Ice Phoenix (30 page)

"Twisting the mind of someone who already knows he's powerful is a dangerous thing to do. Not even the most hardened Ancients knew of his transgressions. He had already begun his own domination over the smaller worlds, and to our shock and detriment, he had formed an alliance with the Valpuri worlds."

"Valpuri worlds?" repeated Grandmaster Deitrux.

"The worlds from which the demons come.
Five solar systems and four galaxies that were shared amongst them. Apart from us who ruled this part of Dartkala for millenniums, the Valpuri was the only other race to have explored the In-Between. However, our technology was superior to theirs, and for a long time we co-existed in an uneasy truce."

There was a long silence, as if the voices were contemplating something difficult.

"It was too late when we found out. Ten planets had already been destroyed, and their civilisations lost forever. But if we thought death had come quickly to those poor creatures, we were wrong. The Dream Walker toyed with them, experimented with their life forces, and in the end, he learnt how to absorb them. He grew stronger with each life he took, and he gained the power to traverse Dartkala. He immersed himself into the dreams of sleeping people and sucked their very lives from them."

"Dear Dartkala," hissed Quempa. "What happened then?"

"We captured several of the Valpuri and brought them before the Ancients. The Valpuri confessed their part in the unforgiveable genocide, and even worse, we learnt that they had been under the direct orders of the Dream Walker. Of course, the Ancients were horrified to hear this, and many disbelieved the Valpuri's accounts.

"The Dream Walker was sent for, to answer for his heinous crimes, and it couldn't have been more farcical. He brazenly admitted his crimes, and laughed at the Ancients for being fools. The order to arrest him was issued, but he resisted."

There was another long silence and it seemed the voices were weeping. The wind picked up and the streams became loud. Rain fell lightly.

"We learnt that day just how powerful he had become. Not even the combined power of the older Ancients and the younger generations could overcome him. He called down the very force of Dartkala, and something that should never have happened, did. He melded the billions of life forces he had absorbed with that of Dartkala — living qi, elemental qi, and last of all, Dartkala's life qi. The Dream Walker had discovered life itself in the very emptiness of the In-Between, and he had learned to call it to his bidding."

"Incredible!" gasped Grandmaster Deitrux. "Is there really life qi in Dartkala?"

"Not just any life.
Existence.
That which cannot be seen, heard, or felt. That which has no form, mass, or matter, and yet, without it we could not survive. Our planets could not remain suspended in this emptiness, absorbing life from it. It is e
xistence
."

"He found something in nothing," said the grandmaster.

"But he could not control it." The voices modulated on various levels. Everyone felt rather than heard the anger and sadness in them, and found themselves on the verge of tears, overcome by emotion.

"His actions evolved into our nightmares. It drove us to madness, and we became what he became. We did what he did, spreading terror throughout the In-Between and invading the dreams of the sleeping. We slaughtered them, and infused with the power of Dartkala and the madness of the Dream Walker, we reached across the void and sucked the life out of every planet we could find. Our bloodlust lasted for days before we were able to overcome it."

"Days?" said a horrified Quempa. "It took you only days to destroy all those lives and planets? They were entire
worlds
!"

"That is our crime.
Something that we could not compensate for in our lifetime or the next."

"How long is your lifetime?" Lorn asked quickly.

"We are immortal."

"Oh."

"So how did you overcome your possession?" asked Kuldor.

"How did we indeed? We didn't. We were too far gone in our madness to do anything about it. But we awakened Dartkala. We had brought consciousness to the emptiness that gives life to us all. And Dartkala reacted. It ripped itself away from us and the Dream Walker. It had felt the imbalance in power and was attempting to correct it.

"We were left with the memories of our deeds, and that alone nearly drove us to extinction. Our shame flooded into the other untouched worlds, terrifying them with our nightmares. Later, the older, more powerful elders were able to restrain themselves and contained us. Since then, we have locked ourselves in Olden Kartath, and it is here that we allow our nightmares to roam. It is a constant reminder of our actions and the arrogant race that we were. Only until the Dream Walker dies, will our nightmares die with him."

"Wait a moment!" cried Raimus. "What did you mean by,
you awakened Dartkala
? Dartkala is just a vessel of space and energy. I understand that, like Mother Nature, it would work to correct an imbalance, but you speak as if Dartkala were sentient!"

Whispers crowded their minds and they flinched, wary of the pain they could inflict.

"Dartkala is many things. We will never uncover all the mysteries of Dartkala in a thousand lifetimes, but know this, if you upset Dartkala badly enough, it will respond."

"What happened to the Dream Walker after Dartkala awakened?" Grandmaster Deitrux asked.

"He was weakened. We and the Valpuri were all weakened. The Valpuri disappeared suddenly and were never heard from again until recently. The Dream Walker fared better. Soon after he recovered, he went on to attack the other worlds and we were powerless to stop him. However, we sent warnings to the other sectors and, for the first time, the sectors united.

"Some had not even heard of the others, but this did not stop them from overcoming their differences. Each sector sent their most powerful weavers and lacers to Pa Gumpina, to devise a way of overpowering the Dream Walker. From all of them, one man stood out. His name was Namasar, and he was half weaver, half lacer. By his side was a powerful, but overlooked witch called Skra."

"Nashim has Skra's pendant now," Raimus said dolefully.

"You do well to remind us, weaver." There was just the slightest hint of sarcasm in the voice.

"In the end, Namasar was chosen to lead the group. He had both weaver's and lacer's skills to implement an extremely complicated lacing that would bind a weaving for all eternity. The lacing required the input of five weavers and five lacers to bind the Dream Walker, and cast him out of this part of Dartkala."

Kuldor interrupted. "If it was a lacing that bound the Dream Walker, then it should still be in place today. Does Nashim know how to deactivate it?"

"You raise a good question. We do not know. If it took five weavers and five lacers to create a prison and cast the Dream Walker out, then it would require the same elements to undo the prison."

"Then either Nashim has discovered another way, or his next step is to kidnap ten people," said Grandmaster Deitrux. "And because he has been ticking Imeldors and L-Masters off the living list, I'd say he has found another way."

He waited for confirmation from the voices. It didn't take long.

"You are right, Grandmaster Deitrux. Had history not been lost, you would have known that the lacing was never completed by Namasar."

"Namasar died before he could complete the lacing," said the voices.

"But that makes no sense!" Raimus cried out. "The lacing is in place, it has been confining the Dream Walker for thousands of years. A lacing must be sealed after it is completed or it will not take effect! Had it been sealed halfway through, the consequences would have been dire."

"Quite right, weaver.
According to the laws of lacing, if a lacing is not completed properly, or deviates by even a single percentage, then the effect will be something other than what you wanted originally. Initially, it may appear that all is well, but at some point or another, the lacing will unravel."

"After three thousand years, why would you say the lacing is incomplete?" Raimus asked, looking confused. He was
n't the only one. Everyone else looked as though they had grown two heads in an attempt to solve the mystery of the incomplete lacing.

"Namasar died before he could complete it. The Dream Walker killed him and the other nine."

"Then if he or the others did not complete the lacing or seal it, who did?" asked Kuldor. This was proving more intriguing by the minute and everyone was listening intently, desperate to hear more.

"His witch."

"Skra?" Raimus gasped in amazement. "But how? She was just a witch!"

"You said she was overlooked," Lorn called out. "She was a weaver, wasn't she?"

"Truly spoken, young one. Skra was a weaver and no one knew, not even her lover, Namasar. Her witch's power was enough of a heavy burden, and she had no desire to publicise her multiple talents. Foresight is a terrible gift to have when all you see is death. She foresaw Namasar's death at the hands of the Dream Walker, and she begged him not to go. But she knew that Namasar would not listen. It was his destiny to face the Dream Walker, and any other way would have been a traitor's path.

"Skra accepted this in the end and she watched Namasar leave, ultimately to his death. Namasar called on everything he had to battle the Dream Walker, but it was not enough. Even his pendant could not match the burning fury of the Dream Walker and at last he fell. But just before he died, Skra went to his aid. She had summoned Dartkala through her own pendant
, and there in the void, she faced the Dream Walker."

"How was it that she managed to achieve what Namasar could not?" Raimus asked.

"Or what made her decide to face the Dream Walker in the first place?" said Quempa. "She had, after all, foreseen her lover's death so she knew she could not have saved him. Did she foresee her own victory?"

"We believe she foresaw hope and
, ultimately, it convinced her to join the fight. She achieved what Namasar could not, because she felt something which neither Namasar nor the Dream Walker felt at the time — and that was grief. She had just lost the man she loved. She fought with all the rage, pain, and sorrow of her grief. The Dream Walker could never have expected this, and he had no idea how to deal with it. A woman's grief is a dangerous thing indeed.

"And between Namasar and Skra, the witch was the stronger weaver and her pendant reflected it. Skra could not complete the lacing for she did not know how to, so she sealed it instead. She performed this by bending her will and the force of Dartkala to create the prison that
still holds the Dream Walker today. The Dream Walker's prison is more a weaving than lacing, and it is that weaving that holds the Dream Walker prisoner. It is the lacing that is now unravelling and it must be performed once more to contain the Dream Walker."

"Then that means we can still complete the lacing!" exclaimed Raimus.

"Yes, you can still complete the lacing. We, as a race, could not defeat the Dream Walker, and in our arrogance we believed that no one else could. But it took a woman and her broken heart to prove us wrong. She was too grief-stricken to even contemplate failure, and this is why she succeeded."

"What happened to her after she returned?" asked Prince Gil Ra Im.

"After informing the governments of what had befallen the ten, and how the Dream Walker had been imprisoned and cast beyond the Voron Cloud, she was hunted by the officials she had spoken to."

"What?" uttered
Raimus. He wasn't the only one; the others seemed just as shocked.

"Skra had just returned without Namasar's pendant, carrying the only remaining one — her own. How could a mere
witch have battled and fought someone as powerful as the Dream Walker and survived? This was how the united governments thought. They accused Skra of murdering the ten and stealing Namasar's pendant. They wanted the pendants for themselves."

"Despicable," hissed Quempa.

"Skra understood that her pendant could not fall into the wrong hands, and so she disappeared. No hunters, weavers or lacers were able to locate her."

"Well, it's no wonder!" blurted Raimus. "She picked Si Ren Da! Who would have thought of searching for her there?"

The grandmaster frowned, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He had listened carefully to everything the voices had related, and no matter which way he looked at it, there was one glaringly large hole in their story, and it troubled him.

"
With respect, everything you have spoken of, everything you described, was of events that have had a deep impact in the ten sectors. Events of that scale could not have simply been overlooked or forgotten by the people of UWIB, but that is exactly what happened. Why wasn't it recorded in our history? Our archives were created two centuries after UWIB's formation, but even so, we had the ability, the technology, to record those events. The queen had to scour the ten sectors to glean what she could from scrap paper! Why did we have to learn this from you?"

The voices hissed and fell into silence. Several minutes passed and there was no answer forthcoming.

"It seems your question greatly disturbed them," said Kuldor to the grandmaster. He released a deep sigh and sat down suddenly, crossing his legs. Grandmaster Deitrux joined him and the two sat in silence. Finally, Grandmaster Deitrux spoke.

"It appears that way. They have a lot to answer for. The severity of these events was undeniably grave and
the information should have been passed down to all UWIB citizens, but instead was erased from history. The truth behind UWIB's formation and the Dream Walker's existence had been deliberately kept hidden. There are not many in this world who are capable of such a feat.

"Then, there is the other matter regarding the united archive
, which was not built until two centuries later, after UWIB's creation. I had always found that a little strange. We had the means to communicate, the means to save and transfer data, and yet nothing prior to the creation of UWIB was recorded. How did that happen?"

The grass rippled gently and everyone straightened, waiting for the voices to speak.
Finally, they resumed.

"You speak truly, Grandmaster Deitrux. We are to blame for the missing part of your history. We were deeply ashamed of our involvement in the atrocities committed by the Dream Walker and the Valpuri, and there were many of us, particularly the
Ancients, who wished to erase our part in this history forever. We slowly altered people's memories and transplanted new ones, erased any collective data we could find, and for two hundred years we held back the progress of UWIB, until we were certain that no one would remember the events of the Valpuri and Dream Walker war. We could have helped clear Skra's name, offered her protection, but instead we did her a great injustice by not stepping forwards. We allowed her to be hunted like an animal until she was forced to spend the rest of her life on Si Ren Da."

For the first time since he had materialised on
DalKal 7, Grandmaster Deitrux's face darkened; those who knew him well knew he was angry.

"It was
, indeed, the greatest injustice you could have committed," he said, "Not only to Skra, but also to the valiant ten who sacrificed their lives to protect our universe. They are the only reason we are alive today. Your interference in UWIB's affairs has not only robbed us of a history, but also left us unprepared to deal with the re-emergence of the Valpuri and the Dream Walker."

The voices fell silent once more, and the Imeldors picked up a strong sense of shame emanating from them. When finally the silence became unbearable, Kuldor asked a question.
"Is there a way to kill the Dream Walker?"

"We think so," the voices said quickly, eager to move on. "We previously believed that it couldn't be done, that the Dream Walker was invincible, but we may have been wrong. Now, we are almost certain of what Skra foresaw three thousand years ago that gave her hope."

"What was it?" Raimus asked quickly.

"Another being, born like the Dream Walker.
We believe that Skra foresaw the existence of another being whose power would rival the Dream Walker's. Someone with the same blood as he."

"Is it another person from Olden Kartath?" asked Lorn.

The voices laughed, baffling everyone. They ignored the question and continued talking about the Dream Walker. "The Dream Walker is not one of us. He is not Kartathian, as we call ourselves here."

"I'm sorry
, but would you mind repeating that?" said Raimus, very loudly. "Did you say that the Dream Walker was
not
Kartathian? Wasn't he born in Olden Kartath?"

"He
was
born in Olden Kartath, but no Kartathian birthed him. Three days prior to his birth, one of our planets, Syrog, experienced a strange weather phenomenon. On the fourth day, a vortex appeared and through it came a mass of qi, qi we had never seen or experienced before. It was so powerful that our people had to flee the planet. Then, on the sixth day, the qi vanished, leaving behind a baby boy. That baby boy grew up to be the Dream Walker.

"The Dream Walker
was birthed from darkness, from nothing. He is Dartkala's son."

Everyone paled and Grandmaster Deitrux looked stunned. "Then that means ..."

"Dartkala is sentient."

"There must be a logical explanation for this," insisted Kuldor. "He could have been genetically engineered and abandoned
—"

"Do you think we would not have thought of this,
Gratchonian?" chided the voices. "We ran countless tests, we studied him day and night, and not for one second did we leave him alone as a child. We were driven to discover the truth of his origins. All those tests came out inconclusive.

"His DNA structure was unlike anythin
g we had ever encountered. They didn't only replicate at phenomenal rates, there were times when they just didn't exist, flickering in and out of existence. We took his cells, experimented with them. We split a single cell nucleus; we discovered more nuclei inside, containing different information than that of its parent. Do you know what other entity has similar properties?"

"Dartkala," answered Grandmaster Deitrux
, his voice sounding hollow.

"Yes. The faars, the ice-phoenixes
, and the Dream Walker are all Dartkala's children. Every advanced civilisation has tried to unravel the DNA sequencing of feiyed creatures and failed. The Dream Walker is Dartkala's child."

"That is just incredible!" gasped Raimus, clutching his head. "So,
the Dream Walker is feiyed! But, what about this other being that Skra foresaw? Has it been born yet?"

The
re was a strong gust of wind and whispering flooded their minds. "The being has been born and, surprisingly, is among you."

Raimus drew back in surprise.
"Are you sure you're not mistaken?"

"How can that be?" asked Lady Anrath.

"If only that were true," said Quempa.

There was a jumble of voices as everyone tried to speak at once. They fell silent as they noticed the grandmaster was sighing and shaking his head sadly.
"It's Terrana, isn't it?" he said, with resignation.

The breath went out of
Terrana and she stared at the grandmaster, shocked that he had uttered those words.

"Yes
," the voices replied, "her confrontation with the Valpuri alerted us."

Terrana jumped to her feet and glared
angrily at the treetops, then spun around to face the grandmaster. "What are you talking about? I'm human! I'm not some freak who was born out of nothing! I have parents and a brother. I'm flesh and blood!"

Grandmaster Deitrux looked torn. He
had found a way to save the world if the Dream Walker should ever escape the confines of his prison, but this would destroy everything Terrana believed about herself.

"Terrana,"
he said gently. "You ... are feiyed."

"
No! Only animals are feiyed! I'm human!
My mother's human. My father's human. My brother's human.
I'm
human."

She couldn't believe what they were trying to tell her. With just a few words, the grandmaster had eradicated the meaning of her existence. If what they were saying was true, then her entire life spent in Sector Thirteen had been a lie. How could she have been born feiyed to a perfectly normal family in Fiji? The happiest times of her life had been with them — they were her flesh and blood. She felt as
though she was going to shatter.