Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice Page 3

  I didn’t appreciate that comparison but I did not bother to object to it, instead shaking my head again. “If this enterprise requires the Sword, and you do not have it, then we are stymied before even we begin, for the location of that mystical weapon is a mystery to me.”

  I noticed from the corner of my eye that Mirana, clearly disoriented, had seated herself on one of the benches. Her head was bowed and she held it in her hands.

  Vostok cursed and turned away. Cevelar bit his thin, bloodless lip, apparently thinking.

  “I might yet possess some other items that once belonged to the golden god,” I began.

  “That would be of no help to us,” Vostok barked.

  “Only the Sword,” Cevelar interjected quickly. “We require the power that is imbued within it.” He was attempting to placate me after his human companion’s preemptory response. He knew me, and knew well the danger of my anger fully aroused.

  But anger never rose within me. Only a bland numbness filled my mind and my heart. I blinked. I was dazed. Surely I should have rounded on the human, for daring to snap at me in such a brazen fashion, and deprived him of his life with a stroke of either of my weapons. Instead I stumbled over to one of the benches and practically fell upon it. I allowed the head of my axe to rest on the floor, the shaft leaning against the edge.

  The two men did not seem remotely troubled or even surprised at my condition, or that of Mirana. It was almost as if they expected that we would be reduced to such a state. I tried to rouse myself, to summon up the energy to confront them, but I could scarcely move now. I groaned and leaned to one side, ready to collapse. From the corner of my eye I saw that Mirana was already stretched out on her bench, asleep.

  “Without the Sword we are at a severe disadvantage,” Cevelar was saying to Vostok, “but all is not lost. It is important but not vital. And it may yet turn up.”

  “Perhaps others might know its whereabouts,” Vostok said by way of reply. “If only we could locate Agrippa. Who knows what information might be extracted from him.”

  “Alas, he has vanished,” Cevelar said. “Just like the Sword.”

  Vostok cursed. “The man claimed to be going on sabbatical. Vanished without a trace. And at the most inopportune time.”

  “The Sword can wait,” Cevelar said, making a placating gesture. “There are the other five cosmic weapons to be found and gathered. We will have need of as many of them as we can acquire.”

  I tried to grasp my axe but my numb fingers only brushed against the haft and caused it to slide along and clatter to the stone floor.

  Cevelar looked at me, then at the axe. “And one of them has now quite literally fallen into our hands,” he noted with that same infuriating smile.

  “Her axe?” Vostok asked, amazed. “It’s one of the cosmic weapons?”

  Cevelar had walked over to me. He bent down and picked up my favored weapon. Holding it up, he turned it so the dim light reflected from its flawless, gleaming, silvery surface, its twin curved blades.

  “It is indeed,” he said. The smile widened. “You see? She has served us well, after all. One down, five to go.” He turned to Vostok. “Now—let us move on to the next item, at least for the moment. I understand it is up a tree.”

  The human frowned at him. “A tree?”

  “Yes.” The blond god shrugged. “Perhaps, with regard to it, fortune will favor us.”

  Vostok clearly had no understanding of what the other was saying. After a moment he appeared to give up on puzzling it out, and instead gestured towards Mirana and myself. “What of these two?” he asked.

  “She may yet be of further use to us,” Cevelar responded, nodding toward my limp body. “Lock her away until we return. Her alien companion as well. The Templars will look after them in our absence.”

  With that they departed, and I knew only oblivion until awakening some unknowable time later, in my cell.

  The terrible gray mist within my brain had receded somewhat, compared to its pervasiveness during my encounter with Vostok and Cevelar. I still seemed to be moving through a fog, and my brain still echoed with a low, distracting buzz. But at least now I could think—could act.

  What had they done to me? How had they done it? I didn’t know and, for the moment, didn’t care. All that mattered now was undoing it—freeing myself, finding Mirana, and getting away from this terrible oppressive weight that lay upon my mind.

  Once that was accomplished, I could turn my attention to revenge.

  How to escape? Now that the fog had somewhat diminished and a pale light pervaded my space, I could see that the cell was a perfect cube not more than four yards to a side. Not even a door visible anywhere.

  That made no sense. How had they put me in here? There had to be a way.

  If a doorway existed, I reasoned that it would be in the wall opposite the bench I had awoken upon. Moving closer to that wall, I studied its surface. Smooth gray stone.

  I leaned in closer, squinting, examining it carefully.

  Nothing. Unmarked.

  No. Wait. Not entirely unmarked. I saw it then. A fine line ran vertically down its face. I ran my finger along it and squatted down, tracing it until it met the floor. Standing, I did likewise in the opposite direction until I found a corner, where it turned at a right angle and moved horizontally for about a meter. Then it turned again, downward.

  A door. It had to be the outline of a door. The door.

  But a door with no way to open it.

  I tilted my head to one side, considering. Could it be like the gates of the Golden City? Responding to the wishes of those who touched it?

  Perhaps. With Cevelar involved here, it was just possible.

  I laid the fingertips of both hands upon it and silently willed for it to open.

  Nothing. Nothing.

  Frowning, I stepped back and regarded it again. Even moving so short a distance away caused the tiny outline to fade from my sight.

  The fog had receded further and the buzzing in my head was now nowhere near as distracting as it had been before. I could actually think.

  And that’s when I noticed the wall was covered in frost.

  Frost? How could I have failed to see that before? And—how could it be? Had I done it? My particular Aspect and my powers manifest in the form of cold and ice. Could they be somehow running out of control, freezing the cell around me?

  I raised my right hand up and looked at it, turning it to study both sides. No. I could tell—this was not my doing.

  I was sure then that it had been that way all along, and I simply hadn’t noticed it. Because someone hadn’t wanted me to notice it.

  But it was something I could work with now.

  Reaching out once more, I touched the area of gray stone that seemed to constitute the door itself. My fingertips were just within the bounds of that rectangle, along the edge of it.

  Cold. Cold.

  I brought all my willpower, all of my power, all of the Power I could tap into, to bear on that stone surface.

  Nothing, for long seconds. The Power was sluggish. Only a trickle slipped through and into my control.

  It was as if the Fountain—source of the Power—was somehow trapped on the other side of a barrier, sealed away from me. As if the layers of reality between us were blocked off by walls as impenetrable as those of the Dungeons of Heaven.

  Nothing was coming to me. Nothing, for so very long. I gritted my teeth and focused all of my willpower upon the Power—on finding it, feeling it, drawing it towards me. For what felt like forever, nothing happened. And then—

  Something. A taste. A slight trace of it, slipping through. I could feel it. The Power. Only a tiny amount, but it was something.

  I directed it outward.

  Yes. There it was now. Ice. Ice was forming on the wall in front of me. And the temperature in the cell was dropping.

  The frost that already covered the walls and the door grew in thickness.

  Now that it was happening, I focuse
d my attention on what I believed to be the line between door and wall. I forced the frost, the ice, to spontaneously form and grow inside there, between the two.

  Things happened quickly then. The area I was calling a door groaned. Cracks began to appear in its surface, fine at first but growing. The intense pressure from the expanding ice I was creating was pressing hard at the door and at its frame.

  The toll all this was taking on me, however, was severe. In truth I could not recall a time when I had used my frost abilities to such an extent. I felt drained already and yet still the door stood. The time came to pass judgment on this approach: to continue and possibly injure myself drastically, or to give up and remain perfectly healthy but trapped in the cell for as long as my captors decided to leave me there.

  That, for me, was no choice at all.

  Another few seconds passed as I redoubled my efforts again. The strain of pulling in such a restricted amount of the Power and then channeling it back out in such a confined space was immense. Imagine trying to drink something thick and heavy through a very narrow straw. I could hear a groaning sound and was not certain if it came from the door or from myself or both. And then, in a flash, it exploded, came apart entirely where it had stood, sending fragments of stone and ice flying in every direction.

  As the dust and mist cleared I was already moving. I would not spend another instant in confinement if I could avoid it. Charging out through the opening, I instinctively reached for my axe or sword and felt neither at my waist. Cursing, I brought my fists up, ready to fight hand to hand.

  No one was there.

  Quickly I took in my surroundings. I had exited the cell and now stood in a long corridor with no visible ceiling. A pale light filtered down from somewhere high above. Fragments of the exploded door lay all about my feet. Other doors—much more apparent from the outside than mine had been from within—stretched in both directions away from me, on both sides of the hall.

  “Mirana! Where are you?”

  I started moving to my left down the corridor, shouting the name of my disciple. Only silence came back to me.

  After a surprisingly long distance the corridor ended at a door much like the ones leading into the cells. I wheeled about and strode hurriedly back the way I had come, past the wreckage outside my cell and beyond.

  “Mirana!”

  “Here,” came the muffled voice from just ahead of me, two doors down.

  Arriving at it, I ran my fingers over its smooth surface. “Mirana—are you in there?”

  “I am,” she replied. “I can find no way out.”

  “Just a moment,” I called back, looking all around at the door and the wall on either side of it. And then I frowned, for there was no clear way to open the door from the outside any more than there had been from the inside.

  I cursed. Apparently I would have to do my ice trick again—and doing it just once had proven extremely difficult and physically draining.

  Checking one more time to be sure there was no set of controls I had overlooked, I laid my hands upon the gray surface and prepared to summon the Power once more. But it was weak, so weak; scarcely there at all. So great was the concentration required to find it and tap into it, I failed to hear the sound of approaching feet until they were upon me.

  “Stop!”

  I whirled about and found myself confronting two tall, slender women in deep red robes over what appeared to be silver chainmail armor. The one nearer to me had hair that was long and straight and dark, like my own, with eyes to match. The other had her wavy red hair bound up in a knot atop her head. The emblem of a golden sword, point-down, glinted from their chests, extending from just below their collars to their waists. Each of them held blast pistols aimed directly at me, and their expressions were grim.

  The dark-haired one cautiously moved her eyes away from me just long enough to take in the damage that had been wrought to the door of my cell. Those eyes widened slightly and she returned them to me. “You did this? How?”

  “Templars?” I asked, ignoring the question. “Knights of the Holy Temple of Baranak?”

  The nearer woman ignored my question in turn. She kept her weapon trained on me as she again studied the damage I had wrought. “Explosives?” she asked aloud, though whether she was directing the inquiry to me, to her partner or to herself was not clear.

  “She was searched,” the redhead stated, puzzlement vividly clear on her ruddy face. “She carried no explosives.”

  “What need I of mortal weapons?” I raised both hands—but not in surrender. Instead I rotated my wrists so that my hands were open, palms facing upward. A tiny fraction of the Power was there, buzzing now for me louder than the strange mental interference had been earlier. I felt it, welcomed its presence, drew it in, redirected it. The corridor grew cold, ice forming around us on both walls and across the floor in the short distance between us. “Do you not know me?”

  They frowned, looked at one another, and their frowns deepened.

  “General Vostok said you were a pretender to the mantle of the Lady Karilyne, and must be held until—”

  “Pretender?” I spoke the word as if it were the vilest of poisons. “Pretender?”

  The Power, such as it was, flowed through me now, and I allowed it to fill me. My visage grew grim; my stature grew larger. I knew that I was radiating raw energy and majesty and glory. The room knew it, too, for the temperature plummeted and the ice spread and thickened.

  “I ask again: Do you know me?”

  My words hit their ears like sledgehammers. They could not verbally reply. Instead they each simultaneously dropped to one knee and bowed their heads.

  I kept it up for another few seconds, determined to fully impress upon them my status relative to theirs in the cosmic order. Finally I relaxed and the radiance faded, vanished. I was reduced to my more usual appearance once more. The temperature rose and the ice began to melt.

  I wanted to gasp for breath, to fall to the floor. It took all my strength to resist doing so. Such a display took its toll upon me, especially with the Power so faint and when coming so soon after my efforts at breaking out of the cell. I was physically and mentally exhausted, but I could not let the two Templars see that.

  At last the two women looked up and beheld me, tentatively at first, their grim expressions now replaced by looks of awe.

  “My lady,” the redhead exclaimed, her voice just above a whisper. “Great Karilyne! It is you!”

  “It is me,” I agreed. “And I am most displeased with having been held captive.”

  “Please—forgive us,” the redhead pleaded.

  They now appeared as vexed about the situation as I had been. And well they should be.

  “I am Lydia,” the brunette said quickly. “This is Erin. How can we serve you?”

  “You can free my apprentice, to begin.”

  I pointed to the cell where Mirana was held.

  The Templars hurried over to the hidden door. The brunette—Lydia—touched certain spots across its plain surface with her pale fingers and an instant later the lines forming its outline had darkened considerably. Then it slid aside.

  I was relieved to not have to destroy it.

  Mirana emerged, squinting at the brighter light outside her cell.

  “Come,” I told her, not bothering to inquire as to her condition. My only thought was of leaving the planet as quickly as possible. “You will provide us with a ship,” I told the Templars with a tone that invited no contradiction.

  The two women in red exchanged a nervous glance. “Lady, we do not—” Lydia began.

  “My lady,” Mirana interrupted.

  I turned back to her. I had noted her hesitancy. “Yes?”

  “Before we go,” she said, “might I ask that the cell next to mine be opened?”

  I frowned at this unexpected request but assumed my acolyte had her reasons. I gestured sharply to the Templars. “Open it.”

  Lydia blinked rapidly, then looked from me to her assoc
iate. “Open it,” she echoed, “as Lady Karilyne commands.”

  The redhead, Erin, hurried over to the sealed door, repeating the process the other had done seconds earlier. In response it slid open.

  “Binari?” Mirana called. “Come out.”

  I frowned and looked at Mirana.

  Nothing was happening.

  Mirana took a step closer to the open doorway and called again. “Binari! You have nothing now to fear.”

  Another long moment passed, and my patience waned. But then a face appeared at the edge of the opening, peering out. It was small and dark, and scarcely more than a meter above the ground. The eyes were wide and bright and flecked with gold, and they jumped from Mirana to me to the two Templars and back. Slowly then the rest of the body emerged. It was humanoid in form but it was not human. Like the face, the rest of the creature’s body that was visible was small and dark. Beneath a dark cloak that hung open and a hood that draped loosely back, one could see the little being was clad in a sort of body stocking of gray with numerous coppery wires and circuits zigging and zagging this way and that across nearly every inch of its surface.

  “This is Binari,” Mirana announced. “We conversed through the wall that separated us. He is a Technologist.”

  “He is a Rao,” I pointed out.

  “By the five circles and the five levels, indeed I am both of those things,” the little alien creature agreed with a nod. “How may I be of service?”

  THREE

  I do not know how closely you have paid attention to such things so I will attempt to illuminate them for you here: The Rao are one of four known sentient alien races humans have encountered in all the millennia since leaving the Earth and spreading into the galaxy. They possess great intelligence and a high level of technology, as well as a constant drive to push outward and colonize other worlds. They have fought numerous wars of various sizes with different human governments over the centuries, most often to no definitive outcome other than stalemate.