The Maker of Entropy

by John Triptych

  Using what little Vis he had left, Rion extended an invisible hand of force upon one of the glowing spheres floating high up in the ceiling. Ignoring the pain of his wounds, the boy focused his mindforce, and willed the orb to fall rapidly and smash itself on top of Atrexs’s head, just as the Oracle was about to finish Zeren with a stab to his head.

  The glowing sphere seemed to float just above the Oracle’s skull, when it suddenly crashed right on top of her. The incandescent gasses trapped within its spherical shell suddenly collided with the oxygen in the air at the moment of impact, bathing everything around it with fire. The resulting small explosion instantly engulfed the Oracle’s head. Atrexs screamed in terror as she flailed about, her entire body quickly covered in roaring flames.

  The attack on Miri had weakened her to the point where she could no longer control her Vis. As he got back up, Zeren could see Elayris had begun to recover, as the Gorgon started to float in the air with the use of her own mindforce. If given time, it was obvious to everyone that Elayris would return back to full health. Something had to be done.

  “Enough!” Zeren said. Using his remaining Vis to keep his wounds from bleeding out, he charged up the incline, wrapped his arms around the Gorgon’s sickening, bloated flesh and pushed Elayris over the edge of the glowing pit, the both of them plunging down into the inner machinery of the Maker, his mindforce adding to the celerity of their fall.

  “Zeren!” Miri cried as she tried to stand up, only to have to roll backwards when Atrexs tried to fanatically charge at her, hoping to die together. Miri used her mindforce to push the still burning Oracle across the chamber before lifting Atrexs up in the air and throwing her into the glowing pit at the top of the incline.

  Rion added to the carnage by forcing down more glowing spheres and stalactites into the pit, causing great damage to the exposed subterranean machinery that housed the nanite production plant.

  Within moments, the entire mountain began to shudder. A loud rumbling was first heard coming from underneath the pit, then came an eruption of smoke and fire which emanated from the hole. Without Elayris’s mental guidance, the Maker had begun to consume itself. The nanite assemblers were unable to take the psychic feedback of the Gorgon’s demise, and consequently malfunctioned, overwhelming the fragile apparatus which had been laboring nonstop for eons.

  Miri made her way over to the boy and helped him up, just as more rumblings began to commence. After a few moments, the floor began to shift as the walls vibrated with a powerful intensity. She could barely stand, so she used the spear as a walking stick.

  Rion looked up at her. Tears flowed down his cheeks. “Zeren?”

  Miri shook her head. Even her mindsense wasn’t able to detect his thoughts any longer. “I am sorry.”

  Holding onto each other for support, the pair of them made their way out of the central chamber, just as the pit began to collapse onto itself, bringing down the walls around it. Using his eyes, Rion quickly led Miri down the narrow corridor, past the outer part of the Temple and finally back out into the upper plateau. As they begun the long descent down the stone steps, the entryway behind them collapsed, sealing the interior with heaps of fallen rock.

  Chapter 33

  The chief freight-master sighed with relief while looking at the sealed containers stored in the ship’s hold. He turned to look at the new captain. “That is the last of it.”

  Todrul nodded. “Very well, let me speak to Miri and Rion to see if there are any further tasks left to be done.”

  The older man rubbed the back of his sore neck. “The price was high, but it seems this expedition was a success. We have enough goods to make every man in the crew rich, almost as one of the nobles of Lethe.”

  Todrul looked away. The expedition lost three: young Ailos, their former leader Orilion, and Zeren. But the price paid by the tribes of the Sea of Dunes was far, far worse. The Khanate was no more, and the pirate groups had been accepted as equals by the new coalition of surviving tribes. The rebuilding would take many cycles, but with the Maker and his Exalted having been destroyed, there would be no more gods to fear. Perhaps it was all for the better, since the Letheans would no doubt build more sand sails now the trading routes had been reestablished. He shuddered at the complications of such a future.

  The freight-master chuckled. Todrul was always like this. “You are brooding again.”

  “So it seems,” Todrul said as he mounted the steps on the ladder leading up to the main deck. “I shall return.”

  He made his way past the laughing, jostling crewmen, walked across the metal gangplank and onto a small hillside made of boulders. In the past few days he had seen strange patterns of mists in the once clear skies above. When he asked the boy what it was, Rion simply called them clouds, and he told the crew that droplets of water would soon fall upon the dry land, and they would have to build a new kind of vessel to travel across it once the watery seas returned. The men had been so bewildered by the boy’s tale, and Miri finally forbade him to say any more about it.

  After climbing up onto a flattened peak overlooking the nearby wastes, Todrul came upon the pair. Miri and Rion were sitting across from each other, seemingly in silent contemplation. Todrul stood just behind Miri since he did not want to see what had happened to her eyes, for it saddened him to see her like that.

  It was Miri who finally broke the silence. “There is no need to feel pity for me, Todrul. Despite my blindness, my other senses have grown stronger.”

  Todrul made a slight bow. He felt Miri’s mindsense had detected him even before he got to the top of the rocks. “I am sorry, Miri.”

  Miri made a short laugh. “It is I who should apologize, this habit of reading other minds is not very honorable, but it seems to have become second nature.”

  “I am not offended, Miri,” Todrul said. “I wanted to tell you all the trade goods have been stored in the hold for safekeeping. The survivors of this land were only too willing to give us a good price. We may now return to Lethe at any time.”

  Miri already knew about it. It seemed reading minds was far quicker than conversing, but she also realized thoughts had to be conveyed using more traditional methods. “Thank you. I think it is safe to say the crew made a wise choice in making you captain. I am sure the title will soon be adopted by the people in Lethe.”

  Todrul smiled. He gestured at the boy. “In the secret ballot I actually voted for Rion.”

  Rion chuckled. “Even if everyone voted for me, I would not have accepted. I told you all this already.”

  “Nevertheless I did vote for you anyway,” Todrul said. “If the ballots for you had been counted, it would have been a very close contest.”

  Miri nodded. “Since all is well, Rion and I wish you and the crew a safe journey home.”

  Todrul was taken aback. “What? You and Rion are not to return with us?”

  The boy shook his head. “We were never meant to return. There are other lands we must seek out, places that lie beyond the Frozen Desert.”

  Todrul had sensed the possibility. Now it had truly come to pass. “Are you both certain of this?”

  Miri nodded again. “We are. I shall remain Rion’s guardian, and one of the tribes has given us a sand trike. It lies just on the other side of these rocks, and we have all the supplies we need.”

  Todrul crouched down as he picked up a few pebbles and tossed them around. “This has been an eventful journey. Our presence here has somehow affected a great change to the land, and I am somewhat proud to have been a part of it.”

  “You shall see more changes now that the Maker is gone,” Rion said. “Go tell the librarians of Lethe to break out the telling stones of the ancient times, before the Gorgons. There should be enough knowledge there to enlighten everyone of the coming rains.”

  Todrul shook the boy’s hand before getting up. “Good advice, Rion.”

  “You had better get going, I can sense a strong wind heading southwards,” Miri said. “You should make proper
use of it.”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she placed her own hand over his. With nothing further left to say, Todrul told his goodbyes and began to make his way down the cleft. A few moments later, they heard the distant cheering of the crew as the land ship had finally unfurled its sails and began the long journey home.

  For a long while, they continued to sit together in silence, just listening to the winds until Rion shifted his position and sat beside Miri, his head leaning on her shoulder. In due time the sun had begun to set, and all they could sense was each other’s presence.

  The boy looked out at the fading sun over the flat horizon, knowing that such a vision would look quite different once the rains began. When the eventide finally occurred, he turned his head and glanced at Miri, his mind still full of worries.

  “Hush,” Miri said softly. “There is no reason for you to be bombarded with apprehension. You have done a great deed, and freed the world to follow its own path.”

  “I worry not for the world but for you,” the boy said. “I have given you much of my blood, yet your eyes have not healed. I fear you may have lost your sight forever.”

  Miri smiled. “You think I am crippled, but I tell you I am not. My mindsense has become so acute, I can now sense every thought of Todrul and his crew, even though they have gone far past the horizon.”

  Rion could not hide his amazement. “And you have the power of mindforce. It seems you truly are a Gorgon now, Miri.”

  “It seems that way,” Miri said. “May the gods help those who would dare go against us.”

  “Are you sure you want to continue? Who knows what manner of strange beasts and men we may yet encounter while we search for the Lost Vaults.”

  “We have each other,” Miri said. “That is what matters.”

  Rion looked away and sighed. “If only Zeren were still with us. I miss him so.”

  “As do I,” Miri said softly, “as do I.”

  Deep within the smoldering ruins, something injured and horrifically burnt crawled through what remained of a once mighty temple. His pain was vast, as the burned skin had sloughed off his flesh like old leather, leaving but a charred, bloodstained shell of a man. Each moment was an agony of torture, magnified by a longing for a life that could never be lived again.

  His one remaining eye hinted at blurry outlines all around him as he dragged himself forward, still somehow clinging to existence when everything else around him had died. He could have just given up, closed his vision and let death take him, but for some unknown reason he remembered a task still undone, even though he could not recall the details as to what he was supposed to do.

  Up ahead of him were the tattered remains of a cloak he might have worn, but with the constant nagging pain surging across his body he could no longer be certain of anything. While his smoldering hand dragged itself over the pieces of singed leather as he inched past it, something rolled out from underneath the trash, making a strange sound like broken pottery.

  Painfully straining his neck, he stared at the cylindrical object near his side. It looked like something wrapped in a piece of clay that solidified due to the heat. For a brief moment, he forgot about the pain, and focused his mind on what it truly was.

  The realization came swiftly, and it carried a ray of hope with it. The elixir containing the boy’s blood- it had to be! Stretching out he tried to make a grab for it, but he was unable to close his injured hand and it rolled away.

  He gritted his teeth and made a shrill, moaning noise. If he truly wanted to live, he needed the elixir, assuming the heat from the vents had not evaporated it into dust. He tried again to make a painful grab for it, only to see it tumble away from his fumbling grasp once more.

  No! He would not die this way, not while there was still a chance! Reach out damn you, he thought to himself. Reach out and take it!

  Thanks for reading! If you like it, please leave a review.

  The story continues in:

  The Dying World

  Book 4

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