The Last Stand of Daronwy

by Clint Talbert

  “Whoa!” Lightningbolt spread his wings, slowing his fall. Eaglewing followed suit. Both of them crashed hard on their stomachs.

  “Nice… landing,” Eaglewing coughed, massaging his ribs. The floor was completely smooth, as if this had once been a subterranean river. The stair came down at the edge what might have once been the river’s bank, just visible in the gloom.

  Lightningbolt shook his head to clear it. “This way.” He ran toward the foot of the stair, then along the riverbank, beating his wings for speed. Eaglewing could finally begin to feel the power of the Stone. It was down here. They moved along the riverbank for a long time before they saw the first skeletons.

  “Is that an Edenkiri?”

  “Was, I think”

  “Did you know they were so big?”

  Lightningbolt shook his head.

  The Edenkiri still wore a heavy metal cap on its broad skull. The bones of its four slender arms stretched along the cavern wall and its legs jutted out before it. Standing, it would be almost seven feet tall. “Come on, that serpent is still back there.” They sped toward a tangible, light-consuming blackness.

  The river ended in a sudden precipice, smoothed by centuries of water. Beyond the now-dusty waterfall lay a dark city of crumbling spires and flat-roofed buildings hewn from the basalt of the planet’s heart. The buildings stretched as far as they could see in the light from Lightningbolt’s staff.

  “Des’an’dar.” Eaglewing stared at it.

  “Yeah.” A dancing orange light played across the cavern walls. “The serpent! Fly, fly!”

  They dove into the space, gliding over the dark roofs. The fire serpent howled behind them; a mournful, tortured shriek. It flashed from side to side of the precipice, hunting for a way down. Lightningbolt led his brother over the extinct river that cut the city in half, following the pulsing rhythm of the Stone’s ancient power. Des’an’dar ended in a cliff that cut to a flat plain of polished stone. It was not long before another chasm yawned before them.

  “Down? Again?”

  “That’s where it is. Follow me.”

  They dropped into the pit. Lightningbolt brightened his staff to a white-hot shine, but even that could not illuminate the walls of the crevasse. Blackness enveloped them. With only gravity for a guide, they let themselves fall.

  “Something’s up there! See the flicker?”

  “Slow down!”

  They landed on a massive plain of glittering crystal. Pieces of light and dark crystal were cut and mortared side by side across the entire expanse. Pillars the size of small castles rose at the very edges of their visibility. Other pillars lay across the floor in broken, tower-sized chunks.

  Eaglewing’s head spun from the conflicting crystals. The light ones gave him energy that the dark ones stole just as fast. “What is this?”

  “It will neutralize our power. Come on, it’s this way.”

  “Have you ever seen so much crystal?”

  Lightningbolt shook his head. “Only in drawings.”

  They crossed the plain, walking toward a dull red light that shimmered in the distance. The air warmed. Thousands of skeletons littered the ground, still clutching broken weapons and wearing cobwebbed armor, as if some last ditch-battle had been fought here in the depths of the world and no one had lived to tell about it. There were hundreds on hundreds of Edenkiri, and many more other things—goblins, ogres, blackened horned skulls the size of the brothers’ chests. At the edge of the plain, they came to two tall iron doors. The left door hung by one hinge only; the bottom was blown away, cut and charred. Jumbles of bones were piled on either side.

  Inside, the same crystal floor had been split in a catastrophic upheaval to reveal a river of magma that glowered an angry crimson from deep below, lighting the room and scorching the air. Sulfur choked their lungs. Here, gray statues took the place of skeletons. Tall, slender, four-armed Edenkiri warriors wielded staff-like weapons with circular disks where spear points should have been. They fought horned creatures just as tall as themselves with limbs the girth of tree trunks. Both wore robes and mail that flapped in a wind that had died thousands of years before. Swords and axes crossed with the staffs. Several horned beasts lay on the floor with other Edenkiri. One of the beasts was missing a horn, frozen in mid-roar, revealing its long fangs.

  In the center of the room, near the rift, stood one Edenkiri, his beard forever lifted in the hot, sulfurous wind, his four hands held overhead, palms touching the only item in the entire room that was not gray rock. In his hands, a vibrant blue orb radiated. It appeared to have no edge, as though it were made of water. Eaglewing thought that if he touched it, he might fall in.

  Silence hung on the oppressive fumes. Raw power frazzled the edges of Eaglewing’s mind like a grinder set against his thoughts. “That’s it,” he whispered.

  “These are not statues.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that,” said Eaglewing. “We need to get out of here.”

  “What do we do?”

  Eaglewing gestured at the orb. “We came to get the Stone, right?”

  “Right.” Lightningbolt glanced from the Stone to the statues. “How are we going to get out?”

  “Do you still have the jump cloth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well then, what’s wrong? Let’s go.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  With each step among the statues, the same unease wormed through Eaglewing’s chest. Warmth radiated from these figures. They were alive once, and likely still were, caught in an unusual limbo, cursed to be frozen in this last dire battle for thousands of years. Lightningbolt stepped onto a chunk of fallen rock next to the Edenkiri and reached out his shaking hands toward the blue orb. Eaglewing held the jump cloth, concentrating on the spell in case he should have to say it. The blue Stone pulsed. It still had no edge, even this close. Lightningbolt stared at it, then at the statues. “I think they’re watching me. Are you ready?”

  “I have the spell ready,” Eaglewing said through clenched teeth. His fingers clutched both his sword and the jump cloth in white-knuckled grips.

  Lightningbolt took a deep breath. His fingers wrapped around an edge that was simply not there. An older, wilder magic surged up his arms; he could not feel what the Stone was made from, only the immense power it contained. Lightningbolt half threw, half dropped it into his satchel, glad to be free from its prickling electricity. Before Lightningbolt could speak the words of the jump spell, the Edenkiri turned its head and stared at him. A blue-skinned palm slammed into his chest, sending the wizard hurtling through the air to crash into the far wall. Screeches and shouts resounded and the battle resumed exactly where it had stopped, for a moment anyway. Then, sensing the shift in the balance of power, both the Edenkiri and the demons turned to stare at the adepts. Tension mounted on the foul air. The blue-skinned Edenkiri shuffled backwards. The black demons narrowed their red eyes and turned their horned heads slightly to their leader, a giant of a man with horns, who looked from Edenkiri to the adepts and back. Eaglewing recognized him from ancient frescos: Rathian, the fallen adept.

  A black spell erupted from nowhere, hurtling toward both Rathian and Lightningbolt. Rathian deflected the spell, and it missed Lightningbolt, incinerating the rock next to him. Two of the demons charged, lunging forward with glittering axes of flames. One of the Edenkiri warriors moved to stop them, another of them lunged at Eaglewing.

  “The jump cloth!” Lightningbolt yelled over the coarse language of demons, the shrieks of the Edenkiri, and the explosions of magic. He dodged an Edenkiri staff and ran across the room toward his brother. Eaglewing sprinted toward him, throwing the cloth to the ground between them and saying the spell he had already prepared as Lightningbolt added his strength to it. Without checking whether the portal had connected to its ending cloth, Lightningbolt vanishe
d into it. Eaglewing followed as the glowing staff of an Edenkiri hurtled through the air after his disappearing form. He grabbed the edge of the cloth as he fell through, pulling it with him.

  A burning light streamed through Eaglewing’s eyelids even though he squeezed them shut. His skin felt like it was on fire, and the light changed colors from white to blue to orange. He couldn’t breathe. His throat was closed up, even though he wasn’t sure he still had a throat. His lungs were about to burst when the light seared back to white and he felt his body sliding along tile. He hit a piece of wood, knocking it over. Glass shattered.

  “By the Stones!” The Midnight Wizard appeared in view.

  Lightningbolt pointed at the cloth in his brother’s hand where a violet tear opened between the worlds. The wizard scooped it up and saw the yellow eyes of the Edenkiri staring at him.

  “Destroy it!” screamed Lightningbolt.

  The wizard threw the cloth out of the open windows while his lips worked a quick spell. The explosion rocked his tower, throwing him into the wall and tumbling bookcases.

  “Let’s say there’s brick dust hanging in the air too, and the Midnight Wizard looks at you, then at me. I’m lying on the floor, bleeding from where the Edenkiri staff got through my mail.”

  Daniel nodded, deepening his voice to play the Midnight Wizard. “You have it, I know. But who—or what—did you steal it from?”

  Chapter Ten

  They had spent the day scouring through Twin Hills, two archaeologists amid a modern dump, teasing out the story of the Old Man. “What do you think of this?” Jeremy held up a thick, brown glass bottle with a full ecosystem tucked inside it: mud, bugs, shoots, and water. “Maybe this is some old kind of Coke that he likes?”

  “No. It’s just a bottle full of mud. Don’t be silly,” said Mira.

  As they left the Trash Clearing, Jeremy stopped next to an old dishwasher that was missing one square metal panel. They had found no clues. Everything he pointed out, she squashed, saying it wasn’t a clue. He didn’t know what they were looking for, and wondered if she did.

  “Do you think if we found the missing panel of this dishwasher we might figure something out?”

  Mira had almost left the Trash Clearing. She walked back and stared at the rusted metal hulk of the dishwasher, arms crossed. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

  She didn’t respond, and started to walk away toward the bike trails and home. He sighed, wishing they had found at least one clue. He followed her past the pond, through the bike trails, his head down, hands in the pockets of his jeans. When she stopped, he bumped into her.

  “That’s it.”

  The hair on his neck rose. “What is?” He looked around. She was staring at the old green trailer. Created from the bed of a pickup truck, it had been quietly rusting away between Mr. Black’s house and the dense shadows of Helter Skelter for many months. A pile of broken plywood lay next to it. Mira went to it, picking up the shattered planks that had been cut into wild jigsaw shapes. She pointed at the black marks on the wood.

  “See? The trailer has no floor, so if we put this back into the trailer the right way, these marks will be a message. It’s like a puzzle.” Her glittering eyes caught his. “It’s our first clue. Come on, help me put them together.”

  With that, she was in the trailer, extending her hands for a piece of wood. Why hadn’t he thought of it? The markings swam across the wood, disappearing into the shadows. The wood didn’t fit together cleanly. They tried several combinations for each piece until the sun started to set and the sky blushed a dark bluish orange. They had half the trailer pieced together, but it was too dark to see what might be on the wood. She said, “We should quit for tonight, but we’re halfway there. Tomorrow we can finish it, and then we’ll have our first clue!”

  He nodded, listening to the silence of the night. It was warm. The mosquitoes weren’t awake yet from their winter hibernation, and the mosquito trucks weren’t spraying. Twin Hills held a pensive thought, pursing its shoeblack lips, reticent, waiting for him to guess its shadowed desire. But Jeremy could only grasp at the outline of it, not the substance.

  Mira took his hand and they bounded out of the trailer, running across the intersection of Nevada and Vermont into her yard. “I have something to show you.” She squeezed his hand.

  Mira ran inside, leaving him standing in the grass just outside the yellow circle of light from the tiny concrete front porch of her house. Shuffling from foot to foot, he waited. She probably wasn’t going to come back. He breathed deep, inhaling the thick, humid night air. It didn’t matter if she didn’t come back. He walked to his dad’s truck, unhitched the tailgate, and felt the weight of it on his arms. Careful to make no noise, he lowered it. He jumped up onto the bed and sat down, swinging his feet and waiting for the first stars to appear. A door closed. He sat straight. Her slender form slipped into the shadows, momentarily disappearing before reappearing next to him without breaking her gazelle stride. She hopped onto the tailgate, sliding into position next to him. Their legs touched through their jeans. The warmth felt good, but he couldn’t say why. It wasn’t cold out.

  ”What do you have?”

  She held aloft a plastic tape player. “Listen to this.” The play button clicked down, its metallic spring ringing through the night like a clash of swords. After a few static-filled moments, an alien music began to softly play. They bent over the player, listening.

  No steel guitar, no twanging accent in the voice of the woman singing; this was different. The sounds brought pastel colors to his mind. The chords of the keyboard and the woman’s voice shimmered like hammered silver in the night. He had never heard anything like it. His parents only listened to country music. He didn’t know what this was, but he knew this was not country music.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s Cyndi Lauper,” she said with a wide smile, white teeth glittering in the shadows. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

  “She is.” He listened harder, trying to make out the words. Like the puzzle in the trailer, they materialized, coalescing into something recognizable.

  “Girls just want to have fun. That’s all they really want, some fun,” belted out of the tinny speaker into the infinite origami of the Texas sky as it folded into progressive shades of blue and purple and black. The first stars began to peek through the tree branches, playing hide-and-seek. When the song finished, Mira carefully rewound the tape and started it again. Her small hand nuzzled into Jeremy’s, her slender fingers working their way through his. Their parents should have called them in by now; someone should have stopped them. But no one had, and here they were, and girls just wanted to have fun.

  “I think we can finish the trailer tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. What do you think it’ll say?”

  She shrugged. “It’ll probably tell us where his house is.”

  Jeremy thought of Indiana Jones, standing over the model city with his staff and the crystal, trying to locate the Ark. “Maybe it will be a map to the part of Twin Hills where it is, and then we’ll know where to go look.”

  “Yeah. I bet so.”

  They fell silent again. Crickets began to scratch the air, their metallic noises blending well with the music. Frogs answered with a range of songs from steel-on-glass tinks to rumbling yodels. The only movement on the street was their legs, swinging.

  Jeremy didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want the moment to end. He wanted to sit with her all night long. He wanted to listen to Cyndi Lauper and watch the night darken; to think about the Old Man and the shadows that moved inside Helter Skelter. He thought maybe he should tell her about those shadows; about the way that things could follow you in there, but weren’t ever there, and left no prints. Did she think that it was the Old Man, doing something crafty to cover his prints? Did
she think it was a way out, a way to a place like Narnia where they would not have to go to school, a world where adventure was only a breath away? Bolstering his courage to finally say something, he opened his mouth, but she spoke first, pulling him back into the moment.

  “I can’t believe my mom hasn’t called me in yet.”

  “Yeah, me either. Usually, my dad would have come out by now.”

  Mira stared into Twin Hills, distant, as though she did not see the trees, but rather penetrated through the trees to some deeper reality. Maybe she felt it too. As though it were as fragile as a dragonfly, he squeezed her hand.

  “What do you see?”

  She turned to face him. “Hmm?”

  “What do you see?”

  “I dunno. Nothing. Just thinking, that’s all.” She punched his shoulder softly with her free left hand. “You know back when Travis was chasing you with that gun?”

  Jeremy nodded.

  “I’m glad he didn’t shoot you.”

  “Thanks. Me too.”

  She laughed. “I better go inside now. I can’t believe they didn’t call me.”

  She jumped down from the tailgate, and he followed. They shut it. Then standing together, facing one another, they hesitated. Something was supposed to happen now. He knew it. Was this when he was supposed to kiss her? How did he do that? What if he did it wrong?

  Eventually she said, “See you tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, for sure.” He smiled, relieved as the unusual, uncertain tension dissipated into the night.

  She grinned, taking his hand once more and squeezing it.

  He returned the squeeze and watched her walk back inside.

  Jeremy sat cross-legged on the driveway, cupping his left hand as though he could prevent Mira’s captured warmth from leaking out into the night.

  Armed with a notebook, a pencil, and the Rambo knife, Jeremy set out to resolve the mystery of the tar pit. Hands on his hips, he stared at the black muck in the spring sun with the jumble of half-burned planks protruding from the ground like fingers clutching at the sky. What cataclysm had created this? Hopefully the markings on these boards would combine with the markings on the boards in the trailer. He knew the tar pit held the second clue. Mira would be impressed that he’d found it.