by Ivory Autumn
He glanced behind him at his friends. Guilt flooded over him. He closed his eyes, his mind and body filling with resolve. “No!” he told himself. He cast his momentary thought of darkness away. No! They had not given up, and neither would he. He owed those who had fought so valiantly by his side at least that much. He owed it to himself. To Ivory, to all who believed in a cause. Nothing could make him throw everything away so easily, so rashly, so thoughtlessly. Not even the guilt and pain he felt. No. He could not forsake all that he had fought for. He had a mission to complete.
He opened his eyes, and cast the Barnacle one last look before turning back. But that last look was all the creature needed.
“There you are!” It let out a chilling scream. “Andrew!!!!! Andrew!!” It howled so loudly that it caused the dead trees surrounding it to tremble and shake. “Awake!” it howled, walking past the trees, its spidery cape, caressing the trees trunks. At the being’s command, the trees became alive, their cold branches snapping and cracking.
“Behold,” the Barnacle howled, “the power leached through my fangs! Your power Andrew!”
A dagger of icy pain jabbed at Andrew’s chest where the Barnacle’s scars had been etched into his skin. The pain was acute and sharp. So sharp that his breath was knocked from him, he nearly fell from the rock he was standing on.
“Freddie! Ivory, Croffin!” Andrew gasped, turning and stumbling through the snow towards his friends. “It’s come! It’s come for me!”
“What’s come for you?” Croffin growled, sitting up and rubbing his one eye.
“The Barnacle!”
Ivory and Freddie instantly awoke, their eyes big with fear.
“Run!” Andrew cried, helping Ivory to stand. “They can harm us both. And it’s my fault. Run! Run, all of you.”
Andrew’s mind spun with fear. He glanced behind him, hearing the crack of the trees clicking together. The Barnacle screamed out gusts of ice and snow as it crashed ahead.
“Go!” he told Ivory and the others. “Run!”
“What about you?” Ivory cried.
“Just go!” Andrew commanded, drawing his sword and holding it high. “I will be alright. I promise. Now go! Freddie, take her with you. Now!”
Freddie quickly obeyed Andrew’s command. Ignoring Ivory’s cries of protest he dragged Ivory back.
Andrew stood transfixed in place. His only thought was for those whom he cared for. He would not let what happened to him happen to Ivory.
“Trunklings,” the Barnacle howled. “Come! I have a work for you to do. “After the boy, the boy!”
Every single one of the dead trees lining the road through the Fractured Mountains came alive, their dead wood creaking and crunching. The trees, like hideous gargoyles, epitaphs of previous wars, reached for him. Their eyes glowed red within their bark like coals ready to break into flame.
Andrew finally awoke from his stupor, and stumbled down over the rocks back towards the frozen sea, trying to lead the terrible creatures away from his friends. But the trees were as fast as they were large. They clambered over the rocks, reaching out at him like spiders, their dry branches constantly cracking and breaking.
“My twiglings, my dry forest of rotting logs,” the Barnacle cried above the deafening sound of cracking branches. “Get him. Crush him!”
Without warning, Andrew was grabbed by a twisted tree with burnt fingers and two branches extending upwards from its trunk like horns on a demon. Below him, Freddie was standing at the base of the tree, whacking the tree’s trunk using his sword like an ax.
Andrew groaned, and struggled against the tree’s grasp. Why had his friends come back for him? Didn’t they know it was useless to fight against such an unstoppable foe?
“Pest!” the tree roared, flicking Freddie away, knocking him violently against the ground.
“Crush him,” the barnacle commanded, standing beneath the tree, his voice covering the trees in a frosty dew.
“No!” Ivory screamed, standing behind the barnacle. She looked bravely into the eyes of the demon. “Stay away from him!”
The Barnacle laughed, and took a step towards Ivory. “Young elfling, you are very brave. But very stupid. Don’t you know what I can do to you, how I can make you suffer?”
“Get away from her!” Andrew cried, wriggling through the tree’s unlimber, lumbery fingers. He reached out and grabbed the tree’s lengthy nose and hung there, dangling from it. His hands grew hot against the wood. The tree’s nose smoldered and broke, throwing him onto the ground at the feet of the deadly Barnacle.
Andrew groaned and looked up. The Barnacle’s cold gaze paralyzed him instantly. “Get behind me, Ivory!” Andrew ordered. “Now!”
Ivory looked from Andrew to the Barnacle. “No, Andrew, I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for me.”
“And I won’t let you die for me!” Andrew yelled, pulling Ivory behind him. “Too many have already died because of me!”
The Barnacle loomed before him, sneering. Under its icy gaze Andrew could feel his old wound icing over, like frost freezing water. The cold pricked his veins and ebbed its way into his neck, making him stiff and sore. He held his sword in front of him and Ivory. In this dark hour it felt cold, and utterly useless. The power of those 7,000 soldiers was no longer held within its blade.
“Ivory,” Andrew commanded, “run!”
“No!” Ivory shouted. “You can’t make me!”
“Ah,” the Barnacle howled. “Run, stay, it does not matter. You will both die. One before the other, that is all.”
“You will not touch her!” Andrew cried, standing in front of Ivory protectively. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“I know,” the Barnacle breathed. “And I will. Today you will finally die, like you should have that night in the forest of Boreen. Your life will finally be mine. I have been following you ever since you brought down The Shade’s trees. Your smell was intoxicating. I was nearly upon you a dozen times. Yet, the ice and cold covered up your scent. But tonight I smelled you, very strongly. Yes, like a strong perfume, the scent of your gifts filled my nostrils. And all for what? Apples. Were they really worth it, Andrew, these apples? It seems you have plucked the forbidden fruit, so to speak.”
Andrew stood undaunted, though he felt as if his very sinews were being slowly turned to ice even before the Barnacle had laid a finger on him. “Stay back. I warn you!”
The Barnacle stared at Andrew, cocking its head like a hungry cat ready to pounce. It laughed and held its hands high. Its dark cape flapped in the wind like a broken fishing net. The trees had stopped their shifting. Now they stood watching the barnacle with red eyes, like demonic hosts awaiting the sacrifice of holy blood.
The Barnacle lashed out its cape, catching Andrew by the leg.
Down Andrew went with a loud thump.
The Barnacle laughed and howled as it dragged Andrew to its outstretched claws.
Ivory screamed. She clutched onto Andrew’s body, trying to pull him back.
“Get away!” The Barnacle snapped, tossing Ivory away from him. “I will get to you soon enough!”
It growled, and leaned over Andrew’s heaving form, listening to Andrew’s quickening heartbeat with delicious pleasure. Andrew squirmed, tearing madly at the Barnacle’s arms ripping the thin cloth covering its blobby arms.
“You will not survive a second time,” the Barnacle howled, showing off a pair of new fangs glistening like pointed javelins in dark slime. The Barnacle ripped open Andrew’s shirt and ran his cold knobby fingers over the place he’d bitten Andrew before. His touch sent Andrew into a spasm of pain. “Does it hurt?” the creature crooned, “This wound I gave you? Does it wake you in the night? Does it send icy shivers down your spine? Does it ever let you really rest? No…because deep inside, you knew I was coming back. Coming back to finish what I started, to send you where you have longed to go. No. Don’t struggle. I know you wish for it. This death. Calm yourself. You have summoned me to you, perhaps without fully
knowing why. But you brought me to you. And now your pain will soon be over. Your struggles are at an end. You will be free, Andrew. Isn’t that what you wanted, anyway. Freedom? Well I am here. And I will give it to you at last!” It hissed and laughed, breathing frosty breath into Andrew’s ear. “Freedom!”
The Barnacle opened its gaping mouth. Wafts of steam rose from its terrible throat.
Andrew cried out, unable to move. His mind filled with confusion. His heart thundered against his chest. He breathed in and out, gasping for air, the pain beginning before it even started. He couldn’t do this. He could not die, not yet. He stared at the Barnacle’s dripping fangs. No, he thought. He could not let this happen a second time. He would not die like this!
The Barnacle breathed in with a loud sucking sound, and then breathed an icy sleet over Andrew’s chest, like it was dipping its meal in some savory sauce. It leaned in, smelling Andrew, and hissed in delight. It shivered and then reopened its mouth, ready to sink its fangs into Andrew’s chest.
Just as it moved to snap its jaws shut, Freddie smacked the creature in the side of the chest with a long log.
“Run, Andrew!” Freddie cried, standing between the Barnacle and Andrew. “RUN!”
“You can’t protect your friend from me!” the Barnacle howled, flinging Freddie aside. “No one can.”
Without waiting to see where Freddie had fallen, Andrew turned and ran, stumbling through the snow, and rocks. But there was no place to hide, no haven, no tree he could lean his back against. He could hear the Barnacle howling out, calling his trees to his aid. Something cold and slippery snapped up from the ground like a giant whip and knocked him onto his face. Roots. They were everywhere, pulling tugging, pinching. More roots came and wrapped around his arms, and legs, suspending him the air, like a bug trapped in a web.
“I’m hungry!” the Barnacle growled, looming over Andrew. “Do you know how you have tortured me these many months by staying alive? Drinking your gifts was like tasting a box full of delicate chocolates only to find out that there is one last chocolate left. That taste you gave me, before, will be nothing compared to finally finishing you off. You have tormented me long enough!” The being loomed over Andrew, its gaping sinuses belching fog as it breathed a film of frost over Andrew for a second time. “Do not fight it anymore, Andrew. Embrace your freedom. Embrace your FATE!”
The word “fate” stirred something inside Andrew, a memory of Oragino’s speech. Fate? No. It was not his fate to die on this cold, frosty night. His fate was somewhere out there. He still had a job to do. Andrew saw, as it were, a tuft of light swim through the air around his head. Like a moonlight moth, it settled on his shoulder. A lost, unheard word had found its home. It fluttered in his ear and whispered. “You can see its weakness, Andrew. It has always been there. Do not fear.” That was all the voice said. He did not know whose words they were, or why they had chosen to settle on him at that moment. The words caused a funny feeling to flood over him. They were short and sweet, but sharp like an arrow that somehow penetrated the clouds of the heavens. They were brilliant, he had never thought to look for the fiend’s weakness, because he supposed it never had one.
Just as the barnacle made ready to clamp down onto Andrew’s chest, Andrew’s eyes burned green. He stared at the Barnacle, first in surprise, then amazement. He saw the Barnacles weakness. How obvious it was now. Seeing it gave Andrew hope, and renewed courage. Heat and strength rushed into his arms and legs, then passed out and into the trees root that held him. The tree roots stiffened and became as soft as sawdust.
Crack!
The branches fell away from his body, freeing Andrew just enough for him to reach out and stop the Barnacle from closing its jaws around his chest.
“No!” Andrew cried out, grabbing hold of its icy fangs, feeling his hands start to ice over. He groaned and shook, struggling against the creature’s strength. He could feel the cold edges of the Barnacle’s fangs scrape his skin. The creature hissed and belched, blinding Andrew with frost and ice. But still, Andrew held on.
Growing impatient, the creature jerked back, just as Andrew pulled back and fell to the ground, gasping. Both of the creature’s icy fangs were in his hands, like two jagged icicles. Dark ooze dripped from their jagged roots.
The Barnacle looked at him, shocked. His eyes filled with disbelief. The being screamed and stumbled back, letting out a frightening howl that cut through the night like a thousand ghostly nightmares. The creature’s hands went to its mouth, hovering over the place where his fangs had been. “No!” The Barnacle screamed, its body icing over. “This can’t be…” It fell back, convulsing on the ground, belting out frost and smog until its tall, bulky form melted into a long sheet of black ice, with long stringy veins like a spider’s web cutting through its surface.
Andrew turned around expecting the hideous trees to bear down on him. But the dead trees remained as they were, dead. The holes where their red eyes had been were charred and blackened like they had housed burning embers that had been blown out.
“You did it!” Andrew was hit from behind, and pulled into a warm embrace by Freddie and Ivory.
“You did it, Andrew,” Ivory breathed. “You killed the Barnacle. How did you know what to do?”
Andrew gazed at the smooth lake of ice the Barnacle had created on the ground, and shook his head. Andrew’s face glittered with the frost the Barnacle had breathed over him, but a hint of a smile shone beneath his cold skin. He looked at Freddie, and Ivory purely astonished himself. “A voice…” was all he could say. Yes. A voice. A pure undiluted voice of truth had reached him in this cold, dark land.
All was not lost as he had first supposed.
Chapter Thirty-one
The Fractured Mountains
Andrew stared above him at the outlines of the Fractured Mountains silhouetted against the sky like shards of jagged glass. The ridges rose high into the sky as if trying to grasp the heavens and pull them down. Their uneven, proud peaks shimmered as if mocking those below their lofty spires, who were trudging through the dirty snow.
The wind had ceased, but the snow continued to fall, covering everything in a heavy, cold, silence that froze movement, froze sound. It silenced the whispering and shuffling of the shadows that lingered in the cracks and behind the rocks, watching like stiff sheets much too cold to move.
The road through the pass was utterly forsaken. Not a soul lingered there. It was as if the mountain was guardian enough, watching like a towering garrison of soldiers, ready to throw down rocks at any moment, and crush the travelers below.
Andrew paused before veering down a side road that cut through the mountains. Ivory and Freddie stood behind him, watching as Croffin came in from the rear, his fluffy skunk’s tail bobbing up and down in the snow, his body hidden in one of their many footprints.
“What are you doing?” Croffin gasped, bumping into Freddie’s leg. “Why are we stopping?”
“We’re changing roads,” Andrew said, forging ahead through the snow. “This path should be safer.”
Croffin peered above the snow, his one eye blinking back bits of snow that had fallen into it. “Ugg. Some path.”
Andrew nodded. “Yes. But we’ll be less visible here.”
“Yeah,” Croffin’s muffled voice rose beneath the snow, his entire body invisible in the footprint. “I know.”
They slowly moved through the snow, down byroads, and up steep slopes, over treacherous terrain covered in sharp rocks and black glassy bits of sand that had been heated at high temperatures.
Gradually, they left the Fractured Mountains far behind them. All that the mountains had hidden from view was now theirs to behold. Hills and sunken valleys saturated in steam and ice spread out before them, heaped with miles of coal piled, like black anthills. On a tall mound of coal they stopped. They looked out over the land. From their position they could see the vast realm of The Fallen reaching far out in every direction, covered in ice, snow and smoldering pits, belching
wafts of black steam.
The towering outline of The Shadelock castle glowed like a silver star against the gray sky. The lands surrounding it lay under a layer of smoke and steam, half hidden, and half seen, in a continually drowsy-looking state.
The land was a strange place full of flickering lights and darting shadows. It was hot and cold, light and dark, wet and dry, dirty and clean, stinky and sweet smelling. It was all mixed together making everything dank, lukewarm, yet chilly, and uncomfortable. Shadows were in abundant supply. They lingered everywhere, reaching out, whispering. Like schools of hungry fishes they darted over the land, restless and tormented, always searching for something they could never have or be.
What horrors lay hidden under the smog and steam? Andrew wondered. What uncertain fate did this land hold for him here? He half smiled to himself, remembering Drust, the man who kept footprints like a librarian keeps books. Had Drust seen Andrew’s footsteps into this dark place?
Andrew slowly made his way down a steep pile of coal to the edge of a steaming, bubbling pit below, where shadows coiled and weaved over it, surging up from each tar-like bubble, unfolding like a butterfly released from its cocoon, birthed and breathed to life by the oil bubbling below.
“Be careful,” Andrew warned, slowly making his way around the edge of the pit. He peered over the edge and grimaced. A black, oily liquid bubbled below him, sending up a toxic steam that smelled of tar, and rotting carcasses.
Concourses of shadows hovered over the pit hissing and howling, disturbed by Andrew. They scattered like a school of fish, twisting and turning, reaching and grabbing, trying to pull the travelers into the pit. Ivory screamed as one grabbed her arm, and yanked her towards the steaming pit.
“Ivory!” Andrew cried, catching hold of her arm, and pulling her back to safety. “I’ve got you.”
“Thank you,” Ivory shivered, clutching Andrew like a small child.
A loud throaty roar sounded from within the hole, sending a huge cloud of smoke, shadows, and steam billowing up. The Shadows hissed and howled, dispersing like dozens of frightened crows. The ground trembled as a huge oily shadow was belched from the pit. The figure rose from the pit, unfolded a shadow of a dragon, given form only from the oil that dripped from its body, like a ghost doused with black ink. Its face was horned. Spikes rose out of every inch of its body, all different lengths, all dripping with oil, and steaming with heat. Its eyes were red. Its mouth gave off an orange steam. It had huge, oily, winged arms that dripped with grease. A thunderous shriek sounded as the creature dug its claws into the side of the pit and opened its gaping mouth, spewing a cloud of orange sparks into the air.
