The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) (55 page)

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “Really? I see
nothing we have in common. You are my exact opposite. You absorb
light. While I seek to give it away.”

“Don’t you see? We are more alike than you
realize,” The Fallen said, his voice growing smooth and silky. “You
want peace, I want peace. I love light. You love light. And last
but not least, you, YES YOU, ANDREW---have both light and shadow
mixed inside yourself, just like me.”

Andrew’s face flooded with shame as guilt
washed over him. The Fallen’s eyes filled with delight. “Yes, do
not deny it. You have many dark things inside yourself, as do all
men. And not planted by me. But by yourself. Doubt mixed with fear.
Selfishness was planted in your being long before you ever read the
words from the poisoned book I tempted you to read. You profess to
be a bearer of light, yet you are just as diluted as I. Your
darkest thought, the thoughtless act, the unkind word, the selfish
deed---these, yes all these---and more have fueled the darkness I
radiate. You have given me power, and you did not even know it. You
have served me more than once, Andrew, you who pretend to serve
light. Why do you think I so easily beguiled you when you first saw
me? Come and worship me like the lowly shadow you are. Ha, ha,
HAAA!”

Andrew stood before The Fallen, condemned,
tried, and judged by the master of darkness. The Fallen spoke true,
though he was the Lord of lies.

Andrew knew he had, at times, been selfish.
He hadn’t always acted right. Even now, doubt and fear clouded his
mind. It came even without him asking for it. Perhaps it was in his
fallen nature, man’s weak ways. But there was something else,
something far more powerful that reached out through the darkness,
speaking to him of a birthright that he bore, of something that
transcended all else. The Fallen had mixed truth with a lie.

The Fallen was not his master. Yes, he had at
times, faltered. Yes, he had been tempted. But he turned back to
the light every time. He knew which master he had served, and so
did The Fallen. He had not yet bowed the knee to the darkness. He
had not yet given in. Yes, both light and darkness battled in his
heart every day. But it was the light that came through every time.
Andrew’s face gleamed with light as he looked from The Fallen to
the sword he carried. He was a vessel of light, a bearer of truth.
The Fallen was a vessel of Darkness, and a bearer of deception.

“I will not bow before you!” Andrew shouted,
so loudly that his voice echoed through the room, cutting back a
curtain of shadows that hovered around him.

“Your lies mean nothing to me. I know which
master I serve. And IT IS NOT YOU!”

The Fallen cocked his head. He licked his
lips, as if tasting the shadows accumulating like a great beard
around his mouth. “Don’t be silly, Andrew. I have always been your
master. And I always will be.”

“No!” Andrew shook his head, and took a bold
step towards The Fallen. “You are master of shadows and keeper of
lies. I am the bearer of light, wielder of truth. And I shall cut
you asunder!” As Andrew spoke those words his skin began to shine.
His eyes filled with light. He held the sword high, like a mighty
beam growing bright from the strength within his own heart.

The Fallen took a step back in fear. “Aren’t
you forgetting something? I have something you want.”

Andrew shook his head. “You don’t have
anything I want.”

“Oh, but I do!” The Fallen pulled back his
thick cloak so that Andrew could see Orion’s belt strapped around
his solid, gleaming torso. The room, though already filled with
light, lit up in a flash as The Fallen revealed this new
treasure.

Andrew stepped back, blinded for one moment
by what he saw. The belt was magnificent. It looked like it was
woven of small strands of sunlight, and water that reflected its
own inner light. It flowed around The Fallen’s waist, laced into
thick bands, etched with foreign writing. Embedded into the belt
were three glowing orbs that shone and sparkled like celestial
souls given stars for bodies.

The Fallen smiled, pleased at Andrew’s
stunned reaction. “Yes, you do want this, don’t you?” He rubbed his
dark fingers over the belt. He breathed deeply as if inhaling the
light that the stars on his belt gave off. In that breath, The
Fallen’s dimming countenance gradually became as bright as when
Andrew had first seen him. But the stars on Orion’s belt dimmed
considerably.

“Don’t look so disturbed,” The Fallen said,
offering Andrew an oily smile. “These trinkets,” he motioned to his
the stolen belt, and the other weapons he wore, “are nothing. Once
I have used up their power, I will find more. The stars, the sun,
the moon; I will drink of their light as well.”

“And once they are gone,” Andrew said, “you
will still be hungry. What will satisfy you then?”

“Ah,” The Fallen said, holding up a shining
finger. “I am not as bad as you think. You see. I will not utterly
destroy the human race. We both need each other too much, in order
to survive. They need my shadows, and lies to keep them alive, and
I need their spark of light. For there exists in every human a
spark of light powerful enough to give me what I need. Yes, even
those who feed off my lies still have a smoldering spark inside
their shadowy souls. It is their dismal spark I will feed off of
forever. Even a small flicker will keep me well-fed. It matters not
where it comes from, as long as it is light.

After I take care of you, Andrew, the stars
will go first, as they have the most potential to give off the kind
of light I need. Then your sun. And then the moon, as you call it.
After that, when I crave more, my slaves will not object to me
borrowing their spark of life. They mean nothing, as they are
nothing but cogs in a wheel that can be easily replaced and
replicated to feed me.” At The Fallen’s words, thousands of sticky,
oily sheets of shadows were breathed out over the room smothering
the candlelight.

Andrew felt the darkness of The Fallen seep
around the room, even though the room was still filled with light.
The darkness tugged at him, pressed him on all sides, threatening
to crush him. How was it that light of the rising sun dared to show
its face in this room?

“Surprised?” The Fallen asked. “I am darkness
after all. It has been my plan all along to devour and keep
devouring. You, Andrew, will be the first spark of human light I
wish to feed upon. For you are one of the brightest. A spark is
bright or dim according to the way a person has lived his life.
You, Andrew, I admit, have lived very well.”

Andrew stepped back. The Fallen’s gaze drove
fear into his soul like a sharp nail.

“Yes, Andrew,” The Fallen said, gazing at
Andrew fiercely. “In you exists a flame, a brilliant light that I
wish to take for my own. Once I saw that you would not die, I
decided to let you live if only for this moment. Your mother’s
mother, a Star, even the great Delphinus, stamped her mark in your
hand, giving you a greater potential for light greater light than
all the people of the earth combined. And you have lived up to that
potential. Even now I can feel it. This burning ember that you have
nourished by your unwillingness to bend. And I want it, Andrew. I
want your light. I’m a very hungry being. Hungry to take the powers
of the world in my hands. Hungry to crush the words you have
released into the world. Even now they are being crushed and
silenced, one by one. Once you are gone, there will be nothing left
to stop me.”

“Even after I am gone,” Andrew cried, “there
will be more like me. Your darkness will fan the dimming embers,
and turn the flickering sparks into brilliant fires.”“Good!” The
Fallen roared. “Then I will feed off them. Just as I will feed off
you.

Andrew held his sword in front of him, a beam
of pure light in the face of the mingled light that pranced
arrogantly around him.

The Fallen stared at him, his countenance
full of scorn. “You dare hold that beam of light before me? You
shattered gleam! You sputtering spark! I’m not afraid of that
sword. The power it holds is nothing!”

“Stay away!” Andrew warned, probing his sword
at The Fallen. “You are the sputtering spark! Your light has
already gone out. You are like a corpse clinging onto someone
else’s heartbeat. As long as there are people left alive on earth,
with light inside them, you will always have reason to be afraid.
For all true light is good. Your light is not light at all. Your
light is borrowed. One can only live on borrowed light for so
long.”

The Fallen’s being quivered in wrath. “I have
thrived and lived, thus far. And I will continue to live on
borrowed light forever! My generous donors will see to
that---indefinitely.”

Andrew gazed at the desperate, grasping,
leeching, figure before him, in total revulsion. “When light is
mixed with darkness all there is, is shadow.”

“YES! Shadow. What a wondrous thought. Under
my reign, it will be continual evening, and all will be flat and
colorless before me! No one will be greater than I!” As the words
escaped The Fallen’s mouth a great cloud of darkness was expelled
from his lips. The darkness blew through the room, extinguishing
every candle and every item of light that surrounded him. The
Fallen laughed, and let his cloak cover the belt of Orion so that
the room around them grew blacker than any place Andrew had ever
been in. All that Andrew could see was the glowing figure of The
Fallen and his many reflections in the mirrored floors which
reached out trying to pull him in.

Terror and fear tugged at Andrew, swirled
around him, tried to cling to him like a black past that he could
never scrub off.

“You see, Andrew,” The Fallen breathed. “I
can be the best of both words. Both light, and dark. Can you still
see me? But then, wait…now you don’t.” The Fallen seemed to fade
into the darkness becoming one with it, so that the only light
emanating from the room was from Andrew’s own skin. It shone like a
glimmering star under a shroud of fog. He held his hand in front of
his eyes, startled by the strange phenomenon.

“How dare you shine under my darkness!” The
Fallen’s voice murmured leaching the room of every trace of light,
except for Andrew himself. Even Andrew’s own glowing reflection in
the floor tiles was absorbed by the Fallen. “But then again, you
are half star.”

Andrew scanned the room for the dark speaker.
He held his sword in front of him, feeling the utter blackness of
the room prick his skin like probing needles trying to dig their
way in.

“Your time is fading, Andrew,” The Fallen’s
voice breathed behind him, almost in his ear. “A new day dawns.
Give me your light, and I will use it well.”

Andrew spun around, slicing his sword through
the air. The light from the sword was nothing compared to the
brilliant sheen it had once held. Now, it only held in it, his own
courage. It seemed flimsy in the face of such a foe. Like holding a
butter knife to a tree the size of a mountain. Though the sword did
not light up the room, it gave off enough pure light to see The
Fallen’s form looming before him. In this dim light, The Fallen
looked like a hole that had arms and mouth, arms legs and eyes, all
outlined by a silvery sheen that came off his skin, hungry and
grasping. “You will worship me! The Fallen howled. “You will kneel
before my power! You will bend before my might. You will worship my
LIGHT!”

Andrew stepped back, holding his sword in
front of him. He could feel the heavy weight of the darkness coming
off The Fallen, pushing on him, like thick water rushing in trying
to crush him, causing his knees to buckle and his body to
shake.

“NO!” he cried, breaking away from the chains
of darkness that threatened to bind him body and soul. “I will not
bend! I WILL NOT!” His skin glimmered brighter in the darkness,
like sparkling stars on a dark night. His eyes shone. His lips were
pressed together in defiance.

The Fallen’s dark face filled with surprise.
“If you will not bend, then I will break you to pieces!” The Fallen
reached out to grab Andrew, his long fingers grasping like the dark
jagged spaces in a ripped cloth.

Andrew cried out, and brought his sword down
into the vortex’s outstretched belly. The edge of the blade
suddenly vanished, absorbed into the being of The Fallen as if it
had been dipped into thick, black water. That instant, the room
shook. A howling laugh filled the air, rushed through every space
of the room like a sucking vacuum. “Ha, ha, ha, ha,
haaaaaaaaaaa!”

Andrew’s eyes filled with horror. His mind
whirled. The rippling laughter of The Fallen was arrogant,
prideful, full of hate, and cruelty. It pushed in around him,
hammering him from all directions.

Without warning, The Fallen jerked the sword
out of his chest and blew Andrew against the wall with the strength
of an angry tsunami. “What did you think would happen?” The Fallen
thundered. “Did you actually think that you alone could defeat me?
You are more deranged than dangerous. Oh, I feared you once. But
that was just for a moment, until I realized that my grip on the
world reached farther than your unleashed words ever could. Just as
the night devours the sun with darkness, my time is at hand. And
yours is ending. An age of mingled light is at hand. The NEW SUN is
rising!” He held Andrew’s sword up high, the blade mirroring the
darkness of The Fallen’s power. It dripped with darkness, emanating
the burning endless hunger The Fallen felt. His whole body filled
with a terrible twisted light, flowing like shafts of silver water.
Like a magnet, the sword drew shadows into the room like a terrible
black wind, howling as they rushed through the windows, forming a
black cloud over the being’s head.

“Ahhhhh!” The Fallen breathed in, sucking in
every ounce of the black cloud, becoming taller and more terrible
looking than ever. Far off, Andrew heard the rumble of thunder, the
howl of wolves, and the thunderous cry of legions of The Fallen’s
armies. Andrew thought he could see a brave ray of light trying to
shine through the window peering behind The Fallen. But it was just
a solitary gleam, just like him, not strong enough by itself.