Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice

by Van Allen Plexico

  I turned sharply away from him and addressed the others. “The mistake was my giving the Sword to Lucian.”

  “But you did,” he said. “And that gives me veto power.”

  “Not if I were to take it back from you,” I growled, meeting his eyes.

  For a moment no one spoke. The air around us grew as chilled as if I had exerted my powers to make it so. Perhaps, subconsciously, in some small way, I had.

  “Why did you give the Sword to him, lady?” Binari asked, looking up at me with wide little eyes.

  I continued to glare at Lucian another couple of seconds. Then I turned and gazed down at Binari. “I was angry,” I said.

  “Angrier than usual?” he asked.

  Had he meant that as an insult? No, I decided. He meant it sincerely. I tried to calm myself.

  “I was sad,” I attempted to explain. “Baranak had just given his life to stop Vorthan—to prevent him from killing any more of us.”

  “Ah,” Binari said. “So—you were hurt.”

  “Hurt?” I frowned at this. “No, I had suffered no injuries. I was well.”

  “I meant emotionally.”

  “Emotionally?” I scoffed. “Never.”

  “You were in shock.”

  “I do not be ‘in shock’.”

  Another pause, then, “I have studied your language extensively,” the little Rao said, frowning, “and I'm not entirely sure that was a sentence.”

  Solonis stepped forward into the center of the circle and raised a hand. “Let us table the discussion about Baranak until later,” he said. “Our first priority must be to find the remaining Cosmic Weapons—so as to deny them to Cevelar. What is their status now?”

  “Mirana carries the Shield and now we have the Sword,” I said, gesturing toward the golden weapon being held by Lucian. I gave the dark lord a darker look. “It has been my understanding that you gave it away many years ago. May I ask how you came to have it again?” I asked him.

  “I did not give it away,” he said to me coldly. “The opportunity arose to use it to solidify a treaty—to remove a harmful empire and create a benevolent one, for the benefit of millions of people. What value was the Sword as a mere heirloom, to be hung on the wall of my palace, when compared with all that?”

  I had nothing to say to that, but my anger still burned within me. We glared at each other as seconds ticked by. The others looked on, uncertain of what to do or say.

  At last Binari broke the silence. “The question remains,” he said. “How did you get it back, then?”

  Lucian appeared to have no desire to say more.

  Tamerlane answered for him. “Agrippa wielded it during the Nightfall War,” the general said quickly, “and then returned it to Lucian before going off on sabbatical.”

  “Ah.” I allowed myself a slight smile at the name of Arnem Agrippa being mentioned. “Of course he did.”

  “Cevelar now possesses three of the Weapons,” Davos chimed in, his voice a low rumble. “The Knife, the Hammer and the Axe.”

  I growled at that last one.

  “That begs another question,” Davos went on. “How many of the weapons do they need, to do whatever it is they’re doing?”

  “We cannot know for certain,” Solonis said. “There is no doubt they desire all six, but we cannot be sure all of them will be required for what they have planned.”

  “So, as Solonis suggested, the best idea is to prevent Cevelar from gaining any more of them,” I said, “and take away the ones they have.”

  “So which are left to be found?” Binari asked. “He looked down sheepishly. “I feel I should know that, but I’ve lost track.”

  “Only one remains hidden, so far as we know,” Davos said.

  I nodded. “The Scepter of Mordant.”

  “And where might it be?” Lucian asked, looking at me.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “I have a theory on that,” Davos said.

  We all looked at him, surprised.

  “There are legends about the Cosmic Weapons,” he said. “During my time as a Hand of the Machine, I heard several of them.”

  “Wait—you were a Hand?” Binari blurted, astonished.

  “Have you not looked at me, then?” Davos asked, almost incredulous.

  “You are of that race, yes,” Binari said quickly. “But many ages have passed since your people actually served in that role. I assumed you were far too young to—”

  “No, Builder,” he replied—but not in an angry way this time. “I am not too young. Once, long ago, I served the Machine. But I was able to... remove myself from service. That is how I came to dwell at the edge of the Mosaic City where you found me. In retirement.”

  I considered this. It fascinated me.

  “So—what is your theory?” Solonis asked.

  “I believe the last of the Cosmic Weapons is lost or hidden somewhere in the Labyrinth.”

  We all stared back at him. I thought I knew what he meant, but I wasn’t at all sure anyone else did, other than perhaps Solonis.

  “What is the Labyrinth?” Binari asked, when no one else seemed in a hurry to say anything.

  Davos smiled. “You know of the various levels of reality, yes? Of how the gods can open portals between them—at least, when the Power is flowing out from the Fountain, they can do this. At its current low ebb, they cannot.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Binari replied.

  “And you know of the Paths that some Dyonari—such as Mirana here—can walk. Pre-existing connections among those same many dimensions.” He was drawing lines in the air with his big gray hands. “They do not actually open a way, as the gods do, but they can find them and navigate them.”

  “Yes, of course,” Binari said, impatient.

  “My kind long ago began to suspect there is another realm,” Davos explained. “We think it exists not in any of the known universes nor within the network of Paths that intersect them, but in a third place.”

  Lucian and I exchanged puzzled glances at this.

  “A third place?” he said.

  “Yes. A sort of In-Between. Because it exists between layers of reality, and off the beaten track of the Paths.”

  Solonis all but gaped at this. “Away from the Paths? That sounds like an excellent place to go to become lost forever in the infinite,” he said.

  “That is where the Labyrinth comes in,” Davos said. “I believe it can provide us access to the In-Between.” He grinned at Solonis. “Access that doesn’t involve the risk of blindly wandering off the Paths.”

  “How do you know of the Labyrinth?” both Mirana and the other Dyonari said together. Instantly they looked at one another, surprised.

  “I told you. As a Hand, I heard many legends.”

  The two Dyonari looked at him, then at one another again. Each appeared quite curious about the other.

  We all looked at one another, considering what Davos had said. No one appeared to have a better idea or a decent objection.

  “So where do we find this Labyrinth?” I asked.

  “It could only ever be accessed from but a few places. Most are now lost. But I believe the Star-Cities can afford us an entry.”

  Hearing this, we all looked at Mirana and the other Dyonari. My apprentice shrugged. The male narrowed his eyes. “Yes,” he said, his voice an evil-sounding croak. “It can be done.”

  Mirana frowned and gave him an unreadable look. He ignored it.

  “Lucian,” I said then, “you have not introduced us to your new friend.”

  “Introductions can wait,” he said. “Particularly one that would take as long as this. We must determine our course of action and move without further delay.”

  “Of course,” I said with a nod, now more curious than ever. And admittedly a bit suspicious.

  A gurgling sound came from where Kambangan lay nearby. I glanced over at him. He did not look good. Mirana had fashioned a bandage for him from a piece of her armor but the energies now trickl
ing from the hole in his gut had quickly eaten their way through and he continued to “bleed” the Power. Truly the Sword of Baranak had dealt him a grievous wound. I somehow felt a sense of pride in this, as terrible as it sounds.

  “Will you do nothing to help him?” Tharandar asked.

  “He tried to kill us,” Lucian pointed out. “I feel no special desire to aid him.”

  “But... he could not help it,” Myhadra said.

  “What would you have me do?” I spread my hands. “Until and unless the Fountain is restored to normal flow, he will be very long in recovering. If you wish to help him, we will have to find a way to repair it.”

  “What do you mean by ‘he couldn’t help it’?” Solonis asked.

  Tharandar looked away. Myhadra seemed to be debating something internally.

  “While never the most pleasant of us,” Solonis added, “Kambangan is clearly not himself. I would like to know why that is.”

  “He is insane,” Myhadra whispered.

  Tharandar scowled, as if furious that his associate was saying anything to us—but especially this.

  “Insane?” I frowned. “And there is a reason for that?”

  “Two reasons, I believe,” the goddess replied slowly. Still she hesitated to tell her story, but I was coming to think her reluctance was more a performance for Tharandar’s benefit. We all waited and soon enough she spoke.

  “It begins well after our revival and subsequent imprisonment on Candis, when Cevelar was rescued from the place the humans were holding us there,” she said.

  “Rescued by whom?” Solonis asked.

  “The human general. The one called Vostok. He came and took Cevelar away. But only him.”

  “That is how they came to be cooperating with one another,” I said.

  “Yes. Then later Cevelar came back for the two of us, and for Borodina. We reminded him that Kambangan was still alive as well, as far as we knew—but trapped in the maelstrom of a pocket dimension that had formed deep underground, beneath us there. Cevelar and the general found a way to retrieve him.” She paused a moment, clearly uncomfortable, before pressing on. “At the time, we assumed it was done out of loyalty. Now, however, I believe Cevelar knew Kambangan was damaged, and merely wanted a subject to test his machinery upon; the machinery he intends to use to gather up Vorthan’s essence. Kambangan had been driven half-mad by his experiences in the maelstrom. What Cevelar did to him has completed the job.”

  We all looked at one another.

  “Cevelar has much to answer for,” I stated.

  “Cevelar is as much a lunatic in his own way as Kambangan has become,” Lucian said.

  “That is unfair,” Tharandar snapped, speaking up at last.

  “How else would you describe his goals?” Lucian shook his head in disgust.

  “He wishes to reconstitute the gods who were slain,” Tharandar said. “Slain by you!”

  “Yes,” Myhadra chimed in. “And I do not understand how you, Karilyne, can consort with this murderer!”

  Lucian closed his eyes and shook his head tiredly. “Not that. Not that again.”

  “Lucian’s name was cleared ages ago,” Solonis told them.

  “How could they not know?” Lucian asked.

  “They have spent the last few millennia trapped in stasis aboard their starship,” Solonis reminded us. “And then held prisoner by the humans on Candis after their revival. They honestly don’t know.”

  “Well, know it now,” Lucian said. He pointed at his chest. “Not guilty.”

  Skeptical, the two looked from Lucian to me.

  “You know I would never, ever say anything positive about this one, were it not absolutely true,” I said.

  “With allies like this...” Lucian mumbled.

  “It was Vorthan, along with Alaria,” I explained. “They caused all of the deaths. Baranak defeated Vorthan at the end, but by then the damage was done.”

  “Hey,” Lucian said. “I had a good bit to do with defeating him, too, you know.”

  “Lucian was there, yes,” I said to the two gods.

  “I was there?” Lucian gave me an indignant look. I ignored it.

  “So you see,” Solonis concluded, “Vorthan was and remains the true threat, dead or alive. Before he was killed he had become a nihilist, seeking universal destruction, chaos and eternal entropy. Cevelar seeks to revive him—or else to draw his old energies back together, infused with the power of the six Cosmic Weapons, likely for his own use. Either way, such a thing would represent true insanity—with the potential for universal apocalypse.”

  Myhadra and Tharandar took all of this in, wide-eyed.

  “That is all true,” I told them. Lucian nodded.

  The two gods looked at one another, their expressions betraying their shock and confusion. After several seconds of very quiet discussion, both settled down and they nodded to us.

  “Very well—we believe you,” Myhadra said, her voice small now. “This is all extremely disturbing to us. We did not know, did not understand what you have described.”

  “Why were you sent here?” Lucian asked.

  “We were to take the Sword and the Shield from you,” Tharandar said, “and return with them to Cevelar in the Golden City.”

  “The Golden City?” Lucian seemed startled, though this information did not surprise me. “What is he doing there?”

  The two glanced nervously at each other again, as if afraid what they said would get them in deeper trouble.

  “It is time to choose a side,” I said to them.

  “Yes,” Myhadra agreed. She nodded and looked up at me. “Cevelar and the human, Vostok, are the cause of the Fountain not working properly. They damaged it in some way.”

  “Idiots,” Lucian growled.

  “Why were they tampering with it at all?” I asked.

  “Their goal was to place a sort of valve upon it,” Tharandar said, “so that they might gain complete control over it. Turn it up, turn it down, shut it down entirely, at their whim.”

  “They said it was all for a good reason,” Myhadra added quickly. “They said that only with the Fountain blocked off, and the Power not available, could we be sure of capturing all the traitors and enemies.” She shrugged sheepishly. “That would be the two of you, and a few others.”

  “They wanted to control it, certainly,” I said. “Just as Vorthan was able to do, when he murdered so many of us.”

  “Yes,” Myhadra admitted. “But in the process they damaged it. Perhaps beyond repair.”

  “By the stars,” Lucian said. “The utter fools. They had no idea what they were doing.”

  “No. They did not,” Solonis said. “And so now the Fountain only spews forth a tiny bit of the Power.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We all feel that.”

  “And if my calculations are correct—and I can back them up, of course, with my own observations from traveling into the future—it is only getting worse, and the Power may soon die out entirely.” Solonis ran a hand over his jaw. “In fact,” he added, “I have begun to suspect that the entropy wave Vorthan unleashes in the future—I trust you have all observed the foglike effects of it all around us on our journeys— is only now being held back by the Power of the Fountain. When the Fountain dies, we cease to be gods, and lose whatever abilities we possess that can be used to try to correct the situation. And shortly after that, the universe itself dies in a wave of pure entropy.”

  We all stared at one another for a long moment. Then I broke the silence.

  “Our first objective, then, even before finding the last of the Cosmic Weapons, must be to repair the Fountain,” I said.

  No one disagreed. And so, a short while later, we set out for the Golden City of the gods—the place that had once been our home, but now possibly harbored our deadliest enemies.

  TWENTY ONE

  Myhadra and Tharandar remained on Lucian’s island, seeing as how no one quite trusted them. Our god of wisdom and ally in the previous war ag
ainst Vorthan, Malachek, agreed to come and watch over them. As it happened, he now possessed an express route directly there from his remote castle home. Lucian had been quite busy creating such things in the ages since his mad journey across the multiverse, pursued by my beloved Baranak.

  He had also created a much faster way to travel from his island refuge to the Golden City, while he had reigned there: a branch of the river that had brought us there wound around and behind the island and disappeared into a sort of swirling light that hung suspended in the universal blue sky. One could just make out a narrow strip of grassy land that followed along the waters, on either side. That strip came right up to where we now stood, at the edge of the island.

  “It is a Path I carved myself, ages ago.” Lucian gestured with some degree of pride toward the strand of grass that floated in midair. “In the past I have ridden a horse along the bank there.” He frowned. “But with so many of us to transport now…” He shrugged. “I am afraid I do not possess that many horses.”

  “We have a ship that should be able to carry everyone,” I told him.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “Advanced technology doesn’t work along that Path.”

  “It’s not a spaceship,” Mirana said. “It’s a ship.”

  Lucian blinked. “Oh..!” He nodded slowly. “That would most assuredly be faster than walking.”

  And so Mirana summoned our little sailing ship around to this part of the island and we all boarded: Lucian, Solonis, Mirana, Davos, Binari, Tamerlane, and the odd Dyonari male that had accompanied Lucian. I climbed aboard last and we cast off.

  The journey was a surprisingly brief one. Lucian had blasted or carved his way through the thin spots in more than a dozen layers of reality, tunneling out a new Path that led straight to the Golden City. As our ship zipped along the currents, its sails puffed out by invisible cosmic winds, we saw the sky above and around us transform itself multiple times. It morphed in a matter of seconds from black with streaking stars to bright blue with clumps of accumulated clouds to radiant white that nearly blinded us. But no sooner had we all shielded our eyes from that awful glare than it settled upon a late-afternoon indigo. Within about ten minutes the tunnel of reality we were passing through opened back out and our ship emerged into a brightly-lit noonday world; a world I recognized instantly. Our ship came to rest against the banks of a gurgling stream. A stream that ran along the walls of the Golden City itself.