Miri placed her hand on the boy’s forehead. “I do not sense your thought defenses, are you not protecting yourself from this intrusion?”
“No one is trespassing into my mind, it is more like … a calling.”
Miri was more confused than ever. “A calling? What do you mean?”
“It seems to be a feeling that is guiding me, telling us which way to travel,” Rion said. “It does not seem hostile.”
Miri remembered their time out in the wastes during the previous quest. The Gorgon Neth had been speaking through her dreams when she had guided their small group towards the city of Lethe. Could there be another of these beings still out there? “Can you depict these dreams with greater clarity to me?”
The boy gave her a disappointed look. “I am sorry, Miri. It is nothing more than a sense of direction.”
“May I delve into your mind?”
Rion nodded. “Of course. You are always welcome to my thoughts.”
Using her Vis, Miri extended a series of mental tendrils into the boy’s mind. She could feel his worry over the lives of the crew and of his obsession with finding the Valley of Shadow. Burrowing into Rion’s set of recent memories, she quickly felt the faint echoes of a path had been laid out before him. It seemed nothing more than a guidepost, for it merely pointed towards a destination. Whether the place they were heading to contained any danger or served as an area of sanctuary, there was no way of truly knowing until they reach it.
When the thought stream ended, Miri’s own tracking skills began to discern what she had just experienced. “It seems this valley is much closer, perhaps no more than half a day’s walk if we go on foot.”
Rion gave her a surprised look. “Then we are indeed close?”
Miri glanced at the resting crewmen at the other side of the deck. “Yes. Let us divest ourselves of these men and send them home. I shall gather our packs from the hold and inform their leader.”
Captain Chrac was surprised, but not disappointed as he watched Miri climb down onto the snowy ground. “Shall we wait here until you and the boy return?”
The moment Miri’s boots touched the icy soil, she let go of the rope. A leather backpack lay beside her and she hefted it over her shoulders before looking up at the crew staring down at them from the sand sail’s gunwale. “There is no need, Captain Chrac. You have done us a great service. You may now return to your home. May the gods watch over your ship.”
A series of pleasant murmurings emanated from the satisfied crewmen. Chrac waved at them for one last time. “I wish you and the boy well, Miri. Until we meet again.” He turned away and began barking orders at the crew.
Rion was standing beside Miri and he too carried a pack over his shoulder. The boy gave the departing ship a cheerful wave. “Rest you merry!”
Miri could hear the crunching of ice and gravel as the Istas began to turn around. Both she and the boy wore heavy tunics and trousers beneath their reinforced cloaks. One of the crewmen happily fashioned some outer fur coverings for their boots before they had left, which helped to keep their feet warm. Chrac even gave Rion his fur cap which the boy dutifully wore to keep the top of his head in a comfortable state. The only item of clothing they seemed to miss were the lack of thick furred gloves, so they both kept their hands beneath their cloaks, though Miri had to keep one hand exposed to the chilly air in order to wield her spear.
With the aft hull of the Istas quickly disappearing into the now swirling mists behind them, Rion turned and began trudging through the icy ground. Miri was but a few steps behind as a part of her wished it might have been better if they had idled the sand sail and spent the eventide resting before moving forth, but it was apparent the crew wanted to get away from this haunted place as quickly as possible, and she would not force them to tarry any longer.
After a few moments of walking, they soon encountered what looked to be several looming shadows up ahead. The objects seemed much taller than either of them but were stationary. Miri gripped her spear with both hands while sending out some mental feelers to discern if those things were friend or foe.
Rion placed his right hand on the hilt of the spadroon that was sheathed by his left side. “What are those things, Miri?”
Miri strode forward. “I cannot detect any thoughts up ahead of us.”
Not wanting to be left behind, Rion hurried behind her. After a few paces, the pair of them soon realized they were looking at a series of upright boulders. Rion breathed a sigh of relief as they both began to move in between the natural columns of frozen rock. He could still sense they were moving at the right direction.
“It is fortunate we are now on foot,” Miri said. “The Istas would not have been able to maneuver in between these jutting rocks.”
Rion blinked a few times as he felt the echo in his mind once more. This time the psionic signal had picked up in strength. He glanced at Miri as he continued on. “There is a maze of ice up ahead of us.”
Miri raised her eyebrows. “How could you discern that? I could barely see more than a few paces ahead.”
“The calling seems stronger now,” Rion said. “I feel we may soon be at the foot of the valley.”
Miri looked around her. “I hope this valley will have less mists than what we—”
Her remark was instantly cut off by a loud bellow reverberating across the swirling fog. Miri instantly got closer to the boy and pulled him towards a nearby boulder. The booming cry was heard a second time, but it seemed far more distant.
Rion was breathing in short gasps. It was the same shrieking roar he had heard before. “It sounds like the cries of a large beast. But it is not yet eventide.”
A part of Miri was thankful the sun had not begun to set and there was still some daylight left, even though they could still hardly see anything. If she had to light a torch to guide their way when it finally did get dark, then it might attract whatever was making those sounds. She quickly began to marshal her reserves of Vis. With the certainty of conflict now looming, the boy did the same.
The ominous braying continued, only this time it was joined by the distant sounds of bone horns being blown. The outcries of alarm had to be coming from the sand sail.
Rion glanced up at Miri as they remained crouching beside the boulder. “It is the Istas. The crew must be sounding the alarm.”
Miri bit her lip as she gripped her spear tightly. She was hoping the crew of Captain Chrac’s sand sail would somehow turn around and rescue them, but the distant thoughts she picked up revealed the opposite was occurring. Waves of fear emanated from the men handling the Istas as they could sense something monstrous was nearly upon them. Miri continued to probe into their thoughts to see if she could get some awareness as to what it was they were facing.
Even though they were exhausted from the journey, the blood of the crew was up, owing to the terror that began to engulf their senses. Miri could feel their desperation as they tried to discover what it was. She could hear Chrac telling his men they must go back to find her and the boy, with the others arguing furiously against it. Miri shifted her focus to one of the lookouts at the edge of the gunwale, using her mindsense as a conduit so she could see from his very eyes.
She remembered the crewman’s name was Nild. His rapid breathing and terror filled thoughts made Miri’s own heart flutter with distress. With her Vis as an anchor point, Miri made sure she could quickly cut the mental bond in case anything happened to him. In the meantime, she focused her concentration in order to glean as much knowledge as she could to whatever it was that faced them.
Using Nild’s eyes, all she could see was the churning gray haze all around them. Catching a glimpse of some gargantuan shadow, Nild glanced over at the captain and shouted an alarm before turning back to look at what he had just seen. Without warning, something pink and colossal reached out from the mists above and made a grab at him. Nild screamed as he was engulfed in a fleshy, membranous mass and quickly lifted off his feet.
Miri let out a sh
riek while cutting the bond between her and the stricken crewman. The last fleeting thoughts she had of Nild were of his fright and utter helplessness, like that of a sand beetle being eaten alive by a much larger beast. Miri felt a flash of bone crunching pain just as the psychic link was finally severed. For a few moments all she could do was to refocus her own sense of self as she fell to her knees. Her body shivered- not from the cold, but due to her mind’s narrow escape from the suddenness of death.
Rion placed a concerned hand on her shoulder. “Miri, are you well?”
She took a few deep breaths before she answered him. “They are under attack.”
The boy’s look turned into one of despair. “What attacked them?”
“I-I do not truly know. Whatever it was, it seemed larger than a sand dargon.”
Out in the distance, they both could hear faint screams and popping sounds. Within moments a loud crashing noise was also evident before being replaced by a dreadful stillness. Rion gasped.
Now that she had recovered her wits, Miri sent out waves of mental tendrils all around them to see if she could pick up anyone from the crew. With her mindsense opened wide, she would normally hear stray thoughts emanating from anyone within the area. But the once jumbled, chaotic thoughts of the seven men she traveled with were now replaced by a gnawing gulf of silence. It was clear the men of the Istas were all dead or dying.
Rion could barely breathe after hearing what had happened. The boy’s eyes remained focused on Miri. “Did the Istas collide against something?”
Miri stood fully upright while tightening the straps over her shoulders. She needed to be able to move without too much bulk. “Drop your pack.”
The boy had stood up as well, but he was momentarily confused. “What?”
“Your backpack. Leave it here. Is there something in there that is most important you cannot forsake it?”
Rion blinked his eyes a few times before he finally understood. They needed to run. He bent down, opened the satchel and took out a telling stone. “Just this.”
“Pocket it well,” Miri said as she looked out into the grey, opaque air. “I believe the edge of this valley we seek is a few hundred paces in that direction.”
“Can we not move slowly to avoid disturbing what dwells in the fog?”
Miri shook her head. She could now partly discern the creature lurking nearby. “It seems whatever beast is out there can sense the warmth of our bodies. Tighten up your remaining possessions, for we must be able to run quickly.”
Rion reinforced the knot on his belt buckle before making sure the folds of his cloak were secure. “I am prepared now.”
Miri pointed to the wall of mist ahead of them. “At my command, you are to dash forward in that direction.”
The boy nodded silently.
“Now!”
They both started running deeper into the darkening haze. Although Miri could move faster, she kept pace with the boy, making sure she sprinted by his side. The fog around them was the consistency of thick soup, and it felt like they were hopelessly lost. Rion’s newly enhanced sense of direction led the way, and he would make minute twists and turns as Miri followed his slight lead. For a brief moment she thought they might escape from whatever prowled these icy wastes. If this unknown monster hunted humans for food, then the dead crew should serve as an enticing distraction while the two of them would make it to sanctuary, she hoped.
On and on they ran, sometimes narrowly missing a collision with a jutting boulder that would suddenly loom up ahead of them. Both Miri and Rion would react swiftly by making slight pivots to their left and right so they would easily bypass and run past the obstacles the moment they were revealed. The fur covering on their boots muffled the stamping of their feet, and the solid ground allowed them to stride quickly with little effort.
The fast pace was relentless, and the leather straps dug into Miri’s shoulders. Using her mindsense, she would cancel out the increasing pain on her legs by sending out soothing waves of calming thoughts to her tired muscles. Miri also extended her Vis over to the boy, hoping to lessen whatever strain his body was going through. At one point, Rion even gave her an approving glance, as if to say he appreciated her mental nourishment.
What seemed like a never ending dash became even harder when the ground beneath them began to thicken with loose snow. Their fur covered boots would plunge deep down into the frost, and it took a considerable effort to pull each leg out and continue onwards. Their once speedy pacing had begun to slow.
The boy started to falter, but Miri used her left hand to tug him along as they both kept moving. “How much farther?” she asked.
Rion was out of breath, and his reply came in between gasps of exhaustion. “We … must … be close.”
The haze up ahead seemed to lessen, and Miri could see the faint outlines of an ice wall less than a hundred paces in front of them. When they had first come upon the snow falling on the ground, she couldn’t help but be fascinated by it. Miri and Rion learned of a new word when Captain Chrac had cupped a handful of the frost that had fallen onto the ship’s deck and handed it to them, calling the unusual substance snow. Her cycles spent living by the Great Silt Sea never afforded her the sensations of being surrounded by the icy climate, much less being able to feel the sensation of frozen water at her fingertips. If it were not for their dire predicament, she would have liked to spend time just marveling at the wonders of this strange place. The entire area might have been a fascinating trek under more tranquil circumstances. With the current state of affairs, she no longer had this luxury.
Miri pointed to the wall of ice in front of them with her spear. “Come, let us not tarry any further.”
Just as they strode forward for a few steps, a hulking shadow suddenly loomed in front of them. The faint outlines towered over them like a gigantic symbol of doom. A low, guttural moaning emanated from it.
Miri gasped as she stood in front of the boy, the point of her spear held defensively upwards towards the monstrous creature in front of them. “Rion, run to the side and make haste for the wall!”
Rion stood his ground as he drew out the spadroon. “No! I shall stay here with you.”
The creature inched forward and they could finally see its true form. It resembled a hairless, man-like thing, with pulsing pink flesh and reddish veins covering its bloated, misshapen body. It must have been five times as tall as a man, its head the size of a small dwelling. The being seemed to crawl on all fours, with its hunched torso sloped forward, much like a canis. The creature’s face was the most hideous part of all, for it closely resembled that of a man’s, with a pair of bulging, bloodshot eyes, a massive hooked nose, and a grinning maw, full of rotten molars the size of the boulders which silently stood around them. The beast opened its mouth, revealing bits of what was once the crew of the Istas, including the head of Captain Chrac.
Rion screamed. In one of the telling stones he had read during his time in Lethe, it told of a legend about a race of beings that were so huge, they could reach out and grab hold of the stars with their hands. The story had said these creatures were once men who had been cursed by the gods to wander across these lost lands, there to guard whatever secrets these places held. The telling stone even had a name for this misshapen race: the gigogs.
Seeing the wounds on the gigog’s face, Miri realized the muskets and blades the crew of the Istas wielded against the creature weren’t enough. This monstrous giant would surely not be defeated by the weapons they carried. There was only one other recourse.
Just as the monster lifted up its front paw off the ground and made a grab for her, Miri focused her Vis and created a mental link to the creature’s tiny brain. As expected, the gigog’s thoughts seemed nothing more than a set of instincts, a list of reactions to use for whatever the monster would encounter. Since this giant of a creature had never confornted anything of its own size or power, it had steadily gained an aura of impudence over its countless cycles of existence. The gigog wa
s clearly the master of this land, and any other being it happened upon was considered prey. It could not recall ever being threatened by anything it met.
The creature’s web-like claw hovered just above Miri’s head when a moment of unexpected confusion made it pause. Miri continued to work her mindsense, sidestepping across the layers of indolent habits that had formed in the gigog’s memories over the untold cycles and began to enhance the creature’s sense of fear and uncertainty. It was this new sensation that made the gigog hesitate, and it gave Miri a few moments with which to find a way to overcome it.
Rion was about to thrust his blade up at the creature’s outstretched limb in a desperate attempt to prevent it from taking hold of her, but when he noticed Miri had been stationary, he quickly surmised she was using her mindsense against it. Sheathing his blade, the boy crouched down and waited, ready to sprint at a moment’s notice.
Deep in the recesses of the gigog’s mind, Miri’s tendrils continued their quest to find something she could use against it. Despite being a creature of instinct, there were primordial fragments of memory embedded deep in the being’s chaotic psyche. The passing of time must have altered the once high ordered structure of its brain, and reduced the more complex abstractions of the gigog’s thought processes into a more basic state of mind.
Detecting a patchwork of faint recollections within the creature’s brain core, Miri seized upon it and expanded upon the distant occurrences had been largely forgotten due to the ravages of time. For a brief instance she was able to glimpse what had occurred through the gigog’s own eyes. There was a vision of a robed man standing before it, and of this unknown entity pointing towards a cavernous maw before dismissing his sentinel to forever trek across these mist-filled lands.
Miri blinked several times as she began to understand. This monstrous creature was no mere beast that preyed upon hapless travelers wandering into its domain- it was actually a guardian of some sort. Gathering up the sensations of that last encounter with its master, Miri projected a new set of visions into the gigog’s mind as she mimicked the very essence of the robed man and inserted herself and Rion into the creature’s thoughts as one and the same.
The Maker of Entropy Page 17
