Entropic Quest Read online

at a pace Edeline could keep up with. The rain fell steadily but not hard as it dripped through the thick foliage around them. At Ember's insistence, Edeline cast off her shoes and found the going more comfortable in bare feet. The paths were worn smooth and kept free of rocks. Ferns grew in abundance beside them. Edeline began to notice the beauty around her a bit as her tendency to burst into tears started waning.

  "You said there were others?" she asked.

  "Oh yeah, lots of us here," Ember told her, but looking around Edeline could see no one. Ember laughed, and added,

  "Most of us stay up in the trees. Oh, there's some who live under the ground, and still others who live in the caves in the hills over that way." She waved her arm about. Edeline couldn't make out any hills. The whole place seemed utterly flat and had since the moment she'd arrived.

  "As for you being lucky," Ember went on. "It used to be when they rounded us up they sent us off to be studied. You don't want to know what happened in there. You see, they were trying to figure us out. They knew there had to be something about us, but nobody knows what it is, even now after so many years. A lot of us never came out. Many of us still bear the marks. Those so-called doctors and scientists did everything they could possibly think of and more. Cut us to pieces. No stone unturned, but nobody knows. The same with the worms."

  "The worms?" Edeline wasn't sure what Ember was talking about.

  "Sure, the worms. Look, over here. It's what reminded me of them."

  Ember stopped and stooped down to the ground where a tangle of worms had gathered in the dirt.

  "Watch this," Ember said, and plucking a stem from a plant she reached out and touched the pile of worms with the point of a leaf. Instantly, the worms disengaged from each other and flew off into the air. Edeline gasped.

  "Worms can't fly!" she stammered, but she was watching them do precisely that. Wiggling their way up they were flying and Ember pointed out their trail as they turned, like a flock of birds, and headed off in a V shaped pattern.

  "Everything like that they just stick in here," Ember snickered. "Don't understand it? Cast it away. Pretend like it just didn't happen. Like they pretend that we're not still here. They don't talk about us anymore out there, do they?"

  "Not really," Edeline said. "I mean, I knew that immortals used to go somewhere, but it's not supposed to happen anymore. It's supposed to all be in the past."

  "That's what I thought," Ember nodded. "It's what they all say, been saying for a while now, whenever a new blood arrives. They're the only ones they've ever heard of, and most of them don't even believe it. Like you."

  "I don't," Edeline agreed.

  "But you'll see," Ember said. "Give it time. And boy, do you have plenty of that! But now, here we are, it's my home. Come on up."

  Ember had stopped by a large redwood tree. The lowest branch seemed to be at least twenty feet off the ground, but notches were cut in the trunk, serving as hand-holds and foot-holds. Edeline had some trouble getting up. She was not used to climbing up trees, but she made it up to the first branch, then wondered where Ember had gone.

  "Keep climbing," Ember called down. She was seventy feet up in the tree, sitting back in a hole she had carved out for herself. Edeline worked her way up and by the time she arrived, Ember was already fashioning a dress from a vine that was growing profusely around her.

  "You'll need a lot of padding," Ember advised, "unless you want to be hanging out, if you know what I mean."

  "No thank you," Edeline said, a little embarrassed.

  "It's just a fact," Ember informed her. "You're a good looking woman and you'll stay just like this, like you have. People around here aren't shy. There's some of them gone pretty wild. You'll have to choose what you want to live like. Don't let anyone else tell you how."

  Edeline couldn't begin to imagine what her life held in store for her now. As Ember showed her how to wear the contraption (and she had to go down to the ground to change into it, for fear of losing her balance), she wanted to laugh at herself.

  "I've turned into some freak Jungle Woman," she thought. "What would my poor husband say?", and thinking of him, the tears returned to her eyes.

  "It's no use," she blurted out loud. "Until I figure this out, I'm not going to cry anymore."

  Five

  Barque was told by snake, his own pet King snake, Princess. In all the years they'd been together, this was the first time he had ever heard her talk, yet somehow her voice was not very different from how he'd always imagined it would be. Princess herself seemed ashamed, and held a look in her eyes that expressed the notion that none of this was her idea, and that the words she spoke were not her choice. Barque realized this and patted her head gently.

  "The Hidden One, you say? Aha! So she does exist! I thought so. Never believe anything anyone tells you, Princess. Take it from me and don't believe a word."

  Barque sprang to his feet from a squatting position and leaped a few times into the air, vainly trying to snatch at the leaves of the Black Walnut tree above him.

  "Adventure time!" he announced with glee, and wrapping the snake around his bare shoulders, he strode off with great speed, as if it was a matter of great urgency. It was his way. A sixteen year-old, and having been sixteen for a few decades already, Barque loved nothing more than to maximize his physical attributes. He was tall, lean, extraordinarily fit and full of far more energy than he could ever exhaust. Nothing moved fast enough for Barque, not the wind, not the swiftest bird, and certainly not the world itself. He often felt as if he could soar beyond existence if he could only find the path. He searched for it continually.

  Barque was a Striker, and it was the only thing that kept him sane. He was driven to be the best, and for a few seasons in a row now, he was. No one amassed more points. No one was more dreaded by the Saviors, who secretly banded together in futile attempts to stop him. He knew all about their weaknesses, and realized they spied on him continually, either in person or through paid agents. He trusted no one. Even his own teammates might be controlled by this illegal gang of salvation artists. It didn't bother him at all. In fact, it merely boosted the sense of challenge and his already quite overgrown pride.

  He had his followers too, some perpetual eight-year olds among them, but mostly a legion of sixteen year old girls and thirty-two year old women who competed for his attentions in a continuous carnival of temptation. Others called it 'The Barque Parade' when they saw these females lining his path when word spread of his appearance in the region. This season was yet another tour of triumph for the Striker. He had pounded home goals in every quadrant, against every competition, compiling a near perfect record. Only two times so far had his shot been thwarted, both times by his greatest nemesis, little Ember, or as he called her, 'The Dwarf'. Somehow she'd managed to spring from nowhere both times, at the very last second, to divert his ball from the goal.

  He'd sworn his revenge, but secretly admired her while considering her compatriots with contempt. All he had in this world were enemies or groupies, with the exception of Princess, of course, and he was ready for a change. He had no doubt The Hidden One had selected him, and him alone, for a mission of critical importance, because obviously she would need the strongest, the fittest, the most talented, not to mention the best-looking immortal of the bunch. It did not occur to him that any mission might not call for any such qualities. No such task could be important enough to associate itself with the legendary Hidden One, she who had not been seen or heard from for what seemed like decades. Most people said there was no such creature, it was merely a fairy tale told to pass the time, like the legend of the Green Ripper, or the story of the Lone Grizzly who still wandered the forest, somehow eluding its hundreds of inhabitants. It was true that Barque also believed in the Grizzly, having seen some impressive footprints by the shores of Lake Thor. And he would not have been surprised if he happened to encounter the Ripper in person. He still remembered metal, and blades, though it had been a very long time since he'd seen them. De
spite the sage advice he had recently given to Princess, Barque himself believed almost everything anyone told him.

  This is how he knew he must go to the Particular Tree. It was a tree unlike any other, although any casual observer would have noticed upon arrival on those parts that this forest contained nearly every variety of tree that was known to the planet. It had in fact begun as a private arboretum, the property of a famous scientific institution which had specialized in experiments of genetic variation. The forest had expanded over time until one day an accident occurred in a lab on the campus, an error which ended up swallowing the institute's buildings entirely and creating a zone of disturbance unlike anything that had ever been seen. People who ventured inside were never known to come out. From the outside there was nothing unusual, but soon it was discovered that anything that went in there stayed in. It became a sort of handy disposal, a kind of infinite landfill. Initially the trash stowed in there were results of other failed science experiments, genetic mutations gone wrong and gone wild, but eventually anything at all undesirable was consigned to the black hole they called the Canopus.

  Barque was an undesirable too. A star athlete since childhood, he'd found himself the adored quarterback and captain of the high school