The Chamber of the Tohunga was designed for silence. The walls were lined with sound-dampening moss, and the air smelled of old parchment and ozone.
In the center of the room, on a table made of white marble, lay a single shard of Black Ice.
It was the piece Azure Oba had broken off the Rakshasha's armor. It didn't melt. It didn't release a puddle of water. It simply sat there, radiating a "cold" that made the Ase in the room feel heavy and sluggish.
Around the table stood the High Table and the new Council of Elders. Libaax Akoma and Empress Senan watched closely. Azure Oba stood back, his arm bandaged, watching the object that had nearly killed him.
"It resists thermal application," Arora Lakshmi stated.
The Dibia Authority held her Vajra bell over the shard. Her Prismatic White Aura (Full Spectrum) was focused into a tight beam of analysis.
"I tried to apply Red Huenergy (Heat/Agitation)," Arora explained, her brow furrowed. "The energy didn't disperse. It vanished. The object simply... deleted the heat."
"Because it is not ice," a raspy voice interjected.
The Head Elder of the Dibias, a frail man named Elder Zoser, stepped forward. He adjusted his monocle, which was cut from a raw diamond.
"In the High Logic of Nommo," Zoser wheezed, "Cold is merely the slowing of atomic movement. Absolute Zero is the cessation of movement."
He tapped the marble table with a withered finger.
"But this shard... it is not stopped atoms. It is stopped chronology."
The room went deadly silent.
"Time?" Libaax asked, his voice low.
"Precisely," Zoser nodded. "This material is Stasis. It is a moment of time, frozen into a physical solid. You cannot melt it with fire, Servitor Supreme, because you cannot burn 'Yesterday'. It has already happened. It is immutable."
Alem Amari, the Authority on Law, adjusted his glasses, looking horrified.
"That explains the regeneration," Alem realized. "When Azure cut the beast, it didn't heal. It reverted. It simply rewound its own biological timeline to the moment before the injury."
Azure Oba slammed his fist into his palm. "So I am fighting ghosts who can hit rewind? How do we kill something that refuses to move forward?"
"We do not use force," Senan said softly. Her Green Aura was pulsing, not with fear, but with a strange curiosity. "A root cannot grow in frozen earth. But if you change the composition of the soil..."
She looked at Libaax.
"This is not a war for Warriors, Libaax. You cannot cut Time. You have to argue with it."
The Arrival of the Scribe
The heavy doors creaked open.
Two guards escorted a man into the chamber. He wore the grey rags of a penitent. His hands were stained black with ink and ash. His once-perfect blonde wavy hair was tied back in a messy bun.
Agyenim Davu, the Scribe of Ash.
He stopped before the table. He didn't bow. He simply looked at the Black Ice shard, and his Indigo Aura (Insight) flared with a sudden, sharp recognition.
"You summoned me?" Agyenim asked, his voice rough from disuse.
"We need your memory, Scribe," Libaax said. "You spent years hoarding the Empire's secrets in the Propaganda Ministry. You read the forbidden texts."
Libaax pointed to the shard.
"What is this?"
Agyenim walked closer. He didn't need to touch it. He sniffed the air. It smelled of stale time.
"Aahhh ofcourseviously" Agyenim whispered.
He looked up at the Council.
"In the pre-Imperial archives, before the Nommo system was codified, there are references to the Rakshasha. They are not native to the Arctic Mirror. They are exiles from Zamani."
"Exiles from ...there?" Senan asked, surprised.
"Not quite, they were humans who refused to age," Agyenim explained, his storyteller's cadence returning. "They rejected the flow of time. They hoarded their Ase to achieve immortality, but in doing so, they became static. The Universe rejected them, casting them into the coldest reflection—the Arctic Mirror."
He pointed to the shard.
"Their armor is Stasis. Their hunger is for Ase because they cannot generate their own. They are dead batteries trying to stay charged."
"And the weakness?" Azure pressed, stepping forward. "Tell me where to hit them."
Agyenim looked at the Warlord.
"You cannot hit them, Authority Oba.
" But you can confuse them."
Agyenim turned to Arora Lakshmi.
"They exist in a fixed point in time," Agyenim said. "That is their shield. But a Masani... a Master Masani... can alter the perception of time."
Arora's eyes widened. "If we create a Psionic Dilation Field..."
"...You can desynchronize them," Agyenim finished. "If you force their minds to perceive time faster than their bodies, the Stasis breaks. The armor becomes brittle. It becomes just ice."
He looked at Libaax.
"You don't need an army of Akins, My Lord. You need a choir of Masanis to sing songs of chaos. And you need Dibias to write the logic that forbids the rewind."
"A mental frontline," Libaax mused. He looked at the High Table.
"Authority Hiwot," Libaax commanded. "Mobilize the Masani corps. I want every telepath and telekinetic in the Empire at the Northern Border."
"Authority Amari," he turned to the Lawyer. "Draft a Nommo script. We will impose the Law of Physics on these lawless beasts."
"And as for the Scribe?" Agyenim asked quietly. "Do I return to the ashes?"
Libaax looked at the man who had once betrayed him. He saw the ink on his hands—the weight of thousands of names.
"No," Libaax said. "You go to the front. If the Masanis are to break the minds of the Rakshasha, they will need a conductor. And you, Agyenim... you always loved to lead the narrative."
Agyenim straightened his spine. For the first time in weeks, the Indigo Aura around him didn't look like a bruise. It looked like ink.
"I will write them a tragedy, My Lord," Agyenim vowed.