The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) (42 page)

Freddie ran his fingers along the marks in his
hands. “Scars that now have purpose. Once those beasts see them,
they won’t know the difference. We all look the same all covered in
oil. They will believe me, at least long enough for you to
escape.”

“I won’t let you Freddie. Once they find out
you’re not me, they’ll torture you. They’ll try to get you tell
what you know. I won’t let that happen, Freddie. I’ll die first. Do
you think I value our friendship so little?”

Freddie’s face grew serious. His eyes were
wide and his voice shook with emotion. “Andrew, you have always
known your purpose. Now I finally know mine. I don’t care what they
do to me.”

“NO!” Andrew shouted, shoving Freddie away
from him. “I won’t let you or anyone else die because of me. Now,
let me go, Freddie.”

“What’s going on down there?” The Codes
snapped. “Hurry up and decide before we come down there and decide
for you!”

A deadly silence followed. Andrew’s gaze went
from Freddie, to Ivory then to Croffin. He set his jaw, his eyes
filling with resolve. “I’m leaving. That’s the end of it!
Goodbye.”

“Why do you have to be so stubborn!” Freddie
barked, grabbing Andrew and throwing him down. Before Andrew could
get up, Freddie landed on top of him, pinning him against the
ground. Coal tumbled and rolled, shifting and spilling in around
Andrew.

“Get off me!” Andrew growled, struggling
against his friend.

“No!” Freddie pressed Andrew’s face into a
mound of coal. “I won’t. I’ve always been heavier than you Andrew.
You’re not going to get me off of you, unless you let me decide to
do the brave thing for once.”

Andrew heaved in anger, struggling harder
“No! Freddie. Never! Freddie get off me or so help me I’ll…”

“You’ll what? Turn me into a tree? Then what?
A lot of good that will do.”

Andrew smiled weakly. “Don’t give me ideas. I
just might consider it. Now let me go!”

Freddie pressed him harder, squeezing his
throat. “No, Andrew. I can’t do that.”

Andrew squirmed, and grunted heaving against
Freddie’s weight. “Ivory,” he called. “Get Freddie off me.
Now!”

Ivory loomed over them, her eyes wide. Her
lower lip trembled. But she spoke not a word.

“Ivory!” Andrew shouted.

Ivory remained silent, her eyes gleaming in
the darkness.

Andrew pushed against Freddie, crying out in
anger. “I can’t believe this. Croffin, you are the only one left.
Now talk some sense into them. Freddie’s idea is terrible. Awful. I
won’t let him do it!”

“That’s not your decision anymore,” Freddie
cried. “It’s mine to make. Not yours.”

“Freddie, I warn you. If I have to use my
sword and fight you, I will.”

“No!” Freddie shouted, pressing Andrew down.
“You have always been like a blood-brother to me. Now let me do
this last thing. Andrew we will all die in some way, sooner or
later, and this is the way I choose.” He gazed at Andrew with sad
eyes and brought the sword’s handle down against Andrew’s head,
with a sickening thud.

Pain shot through Andrew’s skull. He groaned,
his vision blurring. He stopped struggling and slowly felt himself
slipping into unconsciousness.

Freddie backed away from Andrew’s limp body,
his eyes filling with horror at what he’d just done.

“What’s going on down there!” the Codes
chanted, staring down into the dark pit, seeing Freddie’s outline
as he stood up. “The boy! The boy! Give yourself up, and your
friends will go free, free!”

Freddie turned to Ivory, his eyes pleading
for understanding. He moved his lips to speak, but no words came
out.

“It is time!” the Codes chanted. “Give
yourself up!”

Andrew groaned and tried to move, but Freddie
was too quick. He whacked Andrew once more.

Thud.

Andrew fell back down, completely
unconscious.

“Goodbye,” he whispered, slowly trudging up
the crumbly coal pit with raised arms. “I’m the one you seek. I’m
the boy.”

When Freddie was within a few feet of the
Codes, they pounced on him like vultures. “Check him. Check his
hands. Does he bear the mark?”

They held Freddie’s arms outstretched and
pried his palms open. “The mark!” they cried. “It is he! Take him,
take him! The sword, where is the sword?”

Freddie quickly produced his own battered
sword.

“The sword!” The Codes chanted, shrinking.
“The sword. It is dark. What is wrong with it? Why does it not bear
light?”

Freddie tossed it onto the ground. “Take it.
It is powerless here. There is no one to keep it alive. Men’s
hearts have grown too dark to light its blade.”

“Yes,” the Codes cackled. “That is true.
True. There is no more light. All will soon be dark.” They quickly
snatched up Freddie’s sword, screeching and howling like moonstruck
wolves. “Yes. We have him. WE HAVE THE BOY. WE HAVE THE SWORD. Yet,
we are in need of someone else. Get the girl, yes. Take her too.
Leave the others. Just the girl. We must be certain that the boy
will not run away. ”

The Codes swarmed into the pit, cackling and
snapping. Ivory screamed as they brought her up, and thrust her
next to Freddie.

Freddie struggled against the Codes. His face
filled with anger. “You said you’d let the others go free.”

“Yes,” one of the Codes breathed. “We did say
that. Now we will unsay it. The girl comes too!”

“No!” Freddie roared, puling against the
Code’s strong grip. “Let her go!”

The morning was fresh, and chilly. The clouds that
had gathered during the night had dissipated. The sky was blue as
if it too was shivering. The sun shone down on the thick frost,
causing the ground to shine like garlands of crystals sprinkled
over it.

The ancient land that had felt old and wise
during the evening still felt ancient in the daytime. Gogindy had
somehow concluded that the land would have felt new in the
morning.

But old things are still old even in the
morning. The land yawned, and groaned, and heaved like an old
horse. Its joints were old, and its dirt was thick and hard. It
seemed reluctant to get out of bed, afraid of the thick frost that
had covered it during its slumber.

Its unshaven scruffy gray grasses protruded
in thick clumps around decaying buildings, piles of brick, and
random pillars that stood alone with nothing to hold up but the
sky. Piles of soggy leaves hugged the edges of these broken stone
structures as if trying to keep them from falling down
altogether.

Gogindy trudged through this ancient place,
wondering what it had once looked like when the city had been new
and the road well-traveled and busy. What kind of people had once
lived there? Why had the city crumbled to pieces? He imagined
children greeting him, laughing at his whiskers and offering him
candy. But the thought quickly vanished as a cold wind blew through
the land, tossing away his warm imaginings, replacing them with
chilly thoughts. He sighed, and sniffed, stark reality blowing him
in the face. Yes. The city was dead. The houses were nothing but
piles of brick and stone---they were now just homes for snakes and
beetles. No children were coming to meet him. Where he was going
probably wasn’t as grand as he’d first supposed. No one would be
there to watch him wake the bell---to ring it. He would have to do
it alone. His eyes filled with tears at the thought. Alone. How
awful. To do, and be something so incredibly important, and have no
one to see or know of it. How would anyone know he was not the same
silly Twisker as before? Things would never change. The more he
thought about it, the more depressed he became.

“Rude wind,” he grumbled. “If it was up to
me, I’d outlaw wind altogether. It’s nosey, and does not respect
anyone. Such a vile thing should be locked in a cage and never let
out.”

When he said those words, a distant memory of
the time he and his friends had been put in the prisons of Morack
flooded his mind. The terrible cramped feeling that he had then,
washed over him. He stopped, and gracefully tipped his head at the
wind. “Pardon my rudeness. I don’t suppose anything should be
locked up altogether. I do enjoy a gentle breeze some of the time.
I do think a free thing, such as the wind is, would die in a
cramped, airless space. And that would make me very sad. And come
to think of it, you wind, are much like myself. Free, and nosey,
and a bit of a pest. So I guess I shan’t judge you so harshly. We
are brothers, you and me. You, a wind, and me, a whisker. You blow,
and I sway. I suppose it would be fun to blow whiskers around. If I
was you, I’d probably do it more often, and never stop.”

He smiled, and went on, somehow coming to
terms with the chilly breeze. He moved through the city, hearing
strange voices, but feeling unsure if they were voices inside his
own head, or something real. The further into this ancient city he
traveled, the stranger he began to feel. His heart beat wildly. His
hands trembled. His heart swelled with an emotion that he could not
explain. He was overcome with a great desire to keep moving. He
scrambled through the city, peering into every open door, sniffing
and then moving onward, following a scent of something he could not
describe nor see, nor touch, only feel. It called to him like water
calls to a dry throat, like apples cry to be plucked, like a baby
longs to be rocked. It was urgent, incessant, pleading.

“Where are you!” he screamed, feeling his
head spin with insanity. “I cannot find you!”

A strange, subtle creaking of an old door
nearly falling off its hinge, caught his attention. It swayed with
the wind, as if beckoning him through to the other side. Gogindy
took a careful step towards the door. His ears, nose and fingers
began to tingle and itch. His eyes widened. He did not know what
this meant. Further he went, until he found himself through the
swinging door, and on the other side, perched the side of a hill.
He opened his mouth and gasped. His heart pattered against his
chest. The tips of his fingers tingled and buzzed.

There it was. The bell. About five miles away
from where he stood was the tower, surrounded in a circle on all
sides by the ancient hills keeping it safe from prying eyes,
totally protected and situated in the heart of the ancient city
itself. That was the secret the land held. And it held it well.

On the top of the tower, Gogindy could see
the outline of the legendary bell. Yet it did not look like he had
expected. In the light of day he had thought the bell would have
shone and glistened. But it did not gleam. Nor did it shine. It
looked dull and lifeless. It stood planted atop the tall tower
looking very old and wise, as if it were weary of its stationary
spot. Its silvery sheen had been tarnished by time, like a diamond
once polished and cut, then thrown back into the dirt and bonded to
its old prison and hidden in layers of black coal.

It looked like the bell had never been rung.
Nor did it look like it wanted to be. It looked stern, unmoving,
rusty, and ugly. Its voice forever frozen.

As Gogindy looked at it, his heart filled
with the oldest of fears. Fear of failure. He had thought the bell
would be agile, unweathered unfettered, ready to be rung. He had
thought it had been waiting for him to ring it.

It did not look ready. And somehow he did not
feel ready either. Why didn’t anyone tell him to bring a host of
donkeys carrying barrels of oil to dump over its rusty metal?

“There it is,” Gogindy breathed, unsure, yet
excited at the same time. “The bell of Conroy. And you’re going to
ring that ugly hunk of metal. Yes, you are! I did not think I would
find it. But there it is. And so tall, too. I did not think it
would be so lofty. I don’t like heights. I don’t like towers. Don’t
like…oh quit your complaining. I’m getting sick of it. Shut up,” he
told himself. “You sound ridiculous.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do. So keep your thoughts where
they belong. In your small little head.”

“But I don’t like the sound of silence.”

“I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Why would I bluff myself? I made an oath to
be very honest and brave.”

“I know, but you didn’t promise anyone that
you wouldn’t talk to yourself.”

“You’re right. I’m right. I didn’t. Did
I?”

He laughed out loud and looked quite pleased
that he had resolved his inward conflict.

“You’re such a peacemaker,” he complimented
himself. “You don’t know how much I amaze me. And look, you led
yourself to the tower, without a map. You are a clever Twisker.
Very clever indeed.”

He thumped his hand on his chest as if
thanking his heart for taking him where he needed to go. His nose
twitched, his ears trembled. He could smell the bell now, like a
mouse smells a piece of cheese.