"That's it!  I've had enough of this place...of battling dragons and orcs and what have you.  I'm not moving another step!"  Presto threw his wizard's cap on the ground and sank down on a handy rock.
    Eric the Cavalier's face creased into lines of worry.  "But Presto" he quavered, "Zarak and the orcs are in the pass....and only a few minutes behind them, the avalanche Bobby brought down with his club won't keep them at bay forever.  We've got to get going.  This trip to the realm of Dungeons and Dragons isn't a holiday, you know."
    The green-clad youth looked miserably at his companions.  "That's just it.  This should be a time of  holiday.  Doesn't anyone know what the date is?"
    Sheila the Theif gave a gasp of realization.  "Of course, it's December 25th, back in the real world...Christmas time, isn't that so, Diana?"
    Diana, however, wasn't listenting, but looking to where the small but instantly recognizable figure of Dungeon Master had materialized, seated on the rock next to Presto.
    "Why have you stopped, children?" the voice questioned.  "The orcs will not remain baffled for long...and you have your mission to complete...to find the questions and the answers to take you through the realm of Dungeons and Dragons back to your world."
    "Phooee and fiddlesticks," Presto shorted angrily.  "I've had about enough of you and your games.  It's Christmas- I want to see my home again.  I want to enjoy the fun....to hear Christmas carols.  And you could fix that for us, couldn't you?  You could whisk us back to our homes, couldn't you?  Am I right?"
    The Dungeon Master regarded the bespectacled youth sorrowfully.  "I could," came the reply.  "But remember my powers aren't what they seem here.  I could take you home, but I beg of you, do not ask me to do so."
    Presto, upon hearing the words, leapt to his feet, his eyes blazing.  "Hear that? I told you this riddle stuff was all a sham.  Go on...get us home for Christmas, or I, for one, won't budge from this spot!"
    The Dungeon Master's face froze into a mask of dismay.  "Very well, I shall impart the spell, foolish one.  The orcs are approaching and you may not be able to fend them off again.  However, have a care.  Beware of your ears and eyes...of your memories...of your hearts.  Be gone."
    That instant, the old man vanished and the words of a spell formed in Presto's mind.  "Christmas carols, Christmas cheer.  Sands of time, bring them near."
    Next moment, it seemed that the whole realm was spinning and falling beneath them.  "Where are we going?" called Sheila, clutching Uni tightly to her.
    "H-home, I hope," came the trembling tones of Eric.  An age, and at the same time a split second later, the world had stopped tumbling.  Gone was the pass and the evil orcs.  All around them....only sands...The Singing Sands.
    Hank's voice called out, "Hey, listen...can't you hear that...?"
    Bobby's grinning face lit up in response.  "Don't you recognize it?  It's Jingle Bells."  All at once, the companion's hearts lifted.  There could be no doubt that that was the tune borne to them on the wind.  A tune growing plainer...and louder and louder as within each mind memories of the joyful ditty grew clearer.
    "Listen, another tune...We wish you a merry christmas," Diana gasped happily. "Now that's Oh come all ye faithful...Good King Wenseslas...Silent night!"
   Indeed, growing louder and louder, every tune was reporduced in the gusting, biting winds.  Louder and louder it grew.  The tunes now lost in a maelstrom of disjointed sounds.
    "The music...it's killing me." Hank's groans and Uni's bleat of terror were lost amidst the howling dischords.  Was there no end to this savage symphony of sound, no way out of the Singing Sands?  By now, the youngsters' headlong flight was reduced to a painfully sand-clogged crawl.  Were they destined to perish, pummelled by the songs of the sands?
    "Look...is it a mirage...or are those rocks ahead?  Rocks with caves beneath...somewhere out of the wind away from thje sound?"  The others followe Bobby's pointing finger.  It ws no mirage, for all could see far away the jutting pile of rocks that must surely form the edge of the Singing Sands.  Summoning the last of their strength, eyes screwed against the winds of doom, they ran, stumbled, staggered and crawled their way over sliding slopes of sand until their goal loomed large and awesome above them.
    "Into the cave...quickly before my ears burst," Presto urged his companions.  They needed no such persuading as they tottered into the cool shleter of the cavern.
    "Brr...I'm not complaining, but it's cold in here," commented Hank.
    "I suppose it would be compared to the heat of the Singing Sands," agreed Eric from his usual position at the back of the group.
    Prancing at the head of them was the ever-curious Uni.  However, as the little creature trotted around a tight curve in the passage, a bleat of alarm and surprise brought his [her!] human friends rushing to his side.
    "Two Uni's?" gasped Hank.  And it did indeed seem that in front of them and facing the rock wall was Uni's double.  However the impression was only fleeting as Sheila, stealing forward, put out a hand to touch the sides of the passage.
    "No, just his reflection on the rock.  Except..." she concluded, "it isn't rock, it's ice!"
    Presto shrugged.  "So what? The important thing is that we're safe here away from the Singing Sands...and perhaps this will lead us home in time for Christmas."  So saying, he pushed his way ahead of the others to lead the group deeper and deeper into the icy cavern.
    Outside, oblivious to the now tuneless winds blowing across the sands, the Dungeon Master looked sadly at the deserted cave entrance.  "They have entered the Caves of Ice.  Little do they know that the danger they faced on the Singing Sands is far outweighed by the peril that lurks within those cold walls. They should not have asked me to grant their wish.  I can only hope they remembered my warnings."
    At that same moment, beyond the Eye of the Winds, beyond the dread lair of Tiamat, witing the evil confines of his palace, the slitted eyes of Venger peered into the crystal triangle before him.  Within the prism, swirling mists cleared to reveal images of Presto, Eric, Diana, Sheila, Hank, Bobby, and Uni as they picked their way through the frozen world of ..."The Ice Caves!"
    Venger's ghoulish lips flickered into a smile of satisfaction.  "A place no warm, living being should dare to venture.  I'll warrent they will never find their way out again alive."  He turned and raised his arem to send a flash of light across the vast hall.
    As if by magic, there appeared his demon mount, Nightmare.  "Come," Venger's voice rasped as he sprang into the saddle.  "Just in case they do emerge from that zone of death, we shall be on hand to meet them in mortal and immortal combat.  I'll vow they will be in no shape to fight, should the need arise.  And whatever the cause of their doom, I shall seek and find their weapons.  I shall have the power to rule...to rule the realm of Dungeons and Dragons.  Yah ha haaaaaa!"
    On, on they flew...Venger's howls of evil laughter being caught and hurled to the four winds that swirled and eddyed in terrifying force above the mysterious realm. Suddenly, Venger's laugh faltered as Nightmare began to plunge and rear sickeningly amongst the racing plumes of clouds.
    "What is it?  What has disturbed the winds?  We are being blown off course.  Nightmare, use your powers...your strength...we are being blown towards the lair of Tiamat, Queen of the Dragons...and none may disturb her."
    Try as they might, the winds, roused to frenzy by the mindsongs of Presto and his companions proved the stronger.  Horse and rider were blown, tumbling and cartwheeling high over the rocky deathlands that contained the evil-tempered dragon's hideaway.
    Only over the distant Box Canyon did the gales lessen and allow Venger to plot a route to the Ice Caves.  "Power and fortune is with us, demon steed," Venger smiles.  "We passed the many eyes of Tiamat undetected."
    However, the power-seeker's optimism was ill-founded.  One eye in one of the fire-breathing heads of Tiamat had witnessed the passing of Venger.  And the Queen of Dragons...foe to both good and evil with the realm of Dungeons and Dragons...allowed none such comtenpt to go unchallened.  Even as Venger brought his steed to rest outside the Ice Caves, the monstrous winged shadow of Tiamat was swooping ever closer behind him.
    Meanwhile, within the caves, the increasing cold had finally slowed the companions almost to a halt.  "Brr," Sheila shivered,  "Not sure the heat of the Singing Sands wasn't better than this.  And I don't suppose we're ever likely to see our homes at Christmas at this rate."
    Even as she spoke, however, Presto and Uni, who were leading the party, came to an abrupt halt.  There, all but filling the passabge ahead, was a frozen pool of ice.  Words had formed once again in the boy wizard's brain.  Shatching the cap from his head, his hands cast a spell, while his thoughts found voice.  "Christmas warmth, midst caves of ice.  Bring us there, in a trice."
    As his words died in the frosty air, Presto's eyes goggled into the pool, as did those of his companions, who all bent to crouch over it.  Close, so close, as though viewed over immense distance through a telescope, could be seen cheerful fireside scenes.  For each pair of eyes, a different view...but all of..."My family...my home...everyone gathered for Christmas dinner...Mmmmm.  I can just smell that cooking!"
    Bobby's eyes widened greedily.  Hank licked his lips hungrily.  Sheila was the first to realize.  "We're each seeing a differet scene...but always of our home...and always of Christmas.  Perhaps that's all the Dungeon Master meant when he said he could take us home for Christmas."
    Uni found himself out of place and unwanted as his companions gazed as though hypnotized into the frozen pool of memories.  Warily he skirted the frozen circle and hopped on his way down the passage.  Soon he was out of sight of his friends, alone in the silence of the caverns.
    But, amidst the silence were sound.  Muttered half-words forming phrases.  A swelling, tinkling sound as of a myriad of glass shards moving, clicking toegether.  Glass...or ice?  Words.  "Life....warmth in the Ice Caves.  Cannot be.  Freeze, take destroy."  Next moment, the unicorn gave a bleat of terror.  From the very frozen wall itself had stepped a figure.  Its ice face was etched in grim lines.  A helmet shape framed its features, in its hand a needle sharp frozen spear.  Then there was another, and another.  Around the corner ahead...marching in a crunching, cliding glacier-like ripple of sound...an army of Ice Warriors!
    The little creature backed in fear away from them, his movements getting slower and slower as the haze of the ice warrior's frosty breaths encircled him, the cold numbing his movements.  There again were his human friends...but unmoving, unaware of the danger as they stared as though hypnotized into the pool of ice and the Christmas scenes within.
    It was the sadness of the memory which averted disaster.  A huge lemon-shaped teardrop ran from Diana's eye, clung for a moment to the point of her nose, and then dropped to land on the ice.  The instant the salt water touched the ice, a crack apeared and ran along the surface, splitting the Christmas scenes within.  Then another and another...and within moments, the ice had gone...and with it the reflections of Christmas memories.  In its place, just water...and there reflected, looming above and around them, "Aaaaaaaah!"
    Eric gave a yell as he looked over his shoulder.  "Soliers...an army...of ice men!"  He tried to pull his sword from its sheath...but became instantly aware of the cold projected by the warriors...his movements slow...heavy.
    All around, attempting to shake off the numbing cold, his companions forced themselves into action.  The fire arrows from Hank's bow arched towards the clashing, jangling legion of doom...but aginst the intense cold, the flames and energy died.
    Bobby's club grew heavy as a thick coat of frost grew around it.  "Run," Dian called.  "We've got to get out of here before we're frozen to death."  So saying, she ran, dug the stick into the cavern floor and delivered a flying drop kick to the nearest ice warrior.  Before her horrified gaze, the soldier dissolved into a thousand slivers of frozen silver...but just as quickly, these shards moved, danced, built and reformed the fearsome figure once more.
    "They're indestructible!" yelled Bobby.  "Presto, can't you magic us out of this?"  However, Presto, tug all he might, couldn't pull the frozen magician's cap from his head.  It felt like a ton of ice was holding it in place.
    So, with the bleating Uni behind them, the adventurers took to their heels.  Turning this way and that down the labyrinths of corridors, desperately trying to remember the way out.  And all the time, the heavy tramp of the ice warriors filled their ears.  Again and again they turned down passages, only to be greeted with a blast if icy air... and the sight of more ice warriors emerging from the cavern walls.
    "We've had it, we'll never find the way out.  Never get away from the cold,!" Eric's teeth chattered in icy fear.
    Then, Sheila perked up her head.  "Listen...can't you hear that...roaring...dragon sounds.  That way...come on...follow your ears...it must lead us out."
    Spurred to action, the others rose to their feet and tottered in Sheila's wake.  What was happening outside?  Had the good Bronze Dragon come to their rescue?
    What was happening outside was a meeting of might between Venger on his Nightmare steed and Tiamat, the evil Queen of the Dragons.  A hideous fire-breathing shadow, she'd dropped from the skies outside the Ice Caves, causing a high scream of terror to burst from the thin lips of Venger.
    Head after head spouted flame in his direction as he spurred his steed this way ad that to avoid the deadly heat.
    Finally, rider and mount managed to lift themselves into the air and wing away over the mounatins above the Ice Caves....away from Tiamat and away from the victory he'd so eagerly anticipated over Presto and has friends.
    Deprived of her prey, Tiamat quested heads all around, scenting new foes to be vanquished.  Then her ears detected the sound of movement deep within the caves...of voices yelling...as they grew nearer.
    "Bronze Dragon...Strongheart.  Are you out there...we guys are in trouble!"  Eager for the kill, the many-headed beast forced her form into the cave entrance.  With a roar that shook the entire mountain range, she sent jet after jet of fire along the passages that curved ahead.  Tiamat was all-evil.  None could call her friend.
    It was Uni's bleat of terror that awoke the friends to their peril...suddenly gushing toward them down the ice passage was a wall of water...the heat had melted a path of its own...a new tunnel through the ice caves.  Soon they were swmming, desperately holding on to Eric's magic sheild that floated as no such sheild would do in their home world.
    "Quickly, duck underwater!"  These words had hardly left Hank's mouth when a wall of flames shot above them.  The regiment of ice soldiers ahead, already dissolveing into the flood waters, were transformed instantly into steam...and indeed on all sides...the ice walls were melting...then just as quickly vaporizing as behind the deadly trails of fire blazed from Tiamat.
    Suddenly they were in the open...the last blast had breached a hole clean through the outside wall of one of the ice mountains...they were in the Singing Sands once more, but there were no songs in their hearts...the winds...as keen as ever...held no terrors.  The melted ice ws absorbed by the burning sands as though by a sponge...and the companions found themselves running, stumbling away from what could have been their icy tomb.
    Looking back, they could see around the ridge the distant form of Tiamat, heads and shoulders still crammed into the main cave entrance...steam leaking from the peaks and crags of the mountains showing that her burning breath still bellowed forth.  All at once, there burst from the topmost range a jet of steam...huge, immense, a blast of power that sent the winds into a spiriling whirlpool, so violent that the children had to hurl themselves to the ground.
    With dusk falling, and as whirling clouds of vapor raced across the sky, the ponderous winged bulk of Tiamat could be seen returning to her lair.  She had gone...and so too had the living ice army, melted, vaporized into droplets of moisture sent roaring across the Singing Sands into the eye of the winds, cooled and were back.  As night fell, the desert was for once blanketed with cloud...
    And from these clouds, fell... "Snow!  It's Christmas night and it's snowing!"  Sheila could hardly believe her eyes.  It was true!  Around them, the wind across the sands had dropped...smothered, as was everything else, in white.
    "This really is like the yuletide," Eric smiled.  "All we need now is..." Before he could finish, the soft sound of hoofbeats could be heard approaching.  It was Uni, amazingly harnessed to a small cart set on wooden runners...and there, small, hooded and cloaked was the figure of, "Santa Claus?  Here?"
    "Not Santa Claus, Eric," came the familar tones.  "Though I do bring you gifts."  It was of course the Dungeon Master.  Stepping off the sleigh, he said, "I have for you a map, a key, and a warning.  May fortune smile on you over Christmas time...and may you use your gifts to find your way onwards and out of the realm of Dungeons and Dragons."