. The entire ceremony would be recorded on the royal digital camera for posterity, and in case ESPN came calling. Even kings have their dreams.

After an evening of strong coffee, loud discordant music, and a near-operatic rendition of the Botswanian national anthem, bellowed in melodic, trumpeting bleats by Anna the figure skater into the tiny, over-driven microphone of the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ cassette recorder, everyone settled down for a good nights rest. Before he closed the coffee shop, Mephistopheles stopped by a table where Hawk the Luger had hooked up his laptop computer. As it turned out, the visiting athlete was posting an entry in his “blog,” explaining how he would be back the next evening with digital photos of his victory and assuring his three man and one woman readership that he would carry the torch for his tiny island within only a few months time.

Mephistopheles was fascinated. He eyed the half-full spiral notebook of his office as Minister of Historic Archives, and thought how wondrous it would be to transfer his words to the Internet and display them for all to see. He made a mental note to requisition a computer from the King for such a purpose, and began mentally designing the web page that would present his Kingdom, and his own athletic prowess, to an adoring world. He hoped no one would insist on a .wav file of the National anthem, but if he had to have the donkey to get the page, it would be well worth it.

Hawk, meanwhile, noticed the attention his “private” blog entry was receiving, and snapped the computer shut rudely, glowering at Mephistopheles. The Rozinian champion considered explaining to his guest how much more fully the Lycra babes of Olympic Village would receive him if only he would wipe the scowl from his face and smile more often, but decided against it. If Hawk wanted to frown his way to glory and be insulting, it would leave more room for a happy-go-lucky Rozinian to win friends and influence women. When your athletic attire consisted of P. F. Flyers and a sarong, you took any edge the universe provided.

Hawk tucked his laptop under one arm and left without a word. Still dreaming of Internet glory, Mephistopheles closed the door, locked it, and settled into the small cot in the back office of his shop. He wrapped himself in furs and stared into the crackling flames of his fire until dream babes in skin-tight Lycra dragged him into a world of chat rooms, gold medals, and dreams.

The day of the Championships was greeted by bright sunlight and the discordant fanfare of every noisemaking and pseudo-musical device in the kingdom. Dogs howled in answer to questionable harmonies. Children ran and laughed and assured one another that, regardless of what they were told, they could all run circles around Mephistopheles Doufis, and most could out ski him as well, given the opportunity. When he opened the front doors of his coffee shop, clad in his heavy boots, snow gear, and wrapped about in the hand-made Olympic Sarong, bright with the colors of the Rozinian flag, however, they cheered, for he was the closest thing to a hero they had known in their young lives, and he always gave them cinnamon cakes and sweet milk.

Axelhoff and his donkey-powered zamboni made a couple of last passes over the icy pond, shearing off ripples and ridges from an overnight dusting of snow. They needed to be finished early, because first Mephistopheles, and then Hawk, would need the donkey to power the lift that would drag them up the mountain. All three events, the downhill, the luge, and the figure skating were set for that same day, and such a concurrence of events was well beyond the scope of any activity attempted in the kingdom in many years. If it were not for the donkey, or if Axelhoff had been needed to tend his olive groves in the winter, it would not have been possible.

At precisely 9:30 AM the King’s procession wound its way from the palace to a small pavilion near the pond. A merry fire had been lit in the royal barbecue pit, and a comfortable chair, covered in furs and carefully blocked from any intruding wind, had been placed in clear view of the ice. The King himself would serve as judge. At first this had worried Mephistopheles, since it seemed that some requirement of sports knowledge might be required to give a fair rendering of the performance. This worry proved unfounded when the final lineup of one skater was published. Even if the scores were harsh, and out of line with Olympic standards, they would have no effect on the outcome of the event unless by some odd chance Anna offended his Majesty to the point he felt obligated to disqualify her.

Being uncertain that the royal guard, which consisted of two very old men and one sixteen year old boy, armed with an olive wood spear, was capable of withstanding a direct attack from an angered Botswanian figure skater, Mephistopheles concluded that a disqualification was unlikely, and concentrated on his own event. He knew he’d have no trouble winning if he could but make it from the top of the mountain to the bottom without falling off his skis – at least in plain sight of anyone who might report him. He knew that worrying over such a thing should be beneath him, as an Olympian, but at the same time he regarded the short walk from his coffee shop to the bottom of the ski lift, on the unsure, icy footing, to be a major undertaking. Sliding down a mountain on slick wooden skis without losing his balance, while seeming a good idea when it had first occurred to him, had begun to terrify him more than his dreams of unicycling orange robed Buddhist terrorists, and this was a great fear indeed.

Still, he had his honor to defend, and the thought of hot Norweigian women in tight ski suits inspired him. There were things a man had to do. Some faced armies of bloodthirsty enemies, others walked the halls of commerce and bartered stocks and produce – still others slid very rapidly down mountains while yelling HOO HAH and trying not to break their necks. It was the way of the world.

At the base of the mountain a small cart had been loaded with his skis, a pair of binoculars with which to see the starting flag, and Hawk’s luge, which Mephistopheles had agreed to place at the top of the slope in anticipation of the Bahamanian’s arrival. Soon the ice was smooth, the donkey was hitched, and closing his eyes to offer a final prayer to any celestial being who might be listening, Mephistopheles settled back atop the cart with the skis and the luge, wrapped in the skins of several goats, and began the long, winding trip to the peak of Rozinia’s highest mountain, while on the ice at his back, Anna warmed up for her own performance to the delight of both king and kingdom. It it had not been for the terror lodged in Mephistopheles’ throat like an olive pit, it would have been a glorious day indeed!

On the ice, Anna had nearly completed her warm-ups. Beads of sweat had appeared on her prodigious brow, and her tongue lolled out one side of her mouth, much like that of Michael Jordan going in for a particularly grand lay-up combination. Though Axelhoff eyed it skeptically, the ice had held up to the worst of the various punishments she had dished out without a sign of a crack, or a warning groan.

The king had settled back and was already halfway through an Irish Coffee, thoughtfully provided by Mephistopheles’ father from the Doufis family coffee shop, was feeling slightly tipsy and decidedly metropolitan. Did he not have a Botwsanian athlete performing on Rozinian ice as he drank an Irish beverage? Was not that dark speck climbing slowly up the side of the mountain his own champion, poised to bring further glory and honor to the royal reputation? It was difficult, from where he sat, for the king to conceive of anything that could improve his day.

Hawk, the luge contestant from the Bahamas , stood near the base of the mountain, craning his neck and staring up the hillside as Mephistopheles and the cart disappeared up the snowy white slope. Hawk had paced endlessly since arriving at the mountain, staring and glaring at anyone who came too close, until the Rozinians and their guests concluded that he was a “personal bubble” sort of fellow, and determined not to invade his space. There were, in any case, only limited seats available for the ice skating event, and if Hawk wanted to worry himself over the donkey-powered ascent of his fellow downhill-type competitor, then there was that much room for others to watch Anna.

The ice was cleared a final time, and Anna, resplendent in at least a half-dozen yards of Lycra, festooned with rhinestones, glitter, hanging scarves and buttons, stood poised o the right of the king. The palace boasted a pretty good sound system, thanks to eBay, but the royal pond had no such facilities, so they had improvised. Very long wires had been run from the large, surround-sound stereo in the palace to the King’s podium by the pond. A microphone had been rigged, as well as speakers, and two royal attendants manned cell phones to maintain communications between the pond and the stereo controls.

Anna had provided her own music, and the king himself had decided to both commentate, and judge. This removed the necessity for moving the microphone stand about and made everyone happy, though none was quite so happy as the king, who received his second Irish Coffee just in time to announce Anna’s program.
“Skating for the sovereign nation of Botwsania,” the king pronounced, nodding toward the Botswanian ambassador, who was still a bit disgruntled to find that the “box seat” he’d purchased was, in fact, a box with several blankets and a single pillow between its surface and his own prodigious backside, “Anna Borginowskinvladaskaya”. He was not, actually, certain that he’d done her last name justice, but there was no negative reaction from the ambassador, and when the music, a midi file version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” poured out through the vintage, high wattage speakers and onto the ice, Anna raised her hands, pressed the tips of her fingers together, and glided onto the ice like a glittering barge.
The first annual Rozinian Winternationals had begun.

From where he sat, huddled atop the small cart and sliding slowly up the side of the mountain, Mephistopheles heard the king’s voice ring out, and his heart soared. He knew that the games had been largely his own creation, and he was happy to have brought so much joy to the dozens of citizens of the kingdom, not to mention those who had made the arduous and transportationally challenging journey to Rozinia to be present for the festivities.

The trail he followed was not a well traveled one. The ropes had been strung around tall trees and ran precariously over rocky outcroppings and between boulders. Several times he was forced to reconsider the wisdom of his chosen event as the cart teetered on the brink of tall cliffs or skirted the base of huge mounds of snow. A loud cough at the wrong moment and he could bury himself in hundreds of pounds of snow. Even the donkey had its limits, and he knew that if he were buried deeply enough, the lift would cease to function, and it might be weeks before they could organize a search party to follow the ropes and dig him free.

Snow had begun falling again, though only lightly, and Mephistopheles pulled the goggles of the helmet he’d manufactured for the event down to protect his eyes. It was the same helmet he’d worn all the days of his life, riding his moped through the olive tree strewn hills. He’d painted it the bright red and gold of Rozinia with a tiny unicycle sticker on either side to commemorate his triumphant battle at the Summer Olympics. The goggles were from an aviator’s helmet that had belonged to Rozinia’s one military pilot, whose single solo flight had ended, sadly, at the top of a very tall pine tree halfway down the mountain. The pilot had lived, but the plane had not.

The goggles had been found by Mephistopheles’ father. The pilot had not wanted them back. In fact, the legend of the curses he spewed at Mephistopheles’ father when they were offered was greater than even the much-loved story of the flight itself. The eyewear had hung behind the counter of the coffee shop for many years, until Mephistopheles, believing that his downhill run would be the closest thing to flight a Rozinian without a Visa and access to a major airport was likely to achieve, had brought them back into service.

Only a single curve remained in the trail and he would reach the top of the mountain. His heart fluttered, but he ignored it. There was no time for fear, and in any case, his chances skiing down the mountain could be no more harrowing than the trip up on the donkey-cart ski-lift had been. If nothing else, it would be over much sooner.

Then, a horrible screeching sound rose from below and shattered the idyllic silence. The trees shivered. Ice cracked. The donkey-powered lift hesitated, lurched, and then shot the cart forward. Mephistopheles rolled forward and gripped the cart as tightly as he could as it shot up the mountain and careened around the final curve, shooting him toward the peak at blinding speed.

Far below, things were far less controlled. Anna’s performance had been spectacular, or so it seemed to the king, who had never in all the days of his life witnessed such a spectacle. There were spins and jumps that seemed to shake the pond, the pavilion, and the mountain itself. If a swan could be blown up to incredible proportions and stuffed into skin-tight Lycra, it might have resembled the Botswanian athlete as she circled the pond and performed each element of her compulsory program with ponderous ease.

After a particularly amazing pirouette, the king was moved to rise from his seat and applaud, a gesture that might have ingratiated him forever in the eyes of the skating beauty and the Botswanian ambassador, had he been seated only a few more inches from the stand holding the microphone, or a foot further to the left of the nearest speaker. The fates, it seemed, would rather see the two sovereign nations at war.

When then king leaped to his feet and swung his prodigious arms into the first clap, he caught the cord attached to the bottom of the microphone cleanly and toppled the stand toward the speaker. In his defense, his majesty dove headlong in an off-balance attempt to prevent the inevitable, but all he managed to do was to trip, pressing his bulk into the microphone, which in turn pressed into the speaker. The scream of feedback was unbearable. It sliced the air cleanly and stunned the audience. The donkey, slowly turning the great wheel at the base of the mountain, stopped cold as if it had been shot – shook itself, gave a short bleat of confusion, and then launched into a formidable dash, that was brought up short by the harness and the wheel and turned back on itself, sending the wheel into a reckless spin.

On the ice, the sound shot through the music and dug like an icy, screeching blade into the base of Anna’s brain. Her mind went numb, but her body, trained in the fine art of figure skating and conditioned to react with split-second timing (not to mention the continuous fear of Lycra splitting pressure) took flight. The feedback had chosen to intrude at the unfortunate moment when she began her trademark double axle, the move that had given Axelhoff such pause when he first drove his donkey-powered zamboni across the ice.

Instead of stopping the jump, the sound drove Anna’s skate into the ice and she launched in a spinning, vertical fountain of flesh and flying tassels. She passed the double axle without looking back, made a third spin and gave herself over to gravity, driving down at the very center of the pond with incredible force. She managed, somehow, to swing her leg out and land on one skate. For just a moment she glided, smiling vacantly and sweeping her arms grandly to either side.

Then, with a shuddering groan that overcame the grinding screaming wail of the intimate joining of speaker and microphone, the ice broke cleanly, and, her leg still held high, Anna Borginowskinvladaskaya gave a very good rendition of the Donkey’s reaction, bleating her surprise, and disappeared into the icy water like a submerging submarine.

The king rolled away from the speaker, holding his ears, and the microphone, tangled in his robes, flipped free. The silence was deafening, and for a very long moment the only sound was the turbine-like roar of the speeding, donkey-driven lift. Then, everyone was moving at once, and the king, rubbing a bruise on his head, sat up to stare dumbly out over the shattered ice.

On the mountain there was a loud snap, but the sound, and its accompanying scream, was lost in the ensuing bedlam.

Mephistopheles tried to hang onto the cart, but as it was whipped around the final curve at the very top of the mountain, the front wheels struck a rock, and he found himself, despite his beliefs on Rozinians and flight, flying headlong through the air. The rope drawing the cart snapped and the broken end whizzed just beneath him, but Mephistopheles had no time to concern himself with thankfulness over not being chopped in half. Almost as soon as he was aware of his newfound ability to fly, he discovered his all-too-human propensity toward falling and plummeted back to the snow-capped peak.

This could have been the end of it. He might have dropped into the soft mounds of snow, fallen in a few inches (or feet) dug himself free and plodded down the mountain in search of the psychotic donkey and the source of the horrible screech, but it was not to be. Torn free in much the same manner as Mephistopheles himself, the luge of Hawk, the Bahamanian champion, broke free of the ropes binding it to the cart. As the wheeled contraption went careening over the edge of the cliff and disappeared, the luge flipped once in the air, landed on its runners, and by some miracle dropped into place directly beneath Mephistopheles as he fell. His back planted on the flat surface, his breath left him in a whoosh of much-needed air, and his arms, flopping down at his sides, wrapped tightly and reflexively around the ice-sled’s handles.

Before there was any time for thought, or repositioning, the front of the luge slipped over the edge of the mountain’s uppermost slope and took off like a rocket down the side of the mountain. Still unable to breathe, Mephistopheles managed to twist his hands and grip the sled. Trees flashed past, and by lucky chance, he hit the first of the banked slopes they had prepared for Hawk squarely. This caused him to swerve back onto the open snow and downward. The second banked curve approached like a wave of white doom, and Mephistopheles determined that, barring some sudden and miraculous infusion of knowledge on the steering and control of ice sleds, his best bet was to hang on, close his eyes, and pray that – if he actually took flight again over the side of the mountain, his goggles would remember the way to the proper tree and deposit him safely on the ground.

With the wind whistling in his ears and his eyes clamped tightly shut he raced down the mountain toward the donkey, the pond, the king and Hawk, who, while still standing at the bottom of the slope, was now staring back at the pond, the ice, and the prancing, screaming king of Rozinia, who feared he’d caused the country’s first (and likely last) war.

Thankfully for the king, Anna, and the general hope of a happy ending, Axelhoff was quick to act. It was only moments after the Botswanian behemoth dropped from sight that the man lunged for his line and grappling hook, and by the time the frantic skater broke the surface of the icy water, scrambling for the bank, the olive farmer/zamboni driver was already on his way across the ice, swinging the grappling hook over his head like Roy Rogers with a lasso and crying out for help.

Axelhoff came as close to the edge of the break in the ice as he dared and continued whirling the grappling hook over his head. He knew he wasn’t going to get many shots, and he also knew that if, instead of latching onto Anna’s floundering bulk and dragging her to safety, he threw wild and cracked her skull with the grappling hook the death would be blamed on him, rather than on the gods of ice, snow, and electronic feedback. With the Botswanian ambassador leaping and screeching at the side of the pond, and the king floundering to his feet and trying to kick the microphone out of range of the speaker, it seemed an inopportune time to screw up.

Axelhoff had plenty of experience lassoing stray goats and sheep in his olive orchard, but this was something new. For one thing, one didn’t use a grappling hook to catch a sheep, and for another, he was unsure exactly what was going to happen once he hooked the gigantic athlete. The donkey was still strapped to the great wheel at the base of the mountain, and no one else showed any sign of rushing to his aide. If it became a tug-of-war between Axelhoff, Anna, and gravity, he knew which of the three would get the short end of the grappling hook. It was a dilemma, but he had no time to consider it.

With a cry and a heave, he sent the gleaming hook flying over the ice, the water, and Anna. It splashed down about three beyond her feebly paddling bulk, and Axelhoff began drawing it back hand over hand, praying that the hook would catch, and that when it did it would not be in a life-threatening or embarrassing position. He had a wife and children, and it would be difficult to explain to them why he cast them, and his promising future as an olive farmer, into the proverbial crapper to play bondage games with a giant skater in pressurized Lycra and skates.

The line grew taut. Anna rolled toward him, and Axelhoff feared that once she spun to her back the hook would release, but this was not the case. The hold slide down her and gripped her by a belt at the waist of her costume. It held fast, and as Axelhoff continued to pull and tug mightily on the rope, she floated slowly toward the near edge of the ice. Axelhoff glanced frantically over his shoulder, sending mental cries for help. He would have screamed, but he had no air left in his lungs and was afraid if he paused to inhale that Anna would slide back toward the center of the ice. He looked to the ambassador, who waved his arms wildly, called out encouragement, and stood his ground, eyeing the ice without a shred of trust. Axelhoff turned momentarily toward the royal pavilion, but the king had only just extricated himself from the microphone cord and seemed intent on returning it to its stand before turning to other matters, thus preventing another blast of sound before the damage from the first had been cleared. The royal guards, servants, and wives scurried about his majesty vying for any task that could render them ineligible to be ordered onto the ice for a rescue party.

That left only Hawk, who turned back reluctantly from the mountain slope and caught sight of the over-matched olive farmer and his prize catch. Sizing the situation up quickly, Hawk scowled, turned with a disgusted kick at the snow, and hit the ice at a trot, hurrying to Axelhoff’s side. It was questionable whether even one of his athletic prowess could make the difference, but Axelhoff was grateful for any aid.

Hawk slowed as he drew near, passed Axelhoff without a word, and knelt carefully at the edge of the ice. He managed to lean out far enough to catch Anna by one skate, and he drew her closer. Then, placing his feet firmly on the ice, he gripped that skate with both hand and leaned back, arching his back. Axelhoff pulled. Hawk Pulled, and slowly, like Leviathan rising from the deep, Anna began to emerge. First one leg, and then the other, slid onto the surface of the pond. Once she was partially grounded, the pulling became easier. She slid up and over the lip of the ice chasm and Axelhoff began to believe they might save her after all.

The king had started onto the ice, followed by his entire entourage, carrying furs and blankets and moving in slips and slides over the precariously slick surface.

It was then that cries of dismay arose once again, and a high, keening cry dropped over them all, sounding like the haunted voice of doom.

About half of those gathered turned to the mountain to see what had caused the sound. Unfortunately, this left half of crowd and rescuers watching Anna, Axelhoff, and the King, and those who turned to the mountain chose, once again unfortunately, to gape in awed silence.

Cresting the final rise and taking to the air, Mephistopheles Doufis soared like a great, red and gold saronged bird, screaming at the top of his lungs as he felt the world slip away from beneath his runners, and slicing the air a donkey’s height above the snow. His back was pressed tightly to the luge and his eyes were still closed tightly. It did not matter that his eyes were closed, because he had absolutely no idea hot to steer the sled, and since he’d managed to jump the final banked curve and taken temporary flight, it wouldn’t have mattered if he did. While it is true that he could have rolled off the side, let go, and taken his chances in a fall, it is also true that his hands were frozen rigid and gripping the handles of the luge like solid lumps of ice. Besides, regardless of the fact that he had not officially been entered in the event, this was obviously his one championship run, and he intended to ride it until the end, though he hoped in his heart of hearts that the end would not be THE end, and that he’d have full use of his many limbs if there was any glory to be had.

When he struck the ice of the pond, forgoing any further contact with the snow and narrowly missing the boxed seat of the Botswanian ambassador, Mephistopheles finally opened his eyes. He could make out no details of his surroundings, but he saw a colorful mass of bodies, and he instinctively leaned to the left and aimed straight into the center. He didn’t know if they could stop him, but if they couldn’t, he hoped they would get a good glimpse of his championship form, and that one among them might possess a camera to preserve the moment for the Historical Archive.

Now everyone was screaming. The crowd before him parted like a great wave, and Mephistopheles had three one hundredths of a second to consider the beauty of their motion before his vision was filled with a single, enraged visage.

Between Mephistopheles, glory, and the huge gap in the ice stood Hawk, the luger. The Bahamanian’s eyes blazed with anger. He stood his ground like a statue, squatting low and bracing himself as well as possible against the icy surface of the pond. The others, including Axelhoff and the king, who now shared the duty of towing Anna’s inert form across the ice, showed their own Olympic potential as they sprinted, dove, slid and danced to either side, clearing the way for Mephistopheles, the Rozinian Rocket, as he passed.

There are many formulas in physics, and several of them apply to what happened next, but this is neither the time, nor the place, for such calculations. Suffice it to say that a luge, powered by gravity and the weight of one terrified Rozinian, shooting down a mountain as if from the barrel of a very large and poorly aimed gun, is a formidable force. A Bahamanian luger, on the other hand, while grim, determined, and formidable indeed, is not a good substitute for the proverbial immovable object. An irritated object, undoubtedly, and one with purpose, but still, Hawk’s ill-chosen reaction to Mephistopheles’ commandeering of the Bahamanian luge, coupled with his presence on the ice-skating rink, which had also irritated him by its very necessity, proved his undoing.

The crowd parted successfully, and luge met luger in a flash of color and screams of pain and surprise. Hawk’s legs left the ice, and he flew into the air, being the second luger to do so in a matter of short minutes and causing the king to reflect it was the closest he’d ever come to space travel, or having an air force of his own. Mephistopheles and the luge were slowed somewhat by the impact, but not enough to prevent him launching over the break in the ice and careening off the far side of the pond, where he struck a huge mound of snow feet first and caused it to topple, covering Mephistopheles and the luge completely.

Hawk, meanwhile, did not have the hang time of his namesake. He reached a prodigious height, but was unable to attempt to “stick” the landing, as he missed the ice entirely and plunged head first into the icy water of the pond. One moment the two athletes were converging on the ice, and the next, they were simply gone, leaving a stunned audience wondering just what in the blue-Rozinian blazes had hit them.

The king, wisely determined not to create an international incident with Botswania, particularly in the presence of the ambassador, turned his back on the entire proceeding and continued his efforts, with the help of Axelhoff and the royal guard, to get Anna Borginowskinvladaskaya to the shore. If nothing else, his majesty was determined not to have to attempt paperwork that included her name, unless it was the Olympic medal, and certificate. The Rozinian Death Certificate form only allowed for a last name of 20 characters, but the new shareware he’d downloaded for the creation of awards and certificates allowed up to fifty.

Then there was the reaction in his libido to the image he still held of Anna, rising from the ice and whirling in the air to be considered. There were worse international alliances that could be forged, to be sure, and while the king kept over a dozen “wives,” the royal virginity was intact. By Rozinian law he could bestow the title of wife on as many women as he cared to, but it did not obligate those women to anything other than receipt of a monthly royal stipend and an occasional public appearance. Ever hopeful, the king had handed out the title like candy, but all he’d succeeded in thus far was alienating most of the young MEN of Rozinia by snatching up all the available wives.

As Anna was wrapped in furs and drawn near to the comforting heat of the royal barbecue-pit fire, Axelhoff turned back to the ice, for which he had developed a sudden and inexplicable responsibility. Several onlookers stood, gazing over the edge of the ice where Hawk disappeared, but there was no sign of the Bahamanian. Axelhoff quickly unfastened his rope from Anna’s belt and scurried back across the ice, dragging the grappling hook behind him.

Several children had followed the trail of Mephistopheles and his luge into the snow bank and were digging frantically to free him. His head had cleared the snow, and though his teeth rattled together like festive castanets and his eyes stared, wide-eyed and very awake, he was as yet unable to move his arms. He feared that he had paralyzed his body, and the ensuing possibilities in world-wide headlines fueled the fire of his terror. It was a very bad year for the world to hear the words broken back and mountain spoken, or to read them written, in the same sentence or breath with the name of a virile young male.

Hawk surfaced, at last, sputtering and blue-lipped. His eyes had lost much of their fire, and he scrabbled weakly for the rope, which Axelhoff managed to loop over his shoulders. Getting the idea from the earlier rescue, and seeing their opportunity to prove their courage without dragging three-hundred and fifty pound dripping wet skaters from the pond, several onlookers joined in, and moments later Hawk was sliding across the ice toward the fire, where Anna, the king, the Botswanian ambassador, and a small crowd of other awaited him.

Moments later, freed from his icy prison, Mephistopheles rolled off the luge and rose shakily to his feet. He was happy to find that his back was neither broken nor frozen to the luge, and after taking a moment to steady himself, he began trudging across the ice, the luge dragged behind him by one of the straps that earlier had tied it to the donkey’s lift.

Many pages could be spent on describing the events in the royal pavilion by the icy pond, but such words would be as ill-spent as spittle in the breeze. It is enough to close with the press release the Minister of Foreign Affairs e-mailed to the various wire services the following day.

“Rozinian Winter Nationals close on a high note. His majesty, the king of Rozinia, is pleased to announce his betrothal to Anna Borginowskinvladaskaya, the Botswanian figure skater who took gold in this year’s Rozinian competition. Also taking gold were Rozinian champion Mephistopheles Doufis, in the luge, and Hawk – a Bahamanian athlete, whose last minute and unlikely addition of high-diving to the winter events culminated in the first gold medal in that sport awarded in the winter portion of that sport. Hawk had intended to compete in the luge, as well, but conceded that the downhill prowess of the Rozinian challenger had proven too much for him, and that anyone who could effectively change him from a luger to a lugee in one fell swoop deserved whatever medal they wanted to award him.

In related news, the king has released his sixteen young wives, as a tenet of the prenuptial agreement he signed with Anna Borginowskinvladaskaya, and as a token of gratitude, he has created a fund for the purchase of tight Lycra garments in the royal colors of Rozinia to aide them in their searches for new husbands and actual lives.

Hawk, in his own gesture of generosity, has donated his luge to Mephistopheles, who accepted with grace, though a sprained shoulder developed immediately after being asked if he would go on to compete in the Winter Olympics this year, will sadly prevent him from achieving Olympic Glory for the second straight time.

‘It is hoped,’ says Doufis, ‘that those interested will follow our country’s athletic progress and growth.’ When asked about the luge and his own future, Doufis glanced up from the bottom of the mountain and pronounced, ‘We can only go up from here.’

From Rozinia…

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs”

THE END