Ice Phoenix

by Sulin Young

  She was commanding. Her startling blue eyes swept past the others as she made her way to her seat, which was beside the grandmaster. Her attire was entirely black, and she, too, wore a cloak over her shoulders. Her dark boots rapped quietly on the floor, and when she sat, a few tendrils of dark hair escaped its bun to brush across her porcelain face.

  “Forgive our tardiness,” she said. “We were being cautious in our approach.” Her voice was rich and velvety.

  Grandmaster Deitrux nodded. “We shall begin then. As most of you are aware, Imeldor Felix Jingo was murdered nine days ago. His body was discovered by a close friend in an alley close to the pub he frequents. His rigor mortis state was unusual to say the least … his knees were bent into a common bipedal sitting position such as we are doing now. The coroner concluded that he died of multiple burns to his body. Official reports will declare the same when it becomes public knowledge.”

  No one said anything. They knew there was more to come.

  “I, on the other hand, conducted my own examination on his body and, with Kuldor’s assistance, have concluded otherwise. Our poor Master Jingo was ambushed in that alley and he never escaped it. But, unfortunately for him, he had thought otherwise — a mistake that cost him his life.”

  Baneyon interrupted him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how he could have thought that he had escaped that alley. Master Jingo was a master of his own art. It would have been impossible to fool him with scene weaving. He would have known what was real and what wasn’t.”

  “Unless, of course, he had been drugged,” added the queen.

  “And that was the strange thing, you see,” said the grandmaster. “Kuldor and I found no traces of drug substances, herbal or chemical, that might possibly have harmed him. But new, revolutionary technology developed by Kuldor’s world allowed us to discover something very interesting indeed. I’ll let Kuldor explain it to you, for technology and I do not get on.”

  Everyone’s attention turned to Kuldor. He cleared his throat and spoke.

  “My world has invented something called an electro-pulse detector. We know that any living body generates minute amounts of electricity, and even after you die, there are still traces of it left. Picking up on this, the electro-pulse detector can generate the last few hours of the body’s electricity patterns which we can then use to calculate the person’s heart rate. In that way, we were able to study Master Jingo’s heart readings during the last hours of his life.”

  No one questioned him. The people of Gratch had some of the best engineers and designers in the world, and their technology came at a very steep price to outsiders. The grandmaster resumed speaking.

  “For better visualisation, I have recreated the scene of the murder and, for even more clarity, Kuldor will play a recording of the late Master Jingo’s calculated heart rate at the time.”

  He waved his hand and the image of a pub surrounded by a cobblestone path leading into a dark alley appeared over the table.

  “You won’t see Master Jingo until he leaves the pub,” said Grandmaster Deitrux.

  The sound of a beating heart pervaded the room. It was loud enough to hear but not such that the Imeldors were distracted.

  “Initial pulse readings show a steady, relaxed rate, which indicates that Master Jingo was at this time, having a drink or two at the pub. This has already been confirmed by his friend and pub owner. Then, when he leaves the pub, his heart rate is not much different, so we can safely assume that nothing too important had bothered him yet.”

  The Imeldors watched the image of Master Jingo leaving the pub and walking towards the alley.

  “Less than a minute later, the readings register a diminution in his pulse — as if he paused to contemplate something. However, there is nothing too erratic in this. He continues walking, and this is where it gets interesting.

  “Master Jingo’s pulse has erratically jumped. By then, we can assume he had progressed down the alley, which, by the way, is quite a distance. I am certain that he had already suspected he was in danger. However, Master Jingo does not pause to look around. Instead, he walks faster.”

  The Imeldors watched Master Jingo walk quickly down the dark alley.

  “Something is clearly upsetting Master Jingo because his heart rate has increased but he dares not stop to look around. Now, this is where it gets really interesting. At this point here —” Grandmaster Deitrux pointed to a dirty window in the alley where light shone through and touched the wall opposite. “His heart readings have spiked. We can conclude that at this point Master Jingo identified his attacker. We are certain that he was already aware of someone following him, and it is here, under this light, he saw something that caused his heart to beat erratically. Also, note that he has not stopped walking even after seeing or hearing his stalker. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  Grandmaster Deitrux froze the image.

  “Under normal circumstances, had I spotted the stalker, I would have paused, if only for a moment. Master Jingo has seen his stalker. But where is this stalker? If he’s still walking, then there are only a few possible places he could have been.”

  Baneyon spoke. “Looking behind would have slowed him down a bit, so I assume you ruled that out.”

  Grandmaster Deitrux nodded.

  “Then that would leave the way ahead of him, the sky, and the roof,” Baneyon concluded.

  “Don’t forget the ground,” added Master Drummik.

  “Let’s cover all possible positions then,” said the grandmaster. “Baneyon will cover the sky, Drummik will take the ground, Lady Fless will watch the way ahead, Degra will scan the roof, and I’ll look at the sides.”

  He unfroze the image and Master Felix Jingo started walking again.

  “It is natural to assume that someone like Master Jingo would already be devising some means of escape. Now, his heartbeat has slowed down a fraction. He is concentrating, his mind temporarily relieved of the danger he faces. He is doing what he does best, and thus he has calmed down a little bit. What’s the best way to throw an attacker of your scent? You make sure that he is following you. Meet Master Jingo, the second!”

  They watched as Master Jingo split into two versions. One kept walking as if nothing had changed, while the real Master Jingo blended into the alley walls.

  “How can we be certain that Master Jingo created a clone of himself?” asked Talinuk Ferro.

  “Ah, we will come to that in a bit,” replied the grandmaster. “Now, his heartbeat is really quick at this point. He has made the first move — the clone runs. If we follow the theory that Felix created another version of himself, then he wasn’t running towards the stalker. He was running away. We can now rule out that his stalker was ahead of him or came from the ground. That still leaves us with the roof, the sky, and the sides. Next, he engages in battle. He has decided to face his attacker, but minutes later he is running again. What could possibly make a powerful Imeldor like Master Jingo run once he has faced his enemy?”

  “Perhaps he thought he stood a better chance once he was out of the alley? After all, he’s nearly at the end and, if it was me, I’d do the same,” said Talinuk Ferro.

  “Or he encountered something that he had never faced before,” added Lady Fless.

  “You are both correct. We will follow on with that logic,” said Grandmaster Deitrux. “He runs out of the alley,” the heartbeats filled the room with their thunderous sound, “into this lit park with benches all around.”

  The heartbeats drummed out a battle rhythm that should have gradually slowed down once they adjusted to the adrenaline rush, but they did not. “He continues to fight off the enemy, possibly enemies by now, and he is flailing. He is, in fact, dying.”

  The entire room was gripped by tense silence as they imagined the terror of Master Felix Jingo trapped in his clone.

  “Master Jingo holds on for as long as he can. When he is unable to withstand any more, his clone dies and he has to struggle to bring himself back. As we al
l know, when we are in the minds of our creations, we become one, and therefore we die if we don’t pull ourselves out in time. Master Jingo has done something nearly impossible. He has taken himself to the brink of death and returned. He waits an hour and his heart readings return to normal — by the way, we’ve skipped this bit because we cannot wait an hour — and then he slowly makes his way back to his apartment. When he finally reaches it, his home, his safe-house, something happens. He’s attacked and then it’s all over.”

  There was nothing but a grim, horrified silence in the room as everyone listened to the reconstruction of Master Jingo’s last heartbeats before death consumed him.

  “But didn’t you say that his body was found in the alley with multiple burns?” Master Drummik looked confused.

  “Yes, and I also said that Master Jingo never left that alley. So why did I show him walking to his riverside apartment? Because he thought he was! If we calculate the time his pulse regained its steady beat, the time it took for him to walk there judging by his cardiovascular activity, and if we actually measure that distance from the alley to his apartment, then Master Jingo truly believed he was heading there. But watch as I rebuild this scenery, as I create a perfect illusion so convincing that Master Jingo does not realise anything. Every time he makes a turn, the illusion adjusts itself.”

  The Imeldors watched in disbelief as the grandmaster recreated the path to Felix Jingo’s apartment.

  “Imeldors, we are dealing with a master weaver. Someone who is able to create the perfect illusion and trap our minds and, therefore, an illusionary death leads to a very real one. Their skill and cunning is beyond our normal comprehension unless we are forced to sit back and think hard.”

  “Wait a moment! Surely Master Jingo would have realised at some point that he was walking through an illusion? He walks that way every day — he must have noticed flaws,” said Headmistress Marl.

  “Not if he corrected them himself,” answered the grandmaster.

  No one at the table apart from the queen and Kuldor understood what he meant. The grandmaster elaborated.

  “Recall, when he left the pub, he paused for some moments. Now, Kuldor did some further investigation and learned of one particular beggar who had been screaming about a footpath coming to life. He apparently had suffered a nightmare which would have haunted him for several days had not Kuldor removed it from his mind. Our deceased Master Jingo had actually paused to implant a nasty vision in the beggar’s mind. That sounds like a joke he would play on someone, don’t you think?”

  There were murmurs of agreement around the table.

  The grandmaster continued.

  “That was when he became vulnerable. When he had no idea he was being watched, he exposed himself to a mindslip when he entered the dreams of the sleeping beggar. Even when he thought he had returned to his body, he hadn’t. The assassin had already slipped into his mind, fooling Master Jingo into believing everything was normal. He never saw the flaws because he was convinced everything was real, and therefore he corrected every flaw himself.”

  No one spoke as each person contemplated the manner in which Felix Jingo had been ensnared.

  “What illusion could the attacker have conjured that led to Felix fleeing?” asked Talinuk Ferro. “Even though he was trapped in his own mind, Felix could still have fought his own battle against the attacker.”

  “I am glad you asked that, Master Ferro,” answered the grandmaster. “I have asked myself the same question. If Felix could have defeated the foes in his mind, he would have stood a chance of breaking the mindslip. Do you recall, Talinuk, that earlier you thought that Felix fled the alley because he might have stood a better chance in an open area, and Lady Fless pointed out that he may have encountered something he’d never seen before?”

  Talinuk Ferro nodded.

  “Well, based on the adrenaline analysis after we autopsied him, combined with Master Kuldor’s electro-pulse detector, Felix had high spikes at these three locations.” Grandmaster Deitrux pointed to the light shining from the window in the alley, the lit park area, and Felix’s apartment.

  “They all have light in common,” Baneyon pointed out.

  The grandmaster nodded. “That is what I thought too. It is only speculation at this point, but whatever killed Felix was related to light. Unless we learn more, we will never know for certain. I was rather hoping that Her Highness could help us with this.”

  All eyes turned to the queen, who had been sitting quietly and regally in her chair. She tilted her head slightly when she spoke.

  “I can, Grandmaster Deitrux, but you may not believe what I am going to say. The demons have returned.”

  21

  The history behind UWIB

  Her words could not have been more dramatic. Everyone in the room suffered varying degrees of facial deformity from the shock. Raimus led the pack by putting on an impressive display of puffing his cheeks out to engulf his face and flapping his ears fast enough to generate a light breeze.

  “While I was expecting something bad, I certainly wasn’t expecting this,” murmured the grandmaster to the queen.

  “Your Highness, when you say demons, you are speaking metaphorically?” said Talinuk Ferro. “Demons don’t exist.”

  The queen drew in a slow breath, her gaze travelling over Talinuk Ferro. He turned slightly blue, and her eyes lit up in amusement.

  “Demons have always existed, Master Ferro. There are many accounts of them in the myths, legends, and tales passed down through families. This alone may not be enough to convince us of their existence, but chronicles that lie scattered across the ten sectors note their arrival in our part of the world. These chronicles recorded, if only in passing, that they appeared in different sectors of UWIB around the same time. This happened over three thousand years ago, and because our ancestors were initially terrified by their appearance, they were given the name demon.

  “They turned out to be a bloodthirsty, warmongering race that terrorised our ancestors. From what I could gather, after going through all the records I could possibly find, they came through a gate and nearly wiped out entire civilisations before vanishing suddenly. No one ever heard or saw them again.”

  Talinuk Ferro shook his head. “I still think it’sspeculation, Your Highness. The ten sectors didn’t create a unified historical archive until much later— two centuries after UWIB was formed, to be precise. Historical accounts of the past were sketchy at best. It’s highly likely that these demons were nothing more than a troublesome race going around scaring people.”

  “Your reasoning has merit, Master Ferro,” replied the queen, “and I would lend it more weight had I not seen one myself.”

  Talinuk Ferro paled. “You saw one? How is that possible?”

  “Allow me to explain.”

  Everyone fell silent.

  “As the grandmaster has informed you, an attempt was made on my life. During my encounter with the assassin, I was able to slip into his mind and I caught a glimpse of the planet Kiranta, in Sector Seven. Unfortunately, in my poisoned state, I failed to keep the assassin alive. The fight was … unusual.”

  The queen’s voice hardened. “The qi that flowed within the veins of the assassin was unlike anything I had encountered before. It was powerful and volatile, and the assassin required considerably less effort to control it than we need to control ours. He was more in tune with his abilities than anyone I’ve ever seen. It is even possible that he was harnessing completely different properties of qi altogether.”

  “That would make sense,” said the grandmaster thoughtfully. “Or in any case, explain what could have happened to Master Jingo. We had already surmised that he had encountered something he could not or did not understand, and as a result, he failed to protect himself. He was unable to overpower his assassin simply because his own qi attacks were ineffective.”

  “I felt the same as the queen,” said Baneyon. “I had no idea that I had been compromised because I failed to detect th
e foreign qi entering my body. Even after I had blocked off my qi points, the attacker was able to command my qi, even to the extent of knowing its abilities and creating the air-blades in the sky. Whoever he was, he was more than just a formidable opponent.”

  “We also mustn’t forget the unmapped planet that Baneyon discovered in the assassin’s mind,” added Kuldor. “We couldn’t locate it in any of the thirteen sectors.”

  Murmurs filled the room as the Imeldors tried to make sense of what the queen, Baneyon, and Kuldor had said. The air was thick with apprehension as they realised the queen was convinced the demons existed.

  “Forgive us for the interruption, Your Highness,” said the grandmaster. “Please continue with your story. You were about to confirm the existence of the demon.”

  The queen nodded graciously. “With Master Morix and Lady Anrath, we travelled to the planet Kirantain Sector Seven. It is a primitive planet, where its inhabitants still worship gods, and fire is their greatest invention. So we were surprised when we discovered a void-ship— a ship especially designed to enter one area of Dartkala— docked in the planet’s atmosphere.”

  “Where would that be?” asked Baneyon.

  “Olden Kartath.”

  Stunned silence. Even the grandmaster appeared astounded.

  “No one travels to Olden Kartath and survives, Your Highness,” said Raimus, visibly shaken. “The time fluctuation belts surrounding the planet would destroy anything in their path. We aren’t even certain if its inhabitants are still alive.”

  “I’m sorry to prove you wrong on both counts, Master Jigahart,” replied the queen. “It is possible to survive the time belts because Master Morix, Lady Anrath, and I have just returned from Olden Kartath. What is more, its inhabitants were very much alive and not happy to see us.”

  Raimus fell back in his seat. Everyone else just gaped, including the grandmaster.

  “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy coming out of there alive,” the queen said wryly. “But right now I cannot afford to tell you how we escaped. I must move on with the story for we do not have much time if my assumptions are correct.”