He started to say something else but I ignored him.
Now several of Vostok’s men moved forward in a defensive formation.
“General,” I called back in the direction of Agrippa, not slowing down. “Will these soldiers not heed your orders? Can you not command them to stand aside?”
“That was the first thing I tried,” he replied, “but they will not listen to me. They are wholly under Vostok’s spell—or Vorthan’s.”
I took this in and didn’t miss a step. Of course it couldn’t have been that easy. But that was fine with me. I relished the thought of dealing out justice in the old fashioned manner.
One way or another, though, Vostok would be coming back with me to the Golden City. I had to be certain all of Vorthan’s foul essence was purged from him and dispersed forever.
The renegade Kings of Oblivion watched me advancing on them. They knew what I was doing and what I had planned. I expected they would take exception to it, and I was not disappointed.
The two of them closest in front of me glanced nervously at one another, then each drew a gladius—the Legion’s preferred short, broad-bladed, stabbing sword. Then, working up their courage, they charged at me.
That was a mistake.
They were huge, absolutely dwarfing me in size. Each of them resembled more a man-shaped battle tank than a human being. Their mechanized plate armor whined as they clanked across the courtyard at me, servos moving their massive bulk at almost impossibly fast speeds. As they drew up before me they brought their swords over their heads and, side by side, made ready to strike.
I rolled my eyes at this, took one more step in their direction and brought the Axe around in a broad sweep. Lightning flashed along its blade as it crossed in front of them and a low boom rumbled over the courtyard. Instantly the two legionaries went flying backwards through the air some thirty meters before crashing heavily to the ground, denting the surface, and tumbling head over heels. Fragments of their armor, shredded by my weapon and smoking, rained down and clattered across the deck. The two former juggernauts lay there, unmoving and groaning faintly but alive.
“Be thankful that I left you in one piece,” I called to them.
The next two came at me, raising their heavy quad-rifles to open fire. They never got the chance. My left hand flashed out and their weapons froze over, covered in a thick layer of ice. I swung my Axe again and their weapons shattered, along with sizeable chunks of their battle armor. They stumbled backwards, fell, and lay there, half-freeze-dried and stunned.
“It takes much more work for me to keep you alive and intact,” I told them. “Soon I may grow lazy.”
The other Kings looked on at all of this with what I like to think was awe, or at the very least shock. They didn’t appear particularly enthusiastic about fighting any longer. Not that I could blame them. As a god again, Aspect radiant about me and wielding my own Cosmic Weapon, I must have struck an intimidating figure.
I looked back at my erstwhile allies, curious why they had not moved up alongside me, preparing to wreak their own brands of havoc. What I saw surprised me: They yet stood there, as before, doing nothing. I frowned at them.
“I am to do all the work, then?” I called to them, my Axe at the ready to strike again.
Lucian appeared uncomfortable. He shrugged. “I was attempting a bit of diplomacy before you woke up,” he explained. “But, hey— if you’d rather just fight everybody here, I guess we could play it that way, too.”
“The Hands were about to render judgment,” Mirana interjected. “I thought perhaps it would be wise to hear from them first.”
I took this in and thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Very well. I will hear them,” I said. “But I have already rendered my own judgment in this matter, and will brook no interference in carrying it out.” I turned to face Condor and the other Hands as I added, “From anyone.”
Condor’s perpetually scowling face grew darker. He stepped forward, ahead of Cardinal and the other three. “This is not your realm, Karilyne,” he said, “and you have no jurisdiction here.”
“This is a Star-City of the Dyonari,” I pointed out. “They have jurisdiction.”
“The Machine has treaties with them,” Condor retorted. “We have the authority and the responsibility to apprehend and arrest any beings not of the Dyonari themselves, who might be causing a disturbance in their territory.”
“You are welcome to the rest of those Legion III traitors,” I told him. “But I am taking Vostok with me. He has much to answer for.”
“You will do no such thing,” Condor snapped.
“And who will stop me?” I asked, spinning the Axe slowly at my side as I spoke. Meanwhile the air temperature dropped precipitously around us all.
At that moment the ground shook.
Except, here on the Star-City, there was no actual ground to shake—only the deck of a massive spacegoing construct. A construct that for all its astounding complexity and resilience, was nonetheless an oversized crystal snowflake drifting through the raw and airless void.
And this snowflake, this Star-City, was dying. That much was clear.
Screams came from all around, and far away another crystal tower fell.
Dalen-Shala would not survive much longer.
Cardinal stepped forward and between us then. He raised a calming hand.
“My lady,” he said, “given our current need for alacrity, I propose that you allow us to take the prisoner, General Vostok, with us. I assure you, he will receive proper justice.”
I started to reply, but then the Seer, Lydain, approached.
“The Star-City must be evacuated,” he cried. “Very little time remains!”
“Have you lifeboats? Starships at the ready?”
“Some few,” he replied, “but not nearly enough. Many were destroyed during the battle. Others have fallen into disrepair. It has been many years since any number of us traveled away from the Star-City and, even when we do, we rarely use anything other than the Paths.”
“Then lead them that way,” I said. “Take them down the Paths!”
“I can lead but a few, and I am the only remaining Seer.”
I looked to Mirana.
“I will lead a group as well,” she said. “But this city contains thousands.”
I nodded and thought about this a moment, then looked at Lucian. He seemed to read my mind. “Yes,” he said.
“But where?” I asked. “The human worlds would not accept them. Not so many, at least.”
He frowned. “The Golden City?”
I considered this. On its face it seemed utterly shocking, utterly ridiculous. Allowing thousands of mortals into our most sacred home? After a moment’s reflection, however, I found I could not honestly object. Times had indeed changed. The Dyonari did revere our kind and would surely be respectful. And, in any case, the City was virtually empty these days. I shrugged at Lucian. “Why not?”
With that, Lucian raised both hands and blue lightning flashed in the air. A large oval of swirling clouds and light appeared in front of him. A portal took form; a gateway from this reality to another.
“Send them through here,” he shouted to Lydain.
The Seer nodded hurriedly and began calling to the Dyonari all around. Within moments they had formed into a line and were walking very quickly through the cosmic doorway Lucian had made. Many more were heading our way now, streaming out of the ruined towers and other dwellings deep inside Dalen-Shala.
“They will come out on the grassy plains north of the City,” Lucian called to me, reminding me that it was impossible to open a portal directly into the City itself. “A spot near the main road,” he said. “Afterward I will go through and open the golden gates for them to enter.”
I nodded and turned to create my own portal, to move more of the refugees through. As I did so, I got Mirana’s attention and reminded her that she held the Knife of Alaria, which was capable of carving open a passage that would be much quick
er than searching for, opening and following a long and winding Path. She grasped my meaning before I had half-explained it and quickly busied herself slashing an escape hole in reality with the ancient weapon.
When I turned back to my own business I noticed the Hands were taking advantage of the distractions. Condor was directing his subordinates to lift up General Vostok and carry him away, presumably to their own spacecraft. Cardinal, meanwhile, bowed to me, smiled, and then turned to join them.
I considered objecting. I thought of preventing them entirely from leaving with him. In the end, though, I decided it would be best, given all the current circumstances and at least for the time being, to allow the Hands to take him into custody. If my feelings on that changed later, I would do something about it at that time—and, however formidable the Hands of the Machine might be, I would dare those impudent mortals to try to stop me.
They were fortunate that I didn’t learn the full reason for their presence there on the Star-City until a bit later.
Days after the cataclysmic clash on Dalen-Shala, Lydain the Dyonari Seer admitted to me the shocking truth: Condor had been negotiating with General Vostok and with him, before it all hit the fan, for the Hands to have access to the Golden City. They knew we gods had mostly abandoned it, and their master the Machine coveted it greatly. That was why Cardinal and the others had come there in the first place. They had hoped the Seer would be able to provide them a Path directly to our City, whereupon they intended to attempt to exploit the Fountain and the Power for themselves. And they were going to work out a deal with Vostok to help them control it, given his level of knowledge about it and his known connections to Cevelar and some of the other gods.
I was nearly enraged by this revelation. How dare they think to intrude—to invade the celestial city of the gods? To try to lay claim to the energies of our Fountain itself?
Before this, my opinion of the Hands and their Machine had for the most part been neutral. Now I regarded them as a tremendous threat. Furthermore, I understood that I’d made a terrible mistake in allowing them to take my enemy, Vostok, with them. I resolved that in the days to come there would come a reckoning between myself and the Hands of the Machine.
TWENTY SEVEN
The Star-City exploded a short time after Lucian and I escorted the last of the Dyonari away from it.
Such a waste. That magnificent vessel had plied the spaceways for many thousands of years. Lydain later told me that originally there had been more than a dozen of them, but two had been destroyed in ancient conflicts and one simply lost for reasons now obscure and mysterious.
And now great Dalen-Shala joined that list. Now it was but a memory, and a shower of crystal fragments forever tumbling through the void.
But the people where what truly mattered. And at least we had managed to save the vast majority of its former inhabitants.
Through the portals and pathways we had opened they traveled, and eventually they made their way to the city of the gods. They now dwelt in our Golden City, and would remain there until more suitable accommodations could be found.
Truth be told, I actually liked the idea of someone occupying the City again. Someone, at least, who could appreciate it and take care of it—and there was little doubt the Dyonari could and would do that.
In fact, no sooner had they arrived there than its halls and streets and bridges and palaces began to sparkle and shine as they had not in ages. The Golden City, after all, reflects in its appearance the esteem its inhabitants hold for it. And its new inhabitants esteemed it greatly. It had been largely empty for so very long, and so lonely a place, that even Lucian had once walked away from the throne there purely out of boredom; that and, I’m sure, lack of subjects to lord over. But now it lived again, and this pleased all of us greatly.
I decided I would not be hurrying the Dyonari on their way after all.
* * *
“I am sorry, my lady,” Mirana said to me as we sat on a broad marble bench in the central plaza of the Golden City. Behind us, the restored Fountain erupted its energies into the heavens, spraying forth the raw energy that drove the currents of my being. I basked in it; my Aspect fairly glowed around my black and my silver. I was truly the Ice Queen once more.
Then I realized what my apprentice had said and I turned to her, tamping down my radiance and appearing somewhat mortal once more. “What?” I asked her. “You’re sorry for what?”
She looked away wanly. “I am sorry that Baranak could not have returned. That he could not have remained among the living.”
I looked at her sharply.
“No,” I said. “No—I understand now. I would not have had him that way. Nor would he have allowed himself to exist in some bizarre half-life.”
Slowly she nodded. After a moment of silence she said, “But at least you were able to experience his presence again—yes?”
I nodded. “Yes. He was with me.”
“Was that truly him, lady?” she asked.
“I believe it was. Certainly it was his power that helped save us.”
She nodded, wonder showing in her eyes. “And—if I may ask, my lady—was it difficult to part with him, afterward?”
I paused for several seconds, thinking about our final exchange. About all that was said by each of us. Then I summoned up a wall of cold all around me; a wall that insulated me from any warmth that might try to creep in. A wall to keep everything that was within its confines cold as ice.
“No,” I told her. “No, not at all. It was time for him to go back, and so I hurried him along.”
She took this in, frowning, but then gave me a very reluctant nod.
“Now, come along, apprentice,” I said. “For the Golden City has guests for the first time in many ages, and we must tend to them.”
“Tend to them, lady?”
“Lydain and the other Dyonari leaders have asked to meet with us in the royal chambers. We must make certain they respect this place, treat it properly, generally stay in line and obey all the rules.”
“Of course, lady,” Mirana said. Instantly she had banished any semblance of sentimentality. I found I envied that ability she possessed.
Together we stood and marched toward the royal palace.
* * *
After the meeting—a generally brief and amiable affair, given the great respect the Dyonari held for the gods and the Golden City—we adjourned and I strolled back outside into the main plaza. I stood there, gazing at the Fountain where it blasted its raw Power into the sky, and once again I gave thanks for the success of Binari the Rao and Istari the Renegade—the Redeemed, indeed—in repairing the damage that had been done to it. Istari had gone away in the Time Tomb with Solonis a short while after we had all returned here, presumably back to wherever and whenever he had come from; I doubted I would ever see him again. Binari had approached me once things had settled down, and he had actually thanked me for the opportunity to take part in our adventure.
“I believe, my lady,” the little Rao had said, “that in some ways I understand even less now than I did when you freed me from that prison cell. Nevertheless, I am pleased to have been of assistance.”
“You have been, brave Binari,” I told him, offering him a sincere smile.
“And,” he had added with pride, “I intend to exhibit Fifth Circle behavior.”
“You will react to success properly, you mean.”
“Indeed.”
My smile widened. “So should we all,” I said. Then I added, “You are welcome to remain here with us in the Golden City for as long as you’d like.”
He had taken me up on that offer with great enthusiasm, causing me to question if I had made a mistake and to wonder just how long he intended to stay. Immediately he busied himself digging around through the ancient machinery of the City that had once been tended by Vorthan—in his more civilized days—and that had scarcely been looked after at all in the many years since. And in doing so he found items in dire need of repairs—repairs
he was able, at least partially, to make. Perhaps, I reflected some time later, he would prove to be of use after all.
Davos also visited me during that time, with a similar request.
“I would remain here in your City for a time, and experience more of what it has to offer,” he said, “before I must return to my own.”
I regarded him with a wry smile.
“Davos, I somehow suspect you actually enjoyed racing about the planes of creation with us, battling deadly enemies and facing down chaos and annihilation.”
“When you put it that way, my lady, it seems a bit more foolhardy than it felt to me at the time.”
I laughed. “But you told me at the start,” I reminded him, “that you intended to see the mission through. And you did. I respect that.”
He nodded solemnly and then knelt before me so that we were of roughly equal height. He bowed his head. “Hail Karilyne, Lady of the Ice and Snow,” he declared, and I smiled back at him and laid a hand upon his shoulder. If I could bestow knighthoods, Davos was now my knight.
After that he hurried off somewhere or other in the company of Binari. The two of them looked to have overcome their previous animosity and become something like friends. I found, somewhat to my own surprise, that this pleased me.
The more important development, of course, was that once Vostok/Vorthan was defeated, the foggy wave of entropy that we had seen encroaching onto reality all up and down the timeline retreated. It had not yet dispersed entirely in some few places, which I will admit troubled me. But the imminent death of our universe seemed to have been at least postponed for a while, and that was victory enough for now.
We took the seven crimson gemstones back to the City, and there we stored them away in a deep and dark place. I had wanted them utterly destroyed, but as yet we could conceive of no artifice that would yield that result. Lucian suggested simply hurling them into the basin beneath the Fountain, but none of us could predict with great confidence if that action would result in their disintegration or their somehow becoming even more powerful. Soon it grew obvious much further study of them would be required before we could rid the universe of them entirely. Until then, I meant that they would remain sealed away under very heavy guard.
Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice Page 30
