by Roy Huff
“And Owen,” The Keeper continued.
“Yes?”
“Stay focused. Use wisdom, and be careful.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Owen as he willed himself across time and space to the location of the armies of Everville in Brackenbone.
“Owen. It’s great to see you again,” Toe said.
“It’s great to see you too, and you too, Sako.”
“Likewise,” said Sako as he reached over to grip Owen’s hand in a firm shake.
“The Keeper wants to go to The Second Pillar of Truth in the hopes of understanding it, so I guess I’m supposed to stay with you guys until then. So, can you tell me if you have any idea what you think the worms will be like if they have sentience?” Owen asked.
“I’m not sure, Owen, but from what I’m hearing from the others, it doesn’t sound good. I’m not sure if they will have sentience when we cross, but we’ll do our best to get you there as quickly as possible.
“Brackenbone is the land of the Ubaloo, so their army will lead the rest. They will also present some advantages when they cross due to their size. You, however, will stay with the Fron. The Fron army has been tasked with protecting you until you reach The Second Pillar. That is the highest priority above all others.”
“Sako, I owe your army tremendous gratitude. How many armies are there, by the way?” Owen asked.
“Well, there are nine in the armies of Everville, the Fron army, as well as the eight armies from each of the other surrounding eight lands. Then there is the army of giants, which will flank the armies of Them from the south, but only half of the giants’ army will arrive. The other half will stay back in their land as a defensive reserve,” Sako replied.
With those words, the portal leading to The City of Worms lit up. The first contingent of Ubaloo soldiers marched forward, and then the next, and still more, hundreds of thousands of twelve-inch muscle men in full military garb. As the army of the Ubaloo crossed through the portal, each row of soldiers spread out like a fan of ants. The idea was to have the Ubaloo positioned between the larger soldiers in the front of all the armies for a tactical advantage once the battle began, and to decrease the potential concentration of casualties due to the clustering of large bodies.
One army after another crossed the portal. The Fron army was the third army to pass. The Ubaloo and the army of the Deep Woods would provide cover for the Fron while they led Owen to The Second Pillar surrounding The City of Worms.
The portal between Brackenbone and The City of Worms was massive—it stood miles across—but it still took hours for all of the armies to pass. When the last of the soldiers from the final army had crossed through the portal, the soldiers turned slightly to the north, heading north-northeast in the direction of the city.
“You see that spire off in the distance?” Sako asked as he pointed.
“Yeah, I see it,” Owen replied.
“That’s The Second Pillar, but it’s only part of it. The other half of the pillar lies as a river connected to the spire, and it surrounds the entire city proper and the worms that reside within the city. The rest of The City of Worms is a vast desert of eternal twilight occupied by the beasts that dwell in the region. The Second Pillar will let anything and anyone leave the city proper, but only those granted access by The Second Pillar through the spire can enter it.”
The armies continued to walk for several hours with no sign of the forces of Them or any other creature beyond the city proper. The City of Worms stunk, but at least it was comfortable and cool.
At the halfway point between the portal and spire, Owen was able to make out movement within the walls of the city. He could see large cylindrical columns of dirt rising above the surface, but there were no other visible features in the columns. Whatever was underneath remained hidden for the time being.
Between the columns of dirt were large shards of glass and stone. There were giant castles made of rock and bone. It was a mesh of different indiscernible structures composed of a mixture of shimmering and dull surfaces, like sheets of diamonds and opal next to folds of featureless tans, grays, and browns.
The armies continued marching for several more hours, until they could see movement beyond the city proper to the south and east, and outside the city walls above and beneath the ground. Columns of dirt within the city began to wrinkle and squirm.
“I see movement,” Asher shouted from the front of the Ubaloo army.
“Yes, I see it also,” shouted several other soldiers in the army of the Deep Woods.
“Something’s wrong,” Sako yelled.
“Yes. Look to the southeast,” another one of the Fron said.
Owen could now make out figures in the distance, two massive armies preparing for a great collision. The armies of Them were about to meet the army of giants. There was one towering giant, a giant among giants that led the front. It was Borak, and with a great leap, he ascended into the air over the armies of Them well ahead of the rest of the giants.
Borak landed on three soldiers of Them. The moment he made impact, his gargantuan feet crushed the soldiers and flattened them in the dirt. Borak let out the loudest roar that any race in any realm had ever heard. It shook the ground like a massive earthquake and shuddered the air like the loudest clap and crackle of thunder that continued without end. His lungs expelled a force through the air that created ripples in the armies of Them, knocking over soldiers row by row in a rolling motion that moved outward in a great endless pond of bone and flesh.
The army of giants rushed in behind Borak as he moved forward through the center of the armies of Them. The giants had an easy task of crushing the survivors that remained, but most of the soldiers of Them were all dead, though it was difficult to tell. The possession of Them and the smoke that flowed through their bones gave motion to dead limbs, which often lasted for several minutes. Several of the giants grumbled in disappointment when they crushed a hand or a foot, only to discover that it was not moving on its own, only animated by the smoke of the armies of Them.
From the looks of how things were going, the army of giants would soon destroy the armies of Them in short order, but Owen saw a small contingent of the armies of Them to the northeast. Them were looking for something just outside the water of the city.
“I am no longer able to merge with the minds of Them, but it looks as if Mallory has betrayed us. Hopefully it will not matter. It looks as if the army of giants is winning,” Calvin said.
They were nearing the spire of The Second Pillar. Sako turned to Owen and said, “We will walk you to the gates of the spire, then we will join the rest of the armies.”
The other eight armies had detached from the Fron and were moving to the southeast to meet up with the army of giants. Then it happened. Owen saw the giant cylinders of dirt that had been twisting and heaving shred open one column at a time. The first column ripped apart, and a giant worm shot into the air. It had grayish-brown snake-like skin, with a diameter of a hundred feet and a length of at least five times as long.
After shooting a thousand feet into the air, the shell and skin of the worm peeled off from the top of the head to the bottom of the tail. The mouth of the creature split open and revealed dual sets of razor-sharp teeth. Ridges on the front and sides of the head sprouted vertically, and soon arms and legs with massive claws peeled away from the sides. Wings that had been coiled around the cylindrical torso opened up and spread out horizontally from the creature.
The newly transformed beast let out a roar equal in ferocity to that of Borak’s, but with its roar, flames engulfed everything in its path. The armies of Them had succeeded in giving the worms sentience, and with it, they released a race of dragons on the armies that now laid siege to The City of Worms.
The soldiers of the Fron army gasped, and rushed to push Owen to the gates of the spire. Several of the dragons flew high above the city and were nearly close enough to torch the entire Fron army in a few breaths.
As Owen arrived at the entrance of the pillar,
he walked through the gates of the spire, and then the gates closed behind him. He walked along the center of a large walkway that extended directly in front of him. The ground beyond the boundary of the walkway fell away into an infinite pit, and a blinding white light gleamed from all directions.
A familiar being approached Owen at some distance in front of him. The Second Pillar, as with The First Pillar, was clothed in robes with a face that constantly shifted. Owen looked closer, and as the figure came near, a face took shape. It was familiar, a face that he had seen many times as a kid. It was the face he had seen in pictures that had decorated his home. It was the face of his father.
“Owen,” the figure said.
“It can’t be. Are you my father?” Owen asked.
“Listen very carefully. There are two choices you can make to save your realm. The first choice is to accept my gift to you of control. You have demonstrated great wisdom and virtue. The Keepers have seen in you the character needed to wield great power. If you wish, I can give you the power to control all of the element as well as the dragons, both in The City of Worms and beyond.”
“What’s the other choice?”
“Well, the only other choice is the destruction of the dragons that reside in The City of Worms. That would mean the destruction of the city itself and everything in it including the armies that now lay siege to the city.”
“You mean the armies of Everville and the army of giants, too?”
“Yes, Owen. Once the dragons escape the confines of the city, they are beyond my sphere of influence.”
Owen stood there. His face was sullen. He was given a choice that to someone less wise would seem obvious, and yet he knew it was not that simple. The figure took him to the top of the spire and let him look across the vast city. He could see several of the dragons approaching the army of giants, and several other dragons had already started torching the armies of Everville.
“You must make your decision quickly, Owen.”
“It seems so easy to accept the first choice, but from what I know, no one can withstand the corruption that comes from the concentration of power as great as what you are suggesting. No matter how much wisdom I possess, I would never be that wise. At some point, I would no longer be a force for good, and I would harm those who I set out to protect. It pains me to say this, but I see no other option. I have to choose the second choice.
“I have seen so much death and so much destruction, but who am I to say that I have the wisdom to prevent even more death and destruction that would come from my own hand at some point in the future. I wish I did not have to make this choice, and I wish that I could give my own life in the place of the armies in front of me. Seeing, though, that this is not an option, I must choose the latter and ask for the destruction of the city.”
The figure looked at Owen and said, “Owen, you have demonstrated The Second Pillar of Truth, humility, but with understanding of this truth comes tremendous obligation. It will be up to you and others like you to effect change in your realm.
“All races in all realms possess a certain amount of good and a certain level of evil, some greater than others. Your realm is the center of all borderlands. It lies directly in the heart of the multiverse, with an equal capacity for good and evil. That’s mankind’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness.
“I am both dismayed at the extent of evil and impressed by the magnitude of good within the human race. The struggle between both forces will continue in perpetuity, but the eventual fate of your species will be determined by whether or not the virtue of humility wins out over the evil of arrogance among your leaders and the citizens that allow your leaders to attain their positions of power.
“Owen, you must find the remaining five pillars and possess all their virtues to fully stop the breach. If you succeed, the souls of all those stolen by Them will be returned. If you fail, the lives of all species in all eight realms surrounding both Everville and The Other In Between will be lost forever, and the power of Them will be almost unstoppable. If that happens, not even the borderlands will be safe, including Earth.
“You have made your choice, now go pull the lever in front of you. That will initiate the destruction of the city.”
CHAPTER 26:
THE FINAL BATTLE
The army of giants continued to crush the armies of Them, but on the other side of The City of Worms, the armies of Everville were not faring so well. Dozens of dragons circled the positions of the soldiers as they continued to march to the southeast. There were discussions amongst the generals of the armies about whether they should continue marching forward or turn back to the portal. The flames, which continued to pour of the mouth of the dragons, had already wiped out half of their armies, and it was unclear whether either choice would make much of a difference.
Sako looked off in the distance and saw that the small contingent of the armies of Them that had clustered to the northeast border of the city were no longer visible. There was not much that they could do at their current position, so he gave the order.
“Retreat,” Sako shouted.
The armies ran as fast as their legs would allow, but it looked as if it were pointless. Dragons circled above them. Their flames seared the towering soldiers, but many of the Ubaloo were spared the brunt of the flames.
Owen looked at the ongoing destruction of the armies, many of which were his friends, and then he pulled the lever. As he did, The City of Worms moved. The entire realm rotated around to face the direct brunt of the sun. It was a warm, blinding light.
One by one, the enormous dragons that flew overhead shimmered from the inside. Beginning from the center of their bodies and spreading outward, the element that resided in the dragons gleamed with unimaginable brightness. One flash at a time, the dragons scattered into nothingness. It was more than an explosion. The bits of flesh melted away and the force that Owen initiated scattered the fragments of the element across the reaches of the expanse to all known corners of the multiverse.
“Go! Go!” Borak shouted at the army of giants, but they could not go in the direction of the portal to Brackenbone; they had to go the other way, to the great barren wasteland that separated The City of Worms from The Other In Between. In unison, the army of giants knelt down, preparing to leap across the sky higher and faster than they had ever before.
Borak held on to the collars of the two men who had accompanied him in the standoff between Oldrik and the Fwaylan. At that moment, the army of giants launched themselves into the sky, high above the dragons and high above The City of Worms. Borak and the two made it across along with some of his men, but he could not tell with how many, and neither could Owen.
The destruction of the dragons and of the city moved outward from the center. The dragons near the armies of Everville followed suit, and one after another, the element within them shattered into pieces and blew them apart into nothingness.
“Run! Run!” Toe said. He picked up Felix, Faine, and Asher and placed them on his shoulders. Toe ran alongside Sako and Kearney, all of whom crossed the portal at the precise moment of the destruction of the city.
Owen looked across The City of Worms. From beneath the ground in the heart of the land beyond the city proper, a vast explosion sparked pure white, in the shape of the top half of a sphere. It grew like a bubble of water rising to the surface, and in a flash, every living thing that had resided in the city, except the spire, was no more.
The City of Worms was now lifeless, but the structure of the city remained. It was a renewal. The evil and the darkness that had once taken hold of the city were gone. The sun beamed down a warm gentle glow, but the city was empty. Only The Second Pillar and Owen remained. The war, the violence, and the destruction of The City of Worms had brought peace and had eliminated the evil that had taken hold so long ago.
“Owen, as anticipated, you have demonstrated great wisdom and courage, as well as humility. The choices that you have had to make have not been easy, but the decisions that
are of greatest import never are. The friends that are closest to you have been spared. I have seen to that, and most of the evil that was here is now gone forever, but not all.
“Some of the armies of Them have survived, and the greater darkness will live on forever. It can never be vanquished. The battle between the light and the darkness is an endless one, and your greatest battles have yet to be fought. Your greatest enemies you have yet to meet, and the battle to save your world is just beginning.
“Now, go back to Everville and then to your home. You have reason to celebrate. Your next battle is not for a few more moments, and your next quest is not yet upon you. You have chosen your friends with great care and reflection; now it is time for you to be the rock upon which they can build their own foundations.”
The Second Pillar lifted his arm and pointed in the direction of the gates.
“But wait. Are you my—” Before Owen could finish his sentence, The Second Pillar had sent him flying through the gates. In a mere instant, and faster than light, he was transported through time and space, across Brackenbone, through the Deep Woods, and back to The Keeper’s Workshop in Everville.
“Owen! I’m so glad to see you,” The Keeper said, in the most emotional state that Owen had ever seen him.
“It’s good to see you too, Keeper. With your help we were successful in destroying the element, but as you said, at a great cost.”
“Yes indeed. We have lost one half of the armies of Everville and an unknown number of the army of Giants. Our forces have been depleted, but our spirit lives on.
“Despite the great losses that we suffered, it is necessary that we remember what is important, why we move on, and why we live. The goodness that is in each of us, the friends and family that we hold dear, and the love that we have for each other, makes all the suffering in the world worth the pain.
“One lesson you have yet to learn, Owen, is that sometimes it’s okay to take time to enjoy what’s important, and to see what makes up the wonderful world in which you live.
