The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) (34 page)

His will, and the wills that gave his sword
strength became one. The thought of killing so many would have
seemed disgusting to Andrew, except those he fought were so far
removed from being human. To him they seemed like black
grasshoppers, worms or maggots that multiplied like
locusts---things that wanted to consume all that was left of good
in the world. He moved his horse through the masses of muscle,
blood, stone, steel, and ice, bringing down any who stood against
him, creating a path for his men to follow.

His men fought bravely, like great warriors
with far greater purpose than those who fought against them. Their
arms, too, seemed strengthened as if by some inner power. For a
moment it appeared that they were driving The Fallen’s army back in
both directions, bending the dark water with their light.

“Forward men!” Andrew called, pressing his
horse through a thick wall of Sontars, bringing them down with one
swipe of his sword. “Forward! Let us drive these demons back!”

A swarm of shadowy bodies ran to fill the
empty space Andrew created. The beings came at him with anger,
howling, and screaming. Andrew barreled through them, bringing them
down in ones, twos, and threes, until all began to draw away from
him and his terrible sword. “Forward!” Andrew cried raising his
sword, calling to his horse to go faster. “For Freedom!”

Andrew’s horse pushed ahead, leaping over the
bodies of the dead, galloping faster and faster over the hard,
black ice, like a spirit released from prison. For one glorious
second, it felt like the impossible could happen. His men fought
with ten times the power of The Fallen’s men, causing them to draw
back. Andrew, and horse became one, moving over the ice. None dared
stop him. None could stand before him. It was as if the stars above
them sang, heralding their victory.

Then, as quickly as the moment of glory came,
it vanished, dissolving the cold vapor from his lips. Oragino
reared back, letting out a terrified scream, skidding over the ice.
The horse’s hooves slipped out from underneath him, causing both
horse and boy to tumble to the ice. Oragino fell, trapping Andrew’s
legs underneath him, and pinching his sword against his legs.

Andrew groaned, and pushed on Oragino’s body,
trying to get his legs free. But the horse lay on the ice unmoving,
as if hurt. “Oragino,” Andrew cried. “Can you get up?”

“I don’t know,” Oragino puffed, letting out a
weary groan. “My leg doesn’t feel right.”

Andrew groaned, struggling against the
crushing weight of the horse. “I know you must be hurt, but could
you try to stand?”

Oragino heaved, and then groaned, laying back
in the same position. “I can’t…I’m sorry.”

Andrew’s face clouded with pain. He pushed
against the horse, but he was trapped where he was.

“Sssstuck?” a hollow voice hissed above
him.

Andrew looked up, the color draining from his
face.

Vargas stood over him, his snake-like eyes
glowing out at him, like two venomous vials of poison. The man’s
countenance was scaly, and papery like a snake that was just
starting to shed his skin. He wore a delicate, shimmering robe that
waved in the wind, causing his long frame to look unsteady.

Fear gripped Andrew. He dug his fingernails
into the thick ice trying to free himself. Oragino groaned, and
tried to roll over the wrong way, nearly crushing him.

“Stop!” Andrew cried out, struggling against
the weight of the horse.

“Afraid?” Vargas asked. Large puffs of fog
escaped his lips.

Andrew stared at the scaly man, uttering no
reply.

He loomed over Andrew, obliterating his view
of the moon and the sky, so that all Andrew could see was his dark
outline.

“A mere ssssputtering ssspark,” Vargas
hissed. “That is all you are. A spark that will soon go out.” He
paused, and smiled, drawing a thin, oily blade over Andrew’s neck.
“You and everyone with you will die today…You and your dissssmal
army are the only thing that sssstandsss between The Fallen’sss
sssshroud, and ultimate power. Once you are gone, the world will be
asss it issss meant to be.”

“And what is it meant to be?”

“I think you know the ansssswer,” Vargas
breathed, pressing his blade against Andrew’s neck, drawing blood.
“Or you wouldn’t be here fighting againsssst it.”

Andrew shrunk back, but Vargas grabbed his
hair, and held him in place. “No. You must stop ssstrugling. Give
in to the fear. Yesss. Give into the darknessss. That issss all
there issss left for you to believe in. It issss all that really
exisssts. All that hasss true power. All have fallen before it. All
have obeyed itsss will. Now it isss your turn!”

Just as he moved to slice Andrew’s throat,
Talic appeared behind Vargas. His eyes were wild, savage, and
angry.

“No!” He screamed, looping his long whiskers
around Vargas’ neck, yanking him back with such fury that it caused
Vargas to fall back onto the ice.

Talic howled and purred. “Grrrr….try to get
up, you snake. Just see what will happen!” Talic hissed, and
laughed, dragging Vargas across the ice with his whiskers.

“GAHHH!” Vargas wheezed, grasping at the coil
of whiskers around his neck. “Let go of me, you savage!”

“Who are you calling savage, you molting
snake. I trapped, you. I’ve got you!” Talic cried, swirling Vargas
around on the ice in a full circle. “I have you! I have you, nasty,
snake, snake, snake!”

Vargas flailed his arms, crying out as Talic
twirled, and twirled him, sliding him in circles over the ice. “LET
GO!” he commanded, scraping his long fingernails across the ice.
But Talic would not let go. He continued to spin Vargas faster and
faster.

Vargas snarled and thrashed, working to slice
his dagger through the coil of whiskers holding his neck.

“Dizzy?” Talic growled, continuing to swirl
Vargas across the ice. “I’ll make you so dizzy your head will spin
right off your neck!”

Just as he said those words, Vargas broke
free, the whiskers falling from his neck.

As Talic’s whiskers were cut, Talic fell
back, sliding across the ice, thudding into a body of a dead
Sontar. “No!” Talic snarled. “No!” My whiskers, you dare cut my
whiskers! For this you must die, die, die!”

In a fit of anger, Talic leapt onto Vargas’
back, and bit down on the leathery skin on his neck. Vargas cried
out, and thrashed around, trying to pull Talic off.

“GRRR!” Talic purred, biting and clawing at
Vargas like a beast infected with rabies.

“Get off me!” Vargas roared tearing at
Talic.

Talic yelped as Vargas slashed at him with
his dagger. But still he held on.

Totally enraged, Vargas grabbed Talic by his
jagged ears, and yanked him away, sending him flying over the ice.
Talic yelped, and whimpered as Vargas loomed over him like a cobra,
ready to strike.

“I’ll kill you!” Vargas roared.

“No!” Andrew cried, pushing against Oragino.
“Get up. I’ve got to help Talic. Please!”

Oragino groaned and shifted, struggling
against his own weight. He let out a loud puff, and sat up just
enough for Andrew to pull himself from under Oragino. He and lay,
panting as the blood rushed back into his legs. He quickly grabbed
his sword and dug it into the ice, and forced himself to stand. His
legs felt unsteady, but they were unbroken.

“Leave him alone, Vargas,” Andrew ordered,
taking an unsteady step towards him.

“Yes,” Talic whined, “you heard him. Leave me
alone!”

Vargas turned, and stared at Andrew and
hissed. “One more sssstep, Andrew, and you’ll regret it.”

“Oh really?” Andrew asked, stepping
forward.

“Andrew!” Ivory’s voice cried behind him.
“Wait!”

Andrew glanced behind him at Ivory, then back
to Vargas.

“Be warned,” Vargas breathed, a mist of warm
vapor flowing from his lips. The vapor ushered out of his mouth in
long wispy, webs. “The ice you walk on is very thin.”

As the mist settled on the ice, the ice
around Andrew’s feet popped and cracked, fracturing around his
feet, becoming as thin as paper. Andrew’s face filled with
surprise, then fear.

Vargas locked his gaze on Andrew, his eyes
filling with a victorious gleam.

Undaunted, Andrew took another step in
Vargas’ direction. The ice cracked again as if something was
hatching beneath it.

Crack!

Before Andrew could take another step, the
ice suddenly gave way, sending him plunging into the icy water.
Something, or someone splashed in behind him. The water was so dark
he could not see who or what it was. He reached out trying to pull
himself back up, but Vargas breathed an icy gust out over the open
layer of water, sealing the ice over his head, closing him forever
beneath the surface of the water.

In an instant, he had been cut off---locked
inside a realm of ice, and frozen water.

Cracking

The click clack of horses sounded throughout the
city streets of Summit as horse and man splashed through puddles of
melted snow.

The sky had been a chilly blue, but it had
slowly succumbed to the frost, turning gray, like a corpse slowly
decaying.

A miserable haze of smog moseyed its way
through the city like a drunken man, apparently in no hurry, and
with little regard to who it bumped into. The sun petered down
through the haze in driblets as if it was growing weary of the
constant cold and pollution. Little warmth was felt within the city
walls, for there was little warmth to offer man, or his
surroundings. The city was cold in every sense of the word.

Even in the hottest, driest summers, this
town was still ridden with a deadly chill. Cold and unfriendly
faces were everywhere. Even the smiles that were offered were cold,
as if the very act of lifting ones lips into a curve would crack
their faces. The words they spoke were cold and lifeless, as if the
words they spoke had been tucked within a chest of ice. Such words
fell out of their mouths, hitting the ground, shattering into a
thousand cold shards that cut, and poked, and hurt those who were
unlucky enough to be listening.

The city’s cold, calculating walls stood like
tall stones marking the graves of those who lived inside. For those
living there could hardly be called living, at all. They were mere
chunks of ice, with frosted fingers, and colorless cheeks.

The town was unusually clean just as it was
unusually dirty. Like a kitchen thrice cleaned from top to bottom,
its dinginess lingered, seeping in from somewhere, as if the very
act of continually scrubbing had worn away the shine of the tiles,
and made the whole city dull and dingy.

Though dirt itself was outlawed, the very act
of forbidding its existence made the city twice as sticky, and
twice as dirty. Though kept in its rigid, sterile, cold, sanitized,
accurate state, the city had many flaws. For anything kept too
sterile will succumb to any virus.

And this city had many such viruses. As with
all cold things that do not bend, this city had many cracks, and it
was through these cracks that all manner of impurities came. The
cracks had been covered up many times. But like a festering wound
that is bound without cleansing, those cracks bulged with
infection: with poor, with sick, with prisons, with injustice, with
the cries of the dying left unheard. The lawmakers of the city who
knew of these incurable cracks, publicly disgraced them, yet
privately embraced them, making the cracks wider with more laws,
with more regulations, with more taxations.

These lawless men, who professed the law,
were nothing more than mere spawns of The Fallen, and leeches of
darkness, perfectors of perfection, exactors of exactness---hard,
puffed-up villains, condemners, hypocrites, thieves, murderers,
masquerading as the kindest of people.

The dirt that came in through these cracks,
came quite without anyone’s knowing how. It clung to the bottoms of
peoples’ shoes, and coated their walls with grime, and tainted the
air.

Thus the city that worshiped the law, that
worshiped perfection, grew in this polluted atmosphere year by
year. And this city, who many lauded it for its perfections, was
anything but perfect.

It reeked of injustice.

For every action, there was a law, a way to
perform a function. To walk, to speak, to stand, to learn, to
worship, to eat, to sleep, to drink, to live, and to die.
Everywhere there were iron bars waiting for you if you did not
follow these endless lists of laws. Laws that had come from The
Fallen himself. Laws that were first tested in this city, then
enforced everywhere else. Yes, this was a cold, icy place to live.
On every sidewalk, and on every corner were thick sheets of ice
placed there on purpose for unsuspecting pedestrians to slip on.
Everywhere you turned, you were in danger of breaking
something---be it a law, bones, or ice, it was all put there to
cause you to fall.

On such icy roads many slipped, and many men
never got back up. But there was a slow thaw going on brought about
by the freed words. Instead of ice there were now great puddles of
sludge and wetness, cramping the city's already rigid, wintry
style.

The slow thaw had caused those who lived in
the city to become more aware of what they had been too numb to
realize before---that their city was very cold. Though puddles
themselves were outlawed, there were plenty to be had. Puddles form
where the ground is uneven. And the ground in that city was prime
puddle territory. The straighter the lawmakers tried to make the
city, the more skewed it became.

This exacting city was the very same city
Lancedon and his men now sought to enter, though none suspected
their coming. A lone man peered in through the gates of the city.
Though it wasn’t yet evening, the sky was a murky color of gray as
it always was in that city. The streets were deserted, and damp.
The man’s back was bent, his head and body covered in a black
cloak. He groped the gates of the city, pressing his head close to
the bars. “Please,” the man pled. “Let me in.”