by JH Terry
XXIV: Fox and Geese
Akemi crawled back onto Thurgood’s neck, and sat in front of Kate. Behind Kate sat Peter and then Tom. The weather was stormy with thunder, lightning and heavy rains. As soon as they left the portal they encountered severe turbulence that caused them to shake. Thurgood tried to control his flight, but it was proving to be difficult since he was not strong enough to control the air.
“What’s happening?” asked Kate.
“Turbulence,” said Akemi. “Thurgood, try to fly lower.”
Thurgood, despite all he tried, could not get lower. The lift upon his wings would not permit him to descend. Despite the weather he was able to fly past bolts of lightning with ease. However, the lightning was followed by the piercing sound of thunder, which scared Kate.
“I am afraid of lightning,” said Kate.
“Do not worry,” said Akemi. “The lightning is not attracted to you. The water below is more attractive to the lightning than you and I are.”
“Why is that?” asked Peter.
“I do not know for certain,” said Akemi. “Only thing that I know is that it is true. I think it is because of the high salt content of the water here in the Sea of Mortis.”
“How far are we from Gordana?” asked Tom.
“I do not know, I cannot see below us,” said Akemi. “Thurgood is descending slowly. Perhaps we shall be able to see where we are soon.”
Then, a faint buzz was discerned upon the wind from behind them.
“I do not know who it is, but it does not sound good,” said Peter.
“Norbis,” said Tom before Akemi could.
“We must descend now to the land below, wherever that may be,” said Akemi.
“Good…um…bad!” exclaimed Peter looking ahead.
“What’s wrong?” asked Kate of Peter.
Peter pointed ahead. Looking forward the others understood the dilemma. The sky before them was pitch black and shaking. Tom quickly got out his coat from his bag and put it on.
“Monsoon rains!” yelled Akemi. “They’re early this year.”
“What do we do?” asked Kate. “We can’t just sit here like ducks.”
“Actually, think of it like an extremely cold and highly pressurized shower,” said Akemi. “There is nothing else that we can do.”
Before Kate could say anything, the rains came soaking them all thoroughly.
“I feel like a wet sponge,” said Peter.
“I just wish I were able to be squeezed!” exclaimed Kate as she wiped the water off of her face in futility.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit Thurgood’s wing causing Thurgood to be knocked unconscious.
“What’s happening?” asked Kate.
“We’re going to die!” yelled Peter.
“We are not going to die,” said Akemi. “Just be ready for a crash landing.”
Soon they could see the trees of the forested area below.
“We must be in Gordana, but where exactly, I do not know.”
Abruptly an air current caused Thurgood’s body to rise and fall quickly in the air. The unexpected bump caused Tom to fall off Thurgood into the forest below.
“Tom!” yelled Peter as Tom fell further and further away into the darkness of the night.
A few moments later, Thurgood’s body rose and fell quickly again, causing Peter, Akemi and Kate to fall. Thurgood’s body then crash-landed into a clearing on the ground.
Norbis, angered, flew towards the East on his night butterfly.
• • • • • • • • •
Tom awoke to see that the sky was cloudy. He felt a pain on his head. Touching it you felt that he had a lump on his head. He mused on how the tress had made his landing ‘softer’ but caused the lump. Looking to his coat, Tom saw that several tears were on it. On his body he felt that several bruises were on his body. Checking them he realized that none were serious. He was in the thick of the forest.
“At least I am alive,” said Tom to himself. Looking around he saw that all around him were tall trees and he was alone. The sun was shinning dimly in the sky but the weather was still foggy. “Even Altium has New York weather,” said Tom with a smile. “I wonder where the others are?”
Then, a dim glow of light shone from within the dense forest. However, this was not an ordinary light. It moved in a zigzag pattern closer and closer to Tom, as if it was searching for something. Soon, the light was close enough to Tom that he could see that it was not a light, but a little female fairy creature with white wings trimmed with gold and wearing a golden garment.
It came close to Tom and moved quickly from one side of his face to another as if trying to learn every fathomable detail about him. It rose and flew about half a yard in front of Tom, gesturing him to follow it.
“Should I go?” asked Tom to himself. “I do not trust it, but I have no other choice. If I do not want to remain lost for the rest of my life.”
Tom stood up and took off his coat. He placed it in his bag and followed the fairy. She flew in front of him by two yards, still flying in a zigzag pattern. It seemed as if she were making sure nothing harmful came their way. Looking around he saw that the place they were in was quite hazardous. He saw there were swampy areas, quicksand, bogs, foggy areas, alligators, insects and venomous snakes. Tom hit his face and body several times from the mosquitoes that tried to drain blood from his bruised body. However, the fairy did not seem to notice the mosquitoes at all. It seemed as if the mosquitoes did not bother with her for she was only a fairy. For twenty minutes they walked through this until they reached a large Grecian temple made of green marble and its tops painted with gold.
Seeing the temple Tom felt slightly relieved, but still kept wary of it. At the door leading into the temple, the fairy stopped and gestured Tom to go inside. Inside looked very dark and unoccupied. Tom entered the temple, but as he did so the temple’s doors closed shut behind him. Inside the temple was entirely black. Tom stayed where he was and listened for anything coming near or moving in the dark temple.
Suddenly, a spotlight shone in the middle of the temple. Into the spotlight walked Norbis, who had been hidden in the darkness at the side of the temple. Only his eyes could be seen from out of his dark cloak, and they looked intensely at Tom. Tom walked closer to the centre of the temple, but remained about a yard away from Norbis.
“You look defiant, just as I was at your age,” said Norbis as he looked at Tom. “You want to save those who neither know nor care about you. People who do not understand what you are going through. I understand, Tom, for I experienced the same. Much later in my life than you, but I still experienced it. Come to me, and together we can be happy with the side that shall always win.”
“If it shall always win, what do you need with me?” asked Tom.
“I mean,” said Norbis realizing his error, “I consider your help beneficial to the solidity of our cause….”
“Yes, a cause meant to destroy and break apart what little good is left in the world. I thank you for your offer, but decline it.”
“Yes, you are very brave and very stupid. Many would have taken my offer, but your integrity gets into the way of your judgment. Are we so different, Tom? Sometimes you get yourself into mischief, is that not evil?”
“I do not understand how you can link mischievousness to being evil.”
“I mean that by being mischievous, doing things that your parents would not want you to be doing at certain hours, you are disobeying them. Thus doing something that can be considered evil.”
“No,” said Tom. “It is not evil. Just because one does not always listen to one’s parents does not make them evil. It only means that they are reasoning for themselves, which everyone is supposed to do. By doing things that are mischievous one is only exploring their boundaries. By doing something evil one is siding on something that is entirely wrong and corrupt.”
“To whom, you or others of your society.”
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br /> “Me,” said Tom.
“Why? Why is being evil so bad? When one is evil they can do whatever they want, and they have no boundaries that exist.”
“Yet when one is evil they are ultimately weak, because they give in to all of their wants. If one were to take one of those wants away from them, then they would be unable to survive.”
“Not everything makes an evil person weak.”
“Yes, everything. Like power, greed, gluttony, envy, and pride. If taken away, even you would be unable to survive. I think that for you power would be your weakness.”
His eyes glowed red as Norbis said, “I believe that you are right, but then again when I am finished with my work I shall have it.”
“Do you think Unop will let you have it all?” asked Tom.
“I do not need it all,” said Norbis. “Only a fool would take it all. I just need some.”
“To pacify yourself.”
“Yes, for my own pacification forever.”
“Let’s hope you make it past the year,” said Tom.
With a smile Norbis said, “Be careful, Tom. Do not get angry, or you might become like me, human.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, more than you. I may seem to be an evil man, but I am also a honorable one. I offer to you a challenge: if you win, I shall no longer plague you with my presence. But if I win you must come to our side.”
“May I renegotiate these terms?”
“No.”
“If I choose neither?”
“Then you die right now,” said Norbis as he outstretched his black hand towards Tom.
“Then I accept your challenge. However, what is it?”
“We shall be playing three times this game. The person who wins the most games is the winner overall. It is a game of ingenuity and the highest skill. Only those of the greatest intellects can fathom its being. For centuries it has plagued man with its intricateness and challenge. You might ask, what is this, the most challenging and astute game of them all? Three words, each of one syllable: fox and geese!”
With a look of confusion Tom tried to recollect fox and geese. Suddenly he remembered a game he played in his youth with checkers on a checkerboard. One side representing the fox, and the other side the four geese. The geese had to trap the fox in a corner, but not let the fox get to the other side. If the fox did get to the other side, the fox won the game. If the fox was trapped by the geese then the geese won the game. The geese could only move forward, but the fox could move backwards and forwards. The game was only played on the black squares.
Tom broke his sedateness with a large smile, trying to suppress his laughter. The last time he had played fox and geese was with his grandfather, Edward Reed, at the age of two. Edward had played it with Tom because he thought Tom to be too young and slow to be able to play checkers. However, as Edward and Tom played, with Tom as the geese, Edward learned that Tom easily learned. Now, with Norbis, Tom was being reduced into playing the game again. Instantaneously before Norbis and Tom a table with two chairs and a checkerboard with checkers on its top appeared.
Tom and Norbis sat down and faced each other in a tête-à-tête. For what seemed like an hour they each made decisive moves. In the first game Tom was the geese and Norbis was the fox. However, Tom kept moving his checkers in a certain way so that the fox could not get through, causing him to win the first game, despite the extra long time it took Norbis to think through his movements.
In the second game, Norbis was the geese, and Tom the fox. Norbis also moved his checkers in a certain way so that the fox could not get through. However, Tom got an idea when the geese were in the middle of the board. Tom got his fox next to one of the geese, luring Norbis to move his other two geese to surround the fox. However, just as the last goose was to move in a square pattern around Tom, Tom moved his fox backward by one space. Norbis then moved a goose forward to one side of the checkerboard, but it was too late. Tom had an open space in the board, causing him to be able to move to the other side. Norbis’s eyes began to glow with anger, he was not one who easily lost.
Suddenly, Norbis, using his left arm, caused the table to be overturned and, as he did this, with his right hand he removed his sword from its scabbard on his left side, pointing it towards Tom’s neck. The checkers and checkerboard clattered onto the marble floor. Tom looked straight at Norbis, awaiting his fate, praying that something would intervene.
Seeing no intervention was to come, Tom thrust himself backwards. Just as he did so, Akemi’s sword clashed with Norbis’s causing a clanging sound of metal to be resonated within the temple. Norbis then let go his sword’s embrace with Akemi and thrust it back at her, but she counteracted it.
As Akemi and Norbis continued fighting, Peter and Kate helped Tom off of the floor.
“Are you all right, Tom?” asked Peter.
“Yes, thanks,” said Tom.
“You’re lucky we came in time,” said Kate, “but then again you were unwise enough to fall off in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” asked Peter. “We fell off too.”
“Never mind, let’s just get out of here,” said Kate in a bad mood.
“How did you find this place?” asked Tom.
“Akemi led us here,” said Kate. “I do not know how she knew you were here, but she said that she had a feeling that you were.”
“A feeling?” asked Tom.
“You know that by now, Tom,” said Peter.
“Yes, that feeling,” said Tom.
Suddenly, Norbis whistled at a very high pitch that hurt their ears. He ran to a posterior temple door and opened it. He ran to a ledge and jumped off. Looking down, Akemi saw that he jumped onto his night butterfly and flew towards the East.
“Until next time,” said Akemi.
Suddenly, the temple’s marble changed from green to white and light came into the temple.
“What’s happening?” asked Kate.
“Evil is gone,” said Akemi as she entered the temple and walked towards Tom, Peter, and Kate.
From out of little crevices fairies came out in hundreds. All seemed to have awaken from a hypnotic state. They were all flying about as if nothing happened at all. Seeing Tom, Peter, Kate and Akemi there they seemed confused. Undoubtedly something had happened.
Soon they moved out of the way for a fairy to go through to the front of them. Tom saw that it was the same fairy creature that led him there. As Akemi went forth to the fairy, Tom said, “Akemi, no.”
Everyone turned to Tom, astounded by his tone. “Tom, what is the matter?” asked Akemi.
“She led me here into Norbis’s trap,” said Tom.
“It wasn’t her,” said Akemi with a smile. Tom looked confused by what Akemi had said. “Well, I mean physically it was her, but she was hypnotized by Norbis, as were the others.”
“I am sorry if I did do that,” said the fairy truthfully. “My name is Di, I am the Queen of the Fairies and Fairy Isle.”
“I am sorry,” said Tom, still suspicious but not showing it. “I had no idea.”
“I am pleased that we can be friendly towards each other under the circumstances,” said Di.
“I am glad that everyone is civil with each other now,” said Akemi, “but we must be going to Gordana.”
“My hunter, Leopold, shall take you there, to keep you safe.”
“Safe from what?” asked Kate.
“Any other evil creatures,” said Di. “Anything else?”
“Thurgood is hurt, perhaps you could use your magic to cure him?”
“Of course, just show Leopold where he is and it shall be done.”
“Thanks, Di,” said Akemi.
“Of course, and good luck to you all,” said Di.
Within half an hour the four, along with Leopold and Thurgood, now cured, left for Gordana. They sat on Thurgood in the order of Akemi, Kate, Peter and Tom. Looking forward Tom felt as if Akemi’s feeling
s on dangerous situations were perhaps too convenient. He did not know why but he felt she was not being completely honest with them.