Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice

by Van Allen Plexico

  “Look,” Davos whispered to me. I followed where he was gesturing and could see that a portion of space to our left was obscured; the stars did not shine there and space itself was not black but a fuzzy gray. I frowned at this, wondering if perhaps I was looking through gauze or some sort of partly translucent filter screen hung over the city. But no, such was not the case. I looked back at him and he was frowning deeply. Then I understood what I was seeing. The entropy. The chaos. It extended now all the way out this far. No place was safe from it. Nowhere would be spared.

  Movement ahead of us caught my eye and brought me back from my musings of dread. A small group approached. “Greetings,” I called to them.

  Five Dyonari—tall and slender, pale and ethereal like most of their people—stopped a few paces from us and bowed. Then the tallest of them spoke—though his lips did not move. His “voice” sounded within all our minds.

  “You are known here, Lady of the Ice and Snow. And you are welcome.”

  This gratified me. And it saved a considerable amount of explanation and introduction. The Dyonari have interacted with my kind for centuries, and have always shown us proper reverence, despite our human appearance. They are, after all, a very advanced and enlightened species.

  “You may call me Lydain,” he went on, casually switching to spoken words. But then, instead of introducing his companions, his eyes moved across our little group. “Mirana,” he said to my apprentice. “I welcome you back.” Next he looked at Davos. “Well,” he said, a hint of excitement in his psychic voice now. “Rarely indeed are the ancient children of the Machine encountered in these latter days. Welcome.”

  Davos bowed.

  Lydain nodded his head in return. And then his eyes settled on Lucian. And he froze.

  “The god of evil accompanies you,” he said, now frowning. He regarded the figure in blue for a moment. “Or do you yet masquerade as Lord Markos?”

  “Either name will serve,” Lucian said with a smirk.

  Lydain seemed to be studying him carefully now. After a few seconds of this, he looked away and said, “Your commendable activities over the many centuries as Markos the Liberator are known across the galaxy. As they are known even here, among the dwellers on the Star-Cities. Yet your previous reputation precedes you as well.” He turned back to face Lucian squarely. “So tell me, then: Are you here to liberate, or have you come to work evil?”

  Lucian dropped the smirk. In its place a genuine smile spread across his face. “I have chosen to lend my efforts to my allies here, who seek to liberate the galaxy from the horrors our adversary would bring down upon it. Upon all of it,” he reiterated, “including the Star-Cities of the Path Walkers.” Then he shrugged. “I reserve my evil for those who deserve to have it visited upon them.”

  For a moment Lydain didn’t quite seem to know how to react to that. Eventually he smiled back at Lucian as if the two of them were in on some joke together. Then he nodded. “Well put,” he said. “You are welcome here, then. Provided what you say is true.”

  Lydain gestured for us to proceed into the Star-City proper. He glided along beside us as we walked, as ethereal as most of his kind. His four associates did not accompany us; something that dawned on me with suddenness. I looked around for them but they had vanished.

  “This has been quite a day,” the Dyonari said as he led us to the far side of the courtyard and up to a massive golden double-door set into the front facade of one of the city’s main crystalline towers. “To have two such illustrious groups visit us…”

  At these words I stopped in my tracks, forcing the others to do likewise. They all looked back at me, where I stood with my hands on my hips.

  “Two groups?” I asked, frowning.

  “Yes,” Lydain said. “The first preceded you by perhaps an hour.”

  “A human general?” I asked, concerned now that we had once again arrived too late. “Or perhaps a god?”

  Could Vostok have found another accomplice among my kind? The thought of any of them cooperating in his mad scheme sickened me. And so when the Dyonari answered, I was somewhat relieved—until I discovered the actual truth of the matter.

  “No,” Lydain said. “Our other visitors are neither human military nor gods of the Golden City.”

  We all frowned and looked at one another, puzzled.

  “Then who—?” I began.

  I was interrupted by the two huge golden doors in front of us slowly swinging inward. Once they were open, five individuals stepped through. I recognized who and what they were immediately, of course. The three at the rear were foot soldiers of the type we had encountered near the Spire—encountered and hidden from. Heavily muscled and rugged, they wore colorful red and silver metallic suits of skintight armored material.

  The two at the front, though, surprised me a great deal. One of them was similar to the other three, but even bigger, more muscular. Like them, he wore what was clearly a military outfit of extremely, almost miraculously thin material that emphasized his impressive frame. Unlike the others, his was all of green and gold and reflected a feather motif on the arms and down the sides of the legs. His skin was pale; his hair was brown and cut very tight. His expression carried a mixture of emotions, as if he was disgusted with something and was trying with only partial success to hide it.

  The fifth man—and they were all men; human men—was taller than any of them, but much thinner, lacking the bulging muscles of his compatriots. In place of thin armor he wore a loose-fitting robe of blood red, the hood drawn back to reveal hollow eyes and a bald scalp. He carried with him a long staff of silver, circuitry along its sides, a flickering red gemstone set atop it.

  The group strode out through the doorway and, upon becoming aware of our group, came to an abrupt halt and looked us all up and down.

  I had no idea why Condor, Cardinal and other Hands of the Machine would be visiting a Star-City, but something about it bothered me a great deal. And while their power potentially could be useful to our cause, I saw at least as many downsides to involving them as not. The Hands’ only agenda was to follow the commands of their master, the Machine. They possessed virtually no volition beyond that. Better, I decided, to leave them be, at least for now.

  But would they recognize us? Would they wonder similar things about us? Would they seek to detain us, to question us? No, that couldn’t be allowed to happen. Our timetable was too delicate for that.

  And so I made to continue on past them. My cloak was by happenstance turned inward such that its gleaming silver details were not visible; all that showed was the black cloth, covering my own leather and metal armor in a nondescript fashion. I glanced over at Lucian—giving him a quick head-shake to indicate that he should say and do nothing here—and was gratified to see that his long blue cloak was similarly wrapped about him, such that his azure outfit was obscured from view, as was the distinctive blue gemstone clasp at his collar. With Mirana being a Dyonari currently aboard a Dyonari habitat, surely she attracted no particular notice, I reasoned. Which only left—

  “You,” Condor called as we attempted to move swiftly past.

  I glanced back and saw that the Hands had stopped and turned back to look at us. And Condor himself was addressing Davos.

  Our big gray ally returned Condor’s look. “Yes?”

  “Who are you?” Condor asked. He squinted as he stared. “What are you?”

  Davos spread his hands. “I am as you see me,” he replied, his expression placid.

  Condor’s eyes narrowed and he drew nearer. He started to say something more but then Cardinal stepped between them, raised a bony hand to his compatriot, then turned to Davos.

  “Pardon the crudity of my associate’s inquiry,” Cardinal said, even as he was looking the rest of us over, head to toe. “We are merely curious. You look to be a member of a race we believed to be extinct.”

  “No,” Davos said. “We are not extinct. Not all of us.”

  Cardinal nodded at this thoughtfully.
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br />   “And what is your business here?” Condor asked, not seeming particularly anxious to be polite.

  “It is just that—our business,” Davos said.

  I stepped up, moving in front of him. “We are merely pilgrims visiting the home of one of our number,” I said, nodding my head toward Mirana. My apprentice in turn bowed her head respectfully to the Hands.

  Under ordinary circumstances, Lucian and I would have stood out just as vividly as the Hands did, but for different reasons: our radiant godly Aspects would have given us away, at least to those as perceptive as these interstellar enforcers were renowned to be. If nothing else, their technology likely would’ve detected the Power flowing into and through us. But for once I was somewhat thankful that the Fountain was barely flowing, for it served to reduce us to mere mortals in appearance.

  Cardinal looked us over once more, then turned to Condor. “Well. I’m sure there is an interesting story here,” he said, “but, alas, we must be moving on.”

  Condor must have agreed, for he didn’t bother to give us another look. He turned and stalked forward again, as if we were all completely forgotten. The three other, lesser Hands followed behind him.

  Cardinal bowed to us ceremonially. “I beg your pardon once more, good travelers,” he said. “We will detain you no longer. Good day.”

  With that, Cardinal shuffled along in the others’ wake.

  Exchanging relieved looks with one another, we continued on into the city’s interior, Lydain once again leading the way.

  Passing through the base level of the tower and out the other side, we moved into a broad courtyard where everything appeared carved from multi-hued glass. More spiked crystalline towers reared up all around the periphery, pointing up into the dark depths of space. Like all the Star-Cities, Dalen-Shala was a snowflake drifting in the void; delicate as glass, hard as steel, beautiful as a dream.

  For how many centuries had the Dyonari dwelt upon these magnificent lifeboats, after their home planet was destroyed? Only they knew for certain—and likely only the oldest of them knew the truth, if anyone still did.

  Lydain led us to the center of the courtyard and there he brought us to a halt. We looked about in awe. Filling a large portion of this roughly circular space was what looked like a pool, set into the ground—or was it the floor? The deck? By their very scale and nature, the Star-Cities made such descriptions difficult to choose among.

  Some fifty meters across, the pool was filled not with water but with what looked like raw energies, very similar in that way to the basin of the Fountain in the Golden City. The surging energies here seemed different somehow, but the concept struck me as the same: A collection of raw cosmic power, mimicking in some ways the appearance of water, but very different.

  Hands clasped behind his back, Lydain led us around the perimeter of the pool. When we reached the far side of it, he looked us over and then his eyes settled on Mirana.

  “Tell me, young one,” he said. “Why should I allow your friends access to the Labyrinth?”

  Mirana stared back at him, as did the others. Lucian and I exchanged glances.

  “You know?” my apprentice asked, surprised. Clearly she saw no benefit to lying or dissembling. “You know why we have come?”

  “I do,” Lydain replied with a thin smile.

  I threw my cloak back, revealing the black leather and the silver metal armor worked into it, along with my sword in its sheath. “If you know we seek to enter the Labyrinth,” I said, “then perhaps you know how urgent our mission is, as well. For all of us, including the Dyonari.”

  Lydain reacted to this not at all. “Perhaps I do,” he said, his little smile remaining firmly in place. “Whatever that mission might be.”

  “The great obscurity in the sky,” Davos said, leaning in. “The entropy that grows constantly. You have seen it?”

  “Scarcely could I miss it.”

  “Yet still you doubt?”

  “I do not doubt the chaos that approaches,” Lydain said. “But as yet I have no reason to trust any of you.”

  “You are a Seer,” Lucian said.

  Lydain started, turned and looked at him. He hesitated a moment, then, “Yes,” he replied.

  “Have you seen what is to come? What our adversaries wish to bring to fruition, if we do not stop them? And what we wish to do about it?”

  Lydain returned Lucian’s gaze for a few seconds, then looked away, staring off into the distance. “I can see possibilities,” he stated. “Many possibilities. I cannot be certain which are true and which are merely phantoms.”

  “Then you are scarcely more of a seer than I am,” Davos rumbled. “For I, too, can imagine many potential outcomes of this day’s events.”

  “I do not imagine them,” Lydain said, his eyes still directed away from us. “I see them. I see all of them. All of the eventualities that may yet come to pass. In my mind’s eye, each of them has come true—though each remains only a possibility in the here and now.” He turned back and looked at each of us in turn, then said, “The trick is to discern which is most beneficial and which is most harmful, and to promote the one and to deny the other.”

  “Then nothing remains to be discussed,” Lucian said, “for we are on the side of right. Surely you have foreseen that.”

  Lydain laughed softly and shook his head. “If only it were so clear, so simple,” he said. “But the future is fickle. It is a constantly-shifting thing, and what is obvious one moment becomes utterly obscured the next.” He met Lucian’s eyes again. “Particularly when the Prince of Lies argues for one side in the debate.”

  Lucian’s anger blossomed and I knew he was about to explode. Deftly I stepped between the two of them. “Wait,” I said.

  “Do not seek to make peace between us, Karilyne,” Lucian said, his voice menacing.

  “I do not,” I answered him, then turned to Lydain and jabbed a finger into his chest. “But you must listen to me now.”

  His eyes wide, the Dyonari seer took a step back from me. I pressed forward.

  “Your holier-than-thou performance would be more convincing,” I told him, “were I not so well acquainted with the past behavior of your fellow Seers—of the roles they played in the war, and in the coming of the Shattering.” I smiled. “Alas, Teluria explained it all to me.”

  Lydain reacted physically to my mention of that name. Teluria was another goddess of the Golden City, and the one who had brought punishment down upon the previous Seers of Dalen-Shala for their role in the Nightfall War. Neither of those Dyonari elders had ever been seen again.

  “Teluria told me how two Seers of this very Star-City schemed to destroy the entire galaxy—and how they very nearly succeeded.” My eyes narrow slits, I leaned in toward him. “I also know that the vast majority of your own people are unaware of this.” I raised my right hand high, focused what little of the Power I could feel, and concentrated. The ground around us crackled as frost formed on its surface. To my mild surprise, snowflakes actually began to fall, here on the city that was itself a vast representation of their form.

  “Help us,” I told him, “or every single one of them will learn how their previous Seers, in their astounding cowardice, sought to annihilate this galaxy.” I moved in closer still, hissing, “And how their current one would not lift a finger to stop it from happening again.”

  Lydain’s eyes continued to stare back at mine. For several seconds neither of us spoke, neither of us moved. The temperature plummeted. I did not hold back; I wished for him to gain a full understanding of the seriousness of my threat. At the same time, of course, I prepared myself for the fight I feared was inevitable.

  A quick motion from Lucian caused me to step back and look. I realized then that we had been quietly surrounded by several dozen Dyonari warriors, their curved, glasslike swords all out and at the ready. The expressions on their milky-pale faces were grim and determined. Yes, it didn’t require a seer to know that a battle was about to happen. Could we defeat so man
y of these masterful fighters, on their home soil—or home snowflake—with so little of the Power available to us? It looked as if we would have no choice but to find out. I started to turn to Mirana to ask her to find us an escape Path, though I knew the odds of that were astronomically against us.

  But what happened next surprised me. Instead of calling for help or ordering an attack, Lydain raised his right hand and issued a mental command to the warriors; a command that was clear as a spoken word to me, to all of us. In response, the warriors all instantly sheathed their blades, turned on their heels and strode away, as if nothing had happened. Quickly they melted back into the city, leaving only Lydain there with us.

  I looked at our Dyonari host, puzzled.

  His eyes were closed. He appeared deeply lost in thought. After several seconds of this, though, he opened his eyes and spread his hands wide. “Regardless of what I might wish to believe,” he said to us, “I am but a servant of the visions that are granted to me. And until now, neither the truth of your words nor the righteousness of your actions was at all clear.” He offered us a half-shrug. “For all I could tell, you were the threat.”

  “What has changed, then?” Davos asked.

  Lydain shook his head. “I do not know. Perhaps the invocation of the earlier Seers, or the speaking of the name of Teluria, was enough. But now I see. Now the way forward is clear. You must succeed.”

  And before we could ask him anything further, he started forward again. “Follow me,” he called back to us. “Follow me to the Labyrinth. Where your destiny awaits you.”

  TWENTY THREE

  We had exited the courtyard with the pool and traveled a short distance into one of the towers. Now we stood in a vast, high-ceilinged chamber that, seconds before, had been dark as deepest space. But now a vivid light radiated out from its center, washing over us. It slowly solidified into a shimmering circular swirl of purples and pinks and oranges, standing on edge just above the floor, slowly rotating, hovering there some twenty meters away from us.