Frozen Hazard
The truth

by EnnyMay

Once the ambassadors were done talking, we took the next group to Tarzea. The cool wind seem to lift a burden from my shoulders and when I looked at the others, they seem to feel it too. The atmosphere eased up a little. We made our way to the Collective slowly but with precision. We knew the path by now and the changing heaps of snow and glaciers could no longer fool us. Kadma was especially observant. Her eyes darted unerring over the landscape, every step without the hint of a doubt. As we reached the massive building the others sped up to get the mission over with. The ambassadors of Aressy were greeted cheerily and huddled inside. I motioned Kadma to wait with me outside. After everyone had gone, we stared out into the blinding white, one of the great pillars at our backs.
"I think I found something.", Kadma said, white clouds rising from her mouth. "It's the symbols. I noticed them the first time but… now I know they are everywhere. I saw them at least 10 times today. Once you know the pattern, it's easy to spot them and I'm sure there are even more hidden under the ice. But that's not all. They're not just here. On Tarzea." She turned toward me. "Nessa, they're on Aressy, too."

In the following half an hour Kadma and I spent our time asking different people of both worlds about those symbols. The answer was unanimous: They had come with the weather change.
"That's it!", Kadma whispered with excitement. "It must be connected with this whole incident. We just have to find out what they mean! Maybe it's some kind of spell that can be broken!"
I looked at her and suddenly something clicked in my mind. A spell… the children. Over everything else that had happened I had completely forgotten about them! Kadma seemed to notice something was wrong. When I came back to reality, her eyes were mere slits, scrutinising me intently. It was a terrible feeling so I quickly said something in approval and told her to go tell the others. She didn't seem convinced but for the time being she left. My mind was racing. Why had I kept it from the girls in the first place? What was wrong with me? To protect the children, sure but the girls would surely understand, wouldn't they? We were best friends after all and they were good and kind like… me. But then again I wasn't all good, was I? And if I wasn't, maybe they weren't either? But none of this mattered if the book of those children was the solution to the problem. I couldn't keep that a secret, it would be too cruel! Two worlds depended on it, on me to tell the truth. There really was no other way. Slowly I walked over to join the others. Cass and Halinor were talking to Kadma. Yan Lin stretched herself, her head spinning from one side to the other until she spotted me, and smiled. It was a warm and joyful smile and it was all it took to reassure me.
"Right then! What's next?"

"Greetings, Guardians."
"Oracle." We bowed our heads before the radiant figure in front of us. Truth be told he had always frightened me. His might could only be guessed at. He could see and know everything, it seemed. Sometimes he was kind and even funny but other times he seemed hard and careless. He was so detached from time that he forgot the value of life and this scared me. What if I stepped out of line? What if I wasn't worthy anymore or if the Heart slipped out of my control? Would he take it from me? These questions circulated my mind endlessly back then. Of cause now I know the answers to all of them. But we will get to that later. I opened my mouth to report on our progress but he stopped me: "You needn't say anything. I am aware of what happened. Well done. Now, I believe you need information on magical symbols."
I swallowed hard and croaked: "Yes, Sire."

The man he pointed us to was called Culmalha. A strange fish-like creature with a slim green-ish upright body resembling a cucumber stuffed into a Kandrakar robe and funny round spikes instead of hair moving downward form his head. His five eyes blinked at us in irritation.
"Guardians. What can I help you with?"
I showed him the sketch Kadma had made of the symbol and explained the situation. He got up from his meditation pillow and signaled us to follow. Down we went through a corridor with enormous proportions, leading straight through the clouds. I remember wondering if they were as soft as they looked like. You know, what everybody tends to think. One of those great mysteries of man-kind. Anyway, back to the story: Culmalha lead us into his private chambers where the walls were plastered with symbols of such variety it seemed like 30 different languages to us, and maybe they were just that. The floor was covered with books and papers showing more symbols and even the air was filled with magical floating lights that formed new symbols every few seconds. If anybody knew about our symbols, it was him. He asked a few questions like where we had found these, how many there were, where exactly they appeared and if they were constant or moving. There were a bunch more but they got lost in my memory. At some point I trailed off, picking a book at random from the ground and started filing through it. Then it hit me! So many books! One more would never be noticed! It was the perfect solution to my problem. I would keep my promise to not involve the children and we would have the answer to the problem! Quickly I got out the Heart of Kandrakar. It gleamed with excitement and I hurriedly covered my hands over it.
"Shhh! We don't want the others to notice!"
To my surprise the Heart reacted immediately. I simply told it to hand me the book and it appeared before me with only a small shimmer of light. Two criminals on a mission. It was then that I first wondered what my predecessors had been like. What they had made the Heart do. Had they all been good? Or had there been others like me who were insecure, maybe crazy, blood-thirsty or naive? Did the Heart have its own personality or was it shaped by the keepers? Why was it-
"Nerissa?"
I jumped, book still in hand.
Kadma eyed me with interest, then the book. "What's that?"
"O-oh I found it. Maybe it can help?"
I handed it over to her. Kadma took a short look inside. She nodded approvingly.
Before turning back to the others said: "It's good you found it. Imagine… this one book amongst all those others and you found the one that we need."

She knew.

Whatever Kadma's plan was, she didn't say anything to the others. Everyone was happy the book - and with it the answer to our mission had been found. There was the spell that reversed weather. Now it was up to us to find a counterspell. Culmalha explained that he would be able to help create the spell, but since he wasn't able to perform magic or leave Kandrakar to get ingredients, it would need one of us to get everything done. I rose my hand carefully. After all this had been my fault. Well, not all of it but I felt like making up to the girls.
"Oh, but you already did the mission in Aressy. Let me-"
"Nessa and I will handle this." She raised her brows meaningfully, then turned toward me. "Together. Right?"
What else was there to say but yes. Cassidy and Halinor were already leaving. Yan Lin stayed, unsure of what to do until I smiled at her. "It's okay. She won't eat me."
Kadma grinned grimly: "We shall see about that."
When Yan Lin still didn't want to leave, I placed both hands on her shoulders.
"Linny, the best you can do now is get some rest. See to it that Cass and Halinor get some, too."
"Alright. Maybe I can talk to them. See what's gotten into them."
I nodded. "Sounds good. We'll get you once we have news."

So we got to work for the cucumber wiseman. He explained to us the details of the spell, how it had worked, what it had needed to prepare and what that told us about the counterspell we had to perform. The tricky thing was to get it right the first time. If it didn't work, things could turn for the worse and nobody wanted that to happen. Together we wrote down everything and Kadma and I set out to get the ingredients. Instead of another headless mission into the unknown wilds of a strange world, we found ourselves in the midst of a giant marketplace. A welcoming sight, almost calmingly normal. After what felt like hours of walking, standing and searching, we had the third ingredient on our list. My feet were exhausted, but mostly, I couldn't stand the silence any longer. I took Kadma by the arm and led her into the shade of one of the stands.
"Can we talk?"
"I can, not sure if you can…" Kadma replied dryly.
I sighed. "Look the book… it wasn't from that cucumber man. I have it from two little kids." And then I told her everything. How I had promised the children not to tell anyone, how I had planned to show the book to the girls, the many doubts I had about me and the Heart, everything that had been going on. "I didn't mean to keep it secret. I swear, it just… happened. Please, help me. I don't want them to get into trouble. You should've seen them. They were so worried and devastated!"
Kadma, who had listened patiently, shifted her weight and stared out onto the moving crowd. She was thinking.
"Nessa, what do you expect? Two children meddle with magic they don't understand, a disaster happens. How could you promise them not to tell? How do you expect us to save these worlds without telling? And what about the Oracle?"
"The Oracle is the last person I want to know about this! I don't want to imagine what he would do to those kids."
She stared at me incredulous. "Do to them? As far as I can see, he's the only one capable of saving them."
I searched for words, trying to convince her. " Kadma, please! If we get this counterspell to work, the worlds will be safe! Nobody will need to know about the children. They promised me to never try magic again."
Restless she shifted her weight again, huffing. "It's not that simple."
"Please." With one arm I forced her to look at me: "Please, Kadma!"
She held my gaze for a moment, her eyes searching for something. Honesty? The truth? Finally she rolled them upward and breathed heavily. "I have conditions."
"Name them! I take everything you can give me."
The corner of her mouth turned upward. She was almost smiling. "You won't like it though. First condition: You bring me to those two right away. The altered the spell. We need to know how in order to create a matching counterspell. Second: No matter if the spell works or not, you will tell the others about this. It's unfair to keep it from them. We will decide together what to do then."
It felt like an elephant had sat on my chest and finally decided to move. A wave of relief washed over me. Kadma was on my side. She was clever and had the talent of solving even the toughest riddles and problems. And I was grateful for that.

Just to be sure, we got the rest of the ingredients from the list and then sought out a distant corner of the marketplace where people would not see us. I called out the Heart. It appeared ever so slowly, inch by inch and a cold prickle ran up from my fingers, up my arms. It was terrifying, as if the Heart pushed through the fabric of my body layer by layer. I must've looked awful, enough to worry Kadma. "Nessa? Are you alright? Nessa!" My eyes fixed upon that thing in my hand. "I… am."
"Look, we don't have to go now. We could-"
"No. We go now."
Bright light closed around us.

Then it was night on Earth. That was Halinors theory at least. Kandrakar doesn't know day or night, so it was hard to tell. Thanks to the Heart, Kadma and I had been teleporting through Aressy, meeting the twins and getting a good description of what they had and hadn't done according to the book. With that we had returned to the cucumber man and Kadma had brought it in as a "what if" question. What if the culprit behind the weather change had picked other ingredients? Wouldn't it explain the permanent change of weather? And so on. She was very clever about it. In the end we managed to leave Culmalha with a precise counterspell against the mess of the twins and met with the rest of the girls.
Just to be sure, we travelled back to Aressy, where it all had started. There we picked the next big rock and Kadma used her powers to carve a drawing of the counter spell into it. We stepped into it and held our hands, channelled energies of the elements. Something was glowing and then a strong wind rose from the ground! The spell was activated. Hair tousled, we waited. A small drop of rain fell. The girls cheered! It had worked! We hugged and laughed and it was the first real happy moment we had together ever since the mission had started. In the right moment, I harrumphed theatrically and started my little speech:
"I can't believe we finally did it! After all this trouble and hardships we finally did it. Together. Thank you, girls. Really." I looked over at Kadma and felt anxiety rising. I had agreed to her terms but it was more difficult to see them through than I had imagined. "Before we go back to Kandrakar, I have to tell you something." And I did. And they listened.
"I'm so sorry I kept this from you I didn't mean to. That whole trip I did at the beginning… it's all a blur. I just- there's no excuse. I want all of us together to decide what to do now. Tell the Oracle about the twins, or not? I would rather not tell him but… if you think it's necessary, I will bow to the majority."

The debate that went on after that wasn't pretty. But it wasn't the worst we've had either and after a while the voices calmed down and we had found a decision.
Yan Lin looked around and proclaimed: "So the decision is: If the Oracle does not ask us directly who created that spell, we will not tell on those two children. Is everybody alright with that?"'
We nodded and hugged again. Halinor looked up at the sky. Raindrops fell down more rapidly. She looked back at us and said: "Okay, time to go home."

To be continued...