The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) (11 page)

He stayed by Freddie’s side, long into the
night, until his friend had fallen into a fevered slumber. Their
pursuers had gone away. Their weapons now rested at the bottom of
the salty lake. Things had gone very badly.

He stared up at the rising moon, reflecting
in the salty water. The air was dry, and muggy, nearly unbearable
even though the sun had gone down. It seemed as if the heat was
rising up from the ground, emanating over the lake, giving it a
foul, salty smell.

He could only guess why this body of foul
water had been left untouched by The Drought. Perhaps to mock those
who tried to quench their thirst here---to make them that much
thirstier?

There air was thick, and heavy. The night was
silent. No sounds of living things, no frogs, no crickets could be
heard. He sighed, feeling very tired and discouraged. His head was
starting to ache. He felt confused and disheartened. He closed his
eyes and tried to picture his home back in Hollyhock Hollow. A home
he’d left far behind. Somehow the memory of it seemed like a
dream---a different age, like a place that only existed in his
head. His memory of it was like cheese that grew better with age,
but the true memory of it hidden in puffs of mold.

A movement to the side of him broke his
trance. He quickly stood, and peered around him into the
darkness.

“Hello?”

There was no answer.

He stood gazing where he thought the sound
had come from, for some time. All was quiet. Yet, he felt someone’s
eyes on him---eyes that were loud with unsaid, words, and piercing.
They were eyes that reached out and wanted to grab him and pull him
in.

Andrew looked over to Croffin and Freddie.
Both were asleep, unaware of danger that lurked in the darkness.
Instead of waking them, he drew his sword and flashed its light out
into the night.

In the light of the blade he saw a man
standing on a boulder only a few feet away. The man was old and
very thin. He wore no shirt, only a ragged pare of trousers. The
man stared directly at Andrew, and pointed. Then, without warning,
he hopped off the boulder, landing in front of Andrew. He stood
before Andrew challenging him with his vivid eyes that glowed in
the darkness. The man’s hands were stained with ink. His ears stuck
out of his bald head, like masts of a ship, much too big for their
bearer. His eyes bulged out of his head---glossy orbs that were
filled with mystery, like a gypsy ball that contained the secrets
of the universe. Andrew could not turn away from such eyes that
were full of so much sadness, and so much intrigue. The man’s eyes
looked as if they wanted to say a thousand things but had never
been able to express his thoughts because his mouth, if you could
say it was a mouth, was sewn completely shut. Andrew could see

dark stitches hemming both his lips together in an
ugly, line. To look at him made Andrew’s stomach lurch. He wanted
to look away, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from this specter.
Just as bizarre as his grotesquely forever-closed mouth, were his
ears that stuck out of his skull like two thick halves of an
enormous mango. They sagged below his chin, as if they had heard
too much over the years and had stretched under the weight of what
they’d heard.

“Who are you?” Andrew asked.

The man shook his head, and pointed to his
forever locked mouth.

“Yes, I can see you can’t talk.”

The man nodded, and squinted as if he were
trying to smile.

“Who did this to you?” Andrew asked, lowering
his sword and pointing to the man’s lips.

The man’s eyes glowed in the darkness,
speaking oceans of sadness and misery for all the things he wanted
to say but couldn’t. He bent down and pointed to Freddie’s wound,
and then tugged on Andrew’s arm, trying to get him to follow
him.

“You want me to follow you?” Andrew
asked.

The man nodded, his eyes gleaming in
reassurance.

“I can’t.”

The man’s face clouded over. He pulled on
Andrew’s arm all the more.

“I can’t leave Freddie here alone. You can
see he’s hurt.”

The man’s eyes lit up at this. He nodded. He
pointed to Freddie, and then in the opposite direction, making
strange motions with his hands.

“I don’t understand.”

“Wait…” Andrew cried. “What are you?”

The man ignored Andrew and knelt over
Freddie. He drew a bottle of silver liquid out of his purse and
pressed it to Freddie’s lips. Then, taking another bottle out of
his pack, he took the cloth off Freddie’s wound and poured it over
the bleeding flesh. Freddie let out a peaceful sigh, still
sleeping, and smiled as if it had soothed his pain.

The man looked up at Andrew and nodded.

“You can help him?” Andrew asked.

The man nodded again and pulled at his arm to
follow him. He pointed to out into the darkness, making swishing
motions, and angry faces, as if trying to communicate that the
place they were was not safe.

Andrew looked at the man, and then back at
Freddie. He wanted to trust this wordless man. Though he spoke not
a word, Andrew felt that this person had something very important
to say if someone took the time to understand. Without waiting
further, he nudged Croffin awake, and with little explanation as to
whom this newcomer was, made Croffin follow them. He gently picked
up Freddie, and struggling under his weight, followed the silent
man through the darkness and subdued moonshine.

The man skipped on ahead, away from the salty
lake, his long ears wobbling back and forth. He led them into a
cave between jagged slabs of giant red rocks that looked like they
had been carved by wind and water. The cave was lit by several
candles that made it look very orange. Andrew’s arms ached from
Freddie’s weight. The walk to this place had nearly used up what
little strength he had left.

The voiceless man pointed to a cot in a
corner, and Andrew quickly lay Freddie down on it. Croffin stood
beside him looking red- eyed and too confused to say anything.

After making sure Freddie was comfortable, he
sat by his bed, watching as the man worked over Freddie’s wound,
dressing it with medicine and a clean cloth. Croffin grumbled, as
he curled up in a corner of the cave, and fell into a troubled
sleep.

“Thank you,” Andrew told the voiceless man,
after he’d finished.

The man’s eyes gleamed with a smile that his
lips could never show. He grabbed Andrew by the hand and shook it.
His eyes shone, as if he wanted to say many things. He let go of
Andrew’s hand and nodded towards a far corner in the cave.

The cave was cooler than outside and felt
nice. The candles flickered in the darkness, as if frightened by
the new strangers.

The cave was vast, and lined with long
shelves, all filled with strange bottles full of red dirt.

Andrew stood and looked where the man had
pointed. Deep within the cave was another man standing hunched over
the floor, beside a candle. His head went nearly to the ground, as
he inspected a pile of red sand on the cave floor. The man had
dark, shiny skin, and big hands, and feet so big that they stuck
out from his legs like two canoes. His hair was black and kinky,
lined with colorful beads that hung down past his shoulders. He
wore only a white cloth draped around one shoulder, and laced at
the waist. He had brown eyes that looked like chocolate, and big
lips that were turned into hard lines as he inspected the sand.

“Why, they only left a few good ones, those
dirty trespassers,” the man muttered. His voice was rich, and deep.
“Those messy mollusks---marring perfectly good prints. If they’re
going to go in unwanted places, they might as well leave a clear
path where they’ve been!”

He blew on the sand, looking at what Andrew
surmised were footprints. The man bent down even lower and blew
away any stray dust that did not belong to the footprint, then
gingerly swept each footprint into a separate bottle.

Andrew coughed from the dust the man had
blown into the air. At the sound, the man looked up, finally seeing
the strangers for the first time. He raised his brows and stared at
Andrew and Croffin, then at Freddie’s body on the cot, then to the
man with the sewn-shut mouth.

“Whab?” He asked the voiceless man. “What
strays have you brought in now? We can’t keep doing this. It’s
dangerous!” He turned to Andrew and pointed towards the door. “Go!
You must leave now. I’m sorry. But you can’t stay here. My friend
doesn’t know his own mind.”

Whab’s eyes filled with furry. He pointed to
Freddie, and then, growing angrier by the minute, he jumped up and
down kicking up dust into his friend’s face.

“Whab! Stop it! Don’t act like a savage when
we clearly know you’re not one. I can hear you good and loud. Fine!
They can stay. But only for one night. The last stragglers you
brought in scavenged several of my most important footprints. I
hope these vagabonds are a little more gracious than that.” He
stared at Andrew with distrustful eyes.

“We won’t take anything,” Andrew assured him.
Whab stood by him and nodded as if trying to tell Drust he was
taking full responsibility for Andrew and his friends.

“Really? Well you’ve already taken up much of
my time. How do I know you won’t steal something when my back is
turned?”

“Then don’t turn your back.”

The man’s face reddened. “What did you
say?”

Whab shook his head and waved his hand at
Andrew, trying to sooth Drust.

“I said,” Andrew repeated, moving away from
Whab, “why would anyone want to take your jars of footprints
anyway?”

The man opened his mouth wide, his eyes
filling with a ghastly look of surprise. “Why? I can’t believe my
ears. Why? Why? You obviously don’t know anything about anything!
Don’t you know that a single footprint can contain vast resources
of information---stores of knowledge your smallified brain could
never begin to grasp.”

“Oh really?” Andrew asked. “What kind of
knowledge?”

The man raised his brows. “You mock me. I can
see it in your eyes. Don’t you know who I am? I am Drust. The
Footprint Reader. You don’t have to believe me. But it is true. A
single footprint contains immeasurable amounts of knowledge. With
one look, I can read a footprint as I can a book. I can tell where
that soul has been, where he has traveled, where he is going, and
sometimes I can tell where he will end up.” He motioned to his vast
jars of footprints lining the room. “Some people keep scrolls. But
I, and those who came before me, have kept footprints. In them
there is no misspelling, no error. No embellishments, no fiction of
any kind. Only truth. My ancestors and I have kept a record of how
men have walked, over thousands of centuries. In here lies more
information about man and his true nature than any book could ever
hold. For how man walks, and where he walks, and what he does,
tells me more about his nature than anything else does. Here,
contained in this cave, I have kept and preserved man’s true walk
on earth. That is why I must guard it so. There are many who would
kill for the information contained in this cave.”

The skepticism on Andrew’s face vanished. He
scanned the shelves filled with numberless footprints of every
kind, of both man and animal. Contained somewhere in this cave were
footprints of the past, and perhaps footprints that could tell of
his future. “These footprints you have collected and studied,”
Andrew said, “do they tell you where man is heading now…where he is
going?”

Drust’s face filled with a somber aura. “Ah,
man. Where he is going? I’ll tell you. They all walk in the same
manner, in many directions, on many different paths that lead to
the same place.”

“And what place is that?”

Drust lifted his chin, studying the cave
ceiling and then looked directly into Andrew’s eyes. “Destruction.
That is where they are heading. To their own fall. To Darkness,
where they will continue to wander, lost and alone forever. They
have been steadily treading on such a path for years now. Inch by
inch, into shadow they have gone, until they cannot see the path
ahead. Would that they had never veered from the good and beautiful
path of truth and light they had started on. But something in man’s
nature has an affinity towards dark paths, just as to light ones.
It is his test to keep on the right path, even when it is
rocky.”

At Drust’s words, Andrew’s heart stirred with
fear and apprehension. By the severe tone in his voice, Andrew knew
that Drust was speaking the truth. His mind filled with a thousand
questions. He wanted to know more. He wanted to read the footprints
like Drust. He wanted to learn everything this man knew. “Please,”
Andrew said. “If what you say is true, I want to know more. Can you
read my footprints?” He took off his shoes and stepped in the loose
sand on the cave floor, creating two perfect footprints. Then he
stepped back, waiting for Drust to speak.