The Myth of the Maker

by Bruce R Cordell

  “Regardless,” I continued my thought, “if so many people are willing to risk their lives – and dismemberment – to find the sound’s source, the music must be exquisite.”

  “It’s mysterious, certainly,” Siraja said. “But explorers and greedy princes care more about the legend.” She looked at me. I stared back. Her head was almost perfectly smooth, like polished ebony, and reminded me of nothing so much as a bust of the god Anubis. But here in Ardeyn, no one had ever heard of ancient Egypt, except for me, Jason, and maybe some of the others I’d stranded here, if they were still alive. Despite her nonhuman features, I could read her expression. I’d been here that long. She was looking at me as if she expected me to know what the hell she was taking about.

  So I shook my head and said, “All right, I’ll bite. Tell me about this legend.”

  “Yes, please finish your story,” Mehvish urged Siraja. Startled, I jumped a little.

  Where the hell had she come from? Mehvish hated me, I was certain. Sometimes she called me “the half-wit.” Once she’d suggested that she’d like to add my hair to her collection, whatever that meant. Given that she was supernaturally good at disappearing then reappearing while I was distracted, the whole hair collection thing freaked me out more than a little.

  Instead of jumping in surprise, Siraja flicked an ear at Mehvish. “According to legend, the Glass Desert is all that remains of the Maker’s Hall. It was once a vast castle of glass. It was the Maker’s citadel in Ardeyn, but was slagged and melted when Lotan burned hottest during the Age of Myth.”

  Oh. Right. Stupid me, I knew that because I’d written a lot of the fake history for the Land of the Curse. Fake no more, Carter, I reminded myself. It was surreal.

  Siraja continued. “The legend says that beneath the desert, in bubbles and hollows, explorers can discover artifacts of the Age of Myth. Stuff that was once kept in the Maker’s Hall. But especially greedy types say that these are just the merest sprinkling of the true treasures waiting to be claimed, if one could find a surviving entrance to what remains of the Hall’s interior.”

  Suddenly, the idea of exploring the Singing Crater sounded like the best idea I’d ever heard.

  And here I was smack-dab in the center of the Glass Desert, which I’d completely forgotten was the Maker’s home in this world’s pre-history. Could it be a wild stroke of luck?

  No. Nor mere coincidence. Yes, I’d translated blindly into Ardeyn. But I’d obviously arrived at the site my older self thought of as home: the Maker’s Hall. At least, what was left of it. Or maybe this was the place where my older self left Ardeyn… when the Maker was killed by Jason. I frowned.

  Anyway, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If I could get into where the Maker version of me had done all his mojo, maybe I could make things right, take care of Jason, and eliminate whatever contamination he’d delivered to Earth on his Ardeyn-built flash drive. I wanted to ask Jushur what it thought of the idea and my chances, but I’d made a point of not talking to the sphere since I’d come aboard the pirate ship. The last thing I needed was for it to spook them, and give everyone yet another reason to hate me.

  A cry went up from the crow’s nest. The crew of the pirate ship furled sails. Before us, not more than a half a football field away, was the crater’s edge. Broken shards lay in haphazard heaps around it, in piles reaching dozens of feet high in places, forming a foreboding barrier without room for the ship from to approach closer. I didn’t see any easy footpaths, either.

  “This is the only way in?” I asked.

  Siraja shrugged.

  Captain Taimin marched up, idly stroking the length of his muzzle like some men rub their beard while thinking. Spying us, he nodded in satisfaction.

  “You have three days,” he said. “If you’re not back by then, we’ll skate off and leave you to whatever end you find below.”

  “And what, exactly, should we bring out of that death trap, should we be so lucky?” demanded Mehvish.

  “Something worthy of your captain,” said the qephilim. “I leave what that might be to your imagination. Don’t come back at all if you can’t find something suitable.”

  Since I was hoping to find something of the Maker and never return to the captain’s wretched ship, I didn’t ask him to be more specific. If I discovered what I hoped, I wouldn’t need Taimin and the Nightstar to escape the Glass Desert. Hell, maybe I already had all I needed to find Jason and defeat him, or leave Ardeyn and return to Earth, hidden somewhere in my swiss-cheese memory. I half-closed my eyes, trying to remember… But my recollections were as slippery as fish.

  Mehvish prodded me. “Have your wits deserted you completely? What’s wrong?”

  I blinked. “I was just thinking of a song I used to know,” I lied. Mehvish wasn’t going to give me an inch, that was clear, even now when our lives depended on us working together. Once we were off the ship, I decided the three of us needed to have a heart-to-heart about the situation.

  “Is everyone ready?” asked Siraja. Mehvish turned slightly. I saw she wore a pack, just like Siraja and I. My pack held rope, water, food for a few days, a utility knife, parchment and a charcoal pen, and a mirror. All things I’d requested – and received – from ship’s stores in preparation for our trip. Really, all items I’d pack for a camping trip.

  A wiry privateer lowered a rope ladder over the side. I followed the others down its length, the rough rope thick and scratchy in my palms. We stood in the shadow cast by the ship, so the sun reflected in the glass didn’t burn us like ants under a microscope, though the heat was still uncomfortable. A trickle of sweat inched down my back beneath my undershirt.

  “Which way?” I said. The forest of shards around the edge seemed impenetrable from where I stood. I’d hoped a path would become clear once we’d gotten down on the glass.

  Siraja shrugged again. Perhaps my earlier estimation of what her shrug meant had been off. Friendly or not, it was a gesture I was beginning to despise. She said, “We walk around until we see a path,” she announced.

  Mehvish glared without offering an opinion. I had nothing better to suggest, so I said, “Lay on Macduff.” I doubt she got the reference, though she didn’t bother to ask what I meant, either.

  Instead Siraja moved to the left leaving behind the cool shadow. Mehvish and I followed. When the sun hit me, my skin prickled as it pulled taut and dry. After we’d gone a few dozen yards, I glanced back at the ship. A handful of heads were silhouetted up on the railing. A hand went up and waved, and raucous laughter floated across to us down on the reflective surface. The pirates watched, and no doubt, were laying odds on how quickly we’d meet our end. But after only a few more paces, towering shards blocked the view. Hopefully, it was the last they’d ever see of us. Even if I didn’t find my salvation in the crater, maybe we’d avoid returning to Nightstar courtesy of heatstroke or a razor-sharp glass avalanche.

  We walked in silence for several minutes. Though the heaped glass was dangerous, at least it sometimes shaded us from the sun. Other times, reflected light was so bright we could hardly see our way forward.

  “They sent us out here to die you know,” Mehvish finally observed in a perfectly calm voice, as if she was commenting on the weather.

  Siraja stopped. She shook her head in negation, though not with the hearty confidence of someone who knows she is right. Shit.

  “Listen,” I said. “Taimin is crap, yeah. But he doesn’t strike me as someone who’d throw away perfectly good crew out of spite. There must be some hope of us finding a way in, or he’d have saved a lot of trouble by just letting us off in any old place on the glass.”

  “He’d have done it by dragging,” intoned Siraja.

  “Right,” I said, “dragging!” I didn’t know what death by dragging was, but I could imagine. I continued, “A public execution would generate a lot more solidarity, and fear of the captain, with the rest of the crew. Whereas sending us off on some quest where no one can see us die robs him of
that spectacle. If we die out here, everyone will just forget about us and move on. Which means the captain, that twisted fuck, thinks we’ve got a chance. And we do, if we can all work together, and put our differences behind us. At least on this mission.”

  “A sound plan,” Siraja agreed. Then she actually grinned at me. Which is sort of terrifying on a qephilim’s face. We both glanced at Mehvish.

  Mehvish grunted, then drank from her water skin. I could tell it was already mostly empty. Mine was the same. When she didn’t disagree, I decided to take it as agreement, however reluctant.

  “So,” I said, “let’s get serious about getting past this rim of broken glass to the crater itself.”

  “That’s what we’re doing, idiot,” said Mehvish.

  My hands didn’t quite clench into fists. Instead I said, “Right. But we need help. I’m running low on water already. Isn’t there some kind of – I don’t know – a story or myth about the Maker? Maybe one that talks about the Maker’s Hall? Like, how the hell did the Maker get in and out of it?” I risked spilling my secret desire, but these two needed a little motivation.

  “I’ve seen the Maker’s Hall,” Mehvish said. “When I was young.”

  “The Maker’s Hall was destroyed during the Age of Myth,” said Siraja. “And I doubt you’re that old, for all the stories they tell about you.”

  Mehvish continued, as if Siraja hadn’t interrupted, “Once, when all the moons were painted across the sky in a perfect line, I saw the Maker’s Hall. I saw it reflected in the Glass Desert, tall, terrible, but beautiful, shimmering like a ghost.”

  I swallowed. “What did it look like, exactly?”

  “Mounting, shining ramparts reached for the sky. I saw a single entrance, a gate whose opulence outshone a dragon’s hoard. I was with my mother. She said that if we dared, we could attempt to enter, and there seize the power of the Maker himself.” Mehvish stopped speaking, but her braids twined of their own accord.

  “Did you try to enter?” asked Siraja.

  “No. Creatures of broken glass rose up and chased us off.”

  I’d bluffed Mehvish before, when I got her to switch allegiances and back Siraja instead of Kadir. I’d only been able to suss out that she wasn’t a native of Ardeyn. She was a Stranger. I’d known instinctively that if I branded her with that term, the pirates would’ve turned against her. But for all my assurance, I really didn’t know anything else.

  So I wondered who Mehvish really was, who her mother had been, and where they’d come from, if not Ardeyn. Neither she nor anyone like her had appeared in any of the original code, I knew that with relative certainty.

  Before I could give in to my curiosity, the sound of piping flutes distracted me. Siraja, Mehvish, and I all glanced in the direction of the unexpected melody. A sort of lullaby, maybe, one whose words danced just on the edge of memory. After only a few bars, it faded back to nothing. We looked at each other, then hastened forward.

  Another hundred yards brought us to a sloping pane of glass with a shape reminiscent of an elephant’s flared ears. On the far side, there was a gap that lead inward, toward the edge. It was the first one we’d seen.

  Siraja said, “That looks promising.”

  “It looks unstable,” judged Mehvish.

  “What do you think, Carter?” asked Siraja.

  Mehvish was right. The first pane was tented against a series of crumpled glass shards, which we’d have to pass under to get through. If we brushed against it, the whole thing might come crashing down on us. Even if we were careful, a strong wind seemed likely to collapse it.

  On the other hand, the heat was doing me in. The passage was dark and out of the sun…

  Concentrating on the glass, I tried to determine if it had any sort of inner essence or name that I could question or command. Nothing. I closed my eyes, focusing harder. Nope.

  “It’s just a heap of rubble,” I said, opening my eyes. “I don’t know how safe it is.”

  Mehvish snorted. “Your little trick of knowing secrets not working?”

  “Remember, we’re a team. Team members support each other, not belittle failure.”

  Mehvish actually laughed, and Siraja smiled again. Progress? Maybe.

  The music came again, louder than before. It was definitely coming from inside the crater, echoing through the tunnel of glass debris. Words accompanied the music this time, but not ones I could understand.

  “This has got to be the way,” said Siraja, and ducked into the opening. Her body blocked the light at the far end. After a few seconds, her voice came back, hollow and faint, “Come, it’s fine.”

  Fuck dithering. I followed. The air was noticeably cooler in the tunnel, which was a welcome relief. I hoped the shadows didn’t hide a jagged piece of glass as I inched carefully forward.

  The tunnel didn’t collapse on me and I made it through. Siraja waited for me on the other side. She was perched at the edge of a massive hole in the glass in an area relatively free of debris. The cavity was circular, stretching at least a half-mile in diameter. Churning white mist filled it, hiding the crater’s bottom. Presuming it had a bottom.

  Mehvish emerged from the tunnel. She moved to put Siraja between herself and me. She sniffed, then crinkled her nose as if in disgust.

  Though I couldn’t smell anything, I decided not to ask what she’d sniffed. Instead, I carefully swept my gaze around the periphery, looking for some way to safely descend into the cloying whiteness.

  I bent to retrieve a loose piece of broken glass, then spun the fragment down into the mist. A dull crashing noise echoed out of the whiteness, probably not more than a couple of seconds later.

  “Now our presence is known!” hissed Mehvish.

  “By who?” I countered, but feeling guilty all the same.

  She had no answer. But she’d been right to reprimand me – tossing glass into the pit had certainly announced our presence if anyone was hiding down in the mist. I can be an idiot sometimes.

  About two hundred yards farther along the rim I spied what looked like a pile of dead animals. “Look,” I said, pointing.

  Siraja followed my finger. Her eyes widened. “A chimera! A dead one, though. I didn’t think they ever flew out over the desert.”

  At her words, the image resolved in my head. Instead of three animals, I realized it was one creature with three heads – one goat, one lion, and one freaky looking lizard face. Its long, green tail dangled into the crater, and its end was obscured by the roiling fog.

  “What killed it?” I said, hoping no one suggested that the mist was poison.

  I watched Siraja, waiting for the shrug. She didn’t disappoint.

  “We should go check it out,” I said.

  “How do you propose we get across to it?” said Mehvish.

  The area where we stood was relatively clear of shards, but if we wanted to move along the edge in either direction for more than a dozen yards, we’d be faced with jagged barriers sharp as, well, broken glass. Finding out what had killed the chimera would be useful information to have, probably, but I didn’t fancy slicing open a femoral artery on a trek across the sharp mess to find out.

  “Maybe later,” I finally said.

  Siraja said, “Then let’s head into the crater. We’re wasting time up here.” She dropped her pack and removed a thick coil of rope. Loop after loop, the qephilim unfurled one end down the side of the great cavity.

  “Any idea how deep it is?” I asked.

  “We’re going to find out,” Mehvish answered as Siraja continued letting the rope out. “Stop asking questions we can’t answer, or I’ll push you over.” The qephilim’s ears twitched at that last. Did she think Mehvish was funny, or was she annoyed, too?

  Just my luck to be partnered with someone who might actually want me dead. And I wasn’t really all that sure about Siraja’s regard.

  Too bad Jushur wasn’t more able-bodied… What the hell. I pulled the sphere from a pouch and addressed it. “Jushur, advise me.” />
  “On what?” the sphere responded.

  Mehvish gasped. Siraja paused in her work to regard me.

  I said to the metallic orb, “We mean to descend this cavity, and through it, to enter the ruins of the Maker’s Hall. How should we proceed?”

  Jushur’s form rotated creepily in my hand, as if to take in my companions, the crater, then slid back to me. “Anyone may enter the ruins,” it said. “They lie scattered beneath this hard plain. But only the Maker may enter the original Hall. Him, or at minimum, Four of the Seven Incarnations acting in concert. Since the Maker is dead, only the Incarnations, or their implements, can enter. Gather those Rings, and you will succeed beyond your wildest hopes. Call the Rings, and they may come.”

  “You keep an artifact of sorcery,” said Siraja, her voice high with surprise. “Why didn’t you use it to improve your station on the Nightstar?”

  I was too busy considering Jushur’s response to answer. The object knew my relationship to the Maker; I’d told it. Which meant that it didn’t think I had enough Maker in me to successfully enter whatever remained of the Hall. On the other hand, it thought I could “call” the implements of the Incarnations. Rings, apparently. What did that–

  Circles sizzling with powerful magic, seven in all, seven for Seven Incarnations, cascaded across my vision. The Rings the Maker – that I – had given to the Incarnations as the catalyst for their power. Rings of War, Death, Silence, Commerce, Law, Lore, and Desire!

  The memory faded, like ice-cream dropped on sun-warmed sidewalk. Before it completely melted, I seized it with everything that I could dredge up of my newfound ability. I fixed that memory in my mind by naming it as mine. I would not forget it. If the Maker knew it, so should I. The Maker was gone… but maybe I could reconstruct a workable facade of what he’d been, memory by memory. What I had been. If I could accomplish that, maybe I’d be able to enter the Hall without calling the Rings.