Phantom Frost

by Alfred Wurr

  “What do you mean, if? I thought we were sure that’s what happened.”

  “Maybe not,” Olivia said, glancing at Wilhelm’s ghostly head. “They may have been taken by the Faction. It’d make sense given their appearance at our house.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Wilhelm added. “Their chances are better if the Bodhi Group took them. They’re American citizens, after all. At least you should be able to rule that out. If they’re not at the Institute, we can conclude that the Faction took them, and we’ll have to adapt to that.”

  “Damn it,” I said, banging a fist on the table. Caleb looked queasy, his face pale despite his tan.

  “Relax, Shivurr,” Wilhelm said. “One problem at a time, one step at a time. We’re going to set things right.”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded slowly. “All right, how do I get in touch with you guys if I get them out?”

  “If you succeed in restoring your memories, you’ll know where several of our safe houses are and can go there,” Wilhelm said. “But a prearranged plan wouldn’t hurt.” He paused. “Shivurr, if it looks too risky, observe and contact us. We’ll be there as soon as we can. It may take a few days, but that’s preferable to you being captured again.”

  Wilhelm’s head turned to his wife. “Do you have a modified Walkman to give him?”

  She nodded and moved to the balcony door. “I’ll be right back. They’re in the workshop.”

  After she’d left, his head rotated back to me. “Okay, I’ve got to go now, big time. Olivia and Hanale should be able to help with the rest. Be safe, my friend.”

  “Bye,” I said, feeling suddenly weepy. His head winked out of existence a moment later.

  Olivia returned ten minutes later, holding a small blue-and-grey Walkman cassette player in one hand and orange headphones in the other. She thrust them at me. “It’s got one of my mix tapes in there.” She held out her other hand and dropped batteries into my outstretched palm. “It runs on regular batteries, so use it sparingly. I’ve put in a fresh set, but here are some spares, just in case.”

  “I don’t understand how this helps,” I said, placing the headphones on my head and hitting play.

  “I’ve modified it to work as a communication device,” she said, standing taller. “Press the buttons on the side in this sequence and it will activate it.” She demonstrated, tapping out an unlikely sequence of presses. “That sequence will dial me, and we’ll be able to speak. Just be sure to wear the headphones; that’s how voice is picked up and transmitted.”

  “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Caleb said, staring at the Walkman with envy.

  Olivia swelled and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s something I’ve been working on, hiding our tech in everyday items. Mostly to hide it from the Faction, but it’ll do the same for the Bodhi Group, if…if things don’t go well. That’s why it uses regular batteries. The Faction would be more likely to detect one of our power sources. I wish we could come with you, but maybe infiltrating will be easier if it’s just you.”

  “Thanks, Olivia,” I said, putting the headphones on. I had to extend them as far as they would go to fit over my ears.

  She looked at her watch. “You should get going soon, before you lose the cover of darkness. It’s much later in Nevada.”

  “When can we leave?” I asked, looking at Hanale.

  He grabbed the mug of beer he’d been nursing off the kitchen table and chugged the last of it. “Right now, brother,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and thumping the mug down on the table. He slapped Olivia’s shoulder. “Thanks for the grinds, Tita,” he said.

  “Wait, what about me?” Caleb said, looking confused. “I want to help. They’re my friends, too.”

  I shook my head, smiling sadly. “Appreciate the offer, Slim, but you heard Wilhelm; this isn’t a trip you can make.”

  “Don’t worry, Caleb,” Olivia said, squeezing his shoulder. “We’ll get you back home when Wilhelm gets back. You can relax here until then.”

  Hanale smiled. “It’s all good, little brother. We’ll surf, swim, snorkel—live the good life. Some of the waves we get here going to give you chicken skin. You won’t want to leave.”

  Caleb looked doubtful but inclined his head after a pause. With no time to waste, we said our goodbyes. Olivia kissed my cheek and hugged me hard enough to crack a rib, if I had any. I drew a strangled breath and smelled sandalwood mixed with garlic. The warmth of her skin lingered against my chest for several moments after she released me. I bumped knuckles with Caleb, then shook the teen’s hand, and Hanale and I left through the front door.

  Glancing back, I saw Caleb, looking wistful, give me a hang loose sign. I returned it, saluted, then descended the stairs at the far side, following Hanale. We made our way down through the rainforest by the stars and moon toward the shore of the bay. The water was calm; only mild waves broke against the fine sand of the beach. We walked a short distance along the thin strip of sand under a starlit sky until we came to an outrigger canoe that sat among the trees at the forest’s edge.

  “Hey, brother,” Hanale said. “Give me a hand getting this to the water.”

  I grabbed it awkwardly at first but with Hanale’s direction adjusted my grip and we carried it down to the water’s edge. It was surprisingly light, more cumbersome than heavy, and required little strength to move it.

  The tattooed man strode into the surf without hesitation. I held back at the surf’s edge, holding my end of the vessel at arm’s length, not wanting to get my feet wet. Hanale gave me a puzzled look, pulling lightly on the canoe. Bracing myself, I stepped into the saltwater at last. My icy flesh reacted immediately, forming a barrier of ice that kept the water from soaking into my body. As soon as the outrigger settled in the water, I jumped in as if I’d been walking across hot coals. Slightly dizzy and breathing like I’d just run up ten flights of stairs, I sat down in the canoe and tried to push visions of myself dissolving like a sugar cube in hot tea from my mind.

  “You okay?” Hanale asked, squinting his eyes at me. He guided the canoe into deeper water, turned it about and climbed in, so that he was in the stern.

  “Yeah, just give me a minute,” I said. I rubbed my face, slapped my cheeks, and took a deep breath. “Saltwater’s a bit rough on the undercarriage.”

  He stared at me. “What happened to you, Haukea Kane?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You love water. Surfing, snorkelling.” He handed me a paddle, grabbed another for himself, and dipped it into the water. “You don’t remember?” With several powerful strokes, we left the shore behind.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, looking back at him. “I’m made of snow and ice. This might as well be a lake of acid.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. Never bothered you before.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “How’s that possible?”

  He shrugged again. “Mind over matter, I guess.”

  “That explains it,” I replied. “I lost my mind. But I’m going to get it back.” I dipped my paddle into the surf and looked back at Hanale over my shoulder. “How far do we have to go?”

  He pointed to the northwest, where an island rose out of the sea. Even in the dim light of the night sky, thick green foliage could be seen covering the sides of the volcano that stood near its centre, much like the island that we’d just left behind. A layer of cloud encircled the mount like a gossamer scarf. No glow of lava could be seen, nor any steam rising from the peak, and no signs of cooled lava flows were visible either, on this side at least. Dormant, then, I thought.

  “Pretty,” I said. I inhaled deeply, smelling the fresh sea air and the wind on my face. Overhead, the sky was clear and the stars shone bright, competing with the moon for attention. The air had cooled considerably since the sun had set. With the winter jacket providing insulation, I was almost comfortable. “I could be happy here, if it wasn’t so freaking warm during the day.”

 
; “No doubt,” Hanale said. “You always like it here.”

  “Always?”

  “You’ve been here many times,” Hanale said.

  I stopped paddling and turned in my seat. “Are you serious? Where?”

  He pointed a thick finger over my shoulder at the island to which we were heading. “That’s yours, Haukea Kane. It’s been many years since you been back.”

  I resumed paddling, studying the island with renewed interest. My island, I thought, my tropical island. It might have been the power of suggestion, but now that Hanale had said it, there was something familiar about it.

  “You seem surprised.”

  “It’s warmer and greener than any place I thought I’d live.”

  Hanale chuckled. “Roger that. Inside, the Allfrost Chamber, it’s ho`oilo. Very anu.”

  “Ho`oilo,” I said. “That means winter, right? And anu, that’s chilly or cold.”

  “Your memory coming back, brother?”

  “Not sure,” I said.

  My memory was like a partially completed puzzle. Many of the finished pieces made no sense without knowing the larger context. Being here in this familiar place added pieces that formed connections in my mind, made other parts make sense and dredged up deeply buried or long disused memories. My guess was that these weren’t lost so much as in deep archival storage, brought to the surface by current events and the lack of other memories to obscure them.

  “The Allfrost Chamber—it’s inside the volcano.” I knew it to be true even as I said it.

  “There’s an entrance this side of the island,” Hanale said.

  “Have you been inside recently?”

  “No, it’s blocked by ice. Frozen shut.”

  We paddled in silence for a while. “Are you Hawaiian, Hanale?”

  “Kind of,” Hanale said, chuckling. “More honorary and in spirit. I’ve spent a long time here, there and all over the ocean.”

  “But you’re like Olivia and Wilhelm, right? Yet you don’t speak like they do.”

  “We talk like people where we live,” Hanale said. “We blend into our surroundings, like chameleons.”

  “How many others like you live here?”

  “Depends,” Hanale said. “Many come and go. Just me on my island, most of the time.”

  “Seems kind of lonely.”

  “I like my privacy, brother. People, they want you to behave like they think you should, live like they think you should, think like they think you should, use the words they want you to use, do what they want you to do. They take what you make, demand your time and attention. Constrict and constrain. Me, I want to do, be, what I want when I want, as much or as little as I want.”

  “Everyone needs someone,” I said, glancing back at him.

  “Humans, maybe. Most are too weak to survive alone.”

  “But not you?”

  “No man is an island, but we are,” Hanale said, giving another powerful stroke. “Our knowledge, abilities, and biology free us of the tyranny of the group.”

  “Right, but you’ve teamed up with Wilhelm, Olivia and Aceso.”

  “Against the Faction,” Hanale said. “Against the Group. Against those looking to control how we and others choose to live.”

  “And your job is keeping people from finding this place?”

  He grunted affirmatively.

  “And what if someone manages to break through those wards?”

  “They wish they hadn’t,” Hanale said. “Only animals are allowed to freely come and go from here.”

  I dipped the paddle into the sea once more. “Sounds like you like animals more than people.”

  “Depends on the person,” Hanale said, waggling his head. “I like some people a whole lot, but they’re the exception.”

  “But why give animals slack that you don’t give to people?”

  “Animals are innocents,” Hanale said. “They’re just being themselves. People they know better and do horrible things anyway.”

  “Or they’ve convinced themselves that the horrible things are actually good things,” I said, thinking of the Bodhi Group. “Still, a lot of people are good, too. Like my friends.”

  “When it comes to protecting Olympus, we don’t take any chances,” Hanale said.

  “Isn’t that where the gods live? Some mountain in Greece, right?”

  “Used to be, but now it’s here,” Hanale replied. “Well, not the mountain, but where the gods live. Least those not part of the Faction. This is New Olympus.”

  “And my island is part of New Olympus?”

  “Yeah, brother.”

  I stopped paddling and turned to face him. “Do the protections you mentioned include my island?” I said, waving the blade of my paddle to the front of the outrigger.

  Hanale nodded. “All the islands are under the same enchantment, but yours has some of its own.”

  “Enchantment? Olivia said you use technology, not magic.”

  “Just words, brother,” Hanale replied.

  “Anything I need to watch out for?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. Been a while since I last visited. It’s your island, so not likely.”

  The green volcano lay nearer now. A thin strip of white sand could be seen along the shoreline, and mild waves washed toward the tree line before being clawed back by gravity. Hanale steered us parallel to the shore and we paddled a short distance southwest before heading in. We hopped out and pulled the canoe onto land, far enough that the incessant waves wouldn’t disturb it. Hanale led me up the beach to the thick jungle’s edge and pointed to a narrow path leading into the tangle of green. “This will take you to the entry to the Allfrost Chamber. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk, mostly uphill.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  Hanale looked back out at the water. “I need to get home. I’ve been away too long already. You’ve got this, my friend.”

  I looked sidelong at the trees. “But how will I find the entrance?”

  “The trail will take you right there. You can’t miss it, brother. It’s blocked by a wall of ice. Hard to overlook.”

  I held out my hand. “Thank you, Hanale, for getting me this far.”

  “Geev’um, Shivurr,” said the big man. He grabbed my hand firmly, pulled me closer, and slapped my shoulder.

  “Frostspeed,” I replied, the word rising from the depths of my recovering memory. I turned away, walked up the sand, and entered the forest.

  Chapter 25

  Homecoming

  Within the trees, the world was pitch black, as the vegetation blocked out the light of the night sky. Countless birds sang overlapping songs competing with insects for volume. I luminesced my body for light. I was alone again, after days in the company of friends.

  With time to think, my mind drifted, thinking about the Faction that Olivia, Wilhelm and Hanale had mentioned several times now.

  Why did this Faction try to kidnap me? I thought.

  I should have asked more questions, but there had been too much else going on at the time—too much information and worry over Scott and my missing friends. Olivia had described the Faction as a splinter group of their people, meaning that they must be gods too—and they wanted me for some reason. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate with my memories gone, the Bodhi Group hunting me, and my friends missing, I was now apparently caught in an ancient war against hostile mythological deities pursuing an unknown agenda.

  I ascended the winding path for several minutes when a monstrous roar shook the trees, silencing birds and insects alike. I froze in mid-stride, looking to my right, toward the sound. A few hundred feet in that direction, the sound of breaking branches and flapping leaves disturbed the evening’s calm. The sound of running feet thundering through the underbrush, directly toward me, came next. I picked up my pace and jogged up the path.

  The sounds of pursuit changed direction to match my new position. With my body aglow, I stood out like a lighthouse in the darkness. I thought about quelling my
light source, but I’d be effectively blind. Besides, if the thing chasing me caught up, I wanted to see it coming. Whatever it was, I knew it must be huge, judging by the cracking of branches and heavy footfalls of its approach.

  Wild boar? I wondered. Hanale said he doubted there was anything dangerous on the island. Then again, a boar probably wasn’t all that dangerous to a god. I slowed my pace. My shoulders relaxed and my breathing calmed as I turned and waited for my pursuer to catch up.

  Okay, I thought, shaking my head. I may not be a god, but bring it on, boar. This is my island after all.

  The footsteps slowed as they approached. The thing stopped just beyond the reach of my light. I could hear it breathing—huffing like a steam engine—and imagined its eyes were studying me from the shadows.

  Then again, maybe it’s something else. Something truly dangerous that Hanale doesn’t know about. He did say it’d been a while since he’d last visited the island.

  I rushed forward several steps. “What do you want?” I yelled. “Go on. Get out of here.”

  Footsteps retreated a few steps deeper into the jungle. Before they did, I saw huge glowing eyes glaring at me from ten feet above the forest floor.

  Damn, not a wild boar, I thought.

  Moments later, it burst from cover, closing the distance on all fours with stunning speed. A telephone-pole-sized arm knocked me off my feet, and I crashed through the damp leaves of tropical plants, flying twenty feet through the air. I slid along the ground and came to rest at the base of a koa tree.

  The beast reared back on its legs, standing taller, thrust its arms wide, and gave an ear-splitting howl of triumph out of a mouth that looked like it could swallow basketballs whole, leaning forward as it did so.

  The thing was massive, twelve feet tall hunched over on its knuckles. Immensely muscular, greenish-skinned, with long arms. Its forearms sported dangerous-looking bony spikes, ending in hands the size of small refrigerators. Its head looked nearly the size of my entire body, with a hooked nose and pointed ears and angry cat-like eyes.

  It reminded me of something from Wilhelm’s Monster Manual, but a lot scarier in person in the dark forest, alone. The word troll surfaced from the depths of my damaged memory, accompanied by a flash of a long-ago encounter with others of my attacker’s kind. But this wasn’t at all like the troll in the Monster Manual. That looked frail, twisted, and small—nothing like this hulking mass of green flesh and muscle.