Ice Phoenix

By 7:30, Terrana was standing in line for breakfast. “Steamed eggs, stewed gluten, and a glass of hejeuwa berry tea, please,” she said sweetly. She kept a poker face as Rizor, the Listerian cyborg, with his robotic eye, metal jaw, and tattooed head threw everything into her tray, paying no heed to her steamed eggs which were soaking in brown goo. Large and overweight, he didn’t appear to be a convincing chef although, to be fair, he was the first one she had met. The fact that he was half machine didn’t help, and he looked ridiculous in the white chef’s hat and apron.

“There you go!” he sneered, hoping for an outraged reaction. He didn’t get one.

Terrana smiled. “Mmmm, that smells delicious! You know, Rizor, these eggs soak up the gluten juices really well. They’re just what I need every morning.”

That wiped the sneer off his face. Terrana walked away, satisfied that she had just ruined his day. Rizor took a great deal of pride in concocting the worst dishes for the students, and her compliment would have undermined all his efforts.

She walked past scores of students tucking into their food, ignoring the glares and occasional curious glances they sent her way.

“BDI.”

“Look, it’s the BDI from Sector Thirteen. She’s gonna get smacked today.”

Terrana rolled her eyes and plonked down next to Mikin. He had chosen a table by the transparent wall so they could have a clear view of the water gardens. The breakfast dome was under the lake.

“Mornin’,” he said cheerily with a full mouth of cereal grass. He wore a white bodysuit under black overalls, and from the way he was eating, he looked as though he was preparing for war. He was using both his hands and his trunk to stuff his face.

“Morning. What’s with the haystack on your plate?”

“Need my energy, Terrana. Didn’t you see the line-up for today’s PT class?”

She shook her head.

Mikin groaned and said, “I’m right after you!”

“So?”

"So, right after Misa smacks you, she’s going to juggle me with her feet and pull me by my trunk around the lake. I need my strength to endure, Terrana.”

She had completely forgotten. So that’s why everyone had been muttering about her getting smacked. Her mood turned sour.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” said Mikin, eyeing her reproachfully. “No one ever forgets PT class but you.”

He had a point there. It’s not as if she wanted to remember it. PT class was ruled by Headmistress Marl. It stood for Physical Training, and its philosophy was simple.

“None of us are born equal,” the headmistress had told them. “Someone somewhere is faster than you, stronger than you, gutsier than you. To narrow this gap, you must train your body to endure physical hardship, and your mind to hold firm when the body fails. This is what PT is all about!”

It began with a basic warm-up on the pincline. The pincline was nothing more than a fifty-metre long board staked with large pins. It lay at a forty-five degree angle from the floor, supported by a fulcrum in the middle. Using only one arm, Terrana had to drag herself up the pincline, using the stakes as leverage, to the middle. The pincline would then drop like a seesaw, and she had to repeat the exercise in reverse, grabbing the stakes to slow her decent. Needless to say, she was always in pain for several days after this exercise.

Terrana didn’t know how the other students, with their different body shapes and abilities, coped. Many cried but, unfortunately for them, no one was allowed to drop the class. They had to jump a thousand times, swing across trellises, run endless laps around the school grounds, and balance themselves for hours on poles. If they couldn’t walk, they crawled. If they couldn’t fly, they climbed. If something couldn’t be achieved by just one person, they improvised and grouped together. In short, PT class was hell!

“Do you have any ideas on how to beat Misa?” Mikin looked hopeful.

“Nope. Looks like I’m in for another smacking today.”

“You should train harder!”

“Nope. I’ll leave that to you.”

She hid her feelings from Mikin, but truth be told, she was nervous. Misa still held a grudge against her. It was now common knowledge that it was Misa who had tampered with Terrana’s flight-pack, causing it to malfunction. It had not taken the teachers long to uncover her role in it. Headmistress had assigned her six weeks of punishment, delegating her to the watery depths of the lake to clean the domes and esplanades. Cleaning them wouldn’t have been so bad using the underwater mobiles, but because it was a punishment, Misa had been given nothing more than a wetsuit, an air tank, a scrubbing brush, and a piece of cloth.

During this time, Terrana had freaked out every time a large fish swam by or slid down the glass of her room; she thought it was Misa out to get her.

“Terrana, please do your best today,” said Mikin, giving her a pleading look. “Pleeeease ... for my sake.”

“What are you begging for, Mikin?” said a voice from behind.

“Yeah, didn’t anyone tell you it’s unmanly to beg a girl?” said someone else.

Lorn, Bagruth, and Bindal plopped down at the table. They looked fresh and chirpy as they tucked into their breakfast. Much to Terrana’s annoyance, Lorn sat next to her. She still hadn’t forgiven him for not telling her about the landing shuttle.

“Oh, it’s that look again,” he said, grinning. “You can’t still be mad at me for that. It’s been three weeks already!”

“Yeah, Terrana,” teased Bindal. “Give him a break. He nearly broke his legs trying to rescue you. And he’s apologised to you enough since.”

“Yeah, it takes a man to apologise!” said Bagruth, beaming.

Terrana sighed and turned to Lorn. “Fine. You’re forgiven. But throw me off anything high again, I’ll never speak to you — ever!” Pause. “Coz I’ll probably be dead.”

“So why is Mikin staring at you as if you are the only person in the universe who can save his life?” asked Bindal, munching on snail cakes and sipping tea.

“Because she is the only person who can save my life!” cried Mikin. “If she doesn’t win her match against Misa today, I’m so dead!”

Lorn whistled. “Another match? How many times have you two met already?”

“Five,” said Terrana, flatly.

“Six times in three weeks. Someone has it out for you,” said Lorn.

“Tell me about it!” growled Terrana. “What’s the point of punishing her when all Headmistress Marl does is put her in front of me?”

“You do realise that Misa is more experienced and she’s the district champion of Kampu, right?”

Terrana scowled. “Your point being?”

“You must be pretty good if keeps matching the two of you together.”

“You’ve got to be joking! Do you know how many times I’ve been to the infirmary because she dropped me on my face?”

“You only dislocated your shoulder once. No need to exaggerate.”

“I’m not! Besides ...”

Her train of thought did a sudden u-turn. It did that frequently. She’d be talking about something when suddenly a different thought would jump out at her and she had to grab it.

“Why won’t you tell me who rescued me?”

Lorn cleared his throat and gestured to the clock on the wall. “Oh, will you look at that? I’m late for class. See you at the lake!” He dashed off, leaving his tray of half-eaten food behind. Terrana looked at the others.

“Well?”

“Dunno. I wasn’t there,” said Bindal, shrugging her shoulders.

“Yeah me neither,” mumbled Bagruth. That was pretty much the end of breakfast.

“Who can tell me the number of inanimate objects in the imagery we just saw?” said Master Drummik at the start of his 10 o’clock class.

His gaze swept over his students, coming to rest on one particular child. He made no effort to conceal his approach, his boots tapping lightly on the floor. He looked formidable as usual, dressed in dark, flowing trousers, a long sleeved white shirt, and a dark coat, which had been left unbuttoned.

Terrana was doodling on her tablet, oblivious to Master Drummik’s presence — never mind what he was saying. Lost in a world of her own, she stared at the dolphin she had just drawn, which was leaping through the water happily. Splash, splash. Jump, twist, splash. She could remember all of it. She blinked in surprise as the tablet slid out from under her hands.

Master Drummik stared at the drawing, saying nothing. Aware that the other students were trying to peek, he erased it and placed the tablet face down on the desk.

“Can you tell me the number of inanimate objects I showed earlier?” he repeated.

Terrana blinked, looking unsure. “Was it the one of the plant aquarium with sixty-five objects and two living life-forms, or the space station with a hundred and fifty devices lodged into the walls?”

Master Drummik sighed. She had done it again, barely glancing at the images before drifting off into la-la land. There was an audible silence in the room as the other students watched her like sharks. Unknown to Terrana, ten students had tried to answer the question and failed. The rest of them simply didn’t know.

“The aquarium, not that it matters now. Perhaps you can tell me the markings found on the sides of the pots, then.”

A unified murmur swept the room. Master Drummik had asked an advanced level question. There was no way Terrana could answer it. Mikin sat behind her, looking on, his face creased with worry.

“May I use my tablet, sir?”

Master Drummik nodded.

Terrana turned her tablet over, reactivating it. She had no idea of what the markings were. Not yet. But she had been working on her memory exercises the previous night. She closed her eyes and recalled the plant aquarium.

The students gasped as the tablet projected a near-exact replica of the imagery Master Drummik had shown. It was brilliantly detailed; shelves, potted plants, tools, lights and other paraphernalia appeared. One by one, Terrana began discarding objects, clearing out the aquarium until a single potted plant remained. It was a clear image, except for a blur on the side of the pot.

She zoomed in on the blur and everyone watched as a circle appeared. A blur remained in its centre. She followed the darker edges of the blur, creating an outline. She had it.

“It’s the crest of Minda Yerra, sir. The red dragon.”

Memory training. The mind stored everything away, even seemingly unimportant details, and it took only a little bit of practice to recall the things she had forgotten. The only problem was, the more time passed between seeing a scene and trying to remember it, the harder it was to recall the details.

She worried about this because she kept thinking of what Baneyon had told her: “Developing a photographic memory will help you later when you need to recall some detail or recreate something. As you will learn later, details are one of the most important things in a weaver’s arsenal.”

Her memory had always been good. Perhaps her time in the ocean with Puddy had something to do with it; Terrana could remember every pattern and shape of each coral, rock, fish, and slug on the reef. Baneyon had taught her to count and categorise them, and now, even after many hours of reading or doing homework set by Master Drummik, she could recall things that others had overlooked.

“Correct,” said Master Drummik, hiding a frown. Baneyon had warned him — the girl had an excellent photographic memory. But there was more to it. Not only did she subconsciously possess mnemonic techniques that helped her memorise and recall things as part of her conscious observation, she could also do the same when she wasn’t paying attention.

That someone had taught Terrana from a young age in her homeworld, Master Drummik was certain. But he couldn’t explain the unconscious recall — it was almost as if there were two people existing inside her; when Terrana drifted off into la-la land, someone else was staring from her eyes. The very thought turned Master Drummik’s blood cold.

He turned to the other students. “At least someone’s been doing their homework.”

There was a lot of squirming and avoiding of eyes when he said that.

“Master Drummik?” said Terrana in a somewhat meek voice.

He looked at her. “Do you have something to ask?”

“What do other people do? I mean ... those who have qi like we do but don’t go to school. Do they work?”

She learned so quickly and had adapted to school life like a fish to water, he had overlooked the fact that she had no idea of what the outside world was like.

“Minda Yerra is not the only place for weavers to learn and develop their qi,” he answered. “There are guilds that take in both weavers and lacers. Upon their graduation, they either become official guild members or they join other guilds.”

“But do they work?” pressed Terrana. “What do they do?”

Master Drummik looked at the other students. “Who would like to answer that?”

Hands shot up all around the room.

“Go on then, Zaduru.”

Zaduru had a long neck, a big belly, skinny limbs and a domed head with three large eyes stuck in his forehead. He turned to Terrana, although she wished he hadn’t. His round fish mouth made her burst into giggles every time she saw it, so it was with great effort that she maintained a straight face.

“There are many types of guilds, Terrana,” he said seriously. “There are mixed guilds and specialised guilds. Mixed guilds have all kinds of qi users while specialised guilds have people like doctors, assassins, mechanics, and engineers. The rewards for being in a guild are great because only the best of the best are selected.”

“Why’s that?” asked Terrana.

“Because they tend to solve the world’s problems,” said Zaduru. “When normal services cannot provide a solution to someone’s problem, the guilds are called in to fix them, and they cost a lot of money.”

“And of course, not everyone joins guilds or become weavers or lacers, even if they have high qi levels,” added Master Drummik. “Each individual is free to choose what he or she wishes to become in life, unless their culture or society prevents it. Do you have any more questions?”

Yes she did — a biggie. “What’s the difference between lacers and weavers?”

“Lacers,” said Master Drummik loudly, “work with their qi differently than weavers. And of course, you’d like to know how.”

Terrana nodded.

“We are weavers and we use our internal qi to speak with the qi around us. The way our bodies synchronise with qi is more enhanced than lacers, allowing us to manipulate qi directly. Lacers, on the other hand, rely on a medium to concentrate and manipulate qi. The effect of this method is that whatever they do with the qi lasts much longer. For instance —”

Mikin suddenly found himself floating in the air, held by an invisible force that spun him around gently. The other students began to laugh.

“Raising Mikin is like me physically reaching out to pick up a cup. There are different ways I can do this — I can extend my qi out to him and lift him, or I communicate with the qi around him to do it for me.” He returned Mikin to his chair. “But no matter what method I use, you saw I had to provide my immediate attention. I was in touch with my qi the whole time. If I had not returned Mikin to his chair, he would have fallen. A lacer, however, could have left Mikin in the air and walked away, and he would have stayed there until the lacer decided to bring him down. They achieve this through the use of spells.”

“Eh?” Terrana was pretty sure that spells were used by witches and wizards in storybooks, not by aliens in outer space!

“The medium they use, for instance a wand or a ring, synchronises the lacer’s mind with their qi in a way that we cannot. A binding is created between the qi and the lacer’s thoughts — thoughts being instructions. As weavers, we can pass only our will down to our qi. Lacers pass instructions as well as their will.

“My original will was to raise Mikin, which I did. A lacer’s original will is also to lift Mikin, but the instruction he or she passes down is to leave him hanging in the air.”

“But doesn’t that change the type of qi they have?” asked Terrana “They created a qi superior to ours.”

Master Drummik nodded. “Not necessarily superior although in this example it appears that way. Qi has many properties, not all of them known to us. Weavers have many ways of applying it and, even now, we are still trying to learn all its possibilities.”

“So really, how qi is used is unique to every individual,” said Terrana, her mind on fire. “We can learn some properties, but others, no matter how hard we try, we may never understand.”

“Correct.”

“Do lacers’ spells last forever?”

“No. An hour at the most by the strongest lacers and then they disperse.”

“Can they cast spells without their wands or rings or whatever it is they use as mediums?”

Master Drummik was beginning to regret encouraging her with the questions. At this rate, he wouldn’t have enough time to finish his lesson on mnemonic techniques. Terrana was asking the sort of questions the other students had not been bright enough to think about, but now they wanted to know the answers. “Only the most powerful lacers can. That is when the line between weavers and lacers begins to fade.”

He could see she was digesting this information, committing it to memory. Her hunger for knowledge was strong, which was good. It complemented her qi level, which measured two hundred quinces and was still rising. That was three times higher than any student in her year. The longer students trained to use their qi, the higher it would rise until their bodies reached their maximum potential. Terrana’s qi levels had begun rising the day Baneyon had removed her from Sector Thirteen, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the sector had not acted as a cage for her abilities.

The bell rang.

“Don’t forget that tomorrow we’ll be focusing on telekinetic movement and particle manipulation, so be sure to have lots of rest tonight. You’ll need your energy.”

Everyone groaned. Their next class was PT, which would leave them in such agony they would not be able to sleep that night. So how were they supposed to be fresh enough to work on their qi the next day? They asked Master Drummik to postpone the telekinetic class, but their entreaties fell on deaf ears. Apparently, that was their problem, not his.