I closed my eyes tight. “She chose her mentor poorly,” I whispered.
A long pause this time. So long, in fact, that I thought he had gone. But when I opened my eyes again, he yet floated there.
“And what of me?” he asked.
I frowned at this. “You?”
“Yes. Would you not summon up the strength to fight for me?”
I considered those words as I floated there, upside down in the dark.
“Yes,” I finally said. “Yes, for you, alone of all the others, I would fight.” I shrugged. “But what difference does it make? You are gone. And, as you have said, you cannot—you will not—return.”
“No,” he admitted. “That is true. But…”
He trailed off. I waited, listening.
“But you know that a part of me continues. Survives down to this present day.”
“What?”
He chuckled then. “You know of whom I speak.”
I said nothing, but my mind worked. I remembered that moment, ages earlier, when Baranak had admitted to me a moment of weakness on one of the human worlds. It had been during a long millennium when he and I had been on the outs. For century after century, I would not see him, would not communicate with him. I no longer recall exactly what had transpired between us to cause the breach, but it had been severe.
And during that time, he’d had a liaison, a tryst. With a mortal woman.
A child came of it. A demigod.
Just as Lucian and his mortal woman, Evelyn Colicos, had produced a line of semi-divine descendants that ran through Dorion Colicos and currently culminated with General Marcus Ezekial Tamerlane, so to had Baranak given rise to a line of fair-haired, powerful men and women down through the centuries, until…
“You know of whom I speak,” Baranak said again. “You have always known. You see me in him. You recognize his power. You have seen him wield the Sword.”
My eyes closed, I nodded once.
He remained silent for a minute. Then, “I am very sorry for the circumstances of it all,” he said. “I wish it could have been different, somehow.”
I shook my head. “Washed away,” I told him. “All washed away by the many years, the ages since. I blame you not.”
His expression softened at this. “Good,” he said. “Thank you.”
I floated there a bit longer and thought on what he had said. Then I replied, “Yes. Yes—for him I would fight. For the survival of a universe in which he and his descendants—your descendants—can live, can thrive. Yes. But—”
“But what?”
I shook my head. “Vostok cannot be beaten now.”
“Vostok is a fool,” Baranak said.
“Fool he may be, but he now carries within himself the immense power of Vorthan.”
“Vorthan is a fool as well.”
I snorted at this. “Perhaps. But his power, which was dispersed across the cosmos upon his destruction, has now been gathered together again, and further magnified by the Six Cosmic Weapons. And so, yes, fools perhaps, but together—”
“Together, they are two fools.” He laughed. “And you can beat them both.”
I was astonished at this. “But how?” I demanded. “While Vostok carries within himself all the raw power of the deathgod, I have only the tiny trickle of power from the broken Fountain. Scarcely could I stand against him. And the mortals? He will scatter them all before him like leaves before a storm.” I shook my head. “How could I even begin to do such a thing? How could I take on such dread might alone?”
“You will not be alone,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“We will face him together.” Another laugh. “It is time for you to open your eyes, dear Karilyne.”
“What?” I frowned at this. “My eyes are open.”
“They are not. Open them—now!”
I realized then that this had all been some sort of dream. I opened my eyes and found myself floating upside down in the Cosmic Pool. Baranak was gone, of course. But something else floated there, radiating golden light, waiting just beyond my fingertips. Something I had held and lost. And now it had been returned to me.
The Sword of Baranak.
* * *
I reached out for the Sword, missed it once, missed it again, and then got my fingers around it.
Raw power flooded into me. Power—and a sense of comfort, of support, of confidence.
Baranak was with me.
Two seconds later I exploded out of the Pool—but I was no longer Karilyne, and not quite Baranak. Instead what stepped out onto the surface of the Star-City was a twenty-meter-tall gold and silver figure that imbued the power and majesty of both of us.
I landed there and flexed my massive muscles and felt electricity coursing over my gleaming metallic form—a form that was neither man nor woman but simply god.
I had been reborn, and reborn for one specific purpose: to slay the deathgod and return him to oblivion.
And there, awaiting us on the Star-City’s courtyard deck was an equally gigantic conglomeration of General Vostok and Vorthan. The being towered over the humans and Dyonari and bellowed his wordless rage at them, as crimson flames leapt from his arms and shoulders and fire burned in his hellish eyes.
I know not what objective Vostok originally had in mind; what he planned to do after attaining such massive power. Presumably he believed he could bend that might to his own will, using it as a tool to accomplish his nefarious ends. But as I gazed upon the massive, monstrous thing he had become, it became increasingly clear he had misjudged his ability to control that power, that godhood, once he had grasped it.
Now neither Vostok’s own personality nor that of Vorthan was in command of his physical form. Instead he apparently had been driven mad by the energies, reverting to a savage, a beast. And those all around him were suffering for it.
Clearly he had been hard at work in the short time since he had emerged from the Pool. The Scepter had grown along with him and he wielded it now like a club, smashing back everyone before him—legionaries, Dyonari, everyone. And not only those who opposed him; Vostok/Vorthan had also knocked gaping holes in the sides of the crystalline towers all around. One of the towers was falling, its inhabitants being crushed and deadly shards of crystal flying everywhere outside of it.
I looked down at myself and saw that I, too, still carried my weapon—Baranak’s golden sword—and it had grown as well, to match my stature. Now it was several meters long. This pleased me; pleased us.
My adversary was more Vorthan now than the mortal Vostok, but a Vorthan with no real intellect; no sentience beyond blind fury.
“Vorthan,” I called out, and our combined voice boomed across the courtyard. “Face me.”
The massive demonic form turned and he beheld the great gold and silver being that stood there, opposing him. He took one step forward. Then another. He brought up the Scepter and swung it around at me. I raised the Sword and blocked it, sending blue sparks flying. Vorthan screamed and swung the massive weapon again and again I managed to deflect it. The sound of the two huge weapons clashing was almost deafening.
He got in past my defenses the third time and struck me savagely with the Scepter, causing me to tumble and crash into the base of another tower, which in turn sent fragments of it flying. I feared it would fall, too, but it only wobbled, at least for now. He unleashed bolts of crimson energy at me, some from his eyes and some from the jewel on the Scepter, all of which I was fortunate to evade or block with the Sword. Unfortunately, the deflected blasts struck still more towers, sending more crystal shards raining down and evoking screams from the Dyonari who dwelt therein. The ground beneath us, deck of the Star-City, trembled and shook.
Someone was shouting up at me from below. Perhaps it was Mirana, perhaps Lucian or Davos. I didn’t know and did not much care. They were all as insects to me then, and I no longer merely a depowered god but an almighty giant striding the heavens like a force of nature. I noticed the transparent box of Solonis
’ Time Tomb off to one side and realized I had been right when I’d suspected he was arriving just as I’d dived into the Pool. But I had neither time nor inclination to consider such relatively mundane things at the moment.
More blasts. More damage. Our fight had barely lasted thirty seconds yet and already the Star-City was suffering greatly. I could see smoke pouring from various holes punched in the buildings and in the deck below us. This could not continue.
I decided to risk everything on a bold attack that would either defeat him or leave me entirely vulnerable to his counterattack. Raising the Sword high, I charged at him.
And then something drastically changed.
I felt it. He felt it, too. Everyone there did, to one degree or another.
A buzzing in the air. A vibration. It made me feel better than I had in days. It was like regaining the use of a lost limb—or regaining a lost life. I was invigorated.
Yes. Yes, they had done it. Binari and the Renegade had succeeded. I knew precisely what was happening then, and I welcomed it.
The Power had returned!
* * *
I charged at the Vorthan/Vostok creature and, clasping the Sword of Baranak in both hands, I swung it at him. Disoriented by the buzzing of the Power through the cosmos, he could not deflect my blow in time. The Sword struck him, slashed through his side, and gouts of crimson flame shout out of the wound. He staggered back, screaming,
I reminded myself that the human General Vostok was somewhere inside that monstrous form—and that he was not a god, simply a mortal. He had no experience with the Power—with controlling it, utilizing it, and not being burned away by it. It was a completely new experience for him, and there was only so much the Vorthan-persona could do in so brief a time to help him cope with it. Particularly when that Vorthan-persona had reverted to savagery.
That was my opening, and I took it.
Again and again I smashed at him and slashed at him with the golden Sword, backed up by all the raw energies of the gathered might of Baranak, and now by the full might of the Power of the Golden City as well. It was spectacular; it was overwhelming in its raw force and majesty.
For the longest time I wasn’t sure even all of that would be enough. He deflected, he blocked, he dodged. He fought back with bestial fury. In response I simply poured it on and did not relent.
At last—at long, long last—it was enough.
Down onto his knees I drove him with my relentless hammering away with the golden blade. Then I raised the Sword high over my head and called out the golden god of battle’s name. In response, gold lightning rained down and surged over the blade’s surface in bolt after bolt, until the blade fairly radiated blinding light.
Then I stepped up and brought that blade down with a combination of all of my own strength—now augmented by the full force of the Power—and all of Baranak’s raw might.
The blade made contact.
Vorthan screamed. The red light flared blindingly bright.
And then it faded.
And when it was entirely gone, so was the gigantic form of Vorthan. In its place, all that remained was the frail mortal form of General Yevgeni Vostok, lying sprawled and unconscious on the deck of the Star-City courtyard, a series of bleeding wounds gouged out of his limbs and torso.
* * *
“I must go,” Baranak’s voice said to me from within my own mind.
“I understand, I think,” I said. “But—can’t you stay even a bit longer?”
“No. Even this little that I did today was more than I should have. But I wanted to. I wanted to help you. Help everyone.”
Sadness crept over me. “I must be honest, Baranak,” I said to him, there within my own mind. “I have missed you terribly. And I have contemplated even the thought of bringing you back permanently.”
“No, my dearest,” he responded. “That you cannot do—you must not do.”
“But why not? You are not evil. You are not some insidious force like Vorthan, aiming for naught but universal destruction. You are good and righteous and a positive force in this reality.”
“I am dead,” he said. “Leave it there.”
I felt that sadness deepening, as if it had become a yawning abyss into which I contemplated jumping and hiding, forever.
“I am pleased to have gotten to see you one more time, my love,” he said. “But now, you must let me go.”
I was silent a very long time. At last I agreed. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
We exchanged a few more intimate remarks and then the golden radiance lifted up and out of me. It floated there before me for another moment, a sphere like a miniature sun at first, but then for a very brief moment in the shape of Baranak himself, one last time. And then it sailed over to the Cosmic Pool, plunged back in, and vanished.
In mere moments I shrank down to my normal size and shape again, as did the Sword. My skin lost its metallic sheen and reverted to flesh of its usual pale shade. The sense of another individual, another personality, sharing my body and my soul went away, leaving me somehow both relieved and terribly lonely.
I stumbled backwards, nearly falling to the ground. Someone rushed up and helped to prop me up as I regained my equilibrium. That didn’t take long, for the Power truly had returned and I was well on my way back to being the goddess I had been for so many millennia before; the Ice Queen of the Golden City. The Power coursed through my veins and across my skin. The temperature around me began to drop, ice crackling over the deck and frost hovering in midair, as my unique abilities kicked in at full force for the first time in days and ran wild. Quickly I reached out for them, reasserted dominance over them, brought them back under my control.
Only then did I actually collapse.
TWENTY SIX
I wasn’t out long. Repeated jostling of my shoulder brought me back to reality. I awoke to find myself seated on the ground at the edge of the courtyard. Mirana stood next to me; she had reached down to shake me awake. The first thing I noticed was all the terrible damage had been done to the buildings and the very structure of the Star-City all around me; the ground still quaked beneath us and it truly felt as if Dalen-Shala were experiencing its death throes.
The second thing I noticed was quite a few armed soldiers in white and green uniforms and armor standing about, clearly grouped into more than one camp, all appearing ready to go to war with one another at the drop of a hat. I noted that my erstwhile comrades were among them but I wished to be properly armed before I said or did anything else. Quickly I got to my feet and looked for the Sword, but it was no longer lying there beside me. Then I remembered that my Axe was nearby.
My Axe. Mine. I do not know who Ayalis was, for whom the weapon was originally named, but he or she had been long-since forgotten. The Axe belonged to me now and had for an eternity, give or take a few years. It was the Axe of Karilyne. And I wanted it back.
The pedestal where the Cosmic Weapons had laid was only a short distance away from me. But when I went to it I found that all of the Six were missing. I cursed.
“Looking for this?” came the voice of Lucian to my left. I turned and he was tossing something at me. It was silver and black and sparkled as it flew through the air. It was the Axe. My Axe. I caught it with easy familiarity in my right hand and I felt its power surge up my arm and a part of me rejoiced in the reunion, for I was whole again. I spun it about and brandished it, ready to go to war against any foes foolish enough to challenge me now. Lucian meanwhile wielded the Sword and beyond him I saw Davos with the Hammer.
I turned back to Mirana, seeing that she held the Knife in her right hand and had the Shield strapped to her left arm. On the far side of her, Solonis stood there in his familiar brown robes, looking entirely youthful again, and holding the Scepter rather uncomfortably in both hands, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Because he probably was not.
“What is the situation?” I asked my apprentice, my blood pumping now as I readied to fight.
>
She gestured toward the warriors arrayed before us.
To our left stood one group of the white-and-green armored ranks of Legion III, the Kings of Oblivion, with an unconscious or dead General Vostok lying on the ground in their midst. They did not look particularly happy about that—or about anything else. Their quad-rifles were leveled and ready.
To our right stood another large group of III Legion troops, similarly armed and armored. I assumed they had been brought there by Tamerlane and Solonis while I was in the Pool. They too were armed and appeared hostile, and seemed quite anxious to go to war with their brothers across the way from them. Of Tamerlane, though, there was no sign. Instead I saw a tall, foreboding figure at their forefront, his helmet off and his short, blond hair showing. Rugged he was; square-jawed, strong and resolute. I knew him on sight and, like the Axe, his presence warmed my cold heart. He was General Arnem Agrippa, once the leader of Legion III and now co-regent of the Anatolian Empire. And he was something else, as well, whether he knew it or not. So—Solonis had found the missing general, wherever he had gone on his alleged sabbatical. Or perhaps he had retrieved an earlier version, or a later one, from the timestream. With Solonis, one could never be certain of such things.
And at the center of our formation, further back and facing our way such that we all formed a sort of square, stood Condor, Cardinal, and the other three Hands of the Machine. They didn’t seem to favor either side and they all appeared entirely unarmed, though I knew that with them all appearances could be very deceiving.
I took all this in within a second, and then I stalked forward and to my left. Directly toward the prone form of Vostok, where he was surrounded by his men. My axe rested easily in my right hand, well-balanced, and my intentions had to be painfully clear to all.
Condor raised a hand at me. “Wait,” he said. “We have not yet adjudicated this matter—we haven’t declared who is in violation of—”
“It isn’t obvious?” I asked as I moved past him.
Karilyne- Heart Cold as Ice Page 29