Fate sat motionless at her loom as she weaved the story of Olith and its people. Her fingers glided over the threads as the shuttle danced through. In her realm, nothing moved while everything moved. Fate had no form, and yet, she appeared in an infinite variety of shapes.
“Hello, Fate,” something said to her.
She looked up from her writing and saw a black leopard sitting across from her. Her cloven hoof set the crystal rod down on the table. “Entropy. You must excuse me, I am very busy.”
The snake that was now Entropy laughed. He shook his head and said, “Do not be coy with me. It is unbecoming of you.”
“Then tell me why you are here?” she said. Fate followed this by licking one of her paws before using her to rub her forehead.
Entropy’s head jerked to one side as he strutted about Fate’s domain. Entropy, using her beak, pecked at something at her feet. The peahen that was Entropy looked back at Fate and said, “I came to talk.”
Fate’s formless mist swirled and coalesced about her realm. She tried to remember the last time Entropy came to talk. Was it yesterday? A millennium ago? Or was it next week? Time had no definition for Fate and Entropy.
Regardless, Entropy visiting Fate meant one thing: it meant to interrupt Fate’s work. Destroy it and plunge it into disorder.
A peacock strutted over to the peahen that had been pecking and scratching at the non-existent ground. The peacock nuzzled up next to the peahen and said, “So, what brings you, my dear?”
Entropy stood upright to his full height. He then pulled off the mask to reveal the rotting flesh of his face and the two glowing orbs that served as his eyes. “Olith. I have come for Olith. I have set my agent upon it and now it will slowly unravel.”
“Oh, I know you will try to stop me, but it is inevitable. Time has decreed that all things in their realm must fall.” With a snap of his fingers, the deck of cards that had been sitting on the table burst into flames. As the cards burned, Entropy laughed.
Fate’s shoulders slumped as she lowered her head. “Yes, all things must, in time, fall. Once they have run their course,” she said. She then looked up at Entropy with her bright gray-blue eyes and reached out to him. She then revealed dice in her brown hand. “But Olith has not run its course yet.” She quickly closed her hand and withdrew it.
Entropy let out a little smirk. “It matters not. Your agent only delayed me. They can not hold their form forever. When they fall, the unraveling will begin. The elves of Iliapin are but a start.”
When Fate blinked, Entropy was gone. Fate went back to her loom and sat down and pulled back her robe to reveal a little girl whose hair was the color of amber. Fate picked the little girl up and sat her on her lap.
The girl was on the verge of tears and was trembling with fear as Fate attempted to comfort her.
“Who was that scary person?” the girl asked.
“Entropy. The essence of disorder,” Fate said as she stroked the girl’s brunet hair.
“I don’t like him.”
Fate continued to stroke the little girl’s hair. “Entropy is my mirror and my mate. I both dislike him and love him. We both serve our purpose.”
Tilting the girl’s face up to her own, Fate gazed at her yellow face and brown eyes. “But you need not fear him. You may be part of me, but you are not like us. You exist differently than he and I. Like us, you are an essence, but one not governed by the universe. At least not the same way Entropy and I are.”
“You exist to guide the people of Olith away from disorder. To do so, you will inhabit a line of people. You will be able to see what is to come and even alter some events to come.”
The teenager who sat on Fate’s lap now stood. She seemed to glide as she walked around the loom and from the other side, her red hair that framed her freckled face only seemed to amplify her piercing green eyes when she looked at Fate. “So I am to face Entropy?” she asked.
“No. Sadly, you are but a pawn to deal with his pawns, his agents. But you will have allies, those who will choose to aid you. The aelves for one. I will see to that.” A reassuring smile came across Fate’s lips when she said that.
Fate reached out and took the girl’s black hand in her own. “But first, you need to know how to read my weaving and see the possibilities. Come sit here and I will show you.”
Entropy drifted aimlessly without form through the maelstrom of his realm. His essence intermixed with the chaos that surrounded him, that fed him, that was him.
Fate, Entropy’s equal, his opposite, his nemesis, his lover, had thwarted his plan to disrupt Olith and set it on a path to its destruction. His agent’s task had been simple: sow unrest and upheaval on Olith and disrupt the rhythm of Fate’s work.
“Iliapin was ripe for the fall with all of Olith to follow,” Entropy said to himself as he pulled himself into a shadowy form. “The Spring of the World is destroyed and the Lallinia are sundered. Fate’s own mis-step caused that.”
The shadow that had been Entropy was now a ball of lightning that pulsed and crackled, sending out flashes of light that were swallowed by the surrounding tempest. “Yes, and with the Spring of the World gone, you can now influence events. But you sent your agent too soon.”
A fire erupted throughout Entropy’s realm, dispersing the ball of lightning and the maelstrom, as he bellowed, “ENOUGH!”
The fire became a mist and now coalesced in what remained of Entropy’s dimension. “Yes, I should have waited, but my agent became enthralled with the sensations of being human, making themselves weak against Fate’s agent.”
Slowly, the mist drifted around as it took a roughly cylindrical shape. The lead portion of this moved back and forth, creating the illusion it was a snake. As the mist snake crawled around on nothing, bulges started forming and the front half enlarged and thickened. The bulges undulated forward and backward in rhythm as they lengthened. The mist took on the outline of a cat.
Entropy continued to walk around in this form until he halted. He arched his back before standing up on his back legs. As Entropy arose, he changed again. This time, he took on a solid form, that of a man wearing a long sleeve tunic, leggings, and a kilt. Each piece of clothing shimmered iridescently, being both all colors and black at the same time. A black painted Noh mask covered his face, creating an illusion that the head inside the hood led to a void.
Once Entropy completed his transformation, he threw his head back and laughed. His realm faded, and he soon stood in the universe with Olith in front of him. “Fate, my love, you and your agent bested me and mine this time. So much the better. For when this universe is done, and you and I can be alone, we shall spawn a new universe that will shake infinity.”
He held out his left hand, and an image of Olith appeared in it. Slowly, Entropy turned it in his hand. “First, though, I must find your pesky agent and deal with them. Time is on my side and you can not so readily produce an agent as I can.”
Entropy continued to spin the replica of Olith, faster and faster. He clenched and unclenched his right hand into a fist. Finally, he slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand, shattering the miniature world he had been holding.
He gazed at Olith. A red light emanated from the eyeholes of his mask. “You did not send an agent. Or rather, you sent your agent as an essence. One that can persist without a form of its own.” Venom dripped from his words as he spoke.
Again, he held his hand out. This time nothing appeared in it before he flipped it towards Olith, as if he was casting dust or sand towards the world. He then laid down, lounging on a sofa that was not there, his eyes now all black save for a faint green glow. Black tears streaked his mask.
In a stuttering, cracking voice, Entropy said, “What you have done, my sweet, is the purity of brilliance and beauty. I will mourn beyond eternity when the essence I have set to Olith destroys your essence.”
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The Writings of Patrick S. Smith 