Miri cried out in agony as she let go of the spear and tumbled down the incline, desperately clutching at her bleeding eye sockets. An invisible force soon pulled her up into the air as she levitated off the smooth rock, helpless in dire torment.
Atrexs looked down and slowly pulled the spear out from her chest, the strangely dry puncture in her skin quickly resealing itself the moment the foreign object had been taken out. After dropping the weapon onto the floor, she looked up at her cousin, who was now dangling painfully in the air. “Did you not know? You never truly had a choice in all of this.”
Zeren took stock of his adversary as he continued to make a slow circle around him. Fumal Led seemed to be wearing a lamellar armored vest underneath his tight crimson robes. Like Zeren, he too wore steel vambraces on his forearms, giving a goodly degree of protection. Along with the basket hilt sword he wielded, Zeren figured it would not be easy to disarm him. His Vis was nearly full, and a flood of memories returned to him, harking back to a time when he was but a youth who had been trained by the very opponent who was now facing him.
Just as Zeren had anticipated, Fumal Led leapt high up into the air using his Vis, intending to strike a downward blow. Zeren used his own mindforce to slide sideways, away from his former mentor’s attack as he lunged and made a thrust at Fumal Led’s blindside. The Exalted countered by sweeping his blade back and on a downward angle, parrying away Zeren’s own stab. Both men quickly moved away from each other to reset the duel once more.
Since he felt they were evenly matched, Zeren figured there must be another way to defeat him. “Fumal Led, do you know why I am here?”
“I do not wish to hear of it,” the Exalted leader said, gesturing with his left hand.
Within seconds, Zeren heard a number of crackling noises coming from the ceiling above him. Looking up, he noticed the downward pointing stalactites had begun to vibrate as the sharpest one of them suddenly tore itself loose and dropped directly towards him like a gigantic stone lance. Zeren used his own Vis to roll sideways as the pointed cone of rock narrowly missed him, shattering onto the stone floor of the Temple and filling the air with dust.
Getting back up into a fighting stance, Zeren was able to place his broadsword in a middle guard position, just as Fumal Led made another leaping attack at him. Parrying away the Exalted one’s swing, Zeren made a flatfooted kick to his opponent’s thigh, staggering Fumal Led and forcing him backwards.
Quickly following up on his advantage, Zeren thrust low, connecting his blade with the fleshy part of Fumal Led’s leg, just above the knee. The strike wasn’t too deep, but it did leave a bleeding gash on his former mentor’s limb as Fumal Led limped away and out of range.
Zeren bit his lip while his opponent soundlessly turned back into his direction once more. He had begun to hesitate when it came to killing Fumal Led, and he knew it would cost him dearly. “I came here to find your daughter, Thalena. The Maker is sacrificing her. Please, let us stop this and retrieve her together.”
For the first time since his transformation, Fumal Led howled in anger. The Exalted leader charged, then used his Vis to slide forward and low as he swung his blade and made it past Zeren, who had also generated his own strike while running past his former mentor. Both men grunted as they turned around and circled for a third time.
Zeren grimaced in pain. Fumal Led’s strike had connected, cutting into his left shoulder. Blood flowed down his arm, and his fingers were feeling numb. He would now have a hard time using his Vis since the pain made it difficult to focus his thoughts in order to unleash the mindforce.
As Fumal Led turned to face him, the metal mask on his head parted in two, the bronze pieces falling down to the floor with a metallic rattle, revealing his true visage.
Zeren recoiled in horror. He had struck across his opponent’s face and was able to shatter the Exalted leader’s mask. Instead of a nose, all he could see were dark holes. The skin on Fumal Led’s face was akin to melted flesh, a twisted, misshapen countenance not wholly human. The pale, empty eyes devoid of pupils stared blankly at him, the cut on the forehead oozing blood down to the distorted chin. The lipless mouth had a skull-like, uncontrollable grin.
Wiping the blood from his eyes, Fumal Led held his blade on a low guard position. “I … must break you.”
“If you are not willing to save your own daughter, then I have no further respect for you,” Zeren said softly while placing the point of his blade in a middle guard stance. “Let this be the end of your miserable existence.”
Both men charged at each other once more. While swinging his blade back in preparation for a side cut, Fumal Led gestured, bringing down another stalactite towards his former ward. Instead of meeting him halfway, Zeren stopped after running forward a few steps, concentrating his Vis on altering the drop of the stalactite coming down from the ceiling. By the time Fumal Led realized what was happening, the falling stalactite pointed horizontally, and flew straight at him.
Zeren gritted his teeth as he used every ounce of Vis in his mind, increasing the stalactite’s velocity. The sharp point of the stony cone penetrated past the armor on Fumal Led’s chest and threw him backwards until he collided with the side wall of the Temple. Blood gushed out from between his exposed molars.
Making his way slowly towards his fallen enemy, Zeren stood over him. “You fought to lose.”
For a brief moment, he could see the true self of Fumal Led revealing itself as the empty eyes suddenly regained their pupils back. “Save my daughter,” he whispered, before his head slumped down, the pall of death finally overtaking him.
Getting down to one knee, Zeren placed his hand over his fallen mentor’s forehead and whispered a silent prayer to the gods.
Chapter 32
With her sense of vision all but destroyed, Miri moaned in agony as she continued to float in the air above the chamber. She could sense the renewed assault against her mental defenses, and the physical pain was distracting her, making her vulnerable. Her thought shields had begun to crumble, for in her weakened state she could no longer withstand the relentless pounding. An inner voice was telling her all was lost, and she shuddered at the thought of becoming a mindless thrall to a monstrous being. A part of her wanted to die rather than be subjected to an even worse fate, but she knew there was little she could do about it.
Rion had taken a longer, more circuitous route into the heart of the extinct volcano as he emerged from a side tunnel. The boy was completely shaken as he stared at what was happening. Tears formed in his eyes as he looked up at her. “No! Miri! Miri!”
Atrexs stood at the other end of the great chamber. The Oracle smirked confidently as she began to make her way towards the boy. “Ah, the star child has come forth after all. Fortune truly smiles amongst those who wait.”
Rion threw off his cloak before pulling out the flintlock pistol, aimed with both hands and fired. The metal ball struck Atrexs in her upper left thigh. The Oracle stopped, looked down at her wound, and pried out the shell using her claw-like hand before dropping the now misshapen slug onto the ground.
Unsheathing the spadroon, Rion attempted to circle around her, but was shocked when the Oracle’s arms suddenly sprouted into blades and attempted to strike at him. The boy did as he was taught, using the sword in his right hand to parry one attack, while using the barrel and butt of the flintlock as a shield to block the other strike.
Atrexs giggled while waving her arm blades in an almost vertical semi-circle, hoping to distract the boy with her fast movements and create an opening. “You were taught well, star child. It is a pity we shall have to take your vitae, for your potent blood shall enable my mother to live on for many more eons.”
“Release Miri!” Rion said as he hurled a cascading wave of Vis directed at her. Atrexs caught the full force of the attack and she flew backwards, colliding with the base of the incline.
Despite her blindness, Miri sensed Rion’s thoughts in the chamber. “No … Rion … You must … run away
.”
Dropping the empty pistol from his left hand, Rion ran over until he was just below her, channeling his mindforce to bring Miri back down to the ground. The boy clenched his jaw as he gestured while concentrating. Miri’s floating body began to descend slowly, the boy using massive amounts of Vis to counter Elayris’s power.
Just as Miri’s body was halfway down towards the ground, Atrexs came up behind Rion and dug her arm blades into the boy’s back. Rion yelped and got down to his knees, blood pouring out from his wounded thighs. Almost immediately, Miri had begun to float back up towards the ceiling once more.
Atrexs morphed her arms back into hands as she held the wounded boy by the throat, her sharpened nails cutting into his jugular. “Do not resist, for it shall bring only more pain.”
Despite his wounds, Rion used what was left of his Vis to twist away from her grip and stagger out of range. Turning around to face her, the boy concentrated, using the mindforce to lift his fallen sword into the air and let it float gently above his hand. But just as he gripped the hilt of the blade, his remaining strength finally left him and he fell, face down onto the blood soaked stone flooring.
Atrexs shook her head in disappointment while standing over him. “I have never met a star child before, but if they are all as stubborn as you, then it shall only make my victory that much sweeter.”
Just as she was about to pick up the boy, Atrexs sensed danger close by. Turning around, she had just enough time to glance at the pointy tip of Fumal Led’s blade piercing through her chest as it flew through the air, impaling her body.
Zeren strode into the chamber, broadsword in hand. “The only victory you shall savor is in the dark afterworld, whore. That is where you can bed all the creatures I killed.”
Atrexs growled as she reached below her breasts and pulled out the sword before throwing it away. She began moving towards him while transforming her arms into blades once again. “Why must all you stubborn fools keep resisting? Do you not realize it is but a futile action?”
“I am one who never listens to others, much less abominations like you,” Zeren said as he got into a fighting stance.
Atrexs swung both her arm blades at the same time, hoping to catch him in a sweeping, scissor-like attack. Zeren used his Vis to move past her right side the moment she started the assault, and used his blade to hack deeply into her elbow, nearly severing her right arm. As the Oracle lurched forward from the blow, Zeren swung again, this time completely severing her limb.
“See, I must be doing something right by not listening,” Zeren said as he walked past her and made his way towards Rion.
Miri’s voice was a faint whisper. “Zeren … no … Fighting her with blades … is useless.”
Atrexs hissed as she picked up her severed arm and quickly reattached it to her elbow. Zeren turned around in surprise as she ran up to him, her left arm blade stabbing into his stomach. Zeren yelled out in pain while Atrexs withdrew the living weapon from his abdomen. The Oracle morphed her arm blades into sharpened talons while standing triumphantly over him. Zeren tried cutting her leg with his broadsword but she ignored the injury, slashing across his throat, opening up his jugular. Zeren fell to his knees, blood pouring from his slit throat.
Miri began to wail in despair as she sensed their dying agonies. Elayris had nearly battered down her mental walls, and the old Gorgon’s victory over the three of them would soon be complete. Her regrets soon came to the forefront, wondering why she had been so foolhardy as to even attempt to battle such an ancient being of near limitless power. Miri’s own sense of justice had not only doomed herself, but her allies as well. All she had left was a thin veneer of resolve, for she had made a vow to kill herself rather than be transformed into a mindless slave like the Exalted.
But just as she readied her remaining Vis for a suicidal attack to shut down her own mind, Miri heard a faint whisper coming from somewhere else. It was a different sort of thoughtwave, unlike the unrelenting malevolence of Elayris. Delving deeper into her inner senses, Miri first believed it was Rion calling out to her at first, but the mental tendrils emanating from the psychic plane indicated it had to be someone with the power of mindsense, and she was sure Rion didn’t possess such a discipline.
Miri’s head jerked up with the sudden realization as to who it was. Thalena. The young daughter of Fumal Led was dying as the last drops of her life essence were now being consumed by Elayris’s voracious appetite for all things living. The young Striga reached out to her, the little girl’s innocent eyes begging for a final deliverance. Miri could hardly believe it. Despite the onset of her final death, Thalena was somehow able to break free of Elayris’s mental stranglehold in order to form a psychic bridge of hope to her. There must be a way to turn this to one’s advantage, Miri thought. There must be!
And then it dawned on her. Fighting against Elayris directly was an impossible task, but the ancient Gorgon was still mentally tethered to the dying girl. If Miri could somehow use the bond between Elayris and her victim, she would be able to skirt around the Gorgon’s formidable defenses. Using the last of her remaining Vis, Miri extended her mental tendrils into Thalena’s weakening self, using her mindsense to develop the psychic image and form a connection, leading directly into the Gorgon’s brain.
The moment she delved into Elayris’s thoughts, she was met with a jumble of disjointed memories, all clinging to a psyche that had been warped and corrupted through the vast eons of time. Keeping her focus, Miri slipped past the impenetrable walls of the old Gorgon’s mental fortress to arrive at its pulsating nerve center. What she found made her temporarily pause in slight confusion.
Deep in her thoughts, Elayris had projected a mental simulacrum of herself as a frightened little child behind a gargantuan façade. The true power within had been driven mad by an intense desire to survive in an endless void of melancholy paranoia. Despite her frightening exterior, Elayris was even more vulnerable than the countless prey she had slain over the vast eons of her existence.
Miri reached out to her, offering a mental hand with which to comfort the terrified little child. Instead of taking her hand, the child ran up and hugged her, begging to be released. Instead of attacking her, Miri sang a soothing melody to make her sleep. It is time to leave, she thought. Come, let me show you the way, for you shall not be alone in the darkness.
The rest of Elayris’s mind suddenly came to realize something was wrong. Reacting with a force of thought that could move planets, the most ancient of Gorgons lashed out, trying desperately to find the source of its weakness. Elayris’s defenses struck in all directions, tearing through its own colossal thought shields in order to find the cause of its growing dilution of power. But by the time it had turned onto itself, the Gorgon smashed its way back into its inner recesses, only to find Miri waiting for it, in its most sacred of places.
For the first time in uncountable eons, Elayris’s yellowish eyes grew wider with the realization of an impending doom. For a brief instance it locked eyes with the corpse of the little girl lying in its arms as it delved into the aspects of its own mortality. Within moments, blood as black as oil began to seep from its mouth and nostrils, while the Gorgon’s brain began to shut itself down.
While standing over the fallen Magus, Atrexs nervously glanced over to where her mother was. The mental link between them- a bridge of thought which existed from the day she had been conceived- had suddenly dematerialized into nothingness. The Oracle began a faltering walk onto the incline, her once unassailable confidence shattered. “Mother … what has occurred? I can no longer sense you!”
The mindforce keeping her in the air had broken off, and Miri fell to the ground in a heap. She could no longer see, but her vision remained as clear as day. Getting up on her knees, she began to extend her mental state over to the boy, hoping she was not too late.
Rion opened his eyes and tilted his head forward. He was lying in a pool of his own blood, but the bleeding had stopped. He sensed the tiny machin
es in his body were slowly healing him, but it would take time, and for now he was vulnerable.
Atrexs watched in disheartenment as her mother’s body was suddenly lifted up into the air, its massive, bloated form borne aloft by some unnatural means. Elayris could only shift her eyes while staring pitifully at her daughter, her mind no longer capable of forming a coherent thought.
The Oracle turned and saw Miri at the other end of the circular slope. Screaming with rage, Atrexs morphed her hands into blades and came running towards her. With her right arm now forged into a razor sharp weapon, she thrust first into Miri’s shoulder, ripping past the leather armor, almost breaking the collarbone. Miri cried out and fell back onto the smooth flooring, her mindforce losing focus as Elayris began to float back down towards the ground.
Just as Atrexs swung her right arm blade towards the top of Miri’s skull, Zeren tackled her from behind, his bold charge pinning her to the ground. With his left hand still clutching his bleeding throat, Zeren backed away while he used his Vis to bring his broadsword over to his right hand.
Zeren swung his blade at Atrexs just as she got back up, but the Oracle blocked his attack with her left sword arm. Before he could strike a second time, Atrexs slid underneath and gored him just below his ribcage with her right blade. Zeren cried out as his knees buckled and he fell to his side.
Rion could barely move because of the pain, but a small part of him still possessed some Vis. He had realized it would be useless to fight the Oracle with the weapons they had, so he had begun to think of other ways with which to defeat her. He had a sudden remembrance about the glowing orbs of light when they had visited the realm of Xith the Keeper, and he had surmised they were some sort of machines which produced illumination. The one fragment of knowledge he had gleamed at the Great Library of Lethe was in order for light to occur, there must be some sort of heat. The librarians themselves postulated the sun was a gigantic globe of flame which burned brightly in the sky.
The Maker of Entropy Page 33