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

by Ivory Autumn

  The nearer they grew to the outskirts of the city, the more anxious Tavron became. He walked beside Andrew, clenching and unclenching his hands nervously. They walked through the murky streets and into a forest full of flaming trees that were continually consumed by flames. “Come, boy, this is the way out,” Tavron said, pointing through a small opening through two walls of flaming trees where the path was brightest. Andrew stopped, and stared at a dark shadow that lingered near one of the flaming trees.

  “Stay away from the shadows,” Tavron cried, pulling him away from it. “You must only walk on the path that is brightest. Many dark shadows linger in these woods. If one happens to grab you, it will pull you in into the fire, and torture you.”

  After that, Andrew and the others were careful to stay away from the flaming trees and the dark shadows that were created from the ever-burning flames.

  Every now and again, Tavron would glance behind him as if unsure about his decision.

  “Wait!” a woman’s voice echoed behind them, growing louder and louder. “Wait! Please! Tavron you mustn’t go!”

  Tavron set his face, and marched ahead, trying to ignore the voice behind him pleading for him to stay.

  A woman with a sooty face and long, stringy hair that probably was blond at one time, but now was gray, suddenly burst through the trees. “Please,” the woman cried grabbing Tavron’s arm and pulling him back. “Don’t go. Please, you will die. I love you Tavron. You cannot go.”

  Tavron shook his head and kept marching. Though, by his face, Andrew could tell the woman’s words caused him pain. “I’ve already made up my mind, Stella. I’m leaving this place for good. I have decided. ”

  The woman stepped away from the man, her face stricken. “But you will die.”

  “There are worse things than dying,” Tavron whispered, pulling the woman into a tender embrace. “Goodbye, Stella. I will always love you. But I must do this for the both of us.” He pulled away from her and left her standing where she was, teary eyed and weeping.

  On he went, with Andrew and the others, leaving the woman far behind.

  With every step he took, Tavron’s steps gradually grew slower, and his steps more halting

  “Just a little further, and I’ll be out,” Tavron murmured in a shaking voice, gripping Andrew’s arm like he would never let go. Andrew stared at Tavron and gasped. Tavron’s hand was withered and old. His hair had become snow white and patchy in places.

  “Tavron,” Andrew breathed. “You’re so old.”

  Tavron glanced at Andrew, and nodded. His strong face had grown thin and wrinkled. The skin around his eyes sagged, and his hands had become spotted with age, and skeletal. “Don’t look so frightened. We’ve only got at little further, then I will be out of this cursed land. Free at last.”

  “But…” Andrew said, “Maybe that woman was right. I don’t want you to die. You look so old, so feeble.”

  “Yes. I am old,” Tavron said, a firmness growing in his old voice. “It’s something I should have been a long time ago. But I have made a decision. I will not go back.”

  On Tavron walked, with Andrew for support. With each step, his fingers grew older and more boney, his back more bent, his skin more wrinkly. He grew older and older until all his hair had fallen out, and he could walk no longer. He cried out and fell to his knees.

  “Tavron,” Andrew cried, helping the old man to his feet. “Let me take you back. You must go back. Please.”

  “I have made up my mind,” Tavron murmured trying to step past Andrew. “I’m not going back!”

  “No!” Andrew said barring his way. “Go back, Tavron. You have done enough.”

  Tavron’s eyes filled with tears. He wept into his withered hands. “I have never gone this far. It feels so good. I’m not a middle man anymore. I have finally made up my mind. Let me go farther. Let me die.”

  “No. Not like this. You have proven yourself, Tavron,” Andrew said, gently helping the man onto Freddie’s horse. “Now I will take you back.”

  “But I don’t want to go back there. I have finally chosen. Would you deny me my victory?”

  “I would deny you nothing. The important thing is that you made a choice. You have freed your mind, which no one but you can do. You must let us finish the last of this journey for you, so that you someday can. We will destroy The Fallen, and destroy the curse. Then you will finally be free. ”

  “If you must take me back,” Tavron’s old, wavy voice murmured, “then try the other way. Let me be the one who has seen both ends of this curse, so that I may know of myself. To say that even I, Tavron, the Inbetweener, am an Inbetweener no more. ”

  “Okay,” Andrew breathed, “We will try the southern way. But only for your sake.”

  Tavron looked happy and excited, on the back of Andrew’s horse as they moved southward. Even though his face was shriveled with age, the determination in his eyes had concentrated. Here was a man with conviction.

  “Thank you, Andrew,” Tavron gently murmured.

  “For what?”

  “For giving me a choice. Before now, I didn’t know there was something to choose between. Now I know that there is. Even if I cannot go forward. In my mind I have decided. Perhaps with time I can convince my people to do the same. So that they, too, will be prepared when you have destroyed The Fallen, and the curse is no longer upon us. I see perhaps, now, that leaving was never my destiny. But to choose was enough. I am to prepare my people. Yes, for if they were to be free, and their minds were not, they would still be prisoners, unable to leave this place.”

  “Yes,” Andrew agreed, listening to the man’s wisdom, with wonder. Andrew felt a strange feeling of sadness, mixed with respect for the man. The man who had before seemed so wishy-washy, was now full of conviction, fire, and determination.

  To honor Tavron’s wishes, they tried exiting the forest through the south end. The farther they went southward, the younger Tavron got. The wrinkles and gray hair fell away, like brown leaves on a tree. Soon, spring came to the old man’s face and he became the middle aged man he had been before. Then, gradually, he grew younger and no longer wanted to ride on the horse. As he walked, the faster his pace grew, the more youthful face his became. A young man gradually replaced his scruffy hair and rough features. He ran faster, growing shorter and shorter, and more youthful, until he looked no more than Andrew’s age.

  “Perhaps you should stop,” Andrew said looking down at Tavron. He looked so different than he had only moments before. His youthful features were full of hope.

  “Would you try to sway me now?” Tavron asked. “I will keep going, until I cannot go any further. That is my motto. I want to see where this road takes me. I have already made up my mind. For the first time I feel happy. For the first time in a long time, I feel FREE! Even though I doubt the curse is broken. Still, there is always hope.”

  “Yes, but…”

  Tavron stopped and pointed in the direction of his village. “To live in that hell, where there is no distinction between night or day, good or bad, right or wrong, is far worse than whatever fate may have in store for me. To be undecided, for all of eternity, yields no true satisfaction or remorse. To be burning, not burnt, to be living, yet not alive, to be stuck in continual indecision is like standing before a great precipice, gazing below, fearing the fall and dying a thousand times. Where one half of you believes that if you jump, wings will appear, while the other half of you pulls away, and you are split apart in the middle, becoming good for nothing.”

  “That must feel awful.”

  Tavron nodded, running ahead. “You don’t know how awful. But now I will have fulfilled all that I have set out to do. I will have seen both sides to this curse.”

  The further south they went, the younger Tavron got, until he was no longer a man or a boy, but a toddler, then a helpless newborn.

  Andrew had to pick him up and hold him. The babe, Tavron felt warm in his hands. His old clothes had all but fallen off. Tavron’s baby blue
eyes looked up at Andrew, and he cooed. The baby grabbed, Andrew’s thumb and squeezed.

  “I think we should go back to the village,” Andrew said, staring down at the baby. “We have tried both ways. And still, the curse remains.”

  “Yes,” Freddie agreed. “If we go any further he might turn into a tadpole.”

  At those words, Tavron began to wail and cry, thrashing about in Andrew’s arms.

  “Here, Andrew,” Ivory said, “let me take him.”

  Andrew gladly gave Tavron over to Ivory. She quieted him, holding him next to her, comforting him.

  “What should we do?” Andrew wondered aloud. “We can’t take him any further. Either way, the curse remains.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to take him back,” Ivory pouted. “He’s so cute, and sweet. Sweet little baby Tavron.”

  “If we don’t,” Freddie said. “I’m sure there won’t be much of him for you to take care of. He’s getting younger and younger every step we take.”

  Ivory stared down at baby Tavron. Her eyes filled with sadness. He did look very young, almost newborn. “Oh, Tavron, we have to take you back. I’m sorry. You did your best. You really did.”

  At those words, baby Tavron began to cry again. His woeful voice filled the forest, with loud, tremulous wails.

  “We have to go back,” Andrew said, “Tavron may have decided, but this curse has to be broken some other way. When The Fallen is destroyed, he will be free.”

  They turned back and went through the forest, towards the village, until they found the woman who had called after Tavron when he had first left the village.

  When she saw Andrew and the others, her eyes lit up. “Tavron?”

  Ivory handed screaming baby Tavron to the woman.

  The woman’s eyes filled with surprise, and disbelief. “Tavron?” The second the baby spotted the woman, he stopped crying.

  She took the baby up in her arms and cradled him. “Oh, Tavron. Come, we will go back to the village, you and I.”

  Andrew watched as the woman carried the baby back with her. With each step, the baby grew, and soon, a young boy was walking hand in hand with her towards the village.

  The woman suddenly stopped, and Tavron, the boy, glanced behind them at Andrew. His eyes were pleading, and filled with deep yearning.

  “Just a little further,” Tavron’s voice, echoed in Andrew’s head. “And we will be free.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Debate

  Gogindy drummed his fingers on his pet footprint rock, staring off into the distance. The evening was drawing near. Shadows were beginning to lengthen. Clouds were gathering in the east, as if readying themselves to drop snow. The land before him was brown, and blotched with dormant trees whose naked branches shivered in the chilly wind. Tired-looking hills rose in the distance, covered in rocks that looked just as weary and old as the hills. The land seemed to speak to Gogindy of long ago, of memories of past times.

  The land reeked of ancient times, so much so, that Gogindy felt like it might be rude to sleep, as if his snoring might disturb this elderly spot of land. This place felt old, wise, and weary, as if it was the grandfather of lands, where many secrets lingered, and where life was not measured in moments or days, but by character, and by tried and true experiences. Gogindy was sure that this land contained vast stores of knowledge, and if given a voice he was sure it would speak volumes.

  There was a chill in the air, but Gogindy didn’t feel it. His heart swelled with the warmth of the newfound hope he had acquired. Where it had come from, he did not know. Only that it was there, guiding him, taking him onto new paths he would have never taken, had he been full of fear. This hope guided him on, through snow, wind, sleet, and darkness, day after day, until he thought of nothing else except ringing that bell, and of finding the tower.

  “It won’t be long,” Gogindy told his footprint, stifling a yawn. “I’m sure of it. I can feel it; the bell tower is near.”

  The footprint made no answer.

  “Well,” Gogindy growled. “You’re a talkative one tonight, aren’t you?”

  Another long pause.

  “What? You don’t have anything to say?”

  “Figured as much. You haven’t uttered a word since I found you. Not one little squeak.”

  He stared at the stone for a long moment, then tossed it on the ground. “Well, what do you have to say about that? Huh?”

  Still silence greeted him.

  Gogindy kicked the rock, and howled in pain. “Oh, that hurt. You hard lump, you. Still you sit there, so content, so inert. Why do you seem so happy, so…serene, like you don’t have a care in the world?”

  Gogindy turned his ear to the rock and then huffed. “Oh you don’t? And yet you are happy?”

  “But why?” Gogindy howled. “You should be miserable and very unhappy, because you’re just a rock. You can never eat a nice red berry, or scratch your back, or drink a cup of cool water. There you are, just as contented as if you owned the world. A rock. A piece of history, a frozen footprint, probably of some miserable soul. Content to be a rock. How is it possible? Just as a spider or a flea shouldn’t be happy to be such an ugly creation of nature, you shouldn’t be happy to be a rock. I am not happy you are a rock. You should be a real friend, someone who can talk to me.”

  Gogindy waited, listening in the silence. When nothing answered, he picked up the rock, and cuddled it to him. “Oh dear, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to kick you…er…maybe I did. But I am sorry. Truly. My journey has warped my thinking. You are, after all, only a rock. And a rock is only a rock, just as a fool is happy, not because he is a fool, but because he has never been anything but what he is, and has never sought to be anything more. He is fully satisfied in his foolishness, and rightly so, because he has never been anything else. Had he been wise or lordly, or kingly, once, and then brought down to a fool's level, his happiness perhaps would have been thwarted. But he has never been any of those things. So you, dear rock, are happy because all you will ever be…is a rock.” He sighed and let the rock rest in his knapsack. “But I…” he murmured, “I am the bell ringer of Conroy. What does that mean? What does it mean I must become? What will I have to do? That is one of the unanswerable questions of the universe. One I will only find the answer to when I am faced with the bell, and the task of ringing it. Will ringing it change me somehow?” He paused and stared at the sky, watching the clouds as they gathered together in tight knots, like a swirling stew, bubbling with ice and snow.

  “There are so many questions…” he went on. “Questions that have no logical answer, save that they have been put on earth to torment us. To haunt us in the quiet hours of our thoughts. To creep, and tickle our minds, and drive us all into madness. Questions that float upon the shore of our mind like a half-submerged ship, growing moss and coral and grime by their lingering so long. If we don’t know the answers to these questions, does it not make us fools? Or does it, just by trying to solve them, make us more fools? And are we all fools, trapped in our own shell of rock, waiting to be born into the thing we were meant for?”

  Gogindy chuckled to himself for being so very deep and ponderful. Thinking so deeply made his stomach growl, so he delved into his pack, bringing out several crackers, not caring that his supply was dwindling greatly. He leaned on an old tree stump, and closed his eyes, chewing, relishing each bit of salty, crunchy flavor. He stared at the last bit of cracker. His mouth felt dry and parched. He quickly reached for his small canteen. After gulping the water down, he wiped his lips, and smiled. “And there’s another question,” he said aloud to no one in particular. “It is something I have thought about for hours on end. Something, I’m sure that many philosophizers have pondered. A question, that if answered, could answer every unanswerable question in the entire universe.”

  Gogindy flashed his footprint rock an eager smile, twitching his whiskery nose. “The question is thus. Why is it that when I eat a piece of salty, crunchy, yummy cracker, I then want to hu
rry and get it out of my throat by washing it down with some water? That is the unanswerable question. Why? Why wash away what you first desired to eat? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  He peered down at his rock and waited for a response. But none came.

  “Tell me why you think it is so?”

  Then answering his own question, he said. “I suppose, it is because when I eat, I get thirsty.”

  He stood up and paced the ground. “But it doesn’t make any sense! Why would I want to wash away such delicious flavors?”

  He stopped, and threw his hands up. “Of course it does.”

  Then shaking his head, he continued pacing. “No it doesn’t. Why eat the piece of cracker in the first place, if you’re going to want to hurry and forget about it by washing it out of your mouth?”

  He paused and stared at the ground. “Perhaps…desirable things can only be enjoyed when they are gone. Maybe it is only when something is missing, we can only wish for more.”

  Gogindy frowned and plucked a whisker from his backside and wound it around his finger. “Perhaps, and perhaps not,” he argued with himself. “But some things, like apple pie, can and will be missed by myself. Other things, like toothaches, bad dreams and headaches will never be missed. Oh, who could ever miss a headache? And I have never wished for one. And when it is gone I definitely do not ask it to come back. The sooner I can shoo it away, the better.”

  He started pacing again. “Perhaps good and bad things, framed by space, water, or time, are made better or worse. Only in cleared land can crops grow. Thus, Gogindy, space is the answer. We can only be close to that piece of pie for a second, before we need water and space from it to enjoy it fully. Just as one would not want to be smothered in pies.”

  Gogindy sniffed, and let out a low chuckle, surprised at his own wisdom, and baffled by it by the same time. “Space. Space? Gogindy, what are you saying. You have been alone too long. What is space, but a hollow nothing. I’ve never had any use for space, myself. When I find myself alone, my ears start ringing, and I can hear my joints creaking and my heart thumping, and my eyelids fluttering. I have no use at all for it. Silences, spaces, empty things scare me. Empty cupboards, empty jars, and empty houses mean only one thing.”