Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice

by Van Allen Plexico

  Frowning, impatient, I looked into the newly exposed openings. Something was indeed moving within the darkness there now.

  “Whatever it is,” I told him, “we will deal with it easily enough, and then—”

  I was unable to finish my sentence, for at that moment the moving metal panels clanged all the way open and shadowy figures erupted through the doorways.

  I was proud of the way our little team moved instantly into a defensive formation, before we were even sure what was attacking us. Not that it mattered at all.

  Robots. Big, hulking, humanoid-shaped, gunmetal-gray automatons charged out of the walls and raced directly towards us. They didn’t act like simple machines; they had a graceful flow to their movements. But there was nothing delicate about their appearance. They looked like the mutated offspring of Davos’s race combined with a main battle tank. Red lights flickered across their torsos and heads and their very human-looking hands were bunched into fists. Their eyes burned red and their heavy feet clanged deafeningly on the copper floor.

  We barely had time to prepare ourselves before they crashed into us and swept us before them.

  I tumbled to the side of their stampede, then rolled forward until I collided with a wall to the right of the doors they’d just exited. My head was spinning and I lay there a moment, dazed, then climbed back to my feet as quickly as possible. I was relieved to note that my sword was still clutched tightly in my right fist. I surveyed the room, seeking any sight of the others and hoping they had somehow survived this initial onslaught.

  There. As the last of the robots thundered by, I saw tall Davos some two dozen meters away to my left, wrestling with one of the big mechanoids. Mirana was near him, her sword singing its song of destruction as she sliced at the mechanical men around her. Of Binari and the two Templar women, there was no sign.

  Raising my sword high, I charged at the robots nearest to me. They whirled about as I approached, with reinforcements coming up behind them, and suddenly I found myself facing more than a dozen at once, all ready to fight.

  I exchanged blows with several of them. My sword is not a mighty cosmic artifact in the same way as my axe, but it is ancient and very strong in its own right and it did them damage. Unfortunately not damage enough to stop any of them from fighting back, savagely. I pressed on, though our cause looked increasingly futile.

  A moment later I spotted Binari off to the side of the action, obviously seeking to avoid the notice of our mechanical adversaries. He was a small, huddled mass wrestling frantically with something he clutched in his hands. As I continued to give battle, a part of my mind considered him. If robots could function here, in this area, then surely his own technological gimmicks could as well. So perhaps he would be of more help now than he had been of late. And perhaps that was precisely what he was fiddling with there—some kind of advanced weapon. I certainly hoped so. Thus I let him be and devoted my efforts to pushing back our attackers.

  I managed to score a couple of successes, hacking into a leg here and an arm there, causing two of the robots to fall. But with so many more that rushed in to take their place, it became obvious that soon we would be overwhelmed. I finally spotted the two Templars, bloody and standing back-to-back, fighting purely defensively, and I angled my way toward them. Simultaneously I called for Davos and Mirana to move toward me as well.

  Time seemed to slow and all was battle now. We managed to bring our separate groups together and I directed our scrum in Binari’s direction. I still wasn’t sure what he was doing but I hoped it was something good, because at the moment it likely represented our only chance of survival.

  He looked up as we drew near to him, and his expression betrayed his frustration with whatever he was working on.

  “I am attempting to override their control frequencies,” he stated in answer to my question. “But it is proving extremely difficult. There are too many variables, and besides, they keep changing—cycling through many variations.” He shook his head. “Very smart of them—or of whoever built them.”

  “Try this,” Davos called to the Rao. He leaned in and recited a string of numbers, and Binari seemed excited by them. He did more typing and tapping and dialing and the like.

  “Yes—that helped,” he told the gray giant while the rest of us continued to battle to hold off the merciless robots that had by now surrounded us. He looked up. “How did you come by that code?”

  “I trade in information within this city,” Davos offered by way of answer.

  “Don’t worry about such things now,” I barked at them both. “Whatever you are attempting—do it!”

  The little Rao issued a series of words I didn’t understand; likely curses in his own language. He followed them with, “It’s still too complicated. It will take too long to lock down all the different variations.”

  The robots were pushing in against us tightly now. My own sword arm was tiring and even my nearly-impervious blade was notched from smashing and slashing our enemies. I could imagine the others, not being gods themselves, nearing the end of their endurance. Very little time remained to us. The robots were about to overwhelm us all.

  One of the women cried out. It was Lydia. Her sword had been knocked away and she was falling. There was blood. Erin called out to her but she did not answer. I shifted to my left, moving quickly to fill the gap she was creating by her absence from the defense as best I could. I dared not pause to look behind me to ascertain her condition.

  This was bad. Not only had we lost a good sword arm, her comrade was now distracted as well. The robots pressed in harder, seeming to sense their advantage, and the opportunity they now had to finish us off.

  I was tired. So tired. I was unaccustomed to fighting for so long with only my own muscles, without the Power to charge them; without its glorious energies to prop me up and keep me going. There was no excuse for it. Like most of my kind, I had grown spoiled, enjoying the enervating effects of the Power that radiated out from the Fountain in our Golden City, to the point that I could scarcely function without it. And now, with that Power somehow blocked and my access to it severely limited, I—and the others—would pay the price for that laziness, that complacency.

  I spared a quick glance at Lydia. She lay on the floor behind me, clutching at her side, wounded but alive. I cursed. Less than a second later I was forced to return my full attention to the robots directly ahead of me, for they were bearing down upon us. I gritted my teeth and prepared to make my final stand, for myself and for the others.

  And then something unexpected happened. Something that distracted all of us, including our mechanical attackers.

  There came a single, almost-blinding flash, followed immediately by a bright, orange light that flooded the entire atrium. It was accompanied a second later by a low but building hum that became a wail.

  The robots, apparently startled, ceased their attack and straightened, looking around. As they moved, a space opened up in front of me and I could see the source of the light and the sound.

  It was the boxlike structure across the room—the empty one that we had seen upon entering this place. It was about four meters tall and made all of glass or some other transparent material; perhaps the same thing Mirana’s sword had been formed from. It was now lit up like a fluorescent bulb, its blinding intensity only growing by the moment. And it was shrieking now, nearly deafening.

  And then, a second later, the sound died out and the orange light faded.

  And the box… The box was no longer empty.

  ELEVEN

  At first I could not believe my eyes.

  From out of the glass box came an individual whose presence here shocked me. His hair was short and black, his skin olive, and he wore a deep red military uniform with gold buttons and trim.

  General Tamerlane? Could it be? One of the co-rulers of the major human empire?

  Sheets of flame erupted from his hands; flames that tore into the nearest of the robots and melted them to slag.

&nbs
p; Yes. That could only be Tamerlane.

  I had no idea what he was doing here, but his presence was definitely welcome.

  Voices came from the box behind him.

  “Have we overshot again?”

  “No—no, this is just when we want to be.”

  The voices seemed remarkably familiar. A moment later, I understood why that was so.

  Out of the crystal box came four more people; four I knew well. Very, very well.

  For they were us.

  Another Mirana. Another Davos. Another Binari. Another me.

  The four doppelgangers followed just behind Tamerlane, attacking the robots on either side of him. The duplicates of Davos and me seemed virtually identical to us, but the new Mirana now carried some sort of golden shield on her left arm. The duplicate Binari meanwhile stood behind the other three and released his little drone. The tiny machine soared high above the wave of gunmetal-gray robots, but it didn’t attack them. Instead it angled over them, just out of reach. Hovering there, spinning slowly, it pointed its nose and its tiny lens at each of us in turn, as if examining us and detecting our exact locations. After a couple of seconds of this, it zeroed in on the first Binari and zoomed down at him.

  The enemy robots appeared confused by all of this and dithered momentarily, as if unsure of what to do or whom to fight—us, or the other versions of us that were now besieging them from behind. They settled on fighting both groups, and thus divided their forces.

  All this time, I could see more robots continuing to pour out of the two doorways beneath the balcony. The sorcerer Garvael must have possessed a limitless supply of the things. Even with the firepower of Tamerlane and his friends added to our own, the robots continued to hold the upper hand, based largely on their sheer numbers. The sudden appearance of our duplicates had puzzled me, certainly, but their mere presence had also given each of us a bit of hope that we might somehow survive. Now, just seconds later, I was back to doubting that would be the case. It looked as if we were all going to die here, and die without discovering who these lookalikes and their red-clad friend actually were, or from whence they had come.

  But then Binari—our Binari, near me—cried out triumphantly. I had only just turned my head to see what could possibly be making him so excited, here in our darkest hour, when the robots all around us froze. I looked back at them, frowning, ready to deal with any possible tricks. Instead of renewing their attacks, though, the robots stumbled forward, backward, to the side, and then the little red lights all over their armored hides winked out. Each of them emitted an electronic version of a groan, and then they all collapsed. The sound they made as they hit the coppery floor was deafening. It was the sound of their defeat—and our victory.

  “Yes!” Binari shouted again. He cackled with laughter.

  I whirled on him. “What did you do?” I demanded, almost as angry that I didn’t understand our unexpected triumph as I was happy it had happened.

  “The codes,” he managed to gasp out between gales of laughter. “I sent out the codes and disabled them all!” His glee was immense.

  “You said you didn’t have them all,” I said, my frown deepening. I suspected treachery here, though I was not at all sure on whose part.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I did not. But then—I did.” He looked up and pointed at the drone hovering above our heads. “They came from that, I think.” Then, as he got a better look at the little flying machine, it was his turn to frown. “My drone? What? But how—?” He reached into his robes, felt around a moment, and drew forth his own drone, still folded up tight. “Here it is,” he stated, then looked up again. “But then—what is that? Where did it come from?”

  I realized then that he had entirely missed the arrival of our twins.

  “There,” I said, pointing. “That’s where.”

  The other Karilyne, Mirana, Davos and Binari stood there, among the piles of now-deactivated robots. The other Binari grinned and waved.

  “Back,” came a voice from inside the glass box. “All of you. Do not speak to them. Do not interact with them in any way. We have done what we came here to do. Now we must be away.”

  Without argument, our duplicates turned and hurried back toward the glass box. One by one, they filed inside, the false-Binari’s drone whooshing in at the tail end of the procession.

  Were they about to vanish again? That was not acceptable to me. I needed to know who they were, if they were actually who they appeared to be—and how such a thing could be possible. Sheathing my sword, I strode quickly after them.

  The last of them had entered the box before I reached it. The glasslike surface proved to be more translucent than transparent. So while I could perceive the general shapes of figures standing inside, as if within an elevator, I couldn’t make out any details. The door was still open, however. As I approached it, a new figure stepped from within and blocked the way. He was a slender, older-looking man with dark skin and graying hair that had once been black. He wore loose-fitting brown robes.

  “I nearly forgot,” he said. “The women. The Templars. They must come with me.”

  “What?” I frowned. “They are with me.”

  “If you wish for them to live, they must accompany me now,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “If you haven’t noticed, the one called Lydia is gravely wounded. I can get her to treatment—and then, afterward, see that she and her comrade are delivered to safety.”

  I had no idea what this man was talking about, but then I heard voices behind me and turned to see Erin supporting a clearly wounded Lydia under one arm and helping her approach us. Yes—she had been wounded. I remembered it now.

  “Come,” the man said, motioning toward them. “Both of you. Quickly.”

  The two women drew near, Lydia appearing delirious, Erin stricken.

  Seeing the severity of Lydia’s wound—and it was bad; a puncture through her armor in the upper abdomen, with a great deal of blood loss thus far—I realized I would have to trust this person. It certainly appeared all they would find by staying there with me would be more ways of dying. Surely some sort of medical treatment could be had in this, the more advanced sector of the Mosaic City, back in the direction we had come—but this entire zone had seemed abandoned or evacuated in the time just before we encountered Garvael. Who could say where, back there in all that mass of city, we could have found someone both willing and able to help her?

  “You must come with me now,” the man told them. “I will convey you to medical treatment.” He offered the half-conscious Lydia a warm smile. “Your role in this is done, but you need not die of this wound—not if we tend to you soon enough.”

  Erin looked at me, her expression grave, revealing her deep anxiety over her comrade’s injury. Clearly she, a good soldier, sought guidance from me. Lydia attempted to do the same but she was delirious, her head lolling to one side.

  “Go,” I said to Erin.

  Her eyes moved to the gray-haired man and she appeared to be sizing him up. Then they flashed back to me. “Go with him?”

  “I believe this man is the best chance she has,” I told her. In reality at that moment I had no idea if that were true, but I had no other answers for her either. All I knew was that, if they remained here, Lydia was likely to die, and very soon.

  Erin gave it only another half-second of thought and then nodded. Together, she and the man in the brown robes helped Lydia through the doorway and into the glass box. As they passed through the entrance, Lydia straightened and looked back at me. Her eyes momentarily clear, she saluted. “Until we meet again, my lady,” she said.

  Smiling grimly, I returned the salute. “Until then.”

  Once they had passed inside, all I could see of them was a collection of blurry colors that quickly blended in with the others that swirled about behind the glass facade.

  The man in brown came back to the entrance and reached out to close the door. I leaned in and caught him by the collar. “
See to her,” I hissed. “Or I will track you down. And you will pay.”

  He didn’t seem bothered by my accosting him physically, or by the threat. He nodded and half-smiled. “She will be fine.”

  He reached out for the door, starting to slide it closed.

  I grasped it before it could shut. I still did not trust him and I certainly did not know him. Together we stood there, holding the door partially closed, partially open, each of us pushing in opposite directions. He looked up at me again and our eyes met.

  “You must let me depart,” he said. “If only for your friend’s sake.”

  I held the door one more long moment, then released it.

  “All will be well,” he said to me. “But this is not your ride, sister. It is coming. Be patient.”

  The door closed.

  His words took me aback. One word in particular.

  Sister?

  Who was this impudent old man, to speak to a goddess so?

  I stood there before the now-sealed box that most closely resembled an elevator car carved from crystal, and I started to call out—to once again question the person inside who had dared to address me in such a familiar manner. But then the lights and the sounds returned, the transparent box flared bright orange, and within a few seconds it was empty once more, as it had been when we had arrived.

  This was all bizarre and puzzling, but I had to remind myself it was not the only situation we faced. Remembering the sorcerer, Garvael, who had sent the robots after us in the first place, I glanced quickly up at the balcony. That area was now empty. Had Garvael assumed we would all be killed, and gone about his other business? Or had he witnessed our victory—unorthodox as it had been—and retreated into the Spire, perhaps to prepare some new and even more deadly attack? I had no way of knowing, and other things weighed on my mind at the moment besides. Thus Garvael, for the moment, would have to wait.

  Mirana and the others approached slowly and together we all examined the transparent and now empty box from different angles. Binari utilized a variety of sensors and even had his drone—the original one—fly up and over it and scan it from above. We learned nothing, beyond the Rao’s uncertain report of some sort of “temporal distortion” all around us, but now even that appeared to be vanishing.