The Last Summoning---Andrew and the Quest of Orion's Belt (Book Four) (65 page)

Morack’s eyes gleamed out through the
darkness. He pushed his leathery lips into a hard line. “If you
profess to see me so well, tell me where I will strike next. You
forget Lancedon…fighting blind can be very dangerous. Someone…might
get hurt.” He laughed, expelling a thick, black mist. A host of
silver-laced shadows surged through the darkness. They spilled from
his mouth, and seeped through the pores of his skin like living
partials of sweat that grew, and intensified with each moment,
shrouding Lancedon in fear and confusion.

Morack’s dark offspring spread out from where
he stood, extending like coiling snakes that crept around Coral’s
feet. Before Coral knew what had happened, the darkness had grasped
hold of her, winding itself around her mouth so she could not cry
out.

Morack coiled the darkness around his arm,
yanking Coral to him, pulling her against his body, all the while
watching Lancedon’s confused face.

“Come, Lancedon, and fight!” Morack called,
clearing the air of shadows so that Lancedon could properly hear
him. “I have something you want!”

“You have nothing I want!” Lancedon shouted,
feeling the heavy mist Morack had breathed out, settling on his
skin like thick ash. His skin tingled. He could feel the dark
energy coming off Morack, mixed with the brighter power of good.
But he was not fooled by it. Morack’s deceptions could not deceive
him.” He raised his sword, hesitating for one moment. Something
within him told him to hold back. But the anger inside him could
not be stayed. “I will not be blinded by your lies any longer!” His
voice was filled with wrath. He took a bold step forward, and
plunged his blade into the darkness. He felt it strike something,
soft, and human. He drew the sword back, waiting to hear Morack
stumble back in pain. Yet there was no such sound. Morack did not
move.

“I warned you,” Morack’s voice cut through
the air, dark and cruel. He let go of Coral, and laughed.

The darkness holding Coral’s mouth slipped
away. She gasped, and fell to her knees.

Morack sniffed, and looked down at Coral’s
crumpled body, his eyes unmerciful, and dark. “They do say that
love is blind. And you, Lancedon, are the blindest of them
all.”

Lancedon’s face showed surprise, then
confusion. “Coral?”

“Lancedon!” Coral gasped from the ground.

Lancedon’s face paled. “Coral?” His voice was
filled with anguish. “Morack. What have you done?”

“I have done nothing. It is you, my dear
nephew, who have deceived yourself. It was you, and you alone who
so eagerly thrust your blade into the bosom of your beloved.”
Morack laughed long and loud, filling the air with more
shadows.

Lancedon fell to his knees and groped over
the ice until his fingers came into contact with Coral’s blood.

“Coral, Coral,” he murmured fingering the
blood, in horror. He groped further, until he found her hand and
clasped it in his.

She squeezed his hand tightly. “Hush,” she
murmured. “I’m alright.”

“Coral, say that I didn’t do this to you.
Please. Oh…would that I had died before this day.”

Morack loomed over them. “I may be able to
help you with that problem.”

Lancedon quickly pulled away from Coral and
stood. He gripped his sword, feeling Coral’s blood as it dried on
his fingers. Tears gleamed in his blind eyes. An overpowering
burning swelled within his chest. It was a burning that caused his
entire being to tremble and shake. He opened his mouth, but he was
too overcome with emotion to speak.

Morack glared at Lancedon then to Lancedon’s
army of light, with unworried eyes. “Don’t look so horrified, my
dear nephew. This was bound to happen sooner or later. You will all
die, in one way or another. If by my hand, or yours, it does not
matter. In your heart of hearts you know this. What hope has
summoned will only help feed The Fallen. It seems that you have
found yourself…on the wrong side, after all.” He nodded to the
hordes of men behind him who stood watching Lancedon with eager
eyes.

Morack let out a loud cackle. “The dark age
has begun. Do you now see that we have won? I have won. Where there
is no sun, there will be no aging. No time. You fight for nothing.
The hope you cling to is a false hope, a hope just as twisted as
the light that now shines on us all. The boy who you were bound to
protect, is dead! You have failed once again.”

Lancedon glared at Morack, loathing every
inch of the man with every cell in his body. “Everything you have
ever told me was a lie as dark as the power you now serve. The boy
lives!”

“HE IS DEAD, YOU FOOL!” Morack thundered.
“Just as you, and those like you will soon be!” Morack cut his
sword through the air, slicing Lancedon’s cheek. Blood oozed from
the wound and dripped down his face.

“No!” Lancedon cried, bringing his sword
against Morack, with such strength and power that it shattered
Morack’s blade in half, sending him stumbling backwards to the ice.
Morack cried out in fear, and stared up at Lancedon looming over
him.

“You are nothing but a sickening froth of
shadows,” Lancedon spat. “A lover of secrets and deception. You,
who prefer the company of shadows and Fallen lords, will go into
that shadowland from whence you can never escape. Was not this your
only desire? To dwell in the darkness and shadows?”

“You misunderstood me,” Morack breathed,
cowering before Lancedon. “All I have done was for the good of the
people, because I knew this day would come. I knew that it was
better to embrace the darkness, while it was still light, so that
when the darkness came, we could still live.”

Lancedon shook his head. “Power was all that
you ever wanted. Power, under a mantel of darkness, so that your
sins could not be seen. How does it feel to finally be standing at
the brink, from where you can no longer return, to be going into
the shadows? To a place where you have been traveling to all your
life. To a place of darkness, where you can never escape. People
usually get what they want, uncle, and you have finally attained
your ultimate desire. I will send you there myself!

“No. It is I who will send you where you
deserve!” Morack roared, leaping to his feet. Instantly, shadows,
dark thoughts, and doubts, given hideous bodies, rushed in around
Lancedon, pulling him away form Morack. Screams, howls, cries, and
snarls filled the air. Doubt loomed over him, a shifting mass of
fears and ugly demons stacked on top of one other, with a thousand
eyes, and a thousand hands, and a thousand faces. Even though
Lancedon could not see this creature, he could feel it most
acutely, like a knife trying to carve away his soul, his courage,
and his hope.

“You see,” Morack laughed, “you are only as
strong as your weakest doubt, and you, Lancedon, despite the hope
you cling to, have many doubts, this one included.” He patted the
bulgy monster hovering over Lancedon. “Kill him,” he commanded.
“Now!”

“You forget,” Lancedon cried, struggling
against his captors, “hope is stronger than any doubt, any fear.
And truth is sharper than any sword!” He let out a loud shout and
threw the mass of shadows and doubts back, knocking them against
the ice in a loud crack.

The ice groaned, and splintered where the
mass of lies, doubts, and shadows had fallen, fracturing all the
way up to where Morack stood.

A surge of strength filled Lancedon’s heart.
He lifted his sword, slammed it down into the ice at Morack’s
feet.

Crack!

A gaping fracture of ice opened up beneath
Morack’s feet. The ice heaved again as if tired of the heavy
darkness that battled upon its surface. A look of surprise and
disbelief filled Morack’s eyes. He cried out, trying to grab the
edge of the ice as he fell, but the black water rose up to greet
him and instantly pulled him down and swallowed him up. The thick
slab of ice moved and shifted, lidding Morack beneath its surface
like the walls of a crypt.

Lancedon stood panting, listening as Morack’s
screams were cut off, and the splashing of water ceased. The stench
of Morack had vanished beneath the ice, forever.

Lancedon stood over the spot Morack had
disappeared, shocked. Morack was gone. Truly gone. Yet he felt
nothing. He had thought that once Morack had ceased to exist,
everything would be different. But nothing had changed at all. All
around him his soldiers fought, and died. The heavy cover of
darkness still pushed in around him, waiting for him to give in to
its certain victory. He stood still through it all, as if his
blindness made him somehow invisible. In an instant, Coral’s memory
flooded over him. He jerked to life, and cut through a wall of
soldiers, groping in the darkness for her. He climbed over heaps of
bodies, searching, endlessly, tormented by grief. In his blindness
he cried out in frustration, falling to his knees. “Oh Coral, where
are you?”

Then as if in answer to his plea, his hands
closed around a hand that was not cold like the rest, but warm as
sunshine.

“Coral?” he wept. “Oh it is you!” He pulled
Coral close to him, weeping bitterly. Her body was warm as the sun,
and it caused him feel as if he would fall into a deep slumber that
he wished he would never wake from.

“I have been waiting for you,” she gasped.
“And now that you have found me, you must leave me. This army needs
someone to lead them. And that someone is you, Lancedon. Go. Fight,
and live. Life is bright, as quick as a flash of lightning, here
one moment, gone the next. Do you not hear the thunder? It calls
me. You must let me go.”

“No!” Lancedon cried. “I will not let you
go!”

“You must, Lancedon,” Coral said, whispering.
“It isn’t dark anymore. I have finally found the light…” her voice
broke off and her body went limp.

“No!” Lancedon cried out in grief, cradling
Coral’s body to his. The warmness of her body slowly faded and went
cold. All around him the battle surged. Yet he could not leave
her.

The doubt and fear that he had only moments
before fought off, loomed over him, far more powerful than before.
In his heart he felt hope diminish, causing the light from his skin
to flicker.

In an instant, it seemed that real fear
started to seep in through the ranks of Lancedon’s army, causing
the light in their countenances to flicker and threaten to go
out.

The army of The Fallen seemed to gain
strength from the wavering hope of Lancedon’s army. The Fallen’s
men were closing in around them, seeping in through their brilliant
ranks like black ink spilled on pure white paper.

All around Lancedon, darkness began to press
in, heavily.

Hope was beginning to wane.

The Passing of the Flame

“Is it clear?” Freddie asked, peering out at
Andrew through the darkness.

“Yes,” Andrew answered, pausing before a
descending flight of stairs. He glanced behind him at Freddie who
was carefully following, his luminous skin reflecting off the
floors, telling all which master he served.

The rooms and corridors in The Fallen’s
castle echoed with a sharp emptiness that pricked the soul. The
building felt vacated, down to the last shadow. It was a strange,
eerie feeling.

The throbbing roll of drums sounded in the
distance, answered by the call of shrill horns. Deep down, Andrew
knew where all the shadow dwellers had migrated. War, great and
terrible was coming closer. A battle between two opposite forces
was on the horizon of this never-ending night.

“Do you hear that?” Freddie asked, turning
his ears towards the sounds of battle.

Andrew nodded, his face grim. His eyes, his
skin, even his hair gleamed a warm, golden yellow. He looked
somehow much older than he was, much more like a warrior carved out
of light. “Yes. How could I not? Come, Freddie. We have much to
do.”

Andrew stepped purposely ahead, unafraid, and
strengthened in step, by the power of the sword he held. They moved
through the castle unhindered and unchecked. It was as if every
dark soul had vacated the place, making ready to meet the oncoming
army of light. The castle had a strangely cold, frosty feeling. The
walls glistened with ice. As they walked, their breath glowed a
vaporous yellow, as if eager to warm up the darkness.

“This is our way out,” Andrew whispered,
pausing before a round, double door. He pulled on it, and it flew
open, clattering against the walls, blown by a cold wind. Heaps of
black snow had accumulated on the edge of the door as if it, too,
wanted shelter.

“Brrr,” Freddie shivered, peering out at the
dark world. “Someone will surely see us if we step out there into
the open. I’m sure of it.”

Andrew nodded. “Yes. They might. But what of
it? I am not afraid anymore, are you?”

Freddie chewed on his lower lip, shivering.
“Uh, huh. I truly am, Andrew. More afraid than ever before. To step
out there…I just…”

Andrew patted his friend on the back, staring
at him with kindness. “Freddie, whatever awaits us out there,
cannot be as bad as what we have faced in this castle of darkness.
You are the bravest person I know. You pulled me out of my own
fear, kept me going when the darkness could have consumed me.
Follow closely behind me, and I promise, that I will let no harm
come to you.”

“What if fate has other ideas?”

“Fate? Ha, we will show her up, then,
together.” Andrew offered Freddie a smile, then motioning him to
follow, he darted through the doorway and shot across the
courtyard, hiding behind a statue of The Fallen, himself. The
statue was tall and dark, glistening with glimmering gems and
glass. All around this statue, were flaming blue torches that never
dimmed or stopped burning. Freddie and Andrew stood in the shadow
of the statue catching their breath.

Beyond the statue many unseen creatures
lurked, scraping through the snow, their armor and weapons clacking
together in rhythmic pulses. Anguished, angered cries, ruffling,
rustling, sheets of hissing, sputtering shadows, like boiling
teapots, crisscrossed through the air, their sounds entangling and
entwining into a massive knot of sound and chaos.