Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice

by Van Allen Plexico

  We had made it only a few steps across the open area when a scream caught my attention and caused me to whirl around. It was just as I had feared. One of the Templars, though I couldn’t immediately tell which, had fallen or been dragged down by the undead horde and now at least three of them were crawling over her, pinning her to the ground, biting and clawing at her.

  I closed the distance between us in three bold steps and extended my sword in my right hand, then brought the blade around with a broad, sweeping gesture. I followed this instantly with another swing in the opposite direction. The two Red Bands closest to me lost their heads and much of their torsos and collapsed, dropping to either side of the Templar, who turned out to be Erin now that I could see her face and her red hair.

  “Thank you, my lady,” she gasped as I leaned over and helped her back onto her feet. Clearly she was terrified by what had just happened, but put up a good, strong front.

  I didn’t waste time replying. For at that moment something caught my eye.

  The red lightning that crackled out and over the hordes of undead had seemed until then to have no real starting point. It appeared as a sort of ethereal spider’s web, a loose net with no endpoints, occasionally connecting all the zombies to one another. But as I had leaned over to offer my hand to Erin, the electricity had flickered over their bodies once again, and I had seen that web from a different angle—and in that instant I had happened to notice that it did indeed have a point of origin.

  One of the undead Red Bands had lit up first with the crimson energies, and from him it had spread in a stroke to all the others, intact and dismembered alike.

  Was this then the source of this awful power, this force that animated the dead and drove them to relentless attack?

  Straight at him I swept, my sword up and ready.

  He saw me coming and immediately I noticed a greater sense of intelligence in his eyes than any of the others possessed. Additionally, he was yet armed, while the others had abandoned their weapons and resorted to claws and teeth. He raised his head high and unleashed a wordless scream that curdled the blood of all who heard it.

  And then he was coming at me.

  We met one another halfway and our swords clashed.

  High I struck and he parried; low he attacked and I dodged, then counterattacked. He was fast—unearthly fast; likely far faster than he had been in life. The sinister energies that possessed and motivated him now drove him to superhuman heights. How could any mortal frame long contain such power—particularly one that was already dead?

  On we fought through several more sequences of attack and counterattack, and I lost track of my allies as they continued to fight their own battles all around me. Soon enough, though, the creature tired; perhaps his cadaverous frame could no longer contain the forces they were being asked to channel.

  That was when I noticed the sparkle of red in the palm of his left hand. It caught my eye and I knew at that moment precisely what it was, what it had to be—and how the zombies had come to exist at all.

  As he wore down, I pushed myself to a supreme effort. Up I chopped, half-decapitating him. Around I swung, removing his sword-arm at the elbow. Down again, and I had deprived him of his right leg, sending him sprawling. And finally, with one foot planted firmly on what remained of his face, I chopped off his left hand.

  Reaching down, I lifted the grisly prize and pried the clinched dead fingers apart. There, in the center of the palm, shone a tiny red fragment of crystal. Scowling at it, knowing it for what it was, I dug it out with my fingernails, tossed the twice-dead hand aside, and dropped the piece of gemstone on the ground. Tiny forks of lightning continued to flash out from it, connecting it to the other undead all around.

  I lifted my foot to stomp it, then reconsidered. What if, instead of being destroyed by that action, it somehow implanted itself in my heel? Could one god be possessed by another god? I did not want to find out.

  Instead I knelt beside the fragment and stared at its flickering, hypnotic, blood-red light. From somewhere within it, and within my own mind, I heard a voice; dim, distorted, barely there at all, but a voice. It called my name. And it whispered another name.

  My eyes were drawn deeper into its crimson depths. It was inviting; seductive. It seemed to ask questions of me: Should the dead gods not live again? Why should they be denied another chance at existence? Relentlessly I felt my own will being drawn in that direction. After all—what harm could it do, to draw a god’s scattered energies together once more, infuse them with the pieces of their persona that might have been preserved within a weapon, a possession—or perhaps a fragment of crimson crystal?

  Why should Baranak not live again? Why, for that matter, should the others not return? Why not even Vorthan himself?

  In fact, why shouldn’t I—

  What?

  I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes closed.

  What was I thinking?

  Shaking my head violently, I managed to clear my head somewhat. Then I raised my sword high and brought the pommel down with all my might, crushing the little red crystal to dust.

  The zombies all around us collapsed, marionettes with their strings cut.

  My allies, breathing heavily and bloodied, looked about in surprise, then turned their attention to me.

  There was no time to try to make clear to them what had happened, not that I presumed I could do so, or that I was right about it to begin with. The undead had been defeated and we needed to move on.

  I pointed to the far side of the square and barked orders for everyone to head that way immediately, explanations and zombies be damned.

  We hurried across the vast open space at the center of the square. It was the intersection of two broad avenues, bracketed in by five- and six-story buildings along the sides, taking the form of grand townhouses, smaller dwellings, shops and marketplaces.

  We had just reached the other side of the square when the shrill call of whistles echoed from down the cross-cutting avenue to our left.

  I looked at Mirana, and she nodded. The city guard had come at last.

  I frowned. This was the last thing we needed. They would likely detain us, or at least attempt to. They would ask questions I preferred not to have to answer. They would in all likelihood conclude that my party and I represented some sort of dangerous element and evict us entirely from the city.

  We could resist them, of course. We could stand and fight. Despite the fact that something continued at least partially to block my access to the Power and thus the employment of my full abilities as a goddess, and despite the fact that I currently did not have the cosmic axe that was my primary weapon, still did I possess reserves of strength and fortitude. Weakened though I was, I yet remained powerful. And Mirana and Binari and the two Templars made formidable allies.

  Yet even were we to resist, and successfully, against the approaching soldiers, the city at large inevitably would be roused against us in the process, rendering further actions here much more difficult, if not impossible.

  Such a turn of events was not acceptable. I had to get to the Spire, and I had to do so without half the city turned out in the streets to resist me. Once there, I needed the time to search it for the Cosmic Weapon my apprentice and I both sensed was there.

  And so, much to my own disgust, I issued the one order I never gave on a battlefield: I ordered a retreat.

  “Run,” I shouted, and together the five of us dashed for the nearest alleyway and from there on into the shadows and the darkness.

  * * *

  It was not easy. The journey took hours and in the end we were all exhausted. But we did manage to stay ahead of the city guard. Unfortunately, their broad and increasing pursuit across the entire sector of the city forced us to travel in the wrong direction from what we had desired.

  Along the way, the two Templars cursed vehemently the very idea of Vorthan-worshipping Red Bands being so widespread in this great city. The mere thought of it galled them both, and I didn�
��t disagree. They fell into a long discussion concerning what could be done about it, once their mission with Mirana and me was over.

  After several hours of careful movements intended primarily to maintain our distance from the city guard, we found ourselves still in the same sector but nearing the city’s outer edge. The massive walls reared up over us, gray and formidable and hundreds of feet high, looming above the homes and shops and other buildings that lined both sides of the street down which we traveled. That street came to an abrupt end as it intersected with a portion of the wall, at a closed gate of wood and rusted metal, ancient and weather-worn, that stood more than twenty meters tall yet appeared small relative to the size of the stone fortifications into which it was set.

  As we made the final turn and saw the wall and the gate just ahead, I brought our party to a halt and turned to face the others.

  “End of the line,” I stated, scowling.

  Mirana looked up at the towering ramparts and then back the way we had come, as if weighing the two options: forward or back. If forward was even possible.

  “What lies beyond?” Erin asked, gazing at the wall and frowning as well.

  Her words were followed immediately by a question from Lydia that echoed my own thoughts: “Has word of our actions reached the guards here? Would they attempt to bar us passing through the gate?”

  Erin came back with, “Do we wish to?”

  I joined Mirana in looking both ahead and back. Neither option appeared particularly appealing. A decision, however, was required, for the city guard likely would be upon us again soon. Before I could choose among the bad options, however, my apprentice exclaimed, “Hold,” and hurried forward.

  I followed after her, curious.

  She reached the end of the avenue and came up to the gate. Reaching out, she ran one long-fingered hand over its surface, studying it. Meanwhile she ignored the puzzled looks she was attracting from the up-till-then bored, armed and armored soldiers who stood to one side, next to their small wooden guard house. A fire burned in a low brazier between them, a bird of some kind skinned and skewered over it. They stopped their eating of more of the creatures in mid-bite and gawked at the tall, lanky Dyonari who stood there in her glasslike armor, ignoring them.

  Seeing the guards, I was grateful we remained in the same city sector we had arrived in, with its severe limits on technology. Had they possessed any advanced form of communications devices, surely they would have recognized us as fugitives and called for assistance by now. I gave them an intimidating glare just to be certain, a touch of the Power spiking through it. We are doing nothing untoward. Pay us no mind. I possessed no particular mental abilities, but suggestion alone can be potent even for mortals. With a start they turned their attention away from us and back to their food.

  Moving in closer to her, I whispered, “What is it?”

  Without looking away from the gate, she replied quietly, “I know this place. I know what lies beyond.”

  I frowned. “You have been here before?”

  She shook her head. “Not from here—not from the city, no.”

  My expression deepened. “Then how—?”

  “This city is an amalgamation of locations all across the galaxy, across the multiverse, across time and space,” she said, still not looking at me. “They extend here, they intersect here, but they still exist in those other times and places as well.”

  I blinked, shocked at the fact that I thought I understood what she was saying.

  “So,” I said after a moment of processing my thoughts, “you’ve been to this gate before, in its own time and place.”

  “I’ve been through it,” she replied, “and I know what is on the other side.” She paused. “Assuming what lies beyond it here and now is the same as what lay beyond it there and then.”

  I groaned at the headache-inducing metaphysics of it all and started to offer a comment, but then there came a commotion from behind us. Glancing back, I saw Binari and the two Templars hurrying towards us, having grown restless and abandoning their place of concealment.

  “We need to move along,” called the redhead.

  I understood her meaning. The city guard had found us.

  “Time to choose,” I said aloud. “Forward or back.”

  Mirana nodded at this, and at the gate. “Forward,” she said.

  “Very well.”

  Moving toward the two guards who were now entirely focused on their meal, I called, “Open this gate.”

  They looked up and scowled, as if noticing us for the first time, all over again—and none too happy about it.

  “This gate is not to be opened save at the command of the lord of the sector or the head of the city guard,” the nearer of the two recited, wiping grease from his dark beard. His accent was thick but understandable. His armor was a bit tarnished in places but looked formidable enough, and his right hand was now resting on the pommel of his sword in its scabbard as he regarded me.

  “Might these be the fugitives we’ve heard about?” the other guard inquired, having put down his own hunk of squab and now eyeing us suspiciously.

  So word had reached them, at least to a degree. And they were spoiling for a fight. Perhaps some reward had also been mentioned or suggested. I pursed my lips and shook my head sadly, coming to accept that I was going to have to kill them—or at least wound them severely—if we were to get through the gate. I took a step forward, filled with menace and dark portents.

  “Wait,” Mirana said, moving to face the two guards, one hand raised.

  As I paused, the two men hesitated, still clearly distracted by her alienness.

  She leaned in toward the nearer one and whispered something I was unable to hear.

  The guard’s expression changed immediately to one of surprise. He looked at her another long second, thinking, then turned to his partner and gestured toward a small, almost invisible doorway set into the gate, which was itself a mere four or five meters tall.

  The other guard was hesitant.

  “Davos,” the first hissed at him, as if that were some magical word that explained everything.

  Apparently it was, for the second guard’s reaction mirrored that of the first. He hurried over and together the two of them unlocked the gates and pushed one of the two doors slightly ajar.

  “This way, ladies—and, um…” The nearer guard looked down at Binari, frowned as he took in the sight of the Rao, then shrugged. “Yeah, this way,” he concluded.

  “Thank you,” Mirana told them. She paused then, looked back and said, “We did not pass this way.”

  The two men nodded. “You did not,” the first one said.

  Together the five of us hurried through the opening and out of the Mosaic City.

  We would be back within its confines soon enough.

  NINE

  “What was that he said?” I asked Mirana as soon as the gate had swung closed behind us. “Davos?”

  The others moved around us to form a small circle, everyone curious how we’d gotten past the guards and through the gate. We stood just beyond the wall, at the edge of what looked to be croplands; a farm of some sort. The green grass on which we stood slowly gave way within only a few paces to plowed rectangles of land with all sorts of well-tended crops growing on them. The sky had grown a bit darker with streaks of violet appearing near the far horizon.

  “What is Davos?” I repeated.

  “Davos is a who,” Mirana said. “He is known to the Dyonari and has been a valuable ally, from time to time, for many years.”

  “Clearly he was known to those guards as well,” I noted.

  “Yes. That is the gate he uses on those occasions when he travels into the city. I suspected the guards there would be familiar with him, and would have some sort of secret arrangement for when he or his guests wished to pass that way.”

  I considered this and nodded. “And you were right,” I told her. “But who is he? And where is he?”

  “As to who,” she answe
red, “He is known to some as a guide, to some as a smuggler, to some as an insurgent. He has been called a rebel, a genius, a fool, a hero, a villain…” She shrugged. “Which of these is true? I can only allow you to conclude that for yourselves. Because as to where he is…”

  Mirana moved to the forefront of our group and nodded toward the rows of crops that stretched into the distance away from the city walls—walls that were now dark red instead of gray. She pointed to a small, slate-colored building that filled one corner of a nearby clearing; one that I hadn’t noticed before then.

  “So,” I said, looking at the little building and then back at my apprentice. “You remain full of surprises.”

  She offered me a half-smile.

  “We should speak with this Davos, then?” I asked. “You anticipate he will be of some assistance to us?”

  “I do, my lady,” she said.

  “Very well.”

  And so the five of us set off across the fields toward the slate house.

  As we walked, I allowed myself once more to think back on the reasons we found ourselves here, in this strange place, dealing with strange individuals and stranger situations. It all came back to Cevelar, of course. General Vostok, his human ally or lackey, was partly to blame as well, I was certain. But he was a human, a mortal. He could be dealt with easily enough. Cevelar, though, was one of my own kind: an immortal; a god from the Golden City. What was he truly up to?

  A feeling of deep, foreboding dread crept over me, giving me a chill. That, in turn, further infuriated me, because I do not get chills. Tightening my grip on my sheathed sword’s hilt, I promised myself that blood would be spilled soon, and one way or another much of it would belong to Cevelar.

  A sense that someone was looking at me interrupted my musings. I glanced up and met Mirana’s eyes. They were cold and hard, but conveyed solidarity, not animosity. It was as if she’d been reading my mind, and was drawing up her own plans for dealing with our enemies. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth set in a grim line, and she nodded once. I returned the gesture. I felt better about things afterward. As always, Mirana understood.