The Marenon Chronicles Collection - By Jason D. Morrow Page 0,342

never to be used by a corrupted force again.

Inga let her head fall to the ground, glad to know that her friends were alive for now. Their injuries would heal in time. Some would take longer than others, and some may never fully recover. But they were alive and the Sphere was destroyed.

But what about the Red Gate? What about Silas?

*****

Silas opened his eyes with a jolt, but his vision instantly blurred as he tried to focus. Somehow, he had not been knocked unconscious by the explosion. He squinted at the sky when he thought he saw a sarian flying down to him.

His vision went black for a moment, and when he opened his eyes again, a bloody and battered Julian stood over him.

“Don’t go to sleep!”

Silas got to his knees and held himself on the ground on all fours. “Julian?”

“I saw the smoke from the distance.”

“You killed Hroth?” Silas asked still looking at the ground.

“Yes,” Julian answered. “Is that Anithistor?”

Silas nodded, looking at the scorch marks on the ground, which was all that was left of Anithistor. Beyond that was a man struggling to stay alive for as long as possible.

“Father,” Silas said as he began to crawl on his hands and knees to Will. Burns ran up and down the man’s face and arms. His clothes were ash. Even through the blisters, Will’s eyes were still able to form tears that fell down the sides of his face.

“Silas, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”

Silas placed a warm hand in his dying father’s, a gesture he had felt before with his grandfather.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Silas assured him. “You didn’t ask to be part of them. And you saved my life just now. You saved everyone.”

Will shook his head. “No, Silas. You did. You killed the master of evil. Now you have to destroy the last gate.”

He gripped his father’s hand tighter. “I very well might be joining you in a few moments.”

Will smiled. “Maybe not. I wish I could have gotten to know you, son. I wish I had…”

Silas shushed him. “There’s no time for regrets.”

“If the Red Gate takes you with it, I’ll see you on the other side. Maybe…Maybe I can still get to know you. Maybe I’ll get to know the son I’ve longed to have in my life, but Hroth never let me.” Will took a deep breath. “Maybe…I can…Maybe I can…”

With one last breath, his father was gone; delivered to the true afterlife.

Silas wiped a stray tear from his cheek, feeling that same emptiness he felt when Garland had died on Earth, then died again in Marenon. He didn’t know his father. He had never been given the chance. But that didn’t take away from the fact that Silas would miss him. He would miss the thought of him. How would life be different if the Stühocs had never captured Will?

Silas turned away from his father’s body and scanned the ground. Among a pile of ashes he saw the red medallion and picked it up. As he expected, the blast had not harmed the artifact. Only the words that created the medallion could destroy it.

He nodded at Julian and stepped forward to the Red Gate. He placed the last medallion in the slot at the bottom and streams of light began to slither into a spiral across the face of the stone wall. Eventually the two of them were able to see through to the other side, revealing a world that looked so much like Mudavé, barren and wasted. Fumes spread across the landscape and fire spewed into the air.

Silas was ready.

Closing his eyes, he said, “Osh tü lorminan, Kül vorheesh-sellan.”

Julian straightened himself as he watched the Deliverer do what he was meant to from the beginning.

“Osh tü lorminan, Kül vorheesh-sellan,” Silas said again. He braced himself mentally, knowing that saying the words again could very well mean the end of his life. But this was the fulfillment of his destiny. This was the end of The Reckoning.

“Osh tü lorminan, Kül vorheesh-sellan!”

The Red Gate crumbled to the ground just as the Blue and Green Gate had done before. The rock exploded into dust and flames, declaring to all of Mudavé that Anithistor had been defeated; declaring that the gates and medallions no longer existed.

The explosion that rocked the entire cavern nearly knocked him backward, but it wasn’t the explosion that brought him to the ground. It was his wobbly knees and weak bones. He felt as though every bit of his