Yas’s mom nodded towards the stairs at the left-hand corner of the room.
“Go!” she shouted.
They looked up and ran up the steps and into another passageway. Two of the remaining creatures followed.
They ducked around other creatures fighting in the passage.
“Where are we heading?” shouted Sam.
“Back to where we started,” replied Yas. “Penn’s the key.” She knew that this would be where the battle would end, one way or another.
Yas’s mom reached the end of the passageway and stopped, holding out her arm. The other two stopped behind her.
Below, Penn was fighting with Vickers and Peter. Penn had moved down into the room and was now pulling books into the fireplace behind, which exploded and sent fiery darts in bursts towards the two of them. He was also using a set of books as moving shields, to provide additional cover. Peter and Vickers had each conjured a shield for protection and took turns in ducking and firing. It kept Penn busy, but it looked to be a stalemate.
“They need help,” Yas’s mom said quietly, creating a word shield.
Yas and Sam looked down. They could also see that as much as Peter and Vickers were trying to break down Penn’s defences, he seemed very much in control.
“What should we do?” Yas asked.
“We need to fire at him from as many different angles as we can,” instructed her mom. “Break down his defences.” She nodded towards her word shield. Yas and Sam both created their own.
“Can you give me covering fire?” she asked.
“What are you thinking, Mom?” Yas asked nervously. She didn’t like the idea of her mom putting herself in danger.
“I’ll go that way,” her mom indicated to the other side of the room. “Cover me?” She made to move, but then stopped, seeing that Yas was looking worried.
“I’ll be okay,” she reassured. “And so will the two of you.” She smiled, then leapt onto the ceiling, firing at the creatures there.
Yas and Sam fired word arrows down on Penn while Yas’s mom continued across the ceiling. Word fragments rained down all around Penn and he looked up, amused.
“Ahh, you’ve joined the party at last,” he crowed. “I was just killing time...” and he shot an arrow at Vickers for effect, hitting her in the leg, “...waiting for you.”
Vickers cried out in pain and collapsed.
“Janine!” Peter shouted out and rushed over to her, helping her back up.
“Hold on,” he said, trying to use word magic to dissolve the arrow and start healing the wound.
“There’s no time,” Vickers replied, firing a fresh volley of words at Penn. “You can’t defend and heal!”
“Dad!” shouted Sam, as he and Yas made their way down the stairs, firing at Penn. “We’ll cover you!” Yas’s mom had reached the other side of the room and was also firing from her position, taking cover in the edge of a passageway. Peter dissolved the arrow and started to reknit the wound.
Penn summoned books out of the bookshelves. They tipped as they moved towards him, angry word bees dropping out of each and swarming. They flew at them.
“Crap! Not good!” shouted Sam, as he and Yas ducked down behind their shield. “I hate bees!”
Yas threw up a word dome to protect them. Peter did the same for Vickers and himself. The bees pounded on the outside of each, swarming and divebombing.
“Bees!” thought Yas aloud. She mentally reached out to a flock of books and they diverted upwards to the ceiling. There they started building a paper hive, and the bees were instantly attracted to it. They left the domes, disappearing into the hive and the hive then dismantled itself into books that resumed their original journey.
“Ingenious!” Penn said approvingly, from below. “McVale thought highly of you!”
“What did she tell you?” shouted Yas, angrily. She moved towards Penn, Sam moving with her. “Whatever it was, she was a liar!”
Penn laughed. “So much fire inside! She told me that your emotions often got the better of you!”
“What do you mean!” Yas shot back. From the first time she had met this man, he had really riled her. She knew she had to calm down but couldn’t find it within herself to do so.
Penn fired another slew of word arrows at Vickers. She saw them coming and managed to avoid most of them but was caught by two of them near the site of the first wound. She slumped down to the ground, Peter holding onto her.
“Stop it!” shouted Yas.
Peter summoned to the books flying overhead and they rained down an inky fog around Penn. He hoped it would give them cover. He placed his hand on Vickers’ wound and dissolved the arrows but didn’t have energy left for healing. He felt exhausted and the fog didn’t buy them as much time as he had hoped for.
The fog froze around Penn, changing into frozen letters and punctuation, hanging in the air.
“Look out!” shouted Sam, seeing what Penn was planning.
Penn pushed outwards with his hands, sending the ice in all directions. They created more shields which defended against most of the shards, but the shields dissolved under the onslaught, leaving them exposed. They covered their eyes with their arms and Penn seized the advantage.
He stretched upwards, transforming into a black dragon, at least ten feet in height. With tendrils forming where dragon arms should have been, he reached out and plucked Peter from beside Vickers, lifting him up into the air.
Vickers reached out unsuccessfully to try to grab him. Weakened, she had little magic that she could use to pull him back. Yas and Sam helped her back to her feet. She hobbled. Yas placed her hand on her leg, sending healing and could feel the uncertainty and fear that Vickers had. She realised that Vickers cared for Peter. Yas’s moment of reflection was cut short though.
“Oh, come down and join us,” he said, glancing up to Yas’s mom. He idly whipped out a tendril which caught her around her waist, trapping her arms and pulling her into the air.
“Mom!” Yas shrieked out. She made to move forwards, but Sam grabbed her arm. She stopped, realising that it would do no good.
“Now then,” Penn said. “Let’s review the situation, shall we.”
“Put them down!” said Yas angrily, stepping forwards, and firing word balls. Sam also fired word arrows, trying to cause Penn to release his dad and Yas’s mom. Penn used other tendrils to swat away the magic, as if an annoyance, rather than a threat. Then as Sam readied to fire again, Penn reached out with a tendril along the ground and grabbed Sam around the leg, upending him also.
Meanwhile, Peter had conjured a sword from a passing book and slashed his way free. He dropped down and ran across to free Sam. Both free, they started returning fire, Peter slashing with the sword and moving to where Yas’s mom was.
Penn reached upwards and then pointed his long snout downwards. He opened it to breath out a stream of word arrows, like a flame thrower. Sam saw it coming and rushed over to where Yas was, pushing her to the side. Peter had to duck closer to the dragon and was caught up again by tendrils, this time squeezing him so tight that he had no choice but to drop the sword. Penn took an opportunity to shoot a tendril towards Sam, who was just recovering himself from the floor. It grabbed him around his waist and lifted him up in the air again.
“I can do this all day,” said Penn, moving his head from side to side.
Vickers and Yas both fired fresh volleys. Penn waved Sam, Peter and Yas’s mom around as human shields, clashing Sam and Peter together on their heads for show.
“Oops,” he said feigning concern. “It’s only a matter of time before you get one of these killed,” he said, enjoying the moment. “So, behave. Your attempts are meaningless and you’re wasting my time.”
Yas and Vickers stopped firing. Vickers limped over to where Yas was standing.
The inky creatures held their positions also. An eery silence descended upon the room.
“What do you want from us?” asked Yas, breathlessly.
“Let�
�s play this calmly, shall we,” said Penn, arrogantly. “I have your family and friends and you have what I want. It’s a simple exchange. The peacekeepers for them.”
Yas stood still. It had come down to this moment. She looked up at Sam for some inspiration. He looked equally defeated. She wondered about calling on the words in the room to create more creatures, but it would take too much time. Besides, the inky creatures around them would far outnumber anything she could create quickly.
“How do I know you will keep your word?” asked Yas.
“You don’t,” he said. “Test me if you wish.” He held Peter and Yas’s mom close together indicating that he would end them both without a moment’s hesitation.
“Fine!” Yas said, irritated, holding up her hand in submission. “Okay.” She crouched down, grabbing her grandfather’s journal from her jacket pocket. “Please, put them down now. I need Sam’s help to do this.”
Penn seemed to agree to her wishes. While he retained a hold of Yas’s mom and Peter, he lowered all three to the ground.
Sam pulled away the tendril and came over to Yas.
“No, Yas...” he said. “We can’t.”
“Its okay,” she replied calmly, touching his arm. “Its the right time.”
“We can’t just give them to him,” Sam continued. “There has to be another way.”
“No, this is the right time, Sam.” Yas couldn’t logically say why, but she knew. She also knew she could trust him. The Fates had been right, all along.
“I need you to help me summon each of the peacekeepers into the room,” she said. “It takes two of us. It’s a safeguard.”
Sam nodded at Yas, resigned.
Yas put the book on the floor, and grabbed her pendant, rubbing her fingers on it. She indicated to Sam to do the same. Then she turned the pages until she came to a drawing of a minotaur. She ran her fingers over it and it started to move, rising up from the page. Looking up, she reached to a book gliding its way across the room. Like the white creatures they created earlier, it upended and showered the small minotaur with words and the creature grew to stand the height of a man in the room. Yas turned to another page.
“Now you,” she gestured to Sam. Sam placed his hand on the book and Yas touched it, indicating to the book that this was the second person she trusted to also do the work. The book responded, allowing Sam to summon a collection of men with bird heads. Words poured down from above to create the creatures. They grew, as they walked from the book into the room and to the far wall. They turned and formed ranks, the wall moving back to accommodate each new row. It was a peacekeeping army. Yas and Sam continued to do this for other creatures. There were phoenixes, men with moth like wings, women with spider like arms and legs, beetles, scorpion like creatures and many more. The creatures continued to gather silently in rows. It seemed to Yas that they were indeed true to her grandpa’s intention for them. They provided no indication of taking any side in the conflict that was in front of them. They simply stared emptily in the direction of Yas and Sam. They were waiting for an instruction.
As the ranks of creatures amassed, Yas realised that it was these that her grandfather had been accused of taking from other stories and manuscripts. He had clearly gathered them for a purpose, intending to deploy them as soon as his collection was complete. She guessed that he had done this with McVale, giving rise to the adventures that she had hinted at. Yas hoped that the warning that she had given to her grandpa had then made him suspicious of McVale, causing him to delay whatever he had planned for these creatures. She realised that she still didn’t know what that was. How would she activate these peacekeepers to do what was right? That was another question.
“Where is McVale?” asked Penn, looking around him. It seemed odd to Yas. Why hadn’t he already realised that she had been defeated?
“She’s gone,” answered Yas, happily.
Penn shrugged his big dragon head nonchalantly. “That’s unfortunate,” he said. “She was rather useful.”
‘Unfortunate,’ thought Yas. That’s surely an understatement. From what she knew, McVale was key in knowing how the peacekeepers worked and how they could be manipulated. She wondered how much McVale had relayed to Penn. It gave her the slightest glimmer of hope. Perhaps if she bluffed, he may not realise.
Penn surveyed the troops that had amassed at the other end of the expanded room. They waited expectantly.
“Now, I will give you the command,” said Penn, looking at Yas. “I believe they must then obey it.”
“Yes,” said Yas, confirming what he had said. It seemed reasonable. “It has to be written, though,” she heard herself saying. She wondered where that had come from but didn’t question it. She looked up. A book flapped above her and tipped out a page. Yas caught it and then found a pen forming itself in her other hand. She picked up her grandpa’s journal and rested it on her crouched knee, paper and pen ready.
“No, Yas,” wheezed her mom, struggling against the tendrils. “You can’t do this!” Yas looked up. Sam also was shaking his head. Instead, Yas looked up into the room. As Y’in and her grandpa had suggested, she read between the lines of the energy of the room. Something had changed. She wondered what it was. It felt like expectation. Not nervous anticipation as before, but something else that she couldn’t define.
“Write this!” commanded Penn, lifting himself up to his full height and moving closer to Yas. Peter and Yas’s mom tugged uncomfortably at the stretching tendrils, trying to move themselves as far away as they could from him.
“Peacekeepers,” he commanded.
Yas wrote “Peacekeepers,” on the paper. As one, all the creatures stood to attention and looked at her. It was unnerving.
She looked up at Penn who was enjoying the theatre of the moment. She felt the air of the room once more. That feeling was there again. She found herself thinking, what was the right action?
Penn started to speak.
“I command you to promote and protect the truth...” he looked down at Yas. She realised she only had a few seconds to start writing. She looked down at the paper and closed her eyes. ‘What is the right thing to do?’ she asked in her mind. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Then she knew.
“For the good of the Controllers,” Penn continued.
She realised that the right action was not to command the peacekeepers at all. No one could issue a command, without calling themselves a Controller also. That was the dilemma her grandpa had faced. He’d gathered this force for the best of intentions but had then realised that he could not deploy them, not without becoming what he had sworn to defend against. That’s why he fought back. McVale must have realised that too. That’s why she’d turned against him. Yas knew now that there was only one thing that she could write and remain true to being a Guardian. She just hoped Penn wouldn’t realise.
She wrote it.
“You are free.”
As soon as she’d written the words, the piece of paper dissolved upwards, being collected by books that flew across. The air changed again. It lightened. It breathed out a collective sigh of relief. She’d done the right thing. She smiled. Penn saw her.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
‘Oh crap,” thought Yas. He must have realised. She stood up, taking a step backwards with the journal still in her hand. She looked at the peacekeepers. They nodded to her and then looked around, realising that they could do whatever they wanted. Yas wondered if what she had written had been such a good idea after all.
“What did you write, girl?” demanded Penn, lifting his two captives into the air. “Tell me!” He shot a tendril out towards Yas, but Vickers stepped across and slashed at it with a sword she had conjured.
“I gave them their freedom,” announced Yas, nodding at Vickers in thanks. Vickers smiled back approvingly.
“You did what?” shouted Penn incredulously.
“I gave them their freedom,” said Yas more confidently.
“Its more than your moth
er and friends will get!” Penn threatened. He shot out a tendril to Sam, catching him unawares, and pulling him back across the floor. Then he started to squeeze all three of them. Yas’s mom called out in pain. Sam yelped and Peter wrestled in the bonds, trying to pull at the tightening tendril with his hands.
The peacekeepers at the end of the room started moving towards Penn. He sneered down towards them and did what any dragon under attack would do. He opened his snout and fired a stream of black words. Yas looked in disbelief as the peacekeepers dissolved on contact with the words. Her last hope for help had faded.
“What do we do now?” she asked Vickers in dismay.
“Free them!” Vickers shouted, already moving forwards and slashing at tendrils whipping in her direction. Yas was impressed. Vickers was not giving up. Yas needed some other inspiration though. She felt the energy in the room again. Once she got past her own fears, she realised that the room had changed again. It now radiated a sense of justice being required.
Penn let out a roar, his anger echoing around the room. The dissolving ink of the peacekeepers moved upwards. It flowed up the path of the fiery black ink being exhaled by Penn. Up it went, then inside his snout and like acid, started to dissolve the dragon. Penn’s only defence was to transform back into a human. He shrank back down, his tendrils being re-absorbed and letting go of Peter, Sam and Yas’s mom. They fell to the ground. Sam half caught himself in a crouch, Peter landed awkwardly on his feet and struggled for balance and Yas’s mom dropped to the floor. They got to their feet and backed away from Penn, watching the words flowing all around them. As he transformed, the words of the peacekeepers continued to flow downwards towards his head.
The Word Guardians: and the Battle for the Peacekeepers Page 27