The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) (5 page)

“You ready?” Andrew asked, casting Freddie a
weak grin.

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“Good,” Freddie breathed, hoisting his pack
over his shoulders. “Then, we’ll both be equally as scared.”

They walked to the edge of the clearing and
stood at the line that divided the light from the dark. As they
neared it, shadows swirled and churned through the air, reaching
for them like ink dripped into a jar of milk.

Andrew held his sword ready. He looked behind
him at Freddie. “I’ll go first, and you stay behind me, okay?”

Before Freddie could answer, Andrew had
already stepped over the line into the land of shadow.

“Wait, Andrew!” Freddie cried, bolting after
Andrew.

The second Andrew crossed the line, he was
hit in the face with a gust of darkness. The temperature was
colder, and the air stunk like beetles. Everywhere was shrouded in
numberless concourses of shadows. They churned through the air like
black sheets that tore and tugged, and yanked. The bodies of the
parasites, mingled in shadow, flooded around him. The air was so
thick that he had to cover his face with his cape, to avoid
breathing in the shadows.

“Stay behind me, Freddie,” Andrew cried,
raising his sword and bringing it down into the mass of shadows.
The Shadows and parasites shivered and whooshed out of his way,
like a school of fish disturbed by a rock thrown into a pool.

They instantly re-formed around Freddie and
Andrew, eyeing his weapon with dingy respect. The sword’s light was
dim, too dim. It flickered uncertainly in the company of so many
shadows.

“Andrew,” Freddie murmured through clenched
teeth, “what now?”

“Just stay close to me, okay.”

“Brilliant. As if I would do otherwise.”

Andrew took a step forward, suddenly coming
to a stop before a dark shadow that loomed high above them casting
him in darkness like a threatening cloud.

Andrew brought his sword against the dark
pillar. His sword hit the unbending shadow in a flurry of sparks.
The shadow stood unmoving, absorbing the sword’s light into its
darkness, until the sword’s blade dimmed, flickered then went
out.

That instant, it felt as if the legions of
hell descended upon Andrew and Freddie, as both Shadow and the
earthy bodies of the dark parasites closed in around them.

A grubby hand of a parasite grabbed Andrew’s
leg and yanked him to the ground. The second he hit the ground,
another parasite pounced on him and jerked the sword from his
hands. A hideous feeling enveloped him as the sword left his hands.
Instantly, the shadows and parasites swarmed around him filling the
air. The light from the sky above was completely blocked out.
Screams and cackles and cries of lament filled his ears. He tried
to move, but the parasites had latched onto him like slime, binding
him to the ground. The weight of the shadows, and the pull from the
parasites was too great. It was if he was buried in the darkest
abyss. His lungs heaved, crying out for air. Where was Freddie?
Where was his sword? Was there nothing he could do? There were no
words for the intensity of the fear Andrew felt at that moment.

“Help!” Andrew managed to scream, struggling
against the shadows.

The second those words fell from his lips,
the ground rumbled, causing a few of the shadows to dart away, and
then the dirt beneath him exploded with wriggling, white
tree-roots. One of the roots snatched him and Freddie up, and cut
through the host of shadows. Before Andrew got a chance to see
anything else, the root holding him and Freddie yanked him down
into the ground, through a complex network of rooty passages that
seemed to go on forever, then expelled them back up through the
ground. The white tree root slowly released them, depositing
Andrew’s sword on the ground near their feet. Then, after checking
to make sure that the boys were safe, the tree roots slowly
slithered back into the ground as if reluctant to bid the boys
goodbye.

Andrew lay on the ground and coughed. He
slowly sat up, and stared at the place the root had deposited them.
Instead of the forest of shadows and quakies, they were on the side
of a hill, with only grass and very few trees. It was quiet and
almost peaceful.

“Freddie?” Andrew asked wiping dirt and mud
off his face. “You okay?”

Freddie coughed, and nodded. “Yeah.”

Andrew slowly stood up, and gazed over the
hill. They were on a low knoll, overlooking The Shade's forest.
Beyond that lay flat lands, hemmed by a line of beautiful red rocks
that were carved into the mountainside, like carved-out castle
walls that went on for miles.

“Where are we?” Freddie wondered, dazed.

“Just outside The Shade’s forest,” Andrew
murmured, gazing at the dark forest, and the jungly tangle they had
passed through to get there.

Freddie still looked confused. “But how is it
possible?”

Andrew stared out into the darkness, his eyes
shining. “The white tree’s roots extend much farther than I ever
imagined. It is to them we owe our thanks.”

Freddie smiled. “Guess, it always helps to
have a few trees on your side. Though, I don’t know if going by
root is the best way to travel.”

“I suppose there are worse ways.” Andrew
glanced to the spot of ground where the tree roots had slithered
back underground.

His eyes widened. He thought he could see a
dark outline of a thin, shadowy hand reaching through the dirt,
grasping at clods, trying to pull itself up and out of the
hole.

“Shadows!” Freddie cried, grabbing Andrew and
pulling him away from the hole. “They’re coming for us. Hurry,
let’s get out of here.”

The struggling hand of The Shadow grasped the
side of the earth and managed to pull itself through the opening
and onto the surface. It settled there, like a dark curtain waiting
to be drawn over the entire world. “You can never escape from
shadows,” it hissed. “We are everywhere. Behind you, to the side of
you, lurking, waiting, watching. We are in the darkest recesses of
your mind. Ready to snatch you up when you are not looking.”

Its voice was suddenly cut off as a white
tree root burst through the earth once again and snatched the
shadow, dragging it away, and plunged it back into the earth. A
heavy silence followed.

Andrew peered into the hole, and sighed in
relief. “I think it’s gone.”

“Shadows are never gone,” a nasally-sounding
voice said, from behind them.

“Croffin?” Andrew asked, turning around just
in time to see Croffin’s raccoon face staring out at him as he
walked through the tall grass.

“Surprised?” Croffin asked, grinning. He had
his little book of weeds tucked tightly to his chest. His body
looked gaunt. His fur was frazzled as if he hadn’t eaten or slept
for awhile.

“Yes,” Freddie cut in. “We haven’t seen you
for days, and then suddenly you appear. Where have you been?”

Croffin pasted on a meager grin, and
scratched a flea behind his ear. “Oh I’ve been busy.”

“Busy?” Andrew asked. “Doing what?”

“You look as if you didn’t believe me. I was
busy. Busy being stuck inside a stupid quaking aspen hollow. It
thought it wanted me for its lunch. And it was only through my
genius that I escaped.” Croffin raised himself up on his hind legs
and sniffed the air. A warm wind came up from behind and a cold
wind came in front, tossing up loose grasses and leaves and
throwing them into the air, creating a dust devil. “My, my. The
winds of the North and South blow together in the dead of night.
Andrew what have you done? I have never seen such a sight,
especially at night. Andrew I do believe you have condemned the
people of the land to a waterless, dry winter.”

“What do you mean?” Andrew questioned.

Croffin cocked his head to the side, trying
to look very wise, and sage- like, but he only succeeded in looking
more Croffin-like. “You don’t know the rhyme. When two winds blow
from the north and south, know that The Shade has thus summoned a
dusty Drought. ”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a nursery rhyme my mother used to sing
to me as a young coonling.”

“Some bedtime story to tell a child,” Freddie
breathed. “Your mother must have really been something.”

Croffin nodded. “Ah, she was. How I miss
her.”

Andrew looked at the swirling leaves the wind
had tossed into the air. “What do you mean that I have summoned The
Drought?”

Croffin shrugged. “Never mind. It’s probably
nothing. A silly story.”

“No, really. How would have I summoned such a
thing?” Croffin yawned, and stretched his furry arms. “Oh, I don’t
know. Perhaps by killing The Shade’s trees you have made him angry,
and now he’s striking back.”

“How do you know I destroyed his trees? You
weren’t there.”

“You’d be surprised how many things you can
see, and hear when stuck inside a hollow tree.”

“Oh.”

“If it’s true,” Freddie consoled, “at least
we won’t have to travel in snow.”

“Yeah,” Croffin murmured, his eyes growing
dark. “But there are worse things than being cold.”

“I agree,” Freddie said, “and it’s being a
coward.”

The Drought watched as Morack and his men departed
on their horses until they eventually vanished in a desert
mirage.

Morack had come far to release him, and for
that he was grateful. It was true Morack had asked him to leave
Danspire untouched. However, The Drought had other ideas. Droughts
never regarded a humans’ wish for leniency towards a particular
place or spot of land. Droughts did their work their way, in their
time, where they wanted, when they wanted. Few things could break
them, few things could contain them. However, The Drought was not
entirely ungrateful to Morack for releasing him. For that, The
Drought would try to constrain himself and to do what Morack asked.
At least for a while. The Shade would have wanted it that way,
since the dangerous boy was last seen in its forest. He would start
near there. Pity The Shade hadn’t done his job and killed the boy.
The Drought licked his dry lips with his dehydrated tongue, and
stretched his long unused limbs.

“I am free. FREE!” he roared, standing to his
full height, sending clouds of dust devils into the air as he
spoke. His words caused the dry desert floor to crack and shake.
His powerful voice caused the tall sand dunes to level out over the
land like ocean waves tossed by a mighty wind. Once The Drought had
regained the use of his crusty limbs, he traveled tirelessly in the
opposite direction of Danspire. He journeyed for days, taking with
him the dry wind of the desert and the heat of the sun, only
stopping when he reached his destination. Once there, he stopped
and gazed out over the land. The Drought took dry pride in doing
his job well---doing it to perfection, drying up hundreds of years
of abundant winters with one long stare from his parched eyes. This
time, his job would take longer, as he had been called to dry up
much more land than he’d ever been summoned to do in his parched
life.

The Drought stepped onto a tall ledge and
scanned the beautiful green fields that the villagers were just
starting to harvest before the last hard frost. He stared at the
land with his waterless eyes. He licked his dry lips with his
thirsty tongue and chewed on his cheek. The green pasturelands
hugged the earth like a carpet, branching out into flourishing
farmlands in every direction.

The Drought’s face was as crusty and as
parched and hard as desert-mud that had baked in the sun for
centuries. He stood there on the hill, his back bent like a
gargoyle as he soaked in the sun. Each second he stood there, the
clouds that had been billowing in the sky, moved and gradually
evaporated, until the sky was a bare-naked blue. All her white
scarf had vanished, leaving the earth fully exposed to the sun. It
wasn’t until his skin started flaking and falling from his face,
that he set his gaze on the green land before him. His gaze was
like the hot glare of a magnifying glass, bringing with it a hot
wind and billows of sand. Under his gaze, the ground around The
Drought gradually became brown, stemming out from where his feet
touched, spreading further inland until the grass withered, and
green fields not-yet harvested, went dry, and withered into dust.
Wells, rivers, lakes, streams, from least to great, dried up.

When the last blade of grass had withered and
turned to dust, The Drought let out a dry laugh and turned away
from the destruction he had caused. Fully satisfied at his work, he
disappeared into a desert mirage, continuing his path of
destruction.

Mirage

Andrew stood dangerously close to the edge of a
rocky cliff, staring out into the wilderness. Dotting the land
below him were many houses and villages, with farms that looked as
if they had been touched by The Drought’s hand. Everything was so
dry and brittle, a single spark could ignite the entire
village.

“Croffin was right, I have summoned a
Drought,” Andrew murmured, feeling the hot dry wind blow into his
face. The wind brought with it a stifling, strange smell of
smoldering, baked greens and rotten roots cooked by the sun. Every
tree, every twig, every green blade of grass, every drop of water,
every lake had been dried up. Looking at the land made his throat
dry and his eyes burn.

“Yes,” Croffin agreed. “You surely have
summoned it.”

Freddie let out a loud laugh. He stared at
Croffin, then at Andrew. “If there is a Drought, it’s not because
of Andrew. It’s because the sun is hot, and it hasn’t rained for
awhile, that’s all.”

“No,” Croffin retorted. “This is the work of
The Drought’s hand. He is a living, breathing personage that can
dry up the ocean with a single glance. It is he who soaks up the
clouds into his being, makes it so it can never rain, and causes
the earth to bake and wells to dry up. He magnifies the rays of the
sun under his withering glare. He has been released because of
Andrew. If he hadn’t destroyed The Shade’s trees, things would have
been better off. I’m sure of it.”