Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice Page 4

  Out of the five sentient races, we of the Golden City, for whatever reason, all look human in appearance. I felt I once knew the reason for this—for why we resemble people from Earth rather than the Dyonari or Rao, for example—but I and the other gods have long since forgotten. We are, however, known to those other races. The Dyonari hold us in high esteem, as exemplified by my apprentice, Mirana. The Rao generally think less of us, for they are a furtive and insular species, busy with their constant plans and projects across their many worlds. Always keeping very much to themselves, and keeping much of their distant past a mystery to outsiders.

  The other two races—the deadly and warlike Skrazzi and the nightmarish Phaedrons—I will discuss only when the occasion arises.

  And it will.

  * * *

  A Rao, I thought, looking at the little figure. Well.

  “I am pleased to meet you,” he said. “Greetings in the name of the Fourth Level of Understanding, which is agreeable interactions with strangers.” He bowed.

  “You speak our language?” I asked, surprised.

  “I do.”

  Now I was puzzled. “How did you come to be here, so very far from home?”

  “You seek to know the Second Level of my Understanding.” The Rao appeared to consider this, then shrugged in a very human way. “Very well. This world—this place—was a Rao base long before the humans came,” he said. “Rao built it, ages ago. Why should we not inhabit it?”

  I raised my eyebrows at this, turned and looked to the two Templars, waiting.

  They both shook their heads. “We were not aware of that,” Lydia stated. “The Temple ordered us here only recently.”

  I continued to regard them for another second, then looked back at the little alien. “Why were you imprisoned?”

  The expression on the Rao’s dark little face grew bitter. “Those who took this facility from my people killed most of the others. They kept me alive only because of my technical expertise. But of late they have ignored me.” His tone grew harsh. “My food ran out two days ago.”

  “That is one reason why I wanted him freed,” Mirana stated.

  “One reason?”

  “The other,” she said, “is that self-same expertise he mentions. As a Rao Technologist, I felt he could be useful to us.”

  “I am an adept of the Second Circle, yes,” Binari said, nodding.

  I considered this, as well as my protégé’s notorious bleeding heart, and at last I nodded. “Very well.”

  The two Templars were now standing at attention, as if I were their commanding officer. In many ways, I was.

  “Ready a ship,” I barked at them. “We are leaving.”

  The Templars appeared puzzled, but before either could acknowledge my order, Mirana interjected, “My lady—before we depart, perhaps you would like to hear what Binari has told me?”

  Mirana knew that my patience was a scarce and most fleeting resource. I had come to trust that she would impinge upon it only when vitally necessary. “And what is that?” I asked, looking from her to the little alien.

  “I—I merely explained to your apprentice the cause of the psychic interference the two of you experienced earlier.”

  This struck home as soon as I parsed out the sentence and understood it. “The interference,” I repeated. “The mental fog that so debilitated us.”

  “Yes,” Binari said with a nod. “A psychic wave, blanketing much of the castle. Only those prepared for it can avoid its ill effects.”

  “Avoid.” My mind worked back to our arrival on this world. Almost immediately, the mental assault had begun. And Cevelar and his human accomplice had seemingly been unaffected by it.

  “You know the cause of it,” I said, a statement rather than a question. “And you will now divulge that information.”

  “Yes, of course,” Binari agreed quickly. “It was caused, you see, by the thing in the dungeons.”

  I stared down at him, my eyes narrowing. “The thing.”

  “In the dungeons, yes.”

  I looked up at Mirana. “He is babbling.”

  “No—no, my lady,” my apprentice responded quickly. “He told me they—Cevelar and Vostok—hold some sort of creature prisoner in the lower levels of this facility. A creature of vast mental and psychic power.”

  I considered this, then nodded slowly. “It makes as much, or as little, sense as anything else,” I told my apprentice. “But before we tend to that matter, we must see if my sword and axe can be located, for I chafe at standing on hostile ground so unarmed.”

  The two Templars jumped to my command and searched the immediate environs, and quickly they located my sword, scabbard and belt. They also found Mirana’s curved, glasslike saber and belt. Of my axe, however, there was no sign—as I had suspected. Despite the massive mental interference we had experienced earlier, I remembered Cevelar and Vostok speaking of taking it. Clearly they had done that thing.

  I vowed revenge.

  But first, my belt buckled on again and my sword in hand, I commanded the Rao to show me this creature he claimed possessed the power to lay me so low. Fear made him reluctant at first; fear and hatred. For it quickly became clear that he despised the thing.

  “But in doing so you will touch upon all five Levels of Understanding,” Mirana told him, her tone encouraging.

  Binari looked up at her, his eyes widening.

  “By such actions you will be true to yourself and to your place in the cosmos,” she went on. “You will do your best—”

  “—and thus I will interact agreeably with you,” he finished for her, brightening, “and react properly to the successful conclusion of the endeavor.”

  Mirana smiled warmly at him and nodded.

  I understood little of this gibberish and had less patience for it. If it motivated the alien to do our bidding, however, I was not about to complain.

  And so he led us all to the far end of the hallway, where he opened a door to reveal a dark stairwell leading down.

  “That which you seek lies at the bottom of these stairs,” he said.

  “Lead the way,” I told him.

  He balked. Shuffling away from the open doorway, his panicked eyes flicked from Mirana’s to mine and back. “I—would prefer not to go down there,” he said, his voice filled with dread. “It is easy to find, though—just follow the steps to the bottom, and—”

  “Lead the way,” I repeated. My tone left no room for dissent.

  The little alien stared back at me, now not so much an advanced being as a wild animal caught in beams of light. I held his gaze for several seconds before he tore his eyes away and squeezed them closed. After another second, he nodded. “Yes—yes,” he mumbled. “Very well.”

  And so slowly, reluctantly, the alien called Binari passed through the doorway and began the descent. Behind him I followed, sword at the ready. Mirana and the two Templars brought up the rear.

  Almost immediately we were plunged into near-total darkness. The doorway provided a very dim illumination for the first few spirals around the steps, but after that we lost all visibility. At that point a soft white glow radiated out, and I could see that it was coming from a glove the Rao wore on his right hand, which he now held aloft. In that manner he led us on.

  Down we went; down and down and round and round. The air grew colder, the steps occasionally slick with ice. I felt at home, of course, but it bothered the others as it grew more slippery. Not being responsible for it, I wondered at its cause.

  At some point during our descent, and well before we reached the bottom, the mental static returned. This time not only did it bring with it a fuzzy sense of confusion, but now a growing and palpable feeling of dread; of outright fear.

  Absurd, I thought to myself more than once as we continued downward. I fear nothing. I am Karilyne, she of silver and black. Ice-goddess of the Golden City. Most favored of the late Baranak, the golden god of battle. I fear nothing.

  But I did fear now. And the deeper int
o the world we descended, the greater that fear grew.

  “No farther,” one of the Templars called out from behind us then. “Let us turn back. Surely that would be the wisest action.”

  “I agree,” the other stated, her voice even shakier than that of the first. “There is nothing for us down here—nothing but cold and darkness. And death.”

  I stopped and turned around, staring at them, surprised. Then I looked at them more closely.

  They were terrified.

  Of what?

  But I felt it too, I had to admit. The fuzzy static sensation of before, where the brain simply no longer wishes to function—and now a new feeling of fear, of dread, as if some horrific thing lay in wait for us in the depths of the dark.

  I, too, wanted to turn back. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

  But then I looked at the Rao. He had taken a few more steps before stopping and turning to see what had made us halt. He displayed no signs of fear. It was as if he were immune to whatever was happening to me and to the Templars.

  And to Mirana, too. She was putting up a brave front, but I could tell she felt the same thing we did.

  Absurd, that my acolyte and I—and the two warrior priestesses—could feel such fear over nothing, while the alien ignored it entirely. Unacceptable.

  I remembered then: He’d mentioned that one could be prepared to resist the mental interference here. None of us, as far as I knew, had been. But he had.

  “It is too late now,” he replied to my inquiry about such things. “We have ventured into its domain. There is no more preparing now.”

  “It?” I asked. “What is this ‘it’? Where does it lurk?”

  For a long moment there was no reply. Then, “Come and see,” Binari answered. He looked at me and his tiny, gold-flecked eyes now burned with eerie fire. He turned back and took another dozen steps in the dark, his glowing hand leading the way, and came to the bottom at last. His light now shone on a broad, flat stone floor, streaked with dark stains. It extended into the darkness in every direction, so that there was no way to tell how large of a space we now occupied.

  Impatience welling up within me, great enough to overcome even that primal fear that hung like frost in the air, I stalked forward.

  I had not traveled four steps before a scuffling came from the darkness ahead, followed by a shining light, bobbing up and down as it drew nearer.

  I raised my sword and crouched into a defensive position. Mirana moved to my right, her own curved, glasslike blade now drawn and ready. The other three stood in a triangle behind us. We waited.

  “Stay where you are!” came a cry from the direction of the light.

  A number of human figures became visible now. They were men—half a dozen of them, dressed in similar fashion to the two human women with us, with red tunics over some form of armor. Theirs was not chainmail like that of the women, however, but a sort of synthetic-looking plate. The symbol of Baranak gleamed on their chests.

  “More Templars,” I muttered. “This place is infested with them.”

  Nevertheless I relaxed a bit, knowing that their devotion to our late god of battle should be as fervent as that of the two women who were with us—and should transfer well enough to me. I raised my hand in greeting but the swaggering, white-haired knight in front, who carried the light in his upheld left hand, seemed to look right through me. His eyes lighted on Lydia and Erin in their red uniforms and he called out, “You are not authorized to be here. Return to the surface at once.”

  He started to say more, but then he got a closer look at me, and at Mirana, as he flashed his light around. His eyes widened.

  “What treachery is this?“ he demanded of the two women who were with us. “You bring an alien and an impostor down to the level of the sacred shrine?”

  “We have been deceived,” Lydia the brunette Templar began, stepping forward and addressing the man. She gestured toward me. “This truly is—”

  The leader was not interested in listening. He turned and motioned sharply to the others. The five Templars behind him all drew their swords and rushed forward. The blades shone golden in the suddenly cavorting brightness, and then the space all around us danced with light and shadow as flames leapt up along the surfaces of their swords.

  Anger filled me now. Anger at being belittled by these mortals. Anger at the affrontery of their attack upon myself and my companions. Anger at being dragged to this world against my will in the first place. For an instant I wished I could simply open a portal and walk away, my companions in tow, leaving all this foolishness behind. But the Power I could sense around and within me was nowhere close to where it needed to be for that. And in any case my pride would not have stood for it. I needed revenge now, and these six men would serve as excellent stand-ins until I could get my hands on the individuals I truly desired to bring low.

  I leapt forward and met their attack, my own sword flashing and clanging against theirs.

  The leader fell back, his light serving both to illuminate us as targets for his men, and to blind us as they struck. The beam bobbed around madly, crazed shadows appearing and disappearing on the floor as the light moved and the men advanced.

  Swords clashed. Mirana and I dueled two Templars each, and I was surprised and mildly impressed by their skills. Binari meanwhile moved back a short distance. From the corner of my eye, I could see him raising both his arms and gesturing, and the coppery circuitry that covered his outfit shimmered with energy. He brought his fingers together over his head. With a crack of thunder, a lightning bolt struck out and speared the Templar to my right, lighting him up with crackling orange fire.

  For an instant the entire room was visible to me, before being plunged back into darkness.

  We all hesitated then, combatants on both sides, spots before our eyes. I sought to recall what I had seen. A circular room, like a cave, extending around us in all directions. Walls a light sandy brown color, streaked like the floor with something dark in places. Water pooled to my right; perhaps the edge of some subterranean lake. And just ahead and to the left, a shape, dark and terrible. Visible for just a moment and then gone.

  As I fought I idly wondered why none of the Templars carried a ranged weapon. No blast pistols, no quad-rifles, no slug-throwers to be seen. Possibly it was against their code of conduct, or perhaps in honor of Baranak himself, who had famously wielded only a golden blade. Shrugging to myself, grateful for small favors, I laid on with my sword, driving my opponent back. I knew I should have beaten him soundly within a few seconds of engaging with him, but my continued weakness from using so much of the Power to escape the cell, coupled with the ongoing and pervasively oppressive psychic interference that laid over the inside of this structure, kept me from fully exercising my abilities. In short, I was but a sad shadow of my normal self.

  At last I delivered a series of cuts and thrusts that caused the Templar to stumble and fall away from me. Freed from his harassment for a moment, I raised my left hand and summoned the cold.

  As he tried to climb to his feet once more, I gestured at him and instinctively unleashed the attack I had used so many times over the ages past. I froze him where he stood. He became a statue entombed within a quarter-inch-thick layer of ice, eyes staring out in mute desperation. I felt no remorse for his fate. He had attacked me unprovoked. Let all who might do so learn from his grim example.

  Breathing heavily, it was my turn to stumble back now, angry at myself for squandering so much of what little Power was available on so flamboyant an attack. Again I was shocked at how difficult it had been to tap into and channel so small an amount. Was it caused by that oppressive psychic buffer, that wave of fear that yet pressed against us? Or were we on a world, like Candis, where the walls of reality were strong enough to deny me full access? Perhaps both?

  If so, would I ever be able to open a portal at all?

  This was a troubling line of thought, but I couldn’t indulge in idle worry at the moment. Enemies yet remained alive and
attacking. Instead I summoned up my physical strength, brandished my blade and rushed back into battle. Beside me, Lydia and Erin were holding their own against their opponents while Mirana had dispatched her foe with a deft stroke and was moving against the leader at the rear. His light bobbed as he started to retreat.

  I spun about and with my sword I struck down first one and then the other of the men who battled my own Templar allies. Their armor was strong but my blade stronger and my sword-arm legendary across the mortal as well as the godly planes. Those two out of the way, that left only one remaining besides the leader.

  We advanced on them.

  Seeing the state of their comrades as well as their own plight, they both threw down their weapons and raised their hands.

  I stood before them, allowing as much of the Power as I could draw in to flow through my body. The silver trim on my black outfit gleamed and shimmered brightly. My visage glowed radiantly. I sheathed my sword and held both hands out before the two men, palms upward, and ice crystals danced above them in the form of a miniature blizzard.

  “Do you know me?” I demanded, gazing into the eyes of each of them.

  They recoiled at first, but within moments they felt the touch of the Power as it radiated from my Aspect, and they wavered. Their eyes widened, their jaws slackened. They stumbled backward and fell to the hard floor of the chamber, and there they sat, staring up at me.

  Yes. They understood at last.

  “Lady Karilyne,” the white-haired one said. “We did not believe—”

  “No,” I said to them. “You did not. But now you will.”

  The others stood arrayed behind me, watching. I ignored them for the moment and continued to speak to the two prisoners.

  “Whom do you serve?”

  “The lord Baranak, my lady,” the other, with dark hair in a sort of bowl cut, quickly blurted.

  “Lies!” I glowered at them. “You lie to me!”

  The two recoiled. “Lady—” the white-haired one began, but I cut him off with a sharp motion of my right hand.

  “Speak the truth now, or you will have no further opportunities.”