Ice Phoenix

by Sulin Young

  “How can you be here? You were banished into the void!”

  This was bad — she needed to get away but she knew it would not be easy. She also sensed that Nashim expected her to run, which suggested there was something waiting for her outside.

  “Ever the suspicious mind for someone from Sector Thirteen. Go on, leave this room. I won’t stop you.”

  “What have you done with Master Drummik?”

  “Nothing that he wouldn’t have done to me.” He released a long sigh. “I tire of this place. Let’s leave.” He waved his hand and the door to the incubation room slid open.

  Terrana moved suddenly. With a speed she did not know she was capable of, she ran up his chest and kicked him on the jaw. She sailed through the air, landed on the floor and bolted out the door. Nashim laughed and followed her out.

  Terrana ran down the deserted corridors screaming as loud as she could, hoping someone would hear her, but that part of the ship appeared empty. She shot up the chutes, desperate to warn the others. Behind her, a cloud of black smoke followed.

  She stumbled across the first casualty wandering aimlessly towards the bridge; a crew member who had no idea where he was going. As Terrana watched, he bumped against the wall and banged his head. There was no sign of recognition or awareness in his eyes.

  Backing away in fear, she bolted towards the bridge, slowing down only to allow the doors to open for her.

  “Nashim’s here!” she screamed, rushing in.

  Blank faces stared at her. There was the captain, several crew members, and all five UWIB representatives standing idly on the bridge, completely bereft of their senses. Like a warm wave washing over her, Terrana finally understood — they were being mind controlled.

  A footstep sounded lightly behind her and she spun around. A large hand clamped around her throat and lifted her into the air.

  “Why?” she croaked, staring into Nashim’s eyes as she struggled to breathe. Her fingers pried at his but they were locked like solid steel around her neck.

  “Simple. I do not wish to alert those clever weavers and lacers by killing all the crew members on this ship. It’d be bad for me if the grandmaster returned.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “Hmmm … you’ll see in a little while — if you’re still alive.”

  Terrana was turning blue so Nashim lowered her to the floor and watched curiously as she inhaled deep breaths.

  “But first, let’s wait for those industrious people outside to seal the Dream Walker’s prison, shall we?” He gestured to the window.

  Terrana glanced out and saw the Imeldors and L-Masters floating in the In-Between, hovering around what appeared to be a large, shimmering canvas which reminded her of an oil-spill on the sea. Grandmaster Deitrux was out there with Eliksha, Quempa, Lakara, L-Master Hadrick and the others.

  “I don’t un-understand,” she stammered. “I thought you wanted to —”

  “— free the Dream Walker?” completed Nashim. “No my dear girl, that’s the last thing I wish to happen.”

  “So why? Why did you have to kill the Imeldors and L-Masters when you could have asked them to seal the Dream Walker? Why?”

  Terrana felt she was losing her mind. Nashim’s revelation didn’t make sense.

  “Why, why, why. You ask too many questions which I’m not inclined to answer.” Nashim glanced at the members of the sealing team, who were still intent on their work. “They’re almost done. It’s time for us to go.”

  “Go where?”

  But Nashim had clearly grown tired of her questions. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her towards the airlock at the far end of the bridge, which happened to be on the blind side of the sealing team. He shoved her into the airlock.

  “Wait! We’re not going out, are we?” Fear sent adrenaline coursing through Terrana’s veins. Unlike Nashim, she wasn’t wearing a spacesuit. She watched in dawning horror as he activated his helmet. It came up over his head and locked into place. Then, he unlocked the second door.

  Terrana panicked. She tried to dash past him and go back the way they had come. A hand smothered her face and shoved her hard against the far side of the airlock. She grunted in pain and crumpled to the cold floor. Nashim opened the second door, then reached for her. He dragged her over the first partition and then unlocked the third and final door. To Terrana, the sound of the door unlocking was the sound of doom.

  “No,” she mumbled, struggling to clear her head. She managed to plant her feet firmly on the floor, providing her with some leverage to resist Nashim’s pull. Beyond the third door, death awaited. She would be sucked into the cold, dark vacuum of the In-Between where she would decompress and die slowly.

  As though he could read her thoughts, Nashim grinned. “Have you ever seen someone’s intestines ripped through their orifices or the blood vessels in their eyes erupt? When exposed to the In-Between, death can seem like forever. Three minutes can seem like three years.”

  Terrana screamed. Someone had to hear her. Someone had to come to her rescue. Nashim laughed. “Scream all you want, but no one’s coming. They can’t hear you.”

  The last door opened and Terrana was ripped violently from the safety of the ship into the vastness of the In-Between.

  Soundless terror.

  Her screams went unheard as she flailed desperately, trying to propel herself back to the ship. As the seconds ticked away, Terrana felt the onset of bloating as the gases in her lungs and intestines expanded, threatening to rupture. She understood her body was rapidly decompressing due to the lack of external pressure in the In-Between, and she exhaled rapidly to release the life threatening gases.

  In the darkness of the blanketing silence, Terrana drifted farther and farther away from the ship. She faced a losing battle and she knew it. The moisture in her eyes and mouth began to boil away, followed by a bloating of her limbs as the water evaporated from her muscles and tissues.

  Pain consumed her as nitrogen bubbles formed in her blood; she knew she was racing towards an oxygen-starved state. Hypoxia was beginning to set in. In her desperation, she reached out to the one person she had wanted to avoid most in the world.

  T2! Help me! Help me please! I don’t want to die like this.

  The first onset of darkness rose in her and she was gripped by a new fear. She should have been afraid of dying alone in the In-Between, but against the mounting rage inside her, Terrana started to question her decision. She didn’t want to transform into the monster that she truly was; the monster she had promised Baneyon to keep subdued.

  Thoughts of Kazu and the ice-phoenixes came to her then. They were feiyed, but they weren’t monsters. They didn’t run around in rampaging fits destroying everything around them. They could control their powers, and she felt safe with them. The question was, why couldn’t she?

  I can’t save us, came the chilling reply. Terrana could have sworn she sensed fear in T2.

  You can’t, or you won’t?

  I can’t! T2 snarled. Can’t you feel it? It’s coming.

  Don’t play games with me. If I die, you’ll die too!

  I’m already dying. It won’t let me out. I can’t save us.

  Silence. Terrana closed her eyes, willing T2 to appear.

  Hey, where are you? T2! Help me! Come out!

  But the voice in her head remained silent and as she drifted in the darkness, convulsing and twitching, Terrana truly believed she was going to die.

  Nashim observed her for any signs of transformation and was slightly disappointed to see that she was just dying. Before she drifted too far away from him and into line of sight of the sealing team, he fired a single shot from his gun. A large capsule sped straight towards her, and when it was close enough it ruptured and expanded into four magnetised points that held her in place in the In-Between. With Terrana unable to drift anywhere, Nashim turned his attention to the sealing team.

  Cocooned in the safety of a shield generated by the pendant, the members of the
sealing team worked diligently, completely unaware of the events happening outside. While the weavers focused on reinforcing the strange, oily material which could only be the gate to the Dream Walker’s prison, the lacers created a recursion of commands that would bind the weaving in place for all eternity. A strangely shaped rock spun rapidly above them, perhaps a fragment of a passing asteroid that had been trapped by the gate’s energy.

  Nashim had to admit, he was impressed that they had managed to derive the algorithm in the short time since they had first learned of the Dream Walker. This was a credit, he decided, that belonged to the grandmaster.

  Using his finger, he drew a three-quarter circle on the side of the gun to adjust its settings before sneaking up on the sealing team. It was unlikely they would sense his approach; not before it was too late anyway.

  Grandmaster Deitrux first noticed something wrong when he felt a disturbance in the shield. He glanced around, saw nothing unusual and put it down to the shield’s proximity to the gate. He was relieved that everything had gone according to plan. The members of his team had performed an excellent job, and the sealing was complete. All that was left was to deactivate the pendant and remove the shield.

  “Good job, everyone,” he said, speaking into his microphone. “I’m bringing the shield down now and then we can return to the ship.”

  It was the lack of relieved responses that warned him that something was terribly wrong. Glancing around sharply, he noticed that four members of the sealing team weren’t moving. Before he could even shout out a warning, the same four disintegrated before his eyes.

  “NO!” he shouted. He quickly spotted another lacer in imminent danger and reacted immediately. Using his qi, he dragged Eliksha Bakshur away just in time as an almost transparent beam flashed past her to strike the shield. The shield shimmered, but continued to hold. Grandmaster Deitrux pulled Eliksha towards him then placed himself between her and the unseen attacker.

  “Nashim,” he whispered hoarsely, barely able to comprehend the sight of the Valpuri emerging from the darkness. “You should have died — I banished you to the void!”

  Nashim smiled behind his helmet. “A small mistake, Grandmaster Deitrux. You banished me, but I still had Namasar’s pendant. Broken as it is, it is still capable of protecting me. But I must say, I never expected you to work with gravity. It is no wonder that you lead the Imeldors.”

  Grandmaster Deitrux winced. He had not wanted to reveal this particular ability to the others. As far as he knew, no one else could tap into a planet’s energy and control its gravity, but, Grandmaster Deitrux could do something with it that was unheard of, and Nashim was about to reveal it.

  “You control gravity?” blurted L-Master Hadrick in amazement, tearing his eyes away from Nashim for a second. There were only four others remaining of the sealing team; Lady Skiss, Eliksha, Lakara, and Quempa, and they were staring at Nashim in shock.

  “Indeed he does,” said Nashim. “With his extraordinary ability, Grandmaster Deitrux created a single point in space-time to rid his world of me. He would have succeeded had I had not been carrying Namasar’s pendant.”

  “Dartkala, you opened a wormhole?” gasped L-Master Hadrick, staring at Grandmaster Deitrux.

  The grandmaster ignored his question and, instead, directed his next words to Nashim. “No doubt you used the pendant to escape.”

  Nashim smirked. “Correct! You didn’t banish me far enough. Using the pendant, I was able to materialise at some point not far from Pa Gumpina’s orbit. There I waited, and it was only a matter of time before the Dark Star appeared. I hitched a ride with you. I concealed myself in the sleep sphere until one of your crew members kindly roused me from my slumber.”

  For the grandmaster and Quempa, it was the worst news Nashim could have told them. Only they and Master Drummik knew that Terrana had been sleeping in the incubation room.

  “What did you do with the crew?” growled Quempa.

  “Still alive but under a mind thrall. It would have been far easier to kill them, but that would have invited your attention — something I didn’t want. The weaver who had remained on board was trouble enough. He nearly killed me, but he had a problem — he worried too much about the girl.”

  Everyone listening to Nashim knew he was talking about Master Drummik. He had been the only weaver on board.

  “What did you do with Drummik and the girl?” demanded the grandmaster.

  “Oh, a few things. None good, of course.”

  “Enough of this!” snapped L-Master Hadrick. “I don’t understand why you’re even speaking with him, Deitrux, when we should obviously be disposing of him.”

  Nashim snorted. “He’s not concerned about the girl. You didn’t tell them, Grandmaster?”

  “Tell us what?” growled Hadrick.

  “About Terrana of course. Why the grandmaster is so concerned about her. Didn’t you know he hid her in the sphere aboard your ship?”

  He was mocking them, knowing too well that Grandmaster Deitrux would not have imparted information about Terrana so readily. The L-Masters glanced at the grandmaster, their expressions demanding an explanation.

  “What aren’t you telling us, Grandmaster Deitrux?” asked Eliksha from behind him.

  Grandmaster Deitrux clenched his fists, ignoring her question. He glared at Nashim. “What did you do with Terrana, Nashim?”

  Nashim laughed. He turned to the others, clucking his tongue. “I guess he didn’t wish to share all that power and knowledge, so he kept the truth a secret. The young girl you’ve been travelling with, the reason why she was brought from Sector Thirteen to UWIB … she’s feiyed.”

  There was a stunned silence as the others tried to process this new information.

  “Terrana is feiyed?” uttered L-Mater Hadrick. “That’s impossible! Only animals are feiyed!”

  If what Nashim said was true, then Terrana’s existence would have far reaching ramifications; it was no secret that UWIB had been trying to capture a feiyed animal to study its powers. It irked the UWIB Council that the queen had passed a law in her sector to prevent anyone from capturing a faar. But if Terrana was truly feiyed, then all they had ever wanted was sitting right on their doorstep. The L-Masters could barely contain their excitement, combined with wrath that was aimed towards the grandmaster.

  “Grandmaster Deitrux, please tell us that what he’s saying isn’t true,” said Eliksha.

  Grandmaster Deitrux shut his eyes and sighed. “We didn’t know she was feiyed at the time. The Ancients of Olden Kartath told us.”

  Eliksha sucked in her breath, stunned by this revelation.

  “There’s more!” called out Nashim. “If the girl is allowed to mature to a ripe age, she’ll be the only person capable of destroying the Dream Walker.”

  Again, shocked silence. L-Master Hadrick looked towards the grandmaster. “Terrana is capable of destroying the Dream Walker? Deitrux, do you realise what that means? You’ve been hiding a feiyed human girl with power beyond belief! Power that we’ve been trying to understand for years!”

  The more L-Master Hadrick spoke, the angrier he became. He started shouting. “How dare you try to keep this information to yourself! I knew it! I knew you were hiding something, and that there was a reason for the girl’s presence aboard the ship! You will not get away with this! I will lodge a complaint with the UWIB Council of your deception. Consider this the end of your career!” L-Master Hadrick was too angry to pay any attention to Nashim. Compared to what he had just learned about Terrana, the Valpuri suddenly seemed insignificant.

  “Is Terrana the reason why the Valpuri attacked Pa Gumpina?” asked Eliksha, feeling the same way as L-Master Hadrick. “Were they looking for her?”

  “Yes,” answered Grandmaster Deitrux in a heavy voice.

  “For what purpose?”

  “To kill her. The Ancients of Olden Kartath told us that she would be our only hope if the Dream Walker ever broke free of his prison. Without her, there would be nothi
ng to stand in his way.”

  “So all that carnage and destruction — it was just for Terrana?” Eliksha could not believe what she was hearing. “And Baneyon, did he know?”

  “Baneyon loved Terrana — he died protecting her. He died before he learnt the truth,” said Grandmaster Deitrux, “and I will not let his and the others’ deaths be in vain.” He could feel Eliksha trembling behind him. Grandmaster Deitrux sent a chilling look towards Nashim. “You are too late, Nashim! The door to the Dream Walker’s prison has been sealed. Not even the power of two pendants will help you free the Dream Walker. Now tell me, where is Terrana?”

  When Nashim answered, his voice was heavy and cruel. “I flung her into the void. She should be floating about somewhere.”

  “NO!” screamed Grandmaster Deitrux. His anguished cry took everyone by surprise, but they were even more shocked when he rocketed towards the ship without any warning. Nashim suddenly appeared in front of him. The demon fired his weapon and Grandmaster Deitrux barely avoided the blast. It flew past him to strike the shield.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Nashim snarled. He fired off a few more shots and the grandmaster realised he could not escape so easily.

  Quempa!

  I’m on it! Grandmaster Deitrux created an opening in the shield and Quempa slipped through it, speeding towards the ship. Eliksha followed him.

  “Eliksha!” Quempa said in surprise. He noticed she carried a gun in her hand but, compared to the weapon that Nashim possessed, Eliksha’s seemed a mere toy.

  “Is it true? Is Terrana really feiyed?”

  “Yes, but the grandmaster was telling the truth when he said we only learned this from the Ancients. We believed Terrana was a human child with an unusual ability to control qi — that’s why we brought her to our world. There was no hidden agenda to her presence. We witnessed her feiyed power in Si Ren Da. Eliksha, her power is terrible. If she ever turns in your presence, the only thing you can do is run.”