The two men glanced at one another, then nodded to me. They understood now. It was plain to see.
“We—we serve the Lord Cevelar, my lady,” the leader said. “He has been master of this place for as long as we have been here.”
“I knew it,” I hissed.
“But he told us we were ultimately in the service of the dead god Baranak,” the other said quickly, wielding the sentence like a shield.
“And how exactly have you been serving Baranak?” I asked, anger filling me.
The two looked at one another again.
“We pave the way for his return,” the dark-haired one said.
“We have prepared to help Cevelar gather up the implements he needs in order to—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” I interrupted. I wasn’t interested in the details. Not again. Not at the moment. I simply wanted to know if these two were malevolent in their intentions.
“So you believe you have been working to return Baranak to life?”
They both nodded fervently. “Yes, lady,” each of them said.
Frowning, I turned from them and started to say something to Mirana.
“And we prepare for war,” one of them added, righteousness filling his voice.
I turned back, scowling.
“War? What war?”
“The war that is coming,” the Templar said, rising to one knee. “The war that will sweep the unfaithful from the stars, and restore the golden god to supremacy!”
“Baranak calls for war,” the other asserted quickly. “He demands it. He wills it!”
“He is dead,” I spat back at them. “Dead. And you know nothing of what he wills, or willed.”
The two stared at me, taken aback. “But—was he not the golden god of battle?” one asked.
“God of battle, yes,” I replied. “Not god of war.”
“There is a difference?”
“A vast difference. Battle is immediate and necessary. It reveals character.” I gazed down at them, contemptuous of what they’d made of his memory and his Aspect. “War is much larger, much longer, often conducted for many different reasons and motives and agendas by many different people.” I glared at them. “And it reveals many things about those who advocate it—few of them good.”
The two Templars frowned, looking from me to one another in puzzlement.
“Baranak never advocated war save as a last resort,” I told them. “He understood that being a leader meant far more than sending others out to their deaths.”
The two took in my words. Whether they got through and made an impression or not, I cannot say. I suspect they did not. But my patience with them was long since gone, and other and more important issues remained before me.
I raised my gaze from them and looked around in the dark space, unable to see very far in any direction. Still came the low buzz, subliminal but strong, mental rather than audible, hovering just below the level of perception. Manifesting itself in a palpable dread, as it had from the moment we’d arrived. I’d had quite enough of it.
I returned my gaze to the two Templars sitting defeated and deflated on the floor before me.
“What is the source of this...fear...that we feel here?” I demanded.
Slowly, reluctantly, they both turned and gestured into the darkness behind them; in the direction of the nightmare shape I had seen only momentarily during the flare of light. Something was back there, hidden from sight. Something dark and powerful and terrifying.
“What do you have there?” I asked, my frown deepening.
The leader shook his head. Sweat was running down his face and it was no longer just the perspiration from his exertions. His pallor whitened. “I—I do not know, lady,” he said. “Lord Cevelar brought it here many months ago. He claimed its mere presence would protect us, but he allowed no one to approach it.”
“Nor did we desire to,” the other added.
I regarded them, pitiful in their surrender, then turned and addressed Mirana. “Whatever it is,” I told her, “we will destroy it.”
Both of the Templars reacted violently at that. “No—no, you must not,” the white-haired one said, starting to his feet. The other followed.
My sword was out and in my hand again. I directed its tip their way. “Lead us to it,” I commanded.
The two Templars appeared terrified at the mere prospect. They stood now, looking first at me and then in the direction of the dark presence.
“My lady,” the white-haired one began, his tone pleading, “in the name of Those Who Remain, please do not ask us to—”
“I ask nothing,” I snapped. “I command. And do not speak to me of Those Who Remain. I am one of Those Who Remain. And if your loyalty does in truth belong to Baranak, then it also belongs to me. Now go.”
Cringing, almost shaking, the two Templars bowed and then turned again in the direction of that which lurked in the darkness. With one step, then another, they moved slowly that way.
“Come,” I said to Mirana and the others.
Together we ventured into the darkness.
FOUR
Though it took some time and seemed a journey of many miles, in truth we traveled only a short distance across the stone floor. The buzzing in our heads heralded a sheer wall of psychic resistance that grew exponentially as we made our way forward. The sensation was of walking through water, then through molasses, and finally through a brick wall. Yet still we pressed on. The white-haired Templar led the way, his flashlight creating a pool of yellowish illumination just ahead. Of the remaining space, what lay before us, and the true dimensions of the chamber, we remained in ignorance.
The voice of the alien Binari came from behind me. “Would you like a brighter light than this?” he asked.
“Certainly,” said I, just before the two male Templars turned back to us and objected.
“No,” the leader said urgently. “It will disturb him—rile him.”
“Do it,” I barked at Binari.
In response the little Rao raised his hands above his head and the coppery lines on his outfit flashed with electricity. He brought his hands together over his head and a light flared out, filling the space. The most intense portion of the light speared ahead, powerful, sweeping past us and casting long shadows across the floor.
Several things happened at once.
We saw, some twenty meters directly ahead of us, a hunched form. It was not human at all. Its numerous limbs were shrouded in what looked like black rags, and its face was a glinting silver skull-mask that leered up at us.
A scream, somehow both audible and psychic, washed out over us and through us. It was bone-chilling.
The Templars all shrieked and dropped to their knees, as though they were marionettes and their strings had been cut.
I looked around me and saw the others now on their knees as well, their faces twisted into expressions of shock and fear bordering on horror.
Nor was I immune; I could feel the naked terror that had been unleashed. A wave of nightmarish fear, pummeling me. Seeking to push me back, push me away. To send me racing from the chamber in gibbering madness.
I fought it. Even as the others succumbed and fell to the hard stone floor, I stood my ground. I fought back.
But the mental assault was too strong, too powerful. Another wave hit, and I found myself lost within it.
I fell.
* * *
Down through the darkness I tumbled. And as I went, the years, the centuries peeled away. This sensation of spinning, falling head over heels, persisted for what might have been half of eternity. At last, though, the shock of it receded, and I regained something of my orientation. Blinking my eyes at the sudden light, I understood immediately that I was back in the throne room of the main palace in the Golden City. Unlike its gloomy appearance in these latter days, however, it was still resplendent and gorgeous, with gleaming gold and silver and precious jewels sparkling all around.
I looked down at my body and found that I was still my
self, though a much earlier self. I will not say “younger,” for what is “young” to those who have existed for millennia?
At my side stood the great golden god of battle, Baranak himself. I gazed up at him and met those blue eyes and in them I felt the power and the glory of the mighty master of our City; as well I felt the warmth and compassion that so few others knew he possessed. I had missed him terribly in the ages since he fell, and it came back to me now with an intoxicating, almost overpowering rush.
He looked back at me and spoke and at first I could not hear his voice, and this vexed me greatly. It was as if we were indeed underwater, or he was speaking from a great distance, despite his standing so close by.
Frowning, frustration growing within me, I sought instead to address him. But I found that I could not. My mouth would not open. I had no voice.
Wordlessly my body moved, of its own accord, stepping off to one side as he came forward to address several other gathered gods of the City who stood opposite us. I had not meant to move, but my body had done so anyway. Those other gods in their gleaming finery turned to look at me, and I found I was speaking to them, though again the words were inaudible.
I understood then: I was experiencing a moment from the distant past, but from my own perspective at that time. It was as if I were watching a play put on by actors, from inside the head of one of them, but could do nothing to influence their performance.
And so, unable to act or interact with anyone or anything around me, I could only watch.
Over the next short while, snippets of my long, immortal life played out around me. I saw—I participated in—the putting down of Lucian’s infamous rebellion, when his suspected accomplices mostly abandoned him and Baranak’s forces easily captured him in the central square of the City. I watched as Baranak’s council unanimously voted to cast Lucian away into exile in the mortal realm, warning him never to return upon pain of real death. I experienced again the moment, so many years later, when Baranak urged me to take refuge in my ice castle while he dealt personally with the murderer of dozens of our fellow gods and goddesses. Reluctantly I had done that thing, but soon enough the chief suspect, Lucian himself, had unexpectedly delivered himself into my hands. It was with great surprise that I slowly became aware he was not in fact the guilty party. At the conclusion of the conflict that followed—the one in which my golden god perished and the true adversary was punished—I voluntarily handed the great Sword of Baranak over to Lucian, the dark god.
We all make mistakes, I’m afraid.
So many more years hurtled by in a flash after that, and then I was caught up, back here in the dark chamber beneath the Templar castle, my sword still in hand, my associates all on their knees around and behind me. The power of the psychic wave that buffeted us was terrible indeed, and it hammered away relentlessly. These mortals could not survive such an onslaught much longer; of that I was certain. Something had to be done immediately.
Gritting my teeth, I cast aside the fears, the shadows of my earlier life that had been dug up to haunt me.
“The past no longer holds terrors for me, monster,” I called into the darkness. “I have faced all challenges and here I remain—firm and resolute. I have survived. When so many of the others fell, I survived. And I defy you and your pitiful efforts.”
My resolve growing, I hunched my body forward, leaning into the resistance. I took a step forward. Then another. Then a third.
The psychic wail became much stronger. It was a scream, knifing into my brain. Absently I hoped such a raw and desperate attack was only being directed at me, for no mere mortal could ever hope to retain sanity in the face of it.
My face a scowl, as though a hurricane wind battered against me, I took yet another step forward. And another. Each was as difficult as moving the world, yet I never flagged in my efforts, never gave in to the urge to halt, to relax, to give up.
And then the pressure decreased. I surged forward, the force that had pressed against me evaporating as quickly as it had come. I stumbled to a halt and looked into the gloom and now I could see it, directly in front of me. The creature.
A Phaedron. A repulsive, alien-cybernetic life form. Alien indeed; believed to have come not just from beyond the known star systems but from outside of our galaxy entirely. A creature of a race that manipulated psychic energies to suit its own bizarre agendas. The Phaedron had invaded the human and Dyonari worlds once, years ago. Only with great effort had the human Legions expelled them; driven them back into the outer darkness.
Now one sat coiled before me, its eyes burning red, its silvery metal skull of a face glaring at me with utterly inhuman, malevolent intent. Chains were wrapped about it and attached to it; massive steel links that bound it to bolts implanted firmly in the stone floor.
Seeing it there, in such a state, no longer did it look quite so horrible to me. Now, as that accosting wave of raw fear that had clouded all our minds let up, what was left before me seemed simply pitiful. Pitiful and sad.
Yet, for all that, still a terrible menace.
I stared down at it, knowing now that it had already been weakened through long years of enslavement and servitude. By merely succeeding in approaching it in this way I had demonstrated that fact, and further broken its will in the process.
It hissed at me, but the fire was dimming in its eyes.
I regarded it with disgust, and as I stared at it I could feel it attempting to telepathically communicate, trying to tell me something. Trying to ask a question.
“Yes,” I said in reply to its wordless plea.
Grimly I raised my sword, brought it back, and swung the blade in a broad arc.
Severed in half, the Phaedron collapsed to the floor.
For a long second there was only silence.
I gazed down at the remains, then poked at them with my sword. The deep eye recesses in the metal skull were dark now. Nodding, I looked back up at the others.
“I heard it cry for help,” the red-haired woman—Erin—said.
“Yes,” the other agreed, her eyes wide. “Yes, I heard it too.”
“It wanted help,” I agreed. “And so I helped it. And us.”
“But—”
“Some creatures are beyond any other kind of help, and beyond all reason,” I said. “They welcome the end when it finally comes.”
“This is fifth-level understanding,” the Rao said—and I like to believe I detected a hint of appreciation, if not awe, in his voice. “In fact, it reminds me of—”
Mirana interrupted him. “My lady—look!”
My disciple’s sudden exclamation caused me to glance first at her and then down at the corpse of the Phaedron, where she was staring.
The eyes were glowing again. Bright red. Red as blood; red as death.
I brought up my sword, preparing to strike. But the creature didn’t move. It seemed entirely dead, aside from the bright, vivid light steadily increasing in intensity as it poured out of the eye sockets.
“Do you feel that?” Mirana asked.
Without taking my eyes off the glowing alien skull, I asked, “What?”
“I feel it, as well,” Erin said.
“As do I,” Binari noted.
And then I could sense what they were talking about. There was a crackle, an electricity in the air, slowly rising.
And I knew.
“Get out,” I called to the others. “Go! Now!”
The four humans, the Rao and my Dyonari aide all looked at one another, uncertain.
“It’s going to explode,” I shouted at them—but no sooner had I said it than I realized I was wrong.
It wasn’t a bomb. And it wasn’t going to explode.
It was going to do something possibly much worse.
Snapping back to reality at last, the others turned and ran for the stairs. I raced behind them. But we were all too late by then. Far too late.
The light pouring from the alien metal skull became a flood, a torrent. It caught up to us, swept ov
er and beyond us, and the entire subterranean chamber changed from night to broad daylight in an instant.
There came a senses-shattering flash, silent but blinding and utterly overwhelming.
And then our bodies were elsewhere. But by that time, our minds had all been carried away into the oblivion of unconsciousness.
* * *
My eyes did not want to open. I forced my eyelids apart by sheer willpower. Pain swam behind them, making it difficult at first to see.
I lay there a few moments, groaning. All my muscles ached. My ears were ringing, though there hadn’t been actual sound—more of a concussion force. Reaching out with my right hand, I could feel a soft surface under me. Grass?
“My lady,” came the familiar voice of Mirana, slightly slurred.
I looked. She was a short distance away, up and moving stiffly towards me.
“Where are we?” came the voice of one of the human women.
I sat up and looked around, startled at what I was seeing.
The seven of us were arrayed on a green, grassy lawn that covered a gently rolling series of hills. The sky above us was pale gray, overcast. No sun in sight, just a general glow radiating down. The air was warm with a light breeze, carrying the faint smell of a lake or river. In the distance to my left, the air appeared slightly fuzzy; distorted by something, though I could not tell what.
“What happened?” one of the others was asking.
On my feet quickly now, my mind clearing at last, I studied the landscape.
“Are we outside the castle?” Erin asked. “How did we get out here?”
“We are not,” Binari replied, studying a small device he held in his little hands. It beeped and whirred as he manipulated its controls.
“What?” The humans turned to face him, puzzled expressions on their faces.
“The Phaedron, in its death throes, transported us away,” Binari said.
I frowned. “Away?”
“I have heard that the most powerful of their number possess such abilities,” Mirana stated. “But only at the moment of death.”
Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice Page 5
