I knew her immediately. She was compact of build and wore a skin-tight suit of shimmering metallic red. Her hair was platinum blonde and straight, her skin so pale as to make even my own seem tanned by comparison. She wielded a long, slender blade and pointed its tip directly at me.
Oh yes, I knew her. Borodina.
We’d had our run-ins over the centuries, though it had been quite a while since the last time. Athletic, fierce, and very sure of herself, she was always a handful. It occurred to me then that I’d never known precisely what her godly portfolio covered; she was goddess of what, exactly? I had no clue. But her Aspect was one of vitality and energy and sporting competition, that much was apparent. She came across like some ancient Greek athlete in an early Olympic Games. Or perhaps simply a Greek goddess.
I had no time for such speculation now. And less patience for her.
She, to the contrary, was clearly pleased to encounter me.
“At last,” she exclaimed, advancing.
I motioned the others back again, further down the stairs. I moved a few steps that way myself, as well, though I never took my eyes off the goddess in red and her deadly rapier.
“For so many millennia I have awaited this opportunity, Karilyne,” she said, a wicked glint in her green eyes. “An excuse to test my abilities against yours. To prove myself the finest swordswoman of the City. To best you in battle!”
“This isn’t about us, Borodina,” I replied, keeping my heavier blade up and aimed in the general direction of her heart. We were now only about ten meters apart and she continued to advance on me. “Or about some imagined competition between us. Larger issues are at stake. Much larger.”
She said nothing to that, so I continued.
“Surely you cannot serve Cevelar. He only concerns himself with his own interests.”
She paused for a moment. “I serve no one,” she snapped. “I merely find my own interests in alignment with his for once.”
I had moved some half-dozen steps back down the spiraling stairs in the direction we had come, constantly motioning behind my back for the others to keep doing the same—to stay back, stay away. I did not want them anywhere within arm’s reach of Borodina.
“I do not wish to fight you,” I told her. “My quarrel is with Cevelar, and it is a legitimate one. There will be no shame in our refusing to fight one another under those circumstances.”
She waved my arguments aside as though they were a small swarm of gnats.
“Your issues with Cevelar do not concern me,” she said. Then she offered me a wry grin. “But I’ve never refused to fight. Not under any circumstances.” The smile twisted into something sharper, darker. “I begin to wonder if mighty Karilyne is afraid to face me.”
Anger welled within my breast.
She was on the steps now, coming down after me. Two steps. Three.
So badly did I wish to rebut her speculation, her accusation; to chop pieces off of her so large it would take a century or more for her to grow them back. But a duel between the two of us might well go on for hours. For such as that, I simply did not have the time.
So instead I retreated, drawing her on, moving backwards blindly, trusting that the others had cleared out of the way. The last thing I needed was to back into one of them.
We were descending into the upper reaches of the cloud layer now—the clouds we had passed through on the way up—and fog billowed around my feet, my ankles. I could see it out of the corner of my eye and I nodded to myself. Yes. That, I could work with.
“This is your last warning,” I called up to my adversary. “You are not my enemy here and I do not wish to fight you.”
“Then this will be a very short duel indeed,” she sneered, charging ahead, descending into the fog. “No quarter!”
By the time she had descended to the step just above mine, I had already reached out with the Power—or at least what little of it I could feel available here. There was no way in so short a time I could have generated ice from nothing, as I normally would have done. But with the heavy humidity that surrounded us now—well, I could most certainly shape that to my purposes. I caused the temperature around us to drop drastically and, as a consequence, the moisture in the air around our feet began to condense. Immediately a thin layer of ice formed across the steps.
Borodina’s feet met that ice and she began to slip and slide. Her heretofore grim expression dissolved into astonishment as she waved her arms, attempting desperately to right herself.
It was not at all apparent if she would maintain her balance. I moved up one step, reached out.
I didn’t want to do it. But she was too dangerous.
My hand met her shoulder. I shoved.
Over the edge of the steps she went, tumbling head over heels. As she fell, she glared up at me and cried out, “Unfair! I would have bested you!”
I shrugged. “Perhaps,” I muttered, though by then she was too far away to hear.
I felt bad about it, though, truth be told. She was a fine duelist, and had presented me with a supreme challenge—one that under other circumstances I would have embraced. I am honestly not certain I would have prevailed, had the opportunity not presented itself to end the fight early and in my favor. But larger issues were at stake, and I could not afford to let my own sense of fair play get in the way of accomplishing the task at hand.
Glancing over the edge one last time before I started back up the stairs, I caught a glimpse far below of a quick flash of light. Had she managed to open a portal? It seemed unlikely, but perhaps the Power was more available in one of the layers of reality beneath us, and I simply hadn’t noticed during the climb up here. That was fine, though. If she’d managed to save herself, I wouldn’t feel quite as bad about the way I’d beaten her.
But it also meant I might have to face her in battle again.
With a sharp gesture I dispelled the ice from the steps and hurried back up toward the landing where Cevelar and Vostok and the soldiers had been. The others followed behind me.
Upon reflection, I wasn’t proud of the way I’d rid us of Borodina.
She’d been right about one thing, though. It had been a very short duel indeed.
* * *
We reached the landing once again, just in time to encounter a remarkable sight: most of the Legion III soldiers had departed, and the last remaining few were marching through a shimmering, oval-shaped portal—an opening through subspace and into another dimension—that floated there like a glowing doorway in the middle of the open area of the landing.
There was no time to stop and consider how Cevelar had managed to open a portal when the Power was at such a low ebb currently. All I knew was that he was getting away, along with the human general and his army and whatever prizes they’d found before we arrived.
My sword still in hand, I raced towards them. But I could immediately tell I would arrive too late. The last of the legionaries passed through the portal, followed by a smirking Vostok. Just like that, they were all gone, all elsewhere. As I drew near, only tall Cevelar remained.
“Opening a portal is all but impossible now,” he called to me. “Something is happening with the Fountain—I know you can feel it too, Karilyne. It yet flows, but the output of the Power is much reduced.”
He raised his right hand high overhead, and I could see that it held some sort of elaborate golden knife or dagger.
I checked my momentum and skidded to a halt a short distance away.
“Fortunately,” he went on, “as you can see, that poses no problems for one who wields the Knife.”
I raised my sword in a defensive gesture. That proved unnecessary, as it turned out.
As he stepped one foot through the portal, he offered me a diffident smile and a sort of shrug as he said, “Until we meet again, dear Karilyne.” And then he stepped the rest of the way through and slashed down violently with the dagger.
I moved to parry, but his slashing movement was not aimed at me. Instead the blade gave every
impression of slicing through the very fabric of reality itself—for that was exactly what it was doing.
The dimensional gateway he’d passed through collapsed upon itself, shrinking to a tiny white light hovering there in the air for a moment, and then it vanished entirely. Just like that, Cevelar and all the others were gone.
The others came up behind me and, after remaining on guard for a few more moments to be certain our adversaries were not coming back, I turned to face them.
Mirana’s expression was grim. “You recognized that weapon, did you not?” she asked.
My mind had been focused more on Cevelar and Vostok than on the weapon the blond god had carried, but now that my apprentice mentioned it, I realized with a start that I did know it.
“The Knife. Yes. The Knife of Alaria.”
Mirana nodded. “It possesses the ability to slice open dimensional portals in places where even a god cannot. I read of it in one of the ancient tomes in your library, and saw an illustration of it there, though I’ve never seen it wielded.”
“Few have,” I replied, “and none in ages. Alaria herself only owned it for a brief time, and since her death it has been considered irretrievably lost.”
“Cevelar has found it,” she said, matter-of-factly, “and what is worse—along with your axe, that gives him two of the six cosmic weapons. We are off to a bad start.”
I gritted my teeth but said nothing.
“Should we look around,” Binari asked, gesturing with one hand to the now-empty landing, “and see if they missed anything else of value?”
“They did not,” I snapped. “Anything of value their army has already taken away. But only the Knife matters, and now they have it. We must move on to the next likely site.”
“We cannot depart this place the way they did,” Mirana noted regretfully.
“No,” I said. “Most of my access to the Power from the Fountain remains blocked. Still I cannot open a portal.” Angrily I sheathed my sword.
“Let us return to the ship and continue on,” my apprentice suggested. “Perhaps our fortunes will change when we reach the city.”
No one else had a better suggestion, and so we returned to the steps and began the long and bitter journey back down to the bottom.
SEVEN
Tired and sullen after failing to secure the Knife or defeat our enemies at the One Tree, we climbed back aboard our little sailing ship and set out again along the river.
After more hours of travel, the pale smudge of a sun at last set and a general dull grayness covered the waters and our boat; a veritable pea-soup fog, as one might have described it, billowing all around. I took this to mean Mirana must have concluded that we had moved far enough in the direction of our destination. That or else she had reached her physical and mental limit. Either way, we were no longer shifting dimensions but traveling in a linear fashion through whatever layer of realspace we happened to now occupy.
In any event, the fog prevented me from seeing that nagging fuzziness I’d been noticing in the distance ever since we’d begun our voyage. I wanted to believe it was gone now; that whatever had caused it had stopped doing so, and that whatever problem it represented had cleared itself up on its own. I wanted to believe that, but I knew I couldn’t. It was undoubtedly still there, hidden, and sooner or later I was going to have to find out what it was and deal with it. Of that I was increasingly certain.
For the moment, however, we faced more immediate issues.
Where were we now? Unsure, I reached out with what little of the Power was available to me. Very faintly and very gradually I was able to acquire a sense of our current location. I considered it and nodded to myself. It made sense. My apprentice had once again performed her duties in exemplary fashion.
Then something else about that location occurred to me, and caused me to walk over to where Binari stood leaning against the rail at the rear, looking down at his little flying machine as it continued to provide added propulsion to our ship. I moved next to him and addressed him.
“You may wish to recall your drone,” I said.
He looked up at me and blinked. “Why?”
“Because I have a feeling I know where we are going, and there is a strong likelihood you could lose it if it is still outside the ship in a few minutes.”
“Lose it?” Frowning, he issued the proper signals. A second later the drone had detached itself from the stern of our vessel and was flying up and overhead. Along the way it sputtered and dropped precipitously a couple of times, as though its internal power sources were failing. This caused his frown to deepen and his obvious anxiety to increase, but eventually he managed to get the flying machine to come to him—whereupon it dropped with a clatter next to him on the deck. Nearly frantic now, he bent down and picked it up, holding it before him and studying every side from every angle. It did not appear to have been damaged, but it was clearly dead.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered. “It has been functioning perfectly—and I can find no faults with it now.”
“The fault is not with the drone,” I replied, “but with the universe.”
His frown could not physically deepen any further, but I got the sense that if it could have, it would have. “What do you mean?”
“We approach a place where technology such as yours does not function,” I informed him.
“What?” He was taken aback. “Not at all?”
“Not really, no.”
He appeared to consider this and then slowly shook his head. “Well,” he concluded, “that doesn’t sound like a place I will like, and I certainly hope we won’t stay there very long.”
As he manually folded the drone down to a much smaller size and tucked it away within his robes, I heard Mirana calling from the bow of the ship. Drawing my sword, I moved up beside her. Together we peered into the dense fog.
The thick gray stuff hung everywhere, making our cloaks damp and heavy, obscuring most of the course ahead and slipping past us on either side in twisting tendrils and wisps.
“We have arrived?” I asked.
She nodded. “The city,” she said, exhaustion evident in her voice. “All rivers lead here, eventually. I encouraged this one to expedite the voyage.”
I peered into the mist. “Where is it?”
“Wait,” she breathed, her eyes still closed.
And then the fog parted and I beheld a sight rarely matched among the mortal realms of the multiverse: The city itself.
It was not the Golden City of the gods—nothing else in all of creation is, or could be—but in all honesty, in terms of grandeur, it was close. And in terms of size and scope and population, it was far larger.
Ahead of us in the twilight we could just tell that the way was blocked off by massive gates of wood and metal that extended from a wall on either shore. Their bottoms reached down to the river’s surface and the waves lapped against them.
“We approach the Water Gate,” Mirana noted.
I considered this fact. If I remembered correctly, the Water Gate led into a vast section of the city in which technology would not function—at least, not in the same way it would in the parts of the multiverse that lay closer to the mortal realms. This city, of course, straddled many levels at once, and other portions of it were very different—which is part of what made it unique in all the cosmos.
“Will they let us in?” Binari asked, gazing up at the walls and the gates.
“They would not refuse me entry,” I stated. “Never.”
As we neared the gates we passed a strange object off to our left. It was a box made all of crystal or glass, about three meters tall and half that in width per side. It rested on the grass, partly enshrouded in fog. I started to remark on it, but then I saw that we were nearing a platform that extended out over the water to our right, some distance above us. A guard in armor, holding a spear, stood there watching us, torches in metal sconces burning on either side of him.
A spear and torches. Yes. It was as I remembe
red.
The guard cupped his mouth and called down, demanding to know who we were and why we were there.
I stepped forward and started to speak, but Mirana lay a hand on my shoulder. I glanced over at her.
“Perhaps,” she said, leaning toward me and speaking softly, “it would be better to conceal your identity, for now.”
I frowned at this.
“While my access to the Power remains extremely limited, and I cannot open portals at the moment,” I countered, “still I am formidable.”
“Indeed you are, my lady,” Mirana replied. “I did not mean to imply otherwise.” She paused, then, “Nevertheless, it might prove useful to travel incognito for a time,” she elaborated.
I thought about this and saw the wisdom in her words.
“Very well,” I said. Reaching back, I drew the hood of my black cloak up over my head.
“We are wayfarers, traveling together for convenience,” Binari called up in his high voice. “Each on his or her own business.”
The guard looked us over in the dim light. “Are those Templars?” he asked, seeing the two women who accompanied us.
“We are,” Erin replied, her red hair flying in the breeze, her cloak pulled back to show her chainmail and her robes.
The guard appeared to be considering the situation a bit more. Then he called back, “Very well,” and signaled to someone above and behind him.
A moment later the great gates parted and opened outward for us, and our little ship slipped between them. And the silhouette of the nearest portion of the city came into view.
Lydia and Erin stared up at the black outline of the inner walls and the towers that lay beyond the massive gate, lights flickering within and upon it all, and they gawked.
“What is this place?” Erin asked, not taking her eyes from it.
Somewhere nearby a horn blew.
Birds erupted from a stone parapet to our left and screeched overhead, across the nighttime sky.
Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice Page 8
