Sentari: ICE (8 page)

The dome descended further into the water. That glorious glimpse of the world above the ocean became a fuzzy memory. The dome went deep into the sea bed, through a maze of tunnels and then surfaced in a dark and dingy room, which was very different to the rest of the city.

The door to the dome opened and standing side by side for the first time in their lives were Ethaniol and Dengrid. Julius and Jade got out of the dome and were immediately seized by their fathers.

Julius loosened his father’s grip and stepped clear of him. “It was all my idea. Jade played no part in this,” he said.

“Julius, no,” beseeched Jade.

“If you must punish anyone, punish me,” Julius said bravely.

“Don’t worry. You will be punished,” said Dengrid. “Take her home,” he snapped to one of his servants. Jade was rushed out of the room with no chance to say goodbye. “As for you … Put him into the holding cell until we can think of a suitable punishment,” Dengrid instructed the guards, who immediately took Julius away. Ethaniol was unmoved, never making eye contact with his son.

For hours, Julius was trapped in the cell with nothing but grey walls and a small bed to look at. He watched Dengrid and Ethaniol argue over his fate through a small window in the door.

Eventually, Dengrid opened the door to the cell. Ethaniol still couldn’t bring himself to look at Julius. “Come with me,” said Dengrid. Julius was getting a lot more nervous. In the past, his father would have gotten him out of trouble by now. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ he thought to himself, unconvinced.

Julius was taken by the guards and shoved into a dome. They travelled for miles through the tunnel system – in and out of caves, through great expanses of water, until they reached an enormous hall with massive high ceilings devoid of markings. The only objects in the room were two small lamps that hung over what looked like a concrete coffin in the middle of the room.

Julius was hurried out of the dome by the guards. They were joined shortly after by Dengrid and Ethaniol. Ethaniol got out of his dome and walked straight to the coffin. Dengrid joined him. At the head of the coffin was some sort of control panel. Dengrid waved his hand over it, lighting it up. He slid his fingers downwards on the panel and the clear glass lid opened. “Do you know what this is?” Dengrid inquired.

“No,” said Julius tentatively.

“This, young man, is an isolation chamber. After many hours of debate your father and I agreed on a suitable punishment and, let me tell you, you are lucky you are your father’s son,” said Dengrid.

“Isolation chamber? I don’t understand,” said Julius.

“You are hereby sentenced to one year in the isolation chamber, where you will hear nothing and see nothing. In there, you will be lost in your own mind. You will have one year to ponder what you have done,” said Dengrid, with a smile on his face.

“Father, please?” said Julius. Ethaniol turned his back on Julius.

“You should be grateful to him. The standard penalty for breaching the surface is ten years’ imprisonment,” said Dengrid.

Dengrid motioned to the guards. They took Julius by force and pushed him into the isolation chamber. The guards walked away. Dengrid and Ethaniol stood above the chamber. Julius stared at his father pleading for compassion. Ethaniol was unmoved. The glass lid of the chamber started to slide up. A loud hissing noise began to ring through Julius’s ears. The noise got louder as the glass neared the top. Finally, the glass stopped moving and the almost deafening noise stopped. The glass lid frosted over, the world went dark and there was nothing but silence.

***

A gentle tremor shook the dust off the walls. Rubble lay scattered across the floor. The room was dark and musty. The lamps that had once lit up this place lay smashed on the floor, but the isolation chamber was undamaged.

Again and again, the room shook as light tremors rocked the surrounding area. Small pieces of rubble fell down from the roof, crashing into the floor below. A larger tremor rocked the room, causing a chunk of the roof to break away. The chunk smashed into the side of the isolation chamber, destroying the control panel.

Julius opened his eyes for the first time in eight hundred years. The little light that was in the room caused his eyes to ache. His muscles were weak; it took all his effort to simply roll himself out of the chamber. He looked around confused. He held his head in his hands. The last thing he could remember was the lid of the chamber closing. His mouth was dry and parched, his stomach rumbled with a desire for food he had never felt so strongly.

Julius spied a flickering light from the corner of his eye. Next to the chamber was a small plaque, and hanging around that plaque was the necklace that Julius had given Jade. Julius picked up the necklace and held it tight; he looked down at the plaque, which read:

Here sleeps Julius, son of Ethaniol, sentenced to one year in isolation. His chamber tragically damaged in an accident, here he will forever sleep, unable to be woken. Forgive me, my son.

Julius stepped back from the chamber. Panic set in and he ran out of the room. He ran as fast as his weakened legs would allow him, down the tunnels that once housed the amazing dome transport system, further and further he ran, in complete darkness. His legs were buckling beneath him, but he kept going. Out into the depths of the ocean he went until, finally, he collapsed with exhaustion.

Julius lay on the tunnel floor, staring at the ocean depths below, his heart aching with the one constant theme, Jade. He rolled over and looked at the ocean above. His muscles were quivering from exertion, but the last thing he wanted to do now was rest. A drop of water landed directly between his eyes. He crossed them, trying to see the bead of water, when another fell in the same spot. Within moments, the water was dripping down at a constant rate. Julius got to his feet and noticed a small crack in the roof of the tunnel. Then, with an almighty crash, the roof of the tunnel came smashing down and, with it, thousands of litres of water. The water smashed straight through the bottom of the tunnel like it was nothing, whisking Julius out into the ocean.

Julius looked on in terror as the ocean poured into the tunnel he had just been swept from. Suddenly, a thin film of plastic melted down from the tunnel roof at either side of the break. The tunnel was repairing itself, locking off the damaged area, but also locking Julius out. He looked up at the surface in the distance and started to swim up. He swam faster as the urge to breath grew stronger. He exhaled all of the air from his lungs, but the surface was still a long way away. His face began to turn purple, his heart rate slowed and his vision became blurred.

Julius burst out from under the water and sucked in the biggest gasp of air he had ever taken in his life; he had made it, but only just.

He treaded water for a moment to get his bearings. In the distance, he could see a large ice shelf that lead to the snowy fields at the base of the mountains. He ever-so-slowly swam his way over to the ice. Every stroke was agony; he was exhausted. He dragged himself up onto the ice shelf and collapsed.

“Sometimes we will never know the purpose of our sacrifices; that doesn’t make them any less important.”

The Path of Yen-Dori

The cold and lifeless eyes of Antastus, king of the dragons, looked down over the valley of Yen-Karley. He waited atop the hillside as the snow fell more heavily around him and the wind howled past his mighty form.

Three heavily armoured men bowed down at Antastus’s feet. They shivered in the cold as the windswept snow blew hard into their freezing faces.

Antastus looked down at the men with disdain. For a long time, he had hated men and even to be in their presence made him angry.

Antastus rose onto his back legs and spread his wings as wide as they could go, blocking out the sunlight. The men stared at the ground; they dared not look up at him. The dragon wrapped his wings around the men and began to speak in a strange, foreign language which echoed throughout the valley.

The snow started to swirl around Antastus. It spun around, creating a tornado of snow directly over him. His voice grew louder, so loud that it could be heard for hundreds of miles. The tornado gained more strength and the dragon’s wings started to freeze over, creating an ice cave around him. The ice crept higher over him until he was completely engulfed.

The valley fell silent, the snow cleared and the wind stopped. The sun peeked its way through the clouds and the ice that entombed Antastus glistened.

Suddenly, the ice shattered into a million pieces. Antastus spread his wings out wide and roared with a booming, powerful voice. Standing at his feet were the three men, but they were no longer ordinary. They had grown to an astonishing nine feet tall. Their arms and legs had grown so big and strong that the heavy armour that had encased them had burst apart like it was nothing more than cloth. Their eyes had turned dark and cold. Blue, icy veins ran all over their body. The shivering gone, they now stood in the snow, ready to serve their master.

Antastus leaned down and got right in the face of his soldiers; they stared him in the eyes. “Find the boy,” said Antastus. The men instantly set off, trudging through the snow.

***

For days, Te’oma, Julius and Ariana had scaled the peaks and valleys of the mountain range on their way to the Yen-Gyle Forest. They were exhausted and they still had a long way to go. Their muscles and bones ached all over. They had barely eaten, and the thought of chewing on more ice was more than they could bear.

But, at last they had reached a major milestone, the Desert of the Dead. This was no ordinary desert. Although it rarely rained there, it was so cold that the sand had sealed over with a glass-like substance. It was stunning to look at. The glassy dunes rolled off into the distance and the sunlight danced off the surface, creating illusions everywhere.

“It is said that if you enter the Desert of the Dead, you never come out,” said Ariana as she stood on its edge.

“You’re always full of good news, aren’t you?” said Te’oma, smiling at her. “Well, we haven’t come this far just to stop.” He walked out onto the desert and onto the first ice dune. He made it halfway up, when his feet slid out from under him and he fell back down the slippery glass-like dunes. Julius and Ariana chuckled to themselves. “Well, come on then. Let’s see you do it,” said Te’oma, as he lay on the ground.

Julius and Ariana smiled at each other. “First one to the top wins,” said Ariana. The two ran out onto the dunes as fast as they could, but just like Te’oma, they got halfway up before sliding back down.

“Not so easy, is it?” said Te’oma, with a smug sense of satisfaction.

Julius reached into his backpack and pulled out the gloves that Xerxes had given them. “That clever old man. I think these make sense now.” He put a pair of the gloves on and started climbing the dune on his hands and knees. With a bit of grunting and groaning he reached the top of the dune. “It works,” he said.

Before he knew it, Ariana and Te’oma had scrambled up the dune next to him. “That works great,” said Ariana puffing and panting. Then she sighed as she looked out at the seemingly infinite number of dunes, rolling into the distance.

“Look on the bright side,” said Te’oma. “Every time we go up, we get to do down,” he said, as he slid down the other side of the dune at a fantastic speed. It was so fast, in fact, that he got nearly all the way up the next dune.

Ariana and Julius quickly slid after him. “This might not take so long after all,” said Ariana, “And it’s fun, too!”

They climbed and slid their way through the day, up and down the dunes, always looking back at their tracks to make sure they were not going in circles.

After hours of sliding and climbing they realised that they were never going to make it all the way across in just one day. But none of them wanted to stop in the middle of the desert. Julius had told them stories of what happened there at night. Even when he was a boy, his people had told stories of the Desert of the Dead and those who dwelt there.

Nevertheless, they had to rest. Te’oma’s arms and legs ached in ways he never thought possible. He was so exhausted that he literally fell down on the ground. As he did, the glass below cracked. Te’oma quickly turned around to see the crack, and curiosity got the better of him. He pulled at the glass, breaking a chunk off.

Underneath the glass was a yellow sand so bright that it almost shone. He reached in and touched it. To his surprise, it was quite warm.

“Hey, feel this,” said Te’oma excitedly.

“Last time a man said that to me it didn’t end well for him,” said Ariana with a smile.

“Just come here,” said Te’oma.

Ariana and Julius quickly put their hands in the sand and smiled as its warmth brought life back to their frozen fingers. Te’oma had a wonderful idea. He started to rip more and more of the glass off the dunes, until he had pulled back enough for them to lie comfortably. The three wasted no time and quickly snuggled into the sand, the warmth spreading across their whole bodies, relaxing them so much that they all drifted off to sleep in no time.

As the sun faded below the horizon, the warm sand beneath Te’oma, Ariana and Julius started to shake ever so slightly and slowly disappear. Then, very gently, the three were pulled under the sand by an invisible force so subtle that they did not wake from their sleep. The glassy surface above resealed itself as if no one had ever been there.

***

Te’oma was violently woken from his sleep. His arms and legs were freezing cold. He lay high atop one of the dunes.

The sun was starting to rise in the distance, but fog obscured its light. He got to his feet and shivered in the cold. He looked around, confused, how did I get here, he wondered to himself.

“Hello!” screamed Te’oma at the top of his lungs. The sound echoed around him, but no one replied. He slid his way down the dune and up another but, with the fog so thick, he couldn’t see more than five metres in front. “Hello!” he screamed again as he started to panic. “Hello,” he heard on the wind, but he couldn’t distinguish if it was someone calling him or if it was his own voice echoing.

“Hello,” he heard again. This time he knew it was not his voice, but he did not know which direction it was coming from.

“Ariana! Julius!” yelled Te’oma.

“Over here,” replied Julius.

“Where? I can’t see anything,” said Te’oma.

“Just stay there. I’ll come to you,” Julius replied.

Te’oma strained his eyes, looking for Julius.

“This is hopeless,” said Julius. “I can’t see a thing.”

“Julius,” called Te’oma, “lay down on the ice and put your ear against it.”

“Ok!” he yelled back.

Te’oma leaned down to the ice and took a metal cup out of his backpack. He tapped the cup on the ice and the sound reverberated across the dunes until it reached Julius’s ear.

Julius quickly picked up which direction the tapping was coming from. “Just keep tapping,” said Julius, as he put his ear to the ground again to get his direction. He moved quickly across the sand dunes until he reached Te’oma.

“That was brilliant. How did you think of that?” asked Julius.

“My father and I used to do that when we were playing hide and seek,” replied Te’oma.

“Well, it worked great. Where’s Ariana?” Julius asked.

“I thought she’d be with you,” said Te’oma.

“Ariana!” the two yelled, squinting their eyes, trying to see through the dense fog.

“This is no good,” said Julius.

“We can’t just leave,” said Te’oma.

“What if she comes past here?” continued Julius. “She’s a smart girl. She’s probably walking across the dunes right now, trying to get out of here, and that’s what we should do too.”

“Sounds great, but there’s just one problem. How?” said Te’oma.

“I was hoping you had some thoughts on that,” said Julius.

Te’oma and Julius sat on top of the sand dune for a good half an hour, staring out at the fog. They were bereft of ideas; every direction looked exactly the same, until it finally dawned on Julius. “Of course. It’s so simple. Ariana would kick me for being this stupid,” he said, getting to his feet. “You see the sun through the fog?”

“Barely,” said Te’oma, standing up next to him.

“Which direction does the sun rise in?” asked Julius.

“The east,” replied Te’oma.

“Exactly,” said Julius as he slid down the dune. “And that’s the way we need to go!”

For hours they walked across the icy dunes. The fog lifted and the full extent of the dunes came into sight. They pressed on, determined to get out of this giant maze, all the while keeping an eye out for Ariana.

The edge of the desert was slowly but surely becoming more visible on the horizon. They could tell, because the reflective surface of the dunes in the distance gave way to the white fields of snow at the base of the mountains.

With his feet aching, Te’oma sat down at the top of a dune. “I need to stop for a minute,” he said, as he ripped his shoes off and massaged his feet. His mind was occupied with thoughts of Ariana. He hoped desperately that they hadn’t left her in the middle of the desert.

Julius stood on the dunes, looking out at the mountains that lay beyond the desert.

“Have we done the right thing?” asked Te’oma.

“What do you mean?” said Julius.

“Leaving her out there, alone,” said Te’oma.

Julius smiled as he spotted something in the distance. “I think we did exactly the right thing.” He grabbed Te’oma by the hand and pulled him off the ground. “Quickly,” he said.

He slid down the dunes as fast as he could. Te’oma tried hard to keep up with him. The two went up and down dunes at a dizzying speed, all the while Te’oma wondering what the rush was.

Finally, they reached the last dune of the desert and, there, lying asleep, was Ariana. Julius and Te’oma looked down at her. “We’ve been worried sick and here you are, having a nap,” said Julius. But Ariana did not reply.

A terrible cold chill ran down Te’oma’s spine. He looked across at the snow and saw the three Sentari hybrids that had been sent by Antastus, walking towards Ariana. The veins in their strong, muscle-bound legs and arms pulsated with blue ice. Their eyes had a white, glazed look about them and their skin was pale blue.

Te’oma and Julius quickly dashed to Ariana’s side. Te’oma leaned down and tried to wake her, but she did not move.

The hybrids walked closer to them, their eyes firmly fixated on Te’oma. They waded through the deep snow with ease, cutting through it like it was butter. As they walked, they purred like cats, only with a much deeper tone.

Te’oma and Julius held their ground as the hybrids walked right up to them. The hybrids looked down at them from their lofty height and snarled. Julius stepped up to one of the hybrids and tried to push it away. It grabbed Julius by the throat and tossed him back into the dunes. Julius landed with an almighty thud, smashing the ice.

The three hybrids gathered around Te’oma. They were not interested in Ariana. They didn’t even notice her waking up. She rubbed her eyes, then was startled as she looked up at them. She scrambled away from them and saw that Te’oma was surrounded. She broke a piece of ice from the dunes and held it in her hand like a knife. She quickly leapt to her feet and stabbed one of the hybrids in the leg.

It looked back at Ariana, showing no sign pain. It knelt down next to her and put its ugly face against hers, ripped the glass out of its leg and threw it away. The hybrid grabbed Ariana by the throat and started to squeeze. It squeezed with such force that Ariana could not breathe. The hybrid stood up and lifted Ariana off the ground. She scratched and clawed at its arms but it had no effect. Te’oma ran over to the hybrid and started kicking its leg. It threw Ariana away and looked down at Te’oma with anger.

Julius and Ariana lay on the ground in pain. The hybrids regathered around Te’oma. For some reason they had not killed him.

Without warning, one of the dunes shattered into millions of pieces. The sand below whipped up into a tornado and spun high into the air. The tornado spun faster, sending sand flying in all directions. Then it stopped, and the sand fell to the ground like soft rain.

Standing in the middle of the sand was the Desert Queen, a creature thought to only exist in myth and legend. She floated gracefully above the sand. She was ten feet tall; her long black hair ran down to the ground. She wore a thin, black veil to hide her hideous face, and a dark dress that covered her whole body.