“This is the entrance to the Labyrinth, here on Dalen-Shala,” Lydain said, nodding toward the swirl. “Understand that other entrances exist, on other Star-Cities and in... other places.” He looked back at us. “Which means your adversaries may have already entered the Labyrinth from some other place.”
Davos shook his head at this. “If the Labyrinth is here,” he said, “how can it be entered from some other location? From some other Star-City?”
“It is not here,” Lydain replied. “The Labyrinth can be entered from here, yes, or from other locations on this mortal plane. But in truth it lies in some faraway layer of reality all its own.”
“Where will it take us?” I asked.
He smiled. “It takes each person to a different place, yet all go to the same place.”
“And where is that?” Lucian asked.
“Where they most need to be.”
“I do not understand,” Mirana protested. This actually forced me to suppress a laugh, for the thought occurred to me that perhaps she had spent so much time in my company, she could no longer decipher the vague mystical pronouncements of her own kind.
“We understand,” Lucian said, as used to such concepts as I was and increasingly impatient. “Or at least we understand as much as we are ever likely to. Where is the entrance?”
Lydain offered him a slight shrug. “Just as the Labyrinth is different for each person, so to is the experience of its entrance.”
Davos shook his big gray head. “This is all too metaphysical for me,” he said. He stalked forward, quickly approaching the swirl of lights. “I see an open doorway here. I’m going through it.”
“Whoa, there,” Lucian called to him. “Let’s take this a bit more deliberately.”
“We have no more time for deliberation,” Davos called back to him. “Nor for the enigmatic phrasings of this charlatan.”
At that, Davos brandished his silver energy rifle and walked into what appeared to me as a swirling light. He vanished.
I whirled on Lydain. “Where did he go?”
“Where you all desire to go,” he said. “Into the Labyrinth.” He smiled. “If you do not wish for him to get too far ahead, you should hurry along.”
The remaining three of us exchanged glances.
“Do we trust this one?” Lucian asked.
“Not in the least,” I replied.
“And yet we have no choice,” Mirana said.
Mirana’s argument prevailed.
And so, with no more debate, the three of us hurried forward and stepped into the swirling circle of light—or whatever it was each of us saw there.
And the universe around us went away.
* * *
Davos was standing just ahead, waiting for us, when we suddenly appeared. He had the energy rifle at the ready, but lowered it when he saw it was us.
The darkened room was gone. In its place, all around swirled a turbulent, storm-filled sky. But I do mean all around—for there was no ground, just sky above and sky below. Gravity remained functional, but everything else was chaotic, unhinged. It reminded me to some degree of the surroundings in Lucian’s island universe; but this held nothing of the cozy, warm, blue-sky protectiveness of his pocket realm. This instead seemed shot straight out of nightmare—out of the nightmares of someone for whom the laws of physics had been rendered obsolete.
We stood on a small circle of gray stone that hung floating in that indigo-streaked, storm-tossed eternity. Lightning forked above us and below us, and fierce storm clouds shot past in every direction as the winds howled. What held us down to the stone—what provided gravity in any real sense—was not readily apparent and could not be determined.
“Where do we go?” Mirana asked, eyes wide as she took in our insane surroundings. Her long, almost white hair lashed around her head and she had to speak loudly to be heard over the storm.
“I was hoping you would know,” Lucian called back to her. “Since we are on your Star-City.”
“We are not on her Star-City any longer,” I said to Lucian. “We have left that location, and that universe, behind.”
“Yes,” Mirana said, “I understand now. This is another pocket universe.”
“No,” I replied. “No, not one. It is a sort of nexus of many universes. That is how it has been described to me by others who came here. Came here and returned alive, that is.”
“And how many would that be?” Lucian asked.
“Not many,” I said.
We stood there another few seconds, in that tiny eye of the mother of all storms, looking all around us, feeling very tiny and insignificant in the face of this infinity of tempests. And for a god to feel reduced in such a way is an extremely difficult thing for us to process.
“There,” Davos called out even as I felt myself sliding into a hypnotized despair. He pointed towards our feet, and we all looked.
A slender pathway was forming. It began at the edge of the stone circle where we stood, and grew more and more solid by the moment, even as it extended into the void. It looked to be made of the same smooth gray stone as the disk.
“Seems clear enough,” I told the others. “We have our path. Off we go.”
They all looked at me, looked at each other, shrugged, and started forward.
And off we went.
* * *
We strode along rather easily at first, relieved to have something to do besides stand there; somewhere to be other than crammed together on that tiny disk in the midst of all the chaos. Mirana led, the Shield of Sevenaya held before her. I followed just behind her, and then came Davos. Lucian, predictably, brought up the rear, still carrying the Sword of Baranak.
Only in single file could we fit on the path, and very soon a bit of distance had opened up between each of us. The path felt solid beneath us, as if it were normal ground instead of a yard-wide thread suspended in a vast void. It began to curve around and back on itself, so that we passed one another moving in opposite directions at times. After only a short way the going became more difficult, with winds lashing at us and lightning flaring all around. And it only grew more challenging the farther we went, with only a faint ambient light in our immediate area illuminating our steps.
Along its circuit we traveled, utterly unsure of how far we had to go. All I knew going in was that the Scepter of Mordant, last of the Six Cosmic Weapons and the only one not yet acquired by either Vostok or us, supposedly lay somewhere along it, or at its end. What that end might actually entail, or where it might be, none of us had the slightest idea.
The lightning occasionally revealed to us quick glimpses of the curving path ahead of us, but only the next few stages. The rest of it lay in utter darkness, visible to us only as we neared it.
And so we walked, and storm winds pushed and shoved at us, and there was no hand railing to grip and no bottom beneath us to hit if we fell. It seemed to me inevitable that one of us would soon fall, yet miraculously no one had. Yet.
This was certainly a time when having the Power at my disposal would have come in handy, for I could’ve simply opened a portal to carry any of us away to safety if we fell. Alas, it was all too obvious our friends back in the Golden City still had not succeeded with the Fountain.
After some fifteen minutes of pushing along against the gale—fifteen minutes that seemed more like fifteen hours—the path we walked gained a slight incline upward. This only made the going that much more difficult, and I cursed whoever had designed this mad maze.
To call it a maze, though, was inaccurate. That term implied that we would face a choice of directions to take, and thus far we had only been presented with one option: straight ahead. But that situation did not last long.
After some half an hour of walking, the path ahead of Mirana branched. She stopped, stared at the division a moment, then looked back at me. “What would you have me do, lady?”
I groaned when I saw it. So much for easy choices. I suspected this would not be the last, either.
“Go right,” I told her. Then I looked back at the others. “We will take the right path. One of you take the left.”
“I will,” Davos said.
“Should we divide our forces?” Lucian asked.
“I don’t see us having an alternative,” I replied. “We don’t know which way might lead to the goal.”
And so we did that thing, and three of us continued along together while the fourth followed a different trail. And for some minutes afterward our journey remained as before, the only noticeable change being the winds picked up in force and the lightning flared more frequently. And then we came to another fork.
Again Mirana turned to me, the question obvious in her expression, though this time she didn’t have to speak.
“You will take the left this time,” I said to Lucian.
I expected an argument from him, valid or no. Instead he acquiesced with grace, which surprised me.
Thus we were whittled down to two still on the right-hand path.
Very soon we came to a long downhill slope. Its angle was probably not that sharp but, to us attempting to walk upon it, it seemed horrific. We leaned backwards and moved very slowly, maintaining our balance as best we could. The winds grew even stronger then; strong enough to blow us off even a flat path. Only by the hardest were the two of us able to keep from falling.
Our reward for surviving that slope was, inevitably, a third branching. Mirana and I exchanged looks but I believe we both knew what had to be done. Without hesitating she took the left branch, allowing me to remain on the right-hand path.
And so now I was alone, as each of the other three was as well. If the path branched again before I reached its end, there would be at least one possible trail that none of us explored. I gritted my teeth and regretted leaving Binari behind in the Golden City.
Another ten minutes passed as I walked. That time was filled with angles up and angles down; with tight curves and long straightaways; with the strongest cross-winds yet. I was forced at times to hunker down and proceed very slowly while presenting to the currents the smallest target I could make of myself.
A faint light then, from off to my left. This surprised me, as up until now I had not seen anyone or anything else in this colossal void. I slowed and peered into the darkness, watching as the light grew. After a few moments I realized it was another curve of the path; perhaps a part I had yet to travel upon, or from some other segment entirely. The light drew my curiosity, though. Why was I able to see that segment?
Because, I realized very quickly, another individual was walking upon it.
“Go back!” came a shout from that direction. It was a voice I recognized. A female voice.
A second later I saw her. Athletic, lithe, clad in a tight, metallic red suit. Blonde hair tied back behind her head. Two short blades in her hands this time, instead of a sword.
“Borodina,” I called out. “I congratulate you on surviving your fall from the One Tree.”
She glared at me. “Go back,” she shouted again.
“I assume we hunt the same trophy,” I said.
“The Scepter of Mordant,” she replied. “Yes.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve found it yet?”
She had stopped moving and looked away for a moment. A distance of perhaps twelve meters now separated us, on parallel tracks. “No,” she said. “But I will.” She motioned with one hand. “Go back. Nothing awaits you this way but death.”
“I think I would prefer to find out for myself,” I told her, even as I crouched down to await any possible attack.
I did not have to wait long.
“Your enemies now possess the other five Cosmic Weapons,” she called across the distance that now separated us. “Soon they will have all of the Six.”
This shook me. They had all five? How was that possible? Mirana and Lucian each carried one of the two we had found. Had they been waylaid so quickly?
“Your mission has failed,” she was shouting. “Go back!”
I’d had enough of her. Again.
“Come and make me,” I said to her.
She blinked at this, then looked down—down into that endless black void that gaped beneath us both. When she looked up at me again, a hint of trepidation had crept into her features for the first time.
“Unless you can’t,” I added, “in which case I will be on my way.”
The fear in her eyes vanished, replaced by a fierce anger.
“And try to keep your balance this time,” I added as I began to move along the pathway again and away from her.
Wordlessly she screamed, a banshee wail, her lips pulled back and her teeth bare. And then, to my astonishment, she actually leapt.
Across the void she flew, in an act of remarkable agility. It was incredible, and proved once and for all that she did not require the Power in order to be a formidable athlete or fighter.
Her aim was perfect. The two knives held out to each side and ready to strike quickly, she descended toward the narrow, meter-wide path. Clearly she intended to land on a spot just ahead of me, from whence she could attack me at will.
It absolutely would have worked, had I not spent the last few moments surreptitiously pouring every bit of the Power I could access into a blast of cold, directed precisely at the spot I’d expected her to aim for. Even then, the outcome might have proven unsatisfactory for me, had the atmosphere been too dry. Fortunately, the storm-lashed air was exceptionally humid—and that was something I could work with.
Therefore, when she hit the path, she landed not on more gray stone but on a quarter-inch thick layer of ice.
Her expression morphed instantly from ferocity to horror.
“No,” she shrieked, flailing out with her arms, the knives falling from her hands, forgotten. “Not again!”
I moved forward one step and punched her in the face.
For the briefest of moments her face portrayed her shock and surprise.
And then over the side she went, gone down into the depths, into that unknowable darkness.
I gazed down after her for only a second, for she was already lost from sight. Then I shook my head in wonder. “You’d think you would have learned to watch your step around an ice goddess,” I called after her.
Then I dispersed the ice and pressed on along the path.
* * *
It did not take much longer to arrive at the terminus of the Labyrinth. And the end, of course, was a portion of the In-Between—that hidden realm between realities.
The swirling circle of lights reappeared just ahead of me, and only a few more easy steps carried me to it. I passed through, and at that moment the winding path I’d been following vanished. Instead I stood in what seemed to be a small grotto, with moss and rocks all around. The smell of soil and vegetation was almost overwhelming.
Directly in front of me stood a low platform. I approached it cautiously.
Upon it lay a metal cylinder of silver and gold. Faint circuitry shimmered down its sides. One end featured a shorter, thicker portion. A single purple stone flickered at the center of the thicker end.
Though I had never laid eyes upon it before, I knew this had to be what I sought. The Scepter of Mordant. Last of the Six Cosmic Weapons.
I reached down and lifted it. It was heavy, solid. I could feel a faint current coming from it, coursing through me. I blinked.
And the world went away.
TWENTY FOUR
When the four of us had set out into the Labyrinth, the Seer Lydain had said it would carry each of us to where we needed to be. Apparently the place we needed to be was right back in the Star-City, for that was where I appeared a moment later—and where I found them, too.
But they were not alone.
I had appeared on the main deck, in the broad courtyard within the circle of crystal towers, where we had walked earlier with Lydain. The fifty-meter-wide Cosmic Pool of energies lay just ahead of me.
To my right, Mirana and Davos were on their knees, with their ha
nds raised in a gesture of surrender. The Shield of Sevenaya had been taken from my apprentice. A dozen soldiers in the white and green plate armor of Legion III—the Kings of Oblivion, as they were known—stood in a semicircle around them, aiming their massive quad-rifles at them. Nearby, Lucian lay still on the ground, his eyes closed. Presumably he had been rendered unconscious. He could not be dead for, like the rest of us from the Golden City, he could not truly die so long as even a trickle of the Power kept flowing from the Fountain there. I noticed quickly that the Sword of Baranak was no longer in his possession.
To my left, in the midst of another dozen or more of the heavily armed and armored legionaries, General Yevgeni Vostok stood with his arms crossed, regarding me with a sneering contempt. Before him on a low crystal pedestal lay the other five Cosmic Weapons—Knife and Shield and Sword and Hammer and my own precious Axe—all of them but the Scepter I now carried in my right hand. Next to them rested seven sparkling red gemstones, and their presence horrified me even more than the thought of Vostok possessing all the Six Weapons. For those gems, if they were what I believed them to be, contained the Aspect, the very essence of Vorthan himself.
Further to my left, standing aloof and apparently unconcerned and uninvolved, were Condor and Cardinal and the other Hands of the Machine. They had returned—or, more likely, had never left.
I absorbed this tableau in an instant and switched the Scepter of Mordant to my left hand so that I could draw my sword with my right. I assumed the Scepter carried great power but I had no idea yet how to properly wield it.
Before I could free my blade, more than a half-dozen of the Kings of Oblivion moved to encircle me, the servos in their heavy armor whining, their guns leveled.
Remaining as cold as ice on the surface, I studied them carefully, evaluating the situation. In the moments before I had arrived, they had somehow managed to capture and disarm my allies and render Lucian himself unconscious. This was all more than disturbing. Of course my anger, my outrage were near the boiling point inside, but I had long ago learned that bellowing and posturing amounted to very little without the power to back such behavior up. And at present I had very little power—because I had very little of the Power.
Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice Page 27