Ice Phoenix

The strange people shuffled between the shelves, digging between the countless rows of books and poring over relevant pages. They looked desperate as they tried to glean any information that could help save their worlds. While some dealt with old-fashioned books and pages, others hovered by large screens as they delivered instructions to the cube’s computer, scanning various libraries for the information they required.

More people appeared — some from the floor, others from the ceiling. They had just come from the virtual libraries embedded in Mikin’s tiny transloader cube; they were all amazed by the vast spread of information the libraries contained —information spanning galaxies and millenniums.

Standing by a small fountain in the middle of a circular lobby, Mikin decided it was best to remain out of their way as he watched them go about their business. At times, he caught a few people pointing at him and whispering, making him feel uncomfortable. Mikin was scared actually. Scared that his parents would learn of him revealing the existence of the transloader cube and the information it contained. He had voiced his worries to Master Kuldor, and the Gratchonian had assured him that no one would lay hands on the technology developed by his family.

Later, he learned that Master Kuldor was an Imeldor; he didn’t know whether to grovel and spout sycophancy, or run and hide. But as it turned out, he did neither — the Gratchonian always spoke to him kindly and for some reason Mikin trusted him. It didn’t take Mikin long to figure out that the little man constantly at Kuldor’s side was none other than the grandmaster. How Terrana and Lorn had wound up in their company, he had no idea.

But what he did know was that the situation was becoming even more dangerous. Master Kuldor and Grandmaster Deitrux were currently attending an urgent meeting. While they were there, they had left him under the watchful eye of another Imeldor, Lady Skiss, who was from Water Loll. Her constant shifting transparent body gave Mikin a headache.

He sighed and gazed out the window from one of the four disc-like buildings of the Solar Aria Domes. The Solar Aria Domes floated above the city of Pa Gumpina and were commonly referred to as the eyes of the city. Constructed to resemble a miniature planetary system, each disc was encircled by colourful radiation belts that served as landing zones for official dignitaries and their vehicles.

Like the planet, the city was named Pa Gumpina and was the main headquarters for the planet’s government.

Strong winds should have blown through the Solar Aria Domes but they did not, not within the anti-gravity shields that suspended the structure. Instead, the shields filtered in a frisky breeze that ruffled the skirts and cloaks of those who occasionally passed through.

“Is there any chance I can contact my friends at school?” Mikin asked. He tried not to look directly at Lady Skiss. When she answered, her voice was garbled static in his head and he winced as he tried to make sense of it.

“No. We cannot afford the risk of interception.”

“Well, if you told me what we were trying to protect, I’d make sure I don’t mention it!” said a frustrated Mikin. “I’d really like to say hello to my friends.”

“You will see them soon enough on the evacuation station,” came the reply. Mikin huffed and walked off, thoroughly upset now. They wouldn’t even tell him what they were searching for in his libraries, but it wasn’t hard to guess; there was a certain way he could find out. It was his cube after all. All he needed was the right ... he found it.

Lady Skiss was, of course, not far behind him and so he squeezed himself between two tall shelves and slid to the floor, making sure his legs extended past them so that Lady Skiss could see. As long as part of him was visible, she’d leave him alone. However, just to make sure, she floated past, observing his fed-up expression and folded arms, before parking herself nearby.

Mikin rubbed the inner part of his ear with his trunk, and red lines in the form of a grid ran across his left eye. The cube and his brain were now connected and it would respond to his thought commands.

“Cube, show me what volumes the others are accessing. Categorise.”

A list ran down his eye and Mikin remained still as he read through the selections pointed out by the cube. Nearly all the searches carried out by the wandering people were related to events that happened before UWIB was formed. ‘War’, ‘Dream Walker’, ‘Demons’, ‘Valpuri’, ‘Skra’, ‘Namasar’, and many more words appeared. Mikin blinked in surprise. He had spent many wet days reading about the mythical war on his home planet although, according to his favourite historian Flimus Flamus, the war wasn’t mythical — it had really happened.

Furthermore, Flimus went on to accuse ‘higher powers’ of removing the events of the war from people’s memories and slowly changing their perceptions of the past. Mikin had been intrigued and had collected all of Flimus’s works, storing it in his own private collection that, coincidentally, he did not make available to the people who were now rummaging through his library.

A line ran across his eye and he turned cold. Terrana, child of Dartkala.

“Warning,” said the cube. “Unauthorised attempt at circumventing file access protocol. User is trying to hide all traces of last search.”

“Define last search,” said Mikin.

“Terrana, child of Dartkala.”

“Identify user.”

“Kuldor Brim.”

Mikin thought quickly. More than five hours had passed since Master Kuldor and the grandmaster had left for the meeting, and therefore it was plausible that Master Kuldor had returned. Why was he trying to conceal his search? As far as Mikin knew, the others weren’t trying to hide their searches but ... he quickly scanned the list again. None of them were looking up Terrana. “Grant search privacy to Kuldor Brim.”

“Request executed.”

Mikin frowned. Child of Dartkala. He was sure he had seen those words before.

“Cube, retrieve journal of Flimus Flamus titled The Lost Years from my personal library. Access visibility nil.”

“Do you wish that in grid-eye format or would you prefer a copy in your hands?”

“Grid-eye, thanks.” Mikin took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall.

“Ready,” he said.

Page after page blurred across his vision and milliseconds later, he had the entire journal in front of him. At first glance, it appeared rather worn. Spidery handwriting scrawled across a faded cover and in the top right corner, the name Flimus Flamus was barely visible. Mikin blinked and the journal opened. He flipped quickly through its contents until he arrived at the page he was looking for.

It always struck him as odd that this page stood out from the others, as if something extraordinary had occurred in Flimus’s life and he had rushed to record it. Unfortunately, time must have eluded him because the account had never been completed and, even more intriguing, it was the very last entry Flimus had ever written.

Mikin looked at the date. S2 10U1500 Lep. 18. The S2 stood for Sector Two time region and 10U referred to the ten worlds of UWIB, therefore referring to the time of UWIB’s union. The 1500 following it indicated fifteen hundred years after UWIB’s union and Lep. stood for the planet Lepiturn, and also the thirteenth month in Sector Two’s calendar. There were fifteen months in a year in Sector Two. Finally, the 18 referred to the eighteenth day of that month.

Mikin started to read. As usual, he wondered why this paragraph began out of nowhere — it seemed like Flimus himself had grabbed the thought out of thin air and jotted it down on paper.

“. . . upon Aran’s discovery of the infant’s location, a sense of foreboding descended upon me and suddenly I feared for our lives. For if Aran knew, then most likely did the Valpuri. What we would find in Arakam, the birth place of Dartkala’s new child, we possessed no inkling. We were gripped by both fear and excitement. What would the infant look like? Would it have a shape or would it be pure energy?

Despite our excitement, I feared what we would encounter. We had already run into the lesser creatures of the Valpuri world and fighting them had not been easy. Megan and I had come close to death several times. How they even came to be here after the War troubled us but not as much as the knowledge that another kind of Valpuri had appeared. Aran had come to believe that something extremely powerful from the Valpuri world had arrived and that it, too, was searching for Dartkala’s child. For what reason we knew not, but it certainly was not a good sign.

We made haste to Arakam, tracing the infant to a cruise vessel out at sea, but we were too late. An unnatural fire had consumed the ship and we could only watch as the last of the blackened remains sunk beneath the ocean. Not a single person had been left alive. The smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air. This was no ordinary Valpuri we were facing, but a demon monster.

Megan and I did our best to dissuade Aran from the chase, realising we were out of our depths. But Aran would not be Aran had he listened. As usual, his stubbornness gained the better of him and he gave chase. The demon monster had left a blazing trail.

We caught up with it eventually, high on the church tops of Sinkle, a quaint little town by the sea. Megan and I lagged behind Aran, our abilities nowhere as adapt as his. Drawn by the sound of clashing swords, we spotted the demon monster on the bell tower for the first time. Bigger in stature than a Pophusian, it reeked of immeasurable strength. We feared for Aran’s life. The demon carried a tiny bundle in its left arm that we believed to be the child. However, we were too far away to determine its exact race.

The demon monster tired of Aran’s attacks and took flight, heading out to sea with the infant still cradled in its arm. Aran gave chase, and Megan and I followed. What happened next will forever be burned in my memory.

Before our eyes, Aran and the demon monster had somehow fused. Their bodies, including the infant’s, had become one, and seeing them like that, I knew it was the end for them. Megan had been injured while trying to help Aran retrieve the infant, and had it not been for my medical intervention, she would have died. I could not go to Aran’s aid and neither would he allow me. I had seen that look before and I knew that Aran meant to die with the monster. If he could not defeat it nor save the child, then it was his duty to die with them. Between the demon monster and Aran, I knew not who initiated the killing hand. I could only watch as Aran, the demon monster, and the infant were consumed in a white hot flame. When Megan finally came to, she described something about the demon monster which to this day has puzzled me. The demon monster wore a simple necklace around its neck. A pendant in the shape of a teardrop. Skra’s pendant ...”

The page ended and Mikin sighed in frustration. “Cube, initiate search on information directly related to this piece of writing.”

“Search initiated. Search completed. Two items found.”

“Reveal.”

An image appeared, spinning slowly before him. Two hastily written words hovered beneath it. Mikin drew in a sharp breath when he realised he had seen it before. “Cube, what is the description inscribed beneath?”

“Deciphering. The words below the image are — Skra’s pendant.”

Mikin couldn’t believe it — he had seen the same pendant on Terrana. In fact, she never went anywhere without the dark teardrop pearl, he had even seen her wearing it during Kampu training. Why did she have it? How?

His head ached from all the possibilities, the most obvious being that she was perhaps the child mentioned in Flimus’s journal.

“Cube, reveal the second item.”

A photograph of three people standing side by side, smiling for the camera, appeared. He had seen this picture several times before, but until now, he had never connected it with the content he had just read from the journal. Two men and one woman; they looked to be best friends.

A white building filled the background and he could make out a neatly tended lawn with a sculpture protruding into the side of the photo. On the left was a spectacled man with shaggy ginger hair. He was thin and pale, and it was obvious that he spent most of his time reading indoors instead of training outside. His fingers were long and bony, and his smile watery.

Next was the woman. She was at least two heads taller than the first man, dark skinned with a thick mane of ebony hair. She was clearly Magarkan, like Headmistress Marl, although Mikin had never seen one as tall or dark as her. She possessed silver eyes and she was smiling in the photo. Her arm was locked around the waist of the man next to her.

The man next to her. Mikin had to zoom out a little to get a better look at him. That he had Magarkan blood he was certain. He possessed the fangs and muscular structure of a Magarkan, but he was also slimmer, with powerful shoulders and legs. His torso was clearly defined and his hands lacked the trademark claws of a full blooded Magarkan; it was possible that he could have been part Pophusian, but Mikin couldn’t say for sure.

Like the woman, his eyes were silver. Tanned skin and a head of tight brown curls made him undeniably handsome. Everything about him screamed he was the leader of this trio, and it wasn’t difficult for Mikin to establish who they were. The man with the glasses was Flimus Flamus, the woman was Megan, and the good-looking man on the right had to be Aran.

Mikin felt his head was about to explode. What could it all mean? Why were people searching for information about a war that had never happened, and why was Master Kuldor searching for a child of Dartkala? Why did he think Terrana was that child? If the information written in the journals by Flimus Flamus was true ... then everything they had believed up to this very day — their entire history — was a lie. A five-thousand-year lie.

And Terrana — did she somehow learn of this too? She had looked like a zombie disembarking from the ship. Mikin just knew that something terrible had happened to her. The look on her face had said it all — she had given up on the world.

“No, it’s not possible,” he said out loud.

“What’s not possible?”

The library in his head shut down as the cube slipped into protective mode and Mikin’s eye was free of any images and text. Instead, he found it filled with the very real image of Master Kuldor, who was kneeling in front of him, with Lady Skiss hovering anxiously behind.

’You are a clever one, aren’t you?” said Master Kuldor. The fading grid in Mikin’s eye had not escaped him. “My search bots detected a secret room in your libraries but strangely enough, they were unable to enter. You don’t have any idea what that room contains, do you?”

His gaze was so intense that Mikin felt like he was burning. Plus, there was nowhere to run — Master Kuldor had blocked every exit, not that he needed to.

“M-maybe,” said Mikin, fiddling with his trunk. He usually did that when he was nervous.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“It’s just ... boy stuff.” Mikin glanced nervously at Lady Skiss, which did not go unnoticed by Master Kuldor. The Imeldor sighed and suddenly picked up the little elephant. In a flash, they exited the virtual library and Mikin found himself in a small, dark room devoid of any natural light or wiring.

“This room’s been scanned for bugs,” said Master Kuldor, placing him on a padded chair next to a little table. “You are free to talk here.”

“Is there something I should be talking about?”

“Yes. For starters, I should be thanking you for covering my tracks in your library. I realise you didn’t do it for me, but nevertheless, it was appreciated. However, it raises the question — why did you do it?”

“You associated Terrana’s name with your search, that’s why,” said Mikin, looking at him nervously. “Terrana’s my friend.”

A hint of a smile appeared around Kuldor’s mouth. “I can see that. Mikin, I won’t waste time. You saw my search. Do you have any information regarding the child of Dartkala? If you do and if it concerns Terrana, I must ask you not to reveal it to anyone.”

“Even to you?”

Again, the hint of a smile. “There are some of us you can trust. You can always tell me and the grandmaster. You can also tell your headmistress and Master Drummik. You trust these people, don’t you?”

Mikin nodded. He didn’t just trust them — he never wanted to annoy them. Headmistress Marl was too scary! He could picture her spinning him in the air with a foot and hurling him over the mountains behind Minda Yerra.

“I found something regarding a pendant and the last person who was wearing it,” said Mikin, staring directly into his eyes. He detected a faint intake of breath from the Imeldor.

“There was a child of Dartkala mentioned in it, too, but the only reason I paid attention was because the pendant spoken of, and the one that Terrana always wears are the same.”

“Could you show that to me now?” asked Kuldor, barely able to contain his excitement.

Mikin started to tremble. What he was about to do, he had never done before, and he wasn’t sure he had the backbone to carry through with it. But he would soon find out.

He took a deep breath and spoke rapidly before his courage failed him. “Only if you tell me what happened to my friends while they were away and why everyone is searching for information about the war, the Dream Walker, and the Valpuri. Do not leave anything out. Then, you must let me speak with my friends so I can confirm everything with them.”

When Master Kuldor stepped forwards, Mikin took another breath and quickly added, “The cube is tied to my neural senses, and it will erase itself if it detects that I’m being hurt. If you wipe my memory, the cube will know and erase itself. I’ve already delivered instructions for it to self-destruct if it doesn’t receive a command from me every two minutes.”

Master Kuldor stepped back, staring at Mikin from head to foot. He detected a strange aura coming from the elephant and admired his bravery, not to mention his intelligence.

“Is Mikin Daxtia your real name?” he asked, finally.