He glanced down, noticing her torn trouser leg and the deep puncture wounds from the vampire’s teeth. Andy tore the bottom of his shirttail and wrapped her leg the best he could to try to stop the bleeding.
“Abigail, I…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where we are or how to get any help,” he said. Andy’s voice choked with emotion and tears sprang to his eyes. “I wish it had been me instead of you. You…you don’t deserve this.”
Abigail lay pale and unmoving. Her eyes had closed, and he didn’t know if she could even hear him.
“Please help her not to suffer.…Anything but that…”
A single tear dripped off the end of his nose and splashed onto the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a shimmer of green light. A voice said, “Begone, spirit.”
And the Banshee faded.
Andy felt a small hand on his shoulder.
“You’ve passed my test. With the riddle on the chest, you’ve shown cleverness. By facing the spirits, including the Dullahan, you’ve shown courage, and now, seeing your friend in pain, you’ve shown nothing but compassion.”
Andy couldn’t look up, because his eyes were filled with tears. But he was aware of a growing green light that soon seemed to encompass the entire world around him.
And then the graveyard—and Abigail—faded away.
When he opened his eyes, the creature who stood before him reminded Andy of every St. Patrick’s Day event he’d ever seen. The little man was dressed exactly like a leprechaun from a storybook, complete with buckled shoes, a tall green hat, and an emerald-colored vest. His impish, bearded face looked at once merry but also ancient and wise.
“The name’s Patrick Begorra, and I am the guardian of the Eternal Tree.” He smiled gently at Andy and then continued, saying, “Obviously, you both are very persistent youths, or you would have never made it to my door. I try to keep my home well hidden. A tree that grants endless life has been sought after by mortals for generations, but they must know she only bestows that gift to those she feels truly deserve it.”
Patrick folded his arms. “People like your sorcerer friend Bungalow Bob have figured out ways to prolong their lives through tapping into her magical roots. The trouble with that is that they are actually stealing from the Eternal Tree. Because their desire is selfish, the magic that prolongs their lives is rooted in selfishness. It might be a long life, but it often isn’t a happy one.”
“Well, I wouldn’t really call Bungalow Bob a friend,” said Andy. “As you said, he really only looks out for himself.”
Patrick nodded and said, “Just so.”
Andy was quiet as he thought about his friends and the battle they were facing. Were they already battling the Potentate’s forces? Andy also wondered how Patrick knew so much about them and their mission. Suddenly he thought about Abigail and asked, “Where’s my friend? Is she okay?”
“Her wound is very serious, but the chances are good that I can heal her. The bite of the Dearg Due can be fatal. But unlike that of the vampires in Romanian folklore, it doesn’t cause the victim to become one of their undead servants.”
Andy felt a tiny flicker of hope at the words.
Gazing around, Andy noticed for the first time that he was no longer in the tree’s roots. He was standing with Patrick in an immense circular room and realized with some surprise that they must be inside the massive tree’s trunk. The polished wooden room was furnished in the fashion of a homey Irish farmhouse, and if it hadn’t been for the dire circumstances, Andy would have certainly found it comforting.
“Mr. Begorra, we were sent to ask you a question.”
The small man looked up at Andy with a serene expression, as if expecting this. “Ask,” he said.
Andy took a deep breath. “An evil woman has activated something called the Doomsday Device. She wants to destroy everyone I care about with it. Please, please, do you know how I can stop her?”
“Yes, Andy Stanley. I do indeed possess the secret to destroying the Doomsday Device. But it isn’t what you think it is. In fact, once you discover what it is, you will probably wish you didn’t know. But that was the reason for my test. I already knew what you were seeking.”
“But how?” asked Andy.
Patrick smiled and gestured to the walls of the Eternal Tree. “She and I go back a long way. I can understand her speech, and her roots are deep, probing into many corners of the earth. The Eternal Tree is always listening and so, in turn, am I.”
He gave Andy a serious look. “You love your friends, don’t you, Andy Stanley?”
“I’ll do anything for them,” said Andy firmly. And then he added, with the conviction borne out of seeing one of his closest friends suffering, “Anything.”
Andy spent a long time speaking with Patrick Begorra about many mysteries, and during that time he heard several peals of the Doomsday Device’s terrible chime. But the things he had to learn from the leprechaun took time to explain. Patrick had to tell him what he knew about the Doomsday Device, how it had been created, and about the heart of the evil sorcerer who had made it in the Middle Ages so that Andy could truly begin to understand the tremendous sacrifice it would take to undo one of the most wicked artifacts ever made.
Andy hadn’t really expected the solution to destroying the machine to be as simple as finding a key that could fit inside and stop it. But when he learned of the real “key” it would take to save the lives of his friends, he found that he couldn’t speak for several minutes. He just nodded his head as Patrick explained to him that should he do what he had come to do, it was a choice only he could make and no other. After getting a reassurance from Andy that he fully understood what was at stake and still wanted to proceed, the leprechaun began teaching Andy the magic words that would bring about the destruction of the Doomsday Device.
Andy soberly repeated the strange phrase until he had it memorized. The words were ancient and incredibly powerful. And the book Patrick used to teach him the words was a tome even older than the deepest roots of the Eternal Tree. It was a book that had come from the foundations of the world and upon which the world was designed.
And now, here Andy was. He stood on top of a cairn, an ancient burial site for Irish kings, a magical place known now only to the leprechauns, that Patrick had transported him to.
Andy Stanley looked over the battlefield with a solemn purpose in his heart. This would be the most difficult thing he’d ever have to do. But he reassured himself about what he’d been taught and determined to gather his courage and do what he had to.
After repeating the three words that Patrick Begorra had taught him to himself once more, Andy gazed down at the battle that raged in the valley below.
The Collective’s army was clothed entirely in black, which made them easy to spot next to the J.E.S. members, many of whom were clothed in safari garb and pith helmets. Others were outfitted in colorful, exotic gear, and Andy assumed from their various cultural dress that they’d come from all corners of the globe. Every nation was represented, and many showed the wear and tear of the various plagues that the Doomsday Device had caused. Andy could see that many looked close to death, and he couldn’t help wondering how many had already perished.
In spite of the terrible thing he had to do, Andy felt calm and resolute. Abigail was with Patrick, and Andy was glad that she didn’t have to be present for the most deadly battle the J.E.S. had ever been involved with. He hoped that her healing would progress as the leprechaun had promised.
He fingered the juju around his neck, reminding himself to use it if necessary. The key to defeating the Potentate didn’t require an artifact of any kind. The secret lay in the three magic words that he now knew and would say at the proper time.
Andy kept repeating the words over and over again as he walked down the hill and toward the fighting. He thought of his friends’ faces as he walked, grateful for them and how much they’d brought to his young life.
As the battle
drew closer, he tried to find the Potentate among the swarming throngs but had difficulty spotting her. Rare and powerful artifacts were being used all over the place. Some activated colorful magic that shot blazing arcs of fire at their enemy. Others created mythical creatures, hulking dragons and hideous demons that wreaked havoc and laid waste to all who stood in their paths.
Andy glanced to his right and noticed, in the distance, a very haggard Rusty Bucketts, who had just pulled back on his slingshot and let his ball bearing fly at a hulking member of the Collective who was looming over him with an artifact-powered scimitar.
The grizzled giant staggered for a moment and then, like Goliath of old, toppled forward with a ball bearing embedded in his forehead. His glowing sword buried itself in the earth as he collapsed. The scimitar flickered for a moment and then melted into the form of a deadly cobra, slithering off to find an unsuspecting victim among the fighters.
Andy watched as the stalwart Rusty quickly retrieved his shiny eyeball, prying it loose from the giant, and, after wiping it off, popped it back in its socket.
Andy wanted to run over and congratulate his old friend, happily slapping his back as Rusty had done to him more times than he could count. But there wasn’t time for that. Patrick had told him that he would have only ten minutes before the Doomsday Device hit its final chime, the one that would kill all the Potentate’s enemies in that final fell swoop.
Andy took a deep breath. And then, drawing his Zoomwriter, he let out the loudest shout he could muster and ran headlong into the fray.
Weapons clashed next to his head. Andy ducked. A giant lizard stomped past, its claw missing him by inches. But still he ran, heedless of the danger, searching desperately for the Potentate.
An army of clockwork soldiers outfitted in samurai armor cleared a swath through the crowd, their blades spinning like propellers. Andy fired his Zoomwriter, knocking them back like bowling pins.
And that’s when Andy saw her—the Potentate, standing atop a flat piece of rock and holding the Doomsday Device in gloved hands above her head.
Andy took a deep breath. He recited the words once more to keep them firmly in his memory.
And then he ran with all his might directly at his foe.
He raced past the twins, Betty and Dotty, who were spinning and kicking as they sang their eerie war song, a strange melody that was filled with a beautiful, weird harmony that only the sisters could sing. Several of the Collective soldiers fell to their spinning blows in spite of the protective charms they wore around their necks.
Andy dodged an explosive artifact that was tossed to his left. Then he ducked the fist of a giant golem, a stone creature twenty feet tall, to his right. He kept his eyes fixed on his goal: the masked woman on the ledge.
Suddenly, a crowd of evil-looking men and women appeared in front of him. They had surrounded Molly the mime, a member of the J.E.S. and a friend he hadn’t seen in ages. The girl was shouting epithets at the top of her lungs at her enemies (she’d never been a very good mime) and casting her juggling knives at them with deadly precision.
But Andy could tell at a glance that she was outnumbered. Without hesitation, he took his juju from his neck and summoned it.
The piranhahaha—a strange, smiling, many-toothed fish—glowed.
As soon as he activated the charm, a laughing fit paralyzed the crowd of soldiers. With tears streaming down their cheeks, they collapsed to the ground.
Molly stared at them in surprise and then caught Andy’s eye. She waved an enthusiastic thanks, and Andy gave her a quick wave in return before dashing away.
I only hope that I’ll see them all again someday, he thought. They’re the best friends I’ve ever had.
But he didn’t allow himself to dwell on the task ahead. He knew that if he thought too much about it, he wouldn’t have the courage to do what he’d set out to do.
He was glad to see that the Potentate’s gaze was focused elsewhere, glued to the skirmish that was happening about twenty or thirty yards from where she stood. Bungalow Bob stood next to a group of J.E.S. members that Andy had seen only briefly at one of the outposts. They fought a group of Collective soldiers led by a roaring Chinese dragon. Andy would have rushed to help them if he could have, but he knew that the time had come.
He started to climb the ledge behind the Potentate, ready to confront his nemesis. But just as he was about to approach his archenemy, he felt something hard punch him in the back, directly between his shoulder blades.
Andy wheeled around and saw the last person standing there that he could ever have expected. Grinning with rows of broken yellow teeth and holding a long, ornately carved lightning rod was none other than Nicodemus Crumb, his wild hair blowing in the wind.
The rod he carried had evidently been the thing Crumb had used to hit Andy in the back, because he pointed it at him and cackled. “Thought you’d gotten rid of me, eh? Thought I’d drowned at sea?” His voice grew menacing. “You, Andy Stanley, have been a boil on my neck since I first laid eyes on you at the funeral. You destroyed my ritual, one that had taken me over a year to produce. I blame you for the wreckage that was once my boat. And I demand from you payment for the pain you’ve caused me.” He spit on the ground before shouting in a wild, enraged voice, “I want those keys, boy—the keys to your grandfather’s mansion! They’re mine!”
Andy noticed that as his anger grew, dark, heavy storm clouds suddenly began to gather in the sky directly above the old man’s head, and a chilly wind blew. Crumb then raised the lightning rod to the heavens and, with his eyes rolled back in his head, began murmuring some kind of spell in a high, whiny voice. It sounded much like the one Andy had heard him attempting at his grandfather’s funeral.
Andy reached for his pen. But before he could grasp the Zoomwriter, the lightning rod glowed with a fierce, eerie light, and Crumb, looking like some otherworldly demon with the wind tearing through his long gray hair, pointed his bony finger at Andy.
The next thing Andy knew was the sound of an earth-shattering CRACK! as a bolt of white lightning thundered down and stabbed the ground right where Andy stood, completely knocking him off his feet.
Electricity arced around Andy like a Tesla coil, the terrible lightning electrifying his body with tremendous force.
Andy screamed!
As he writhed on the ground, he was dimly aware of Nicodemus Crumb’s high laugh. Then the old man was shouting to a second presence who had arrived beside him, and it was the person Andy loathed and feared more than any other.
The Potentate, alerted by the sudden lightning blast, had joined Crumb. And as the sparking electricity faded away, Andy heard Nicodemus telling her about the keys Andy held and insisting that he deserved a reward for delivering not only the keys but the Keymaster to her as well.
All of this Andy heard as if listening to a faint radio station with poor reception. His ears were thrumming from the blast, and although the electric arcs had stopped sizzling around him, he still felt as if every nerve in his body were jangling.
Whether the Potentate answered Crumb, Andy didn’t know. But after Crumb asked the Potentate for compensation, there was a terrible scream, and Andy knew instantly that it was Nicodemus Crumb’s voice—and that he was probably dead.
Crumb was the latest victim in the Potentate’s campaign of destruction. She didn’t need him. Whatever she wanted, she took by force. Andy was in terrible pain, and faint wisps of smoke curled up from his clothing, but when he was able to crack his swollen eyes open, he saw the Potentate with her flowing robes, raven black hair, and deathlike ivory mask peering down at him.
Her head was cocked to one side as if she were considering what she was looking at. Her slim arms were gripping the Doomsday Device, and Andy could see that the minute hand was only a few ticks away from midnight.
Andy knew that when it struck, it would mean the deaths of everyone he loved. That would be it. The entire J.E.S., which had stalwartly resisted every plague the device had deliver
ed and fought to the very end without giving up, would be eliminated.
Then the impact of what he was about to do washed over him. Although he was weak and in terrible pain, something deep inside of him knew that this would be his only chance.
Andy didn’t hesitate. Rising up with strength born of conviction, he leapt for the Doomsday Device and grasped it with all his might. A fantastic tug-of-war ensued, with both parties fighting for control of the infernal device.
Andy felt the edges of the deadly artifact pulsing with dark magical power. And right then, the sensation was almost worse than the lightning had been. The terrible, dark energy caused all the muscles in his forearms to seize up, and they seemed to want nothing more than to release the terrible artifact.
But whether that was a magical property of the evil clock or not, Andy didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He held on in spite of everything the device was throwing at him.
“Let go!” the Potentate shrieked. It seemed that she was experiencing the same discomfort Andy felt. Then, while one hand still held the device, her other darted beneath her cloak and pulled out a long, thin knife. Andy didn’t even scream as the cold blade sliced over and over into his arms and hands, ruthlessly stabbed by his terrible enemy.
Andy didn’t feel anything. His mind felt detached, and everything moved almost as if he were in a dream. He didn’t care if his arms were torn off his body; there was nothing, nothing, that could make him let go of the clock.
Because he had one thing left to do.
And it was time to do it.
Andy mouthed a silent good-bye to everyone he loved. With a burst of his last remaining strength, he ripped the device from the Potentate’s grip with a mighty heave. And then, once it was in his sole possession, he raised his voice as loudly as he could and recited at the top of his lungs the ancient words Patrick Begorra had taught him. The spell was one of the oldest and most secretly guarded. It was a spell that could be uttered only by one worthy to say the words, or they would never have worked. But Andy had proved himself worthy of Patrick’s tests. He’d also learned that some kinds of magic require the ultimate sacrifice.
Tales from Adventureland the Doomsday Device Page 11
