The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) (67 page)

“And just as easily can be taken away,” The
Fallen cried. “Your army will soon be dead, and with it, the power
inside the sword. I’m not afraid of you or your sword.”

Andrew took a bold step towards The Fallen.
“But you’re afraid of something. I can see it in your eyes. I do
believe that it is you who are really afraid of the dark. You’re
afraid of what you have become. Otherwise, you wouldn’t cling to
the light of others, grasping at it like you do. You’re afraid that
once all the light is gone, you will cease to exist.”

The Fallen laughed, expelling a surging mass
of shadows and light from his nostrils. “Afraid? I created fear. I
gave it life, gave it meaning. The creator can not be afraid of his
own creation!” The Fallen let out thunderous roar, causing the
tower to tremble and crack. Light and darkness surged around them,
swirling and curling in billowy gusts.

“Master!” Talic’s eyes filled with alarm. He
screeched, and howled, looking at Freddie and Andrew with wide,
dark eyes that were filled with only loyalty for The Fallen, and
hatred for them.

Below them, Andrew could hear metal hitting
against metal and men crying out as light battled with darkness,
holding back the tide. The smell of sulfur filled the air, mixed
with the smell of darkness. It was a stale, lingering smell, like a
room that had been sealed shut for years. It smelled used up,
heavy, and filled with the stench of a thousand polluted
thoughts.

“Talic,” Freddie said waking him from his
hypnotic trance that The Fallen had cast over him. “It’s okay.
Come!” He bent down and stretching out his arms in friendship to
his confused friend. “Talic, come back to us.”

Talic’s eyes filled with a wild, red glow. He
hissed, and clung to The Fallen’s glowing robes, sneering at them
with raised lips, his jagged teeth showing---his mouth frothing
with foam. He snuggled up to The Fallen, like a chick hiding
beneath the black feathers of a mother hen. The Fallen turned his
shining lips into a victorious smile, watching Andrew’s dismayed
countenance with satisfaction. “You see,” The Fallen breathed,
bending down and patting Talic on the head, and scratching him
behind the ears. “Everyone fears me as you do. Some even love
me.”

“Love?” Andrew retorted. “That isn’t love. He
is merely dazzled by your deception, held captive like a moth to a
light.”

“Ah,” The Fallen said, his voice filled with
venom. “Your friend here seems to have more sense than you do. He
has accepted his new master. And in return I have taken care of
him.”

“You care for no one but yourself,” Freddie
lashed out.

The Fallen’s face gleamed in anger, his eyes
settling on Freddie. “On the contrary. I care for those who care
for me. That is…until they are no longer useful.”

“Get away from him, Talic. Run, Talic, run!”
Freddie cried, bending down and waving a piece of black bread at
him. “I have food. Look!”

Talic’s eyes suddenly lit up as he saw the
morsel Freddie held. Without hesitating, he ran towards Freddie,
his fingers outstretched, his whiskery frame trembling.

“Stay back,” The Fallen cried, throwing out a
long lash of darkness. The darkness wove itself into a chain-like
cord, wrapping around Talic’s right foot, yanking him back. “He is
mine!”

Talic squealed, and let out a pain-filled
cry, struggling against the chain.

“Let him go,” Andrew commanded. He stepped
towards the churning, swirling orb of light, the creator of fear
itself, yet he was unafraid. The sword in his hands cast out the
fear, filling his body with light.

The Fallen’s eyes burned with wrath. Darkness
flowed around them, boiling and bubbling, mixing together with
light, creating shafts of gray.

“Stay your sword!” The Fallen warned, holding
aloft his hand. “This is as close as I will ever allow you to ever
get to me.” He laughed and unfurled a dark sheet, unveiling two
figures that had been hidden in the mists of darkness behind him.
As the vapor settled, Andrew could see Ivory standing alone beside
Croffin. Both were chained to The Fallen, fettered in darkness to
the creature Andrew so loathed. Ivory’s face and skin were covered
in dark silt and grime. Her skin glowed, making her look radiant
and beautiful though her dress was torn and her hair hung down her
face in black, oily knots. Her eyes were filled with light, and her
face lit up even more when she saw Andrew and Freddie standing
there.

Croffin’s also looked different. His fur was
matted and dirty, but he had a warm glow about him. Indeed, he did
not look like the same self-centered coon he had once been.

“Andrew!” Ivory cried, stretching out her
hands towards him.

“Ivory?” Andrew called, aghast.

“Yes, Ivory,” The Fallen growled. He yanked
her to her knees and ran his fingers through her ragged hair. “She
is such a bright creature. It would be a shame if I had to take
that away from her…” He moved his finger from her hair down to her
neck, holding it in a tight grip. “I could breathe out her life in
an instant, like blowing out a candle.” He paused, glancing at
Andrew with a cruel smile.

The Fallen moved around Freddie and Andrew,
shrouding Andrew’s view of Croffin and Ivory, his oily cloak
leaving a dark residue on the ground around him like a festering
slug. Talic cowered in The Fallen’s shadow, shivering, and moaning.
“You see, Andrew,” The Fallen prophesied, “you can’t win.”

Andrew stood transfixed in place. He looked
from Freddie, then to the army of light battling below them. He
knew that those brilliant souls fighting were not just ordinary
people. For ordinary had ceased to be, in this time of darkness.
One could not simply be gray, just as one could not simply be
passive anymore. The darkness had summoned them, defining who and
what they were, demanding an accounting of what they were made of,
and which master they truly served. The only gray area that still
existed was a realm in itself, where one joined with the shadows
and worshippers of darkness.

For those who held hope and light in their
hearts, there were only two choices---light or dark. If one was
diluted or mixed, they would have not had enough conviction to
venture fourth. They were now the stars that had ceased to be, now
illuminating not the sky, but the ground.

A thousand thoughts rushed into Andrew’s mind
at once. Despair, anger, rage, hope, fear, frustration. He had seen
the pain in Ivory’s eyes. He had seen fear in Croffin’s trembling
figure. He could hear the sound of Talic’s frustrated cries. He
could feel the strength of those who battled below him, their
courage surging through his sword begging him to action. He could
not abandon them. Nor could he condemn his friends to death. How
was he to choose? What was he to do? Were his friend’s lives less
than those who battled below him? Was the total greater than these
individuals he cared for? Many lives now depended on him. But did
that mean he was suppose to sacrifice the lives of his friends for
the greater good? Were their lives less important than the
many?

He set his jaw, and shook his head. No. He
could not let his friends die. Nor would he forsake those who
battled in the behalf of light and good. He had to believe that
there was a better way. Hope spoke to him of a third choice, The
Fallen could never understand. Every ounce of strength that shone
in his blade counted---this was the great truth The Fallen had
always disregarded. The power of one, of the individual---a power
that was stronger than The Fallen himself. No. He would not forsake
anyone. He would fight. It was time. The Fallen was afraid of him.
Knowing this was enough.

“I warned you!” The Fallen eyed Andrew’s
defiant face with careful scrutiny, then yanked Ivory and Croffin
to him, pressing them close as if ready to suck their light into
his own being.

Andrew tightened his grip on his sword,
making his choice. He let out an angry cry. Raising his sword, he
ran through the dark mist towards his friends. The light from his
sword cut through the dark curtain of The Fallen, illuminating
Ivory and Croffin in a startling glow. The Fallen shrunk back as if
startled by Andrew’s sudden boldness. Without hesitating, Andrew
brought his sword down on the darkened chains that bound his
friends. The chains broke in a flash of shattered light. He turned
around looking for Talic. But saw only The Fallen looming over
Freddie.

“Freddie!” Andrew cried, putting himself in
front of his friend as The Fallen breathed out a wave of heat and
ice over him.

“What can a mere lamp do against a volcano of
blackness!” The Fallen roared, sending another blast over
Andrew.

Andrew held his sword above him, deflecting
the blast of ice and heat. “The only thing lamps can do!
Shine.”

“Shine?” The Fallen roared so loud that the
earth trembled and cracks opened up in the tower floor. “You’ll
need to do a lot more than that to defeat me.” He drew out a long,
black whip from the darkness, and snapped it over Andrew’s sword,
causing the ground to shake, and the earth to rumble, sending bits
and pieces of fractured light and darkness swirling in every
direction. The Fallen surged with anger. Billows of dark clouds
rolled off him like smoke from a demon’s chimney.

Andrew stood in front of his friends,
catching the whip with his blade as it lashed down upon them. The
whip snapped back, its tip fracturing against the light of the
sword, in a loud resounding crack, causing a thousand pieces of
light to spill around them like tinkling glass.

The Fallen churned and rolled, his
countenance dimming with each angry gust of air he breathed in.
“You will feel my power!” he roared, reaching out into the
darkness, twisting a thousand thick strands of darkness together in
one long, thick, powerful whip, more terrible and lengthy than the
first. “You will worship me once and for all, and bow to my great
unending power. No one can stand against me and live!” An echoing
rumble resounded through the darkness as he brought the dark whip
down over Andrew. A loud, resounding snap vibrated through the air
as the whip and the sword clashed in a terrifying explosion of
light and sparks. Fire and ice rained down over Andrew in a surging
gust.

The Fallen lifted the coil of twisted
darkness and lashed it against Andrew once more, with such force
and strength, that it split and cracked the beam of light emanating
from the sword, sending little splinters of darkness ripping
through it like a thousand black snakes, wrapping itself around the
sword, smothering its brightness.

Andrew cried out in pain as the great force
of darkness hammered against him.

“Ha, ha, ha!” The Fallen’s powerful voice
rang out, as his darkness swirled around Andrew, sticky as caramel
trying to bond itself to whatever it touched. Andrew tried to
retreat from the darkness, but it would not let him go. He felt
entangled in a web of darkness so strong that even his sword could
not penetrate it.

The Fallen reached out and pulled the sticky
coil of darkness to him, yanking the sword away from Andrew’s
hands.

“No!” Andrew faltered, falling to his knees
as the sword was torn from his fingers, and clattered to the
ground, far out of his reach. He gasped, and fell, feeling just as
much pain as if someone had ripped his hand off.

“You are nothing,” The Fallen roared,
snapping the dark whip against Andrew’s back. The black tentacles
of the whip pressed against Andrew’s chest, squeezing him. The
pressure from the dark coil encompassed him on all sides. He
reached out for the sword in desperation, gasping in pain. He could
feel the strength of the sword ebbing out of him as though he had
been unplugged from life itself. His right arm went lifeless and as
numb as it had been before. The pain from his old wounds The Fallen
had given him returned. He felt as if he had been immortal, without
fear, strong, powerful, only now to be struck down and thrust into
a broken body. He cried in frustration and pain, feeling the
strength of the thousand shining souls he represented slowly ebb
out of him. He had foolishly thought the sword had healed him.

But no. The strength that had renewed him was
not his own.

He reached through the coil of darkness, for
the sword, but it was too far away. His mind whirled, his head
swam.

The Fallen loomed over him, basking in his
victory. “It seems you are not the only one living on borrowed
light!” The eyes of his enemy glistened with a dark light. Every
shadow that had encompassed The Fallen stood still. Just as The
Fallen reached out to take hold of the sword, Croffin darted out of
the shadows below The Fallen, snatching the sword out his
reach.

“Ha, ha!” Croffin howled out. “Too fast for
you, you overgrown shadow bottom, haha!” He scurried over to
Andrew, and dropped the sword at his feet. “Here, Andrew,” Croffin
panted, looking at Andrew with eyes filled with remorse and
humility. He placed Andrew’s hand on the sword, and patted it. “I
am sorry for all the hurt I have caused you. For all the bad words
I said, and read,” he whispered. “I hope you will remember
that.”

“I will devour you!” The Fallen roared,
catching Croffin with a long coil of shadows, yanking Croffin
back.

"Please..." Croffin howled as The Fallen
dangled him above his dark folds. “No! Noooo!” His howls were
suddenly cut off as The Fallen devoured the creature in a puff of
black vapor.

“Croffin!” Andrew called, his voice catching
as he wrapped his fingers around the sword. New life instantly
flowed through his body, like a fish put back into water, like a
bird given wings. He rose to his feet and faced his enemy. Andrew
could once again feel the power in the sword. More hearts than he
could count, brilliant, and bright beat within in his own chest.
Anger shone in Andrew’s eyes. The Fallen would pay for what he had
done not only to Croffin, but to all those whose lives he had cut
short.