2016
Oct
06
Beware of Ik!
Must be half demon if only half. She’s got a soul darker than the devil himself, and more fire and power, too. Notice how folks are scared to sit too close? ... Pretty as an angel and quiet as smoke. But I can guarantee that you don’t want to find out what’s on the inside.
That's how Kilmor first describes Kolaika Jinnlexa Kälienen of Torprällin to the warrior Gurk. Of course, no one calls her that; they call her “Ik”, a contraction of “Iznik, the Destroyer.” And you most emphatically do not want to fuck with her.
You should run from her into the arms of Freddy Kreuger. Ask Pinhead for protection. Go on a date with Jason or Michael Myers in hopes she won't know where you are. That's if you're a person who hurts others. If not, well breathe easy, she might even save your life. Either way, you do not want to try to hurt her. You. Will. Regret. It.
Ik is one of my many strong girl characters, but one much more frightening than most. She can inflict pain so brutal that it lies beyond the bounds of human imagination. Terror so penetrating it drives out all sanity. Despair so dismal that Azkaban's dementors can only aspire to her level. And other dark emotions to which mankind has never even given a name as they are not natural to humans. She does this with a thought, and you can be 100 miles away. Gurk only experienced her wrath for a second, but during that time, if she had allowed him, he would have gladly cast himself into hell to find relief.
She uses this hellish power with enthusiasm against the cruel Blorzong. It is her goal to track down every last one and torture them to death. She is fully human, except that one foreign essence inside, and 11 years old. She speaks several galactic languages fluently, handles exotic weapons from multiple worlds, and flies a Blorzong playship.
How she came to possess such a faculty is left a mystery through most of the book, but it does have to do with the Blorzong themselves and why she hates them so much. To avoid giving it away, I've included the explanation in a spoiler block for those who have to know right away.
Spoiler: How Kolaika became Ik
It all began six weeks after she was conceived. The Blorzong had been to her world before, but they came again, looking for a victim. They liked Torprällin because it is relatively rich in telepaths, and telepaths enhance their excitement and joy at inflicting torture. Ik's mother was not just a telepath, but a Golden Aura telepath, and that promised the juiciest fulfillment of their torture lust.
Moments later, she was clamped into the mind rape, the most devilish torture device ever conceived by any species in the known universe. It inflicts physical agony and emotional anguish far, far beyond what any biological brain is naturally capable of experiencing. On top of that is psychweed, which alone can drive a person mad. Physical torture above and beyond the mind rape, enhanced by touchweed, and inflicted continuously as the regenerators repair damaged flesh so that it can be sliced, burned, or torn away again.
The Blorzong knew she was pregnant, and planned to allow the child to be born and to grow to the age where it could understand torture. But they miscalculated. Miscalculated severely, not foreseeing what could happen. Lena Jinnlexa Kälienen was a Golden Aura telepath. Although very unusual in successive generations, Kolaika Jinnlexa Kälienen would have been one, too. The child's mind developed beneath the mind rape, in a pool of psychweed and touchweed, experiencing every iota of that infinite agony that her mother did. The mind rape and all the added enhancements became part of her as her mind appeared, and is her constant companion every moment of every day and night. Torment no less than that of any of the Blorzong's victims, but torment she assimilated, torment she could handle. No amount of pain that can be naturally applied can compete with that.
And having the ability of a Golden Aura telepath, she can share it with others. What happened to those particular Blorzong at the hands of a six-month-old with near-adult mental faculty is material for the book. Iznik is a Blorzong word, first applied to her by one of those first two of her victims, and she thought it fit. Destroyer.
She would destroy them all. They would suffer as they had made others suffer.
Gurk, as a fearsome warrior, is dismayed that she is mentally tougher than he. He is horrified that she has killed more than he. He cannot touch her with his sword, as she anticipates his every move before he moves. He watches her hold a broken arm in the fire until her hand is blackened and cracked without crying out, without wincing, with no expression whatsoever.
When she asks him to go with her to help her punish Blorzong, he agrees. He knows she has a terrible power and is undefeatable in battle. Those skills he hopes to learn for himself, but he has no concept of what he is getting into.
This is what I want to write for NaNoWriMo this year. If I have time. I'm spending a lot of time in classrooms now. Wish me luck.
It occurs to me that Ik looks quite a bit like Ashley in The Emperor's Daughter. Ashley has more golden blond hair, shorter, somewhat wavy, and blue eyes not nearly as startling. She is a few months older. But she has a power of a different sort. Maybe that's why I sometimes get those two confused.
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