Forts: Endings and Beginnings

by Steven Novak

  After wiping the crusty, half-frozen tears from his eyes, Pleebo turned his gaze in the direction of the castle in the distance, watching as ten or twelve Sea Dragons exploded from the black clouds above and dove below the outer wall into the courtyard. A moment later they emerged again, sailing upward with Ochan soldiers flailing wildly between their dangerously clawed toes. An absolutely massive fish-looking thing, with a mouth as wide as some trees are tall, crawled on its belly to the castle’s outer wall and began to beat its head repeatedly against the stone. From atop the wall, a row of Ochan archers fired arrows into its leathery-moist hide, the stone beginning to shake and crack beneath their feet. The onslaught of weapons did little to halt the creature’s feral attack. Again and again the oversized thing smacked its head against the outer wall, its voice a sloppy-wet mix of angry snarls and growls that could be heard even over the sounds of war. Eventually the section of wall gave way, collapsed inward and transformed into a mushroom cloud of dust. The castle was a mad frenzy of activity. Battles were taking place in every nook, cranny and corner. The body count was steadily rising. Pleebo had no idea how he was even going to get inside, let alone locate Tommy Jarvis or any of the other children once he did. Taking into account the sheer size of the battle, not to mention the physical state of his body, fulfilling his sisters dying wish seemed at best to be an impossible task.

  For Zanell, he reminded himself while stifling a brief resurgence of tears. You have to do it, no matter what. You have to do it for Zanell.

  With a slightly defeated sigh, Pleebo lowered his head and began to jog in the direction of the war-torn castle. Long ago he’d lost the feeling in his feet. This worried him. His toes were cracked and busted, caked in frozen blood and grossly discolored. He resigned himself to the possibility of frostbite and more so to the idea that if he was to somehow miraculously survive the day, they would likely never work again. Every bone in his body was racked with pain, every muscle pushed past the point of overuse and into the realm of uselessness. High above the clouds roared. Occasional flashes of lightning shot angrily at the snow-covered ground below. Through half open eyes, Pleebo watched as a Sea Dragon emerged from the clouds with an endless array of arrows protruding from blood-soaked wounds in its orange-tinted flesh. Though they were too far away to make out any true details, he believed he could see three figures straddling the base of the creature’s muscular neck and hanging on for dear life as it spiraled uncontrollably. Spinning like a whirlybird as it soared toward the ground, the beast disappeared behind the castle walls and out of view. The sound of its flesh colliding with the ground on the other side was unmistakable. At the edge of the doorway more odd-looking things were emerging from the blackened pit leading to Fillagrou. Pleebo didn’t recognize any of them. When a particularly stiff gust of wind smacked him in the face, he closed his eyes and turned his head.

  He couldn’t look at it anymore, anyway. It was all the same and he’d seen it all before. He’d spent nearly his entire life immersed in war of some form or another. He’d seen enough. He was sick of it. Despite the final wishes of his sister, suddenly the only thing he wanted was to lie down. He wanted to slide onto the ground beside his Zanell, close his eyes, drift into sleep, and hopefully never wake up. He couldn’t do it anymore. Everyone he loved and cared for was dead. For so long, he’d straddled the line between the will to fight and the desire to simply call it quits. Zanell’s death was the tipping point. The war was never going to end, and he was foolish to think that it one day would. While the words of his grandfather and the appearance of Tommy Jarvis and his pink-skinned friends had filled him with hope, it was false hope. It seemed so obvious now. Even if there was in fact some miraculous ending to the war he’d known nearly his entire life, another would undoubtedly rise to take its place.

  Violence never truly ends. Violence simply rests.

  A second breeze and an accompanying roar of thunder knocked Pleebo from his wobbly legs and deposited him face first in the filthy black snow. When he moved his neck, a twinge of pain traveled down his back and into his thighs. Breathing was becoming more and more difficult, and required significantly more focus. Slipping into nothingness seemed like such a simple option. It would have required so little of him. The broken ribs in his chest had taken their toll. For days they’d messed with his insides, poking and prodding and causing him to bleed internally. The shape of his fingers was nearly as bad as his toes. Moving them even an inch resulted in more pain than he thought he could stand. An unexpected fit of coughs suddenly overtook Pleebo, and the faintest trickle of blood seeped from between his lips, ran over his chin and dripped into the snow. The frozen black flakes swallowed it whole. His eyes began to close. Everything was blurry and heavy. He wanted to sleep. It would all go away if he could just sleep.

  For the briefest of moments, he did exactly that.

  No. What do you think you’re doing?

  Get up.

  Get the hell up right now.

  Do it for Zanell.

  Another breeze swept in from the north, flailed Pleebo’s stained tunic and whipped the crinkly strands of hair on his head against his face. He couldn’t sleep. Sleeping would be too easy, and he had no right to easy. Nothing was easy anymore.

  After successfully managing to prop himself onto his elbows, Pleebo gritted his teeth and tried to coax his body onto its feet once again. There was no other choice. He owed it to his sister. He owed it to Zanell to at least try. Dying face down in the snow simply was not an option. Not any more.

  Unfortunately for Pleebo, his body had entirely different ideas than his head.

  Sore beyond their limits, his jittery arms gave away and a moment later he was lying sprawled out in the snow once again. A chill settled across his body and his muscles tightened.

  Why did it have to be so damn cold?

  Briefly his mind wandered back to Fillagrou, to the crimson red foliage and the warmth of the suns. He recalled with great clarity the look on his sister’s face the day they said goodbye to Tommy Jarvis and his young friends. Almost immediately after the children returned through the doorway to their own world, Zanell had taken to the trees. With astonishing ease she climbed as high as she could go, found a particularly thick branch, and dropped onto her back. Placing her hands behind her head, she took a breath and smiled wide. Though he was a bit slower than she in making the ascent, Pleebo joined her high above the forest moments later and laid down on a branch just above her head. They spent the night there together, reminiscing about their parents and pining for a world neither had ever truly experienced. On more than one occasion Pleebo tried to convince his baby sister to tell him about the things she’d seen with the powers she inherited from their grandfather. He asked her about the future yet unwritten, about Ocha, and the Fillagrou, and the children, and the war. The same as always, Zanell responded with a smile and a giggle. She reminded him that even if she were to tell him, he very likely wouldn’t understand. She told him the future was like the ocean: while in the greater scheme of things it was indeed a constant, like the waves its shape was in a constant state of change. While always the same, it was never truly the same.

  This was a confusing response. It frustrated her brother to no end.

  When the suns had dropped away and day turned to night, Pleebo and his sister drifted into sleep. It was an uneventful rest: peaceful even. It was a sleep like neither had experienced in their lives. It was childlike and it was perfect.

  He knew it would never last.

  Face down on a bed of charcoal colored snow, the memory of that night seemed so very far away for the broken-bodied Fillagrou. The bits of black snow between his lips carried with them the not so subtle hint of sulfur. It coated the whole of his mouth, seeped upward and settled into the space behind his eyes. It was all he could taste. Despite the pain in his neck, Pleebo lifted his head and spit the acidy tasting liquid from between his cracked and bleeding lips. With a grimace, he craned his head backward and looked toward the ar
ea where Zanell’s body once lay. It was gone. The snow had covered her completely, leaving behind only a smooth blanket of alabaster. Ocha had wiped her from existence. Pleebo’s eyes then moved to his half-buried legs. In time, the wind and the snow would devour him as well, squeezing what little life remained and erasing him the same as Zanell.

  This world had already taken so much. It had taken so much, and yet it wanted more.

  Not today. Not anymore.

  Again the aching Fillagrou propped himself onto his elbows, and again he managed to work himself into something resembling a sitting position. From far in the distance came the sound of an explosion. He was too tired to look.

  One thing at a time. Stop crying about your aches and pains. Get up.

  Though the process proved an awkward, painful experience, somehow Pleebo hoisted his weight onto his shattered feet and unstable legs. When another gust of wind threatened to put him back where he began, he dug his feet into the snow, dropped his shoulder and lowered his head. It wasn’t going to work. Not this time. When the breeze passed, his flaky, blood-caked lips curled into a smile.

  Now get moving. For Zanell.

  Another, far stiffer Ochan wind attempted to kick his legs out from underneath him. He stood firmer than before. Pleebo was just as he needed to be, just as he promised he would be. He was a rock. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  I love you, Zanell.

  Comfortable with the sturdiness of his form, the reenergized Fillagrou opened his eyes just in time to spot a single ball of light emerging from the doorway to Fillagrou and slowly begin moving toward the castle. Instantly he recognized it; he’d seen it before, at the castle of the Ochan Prince, Valkea. It was Tommy Jarvis. It couldn’t be anyone else. The glowing sphere glided over the stunned battlefield surrounding the doorway to Fillagrou and moved without hesitation toward the castle wall.

  Though he didn’t realize it at first, Pleebo was suddenly running. He was sprinting in the direction of the castle faster than his broken body should have been able. The image of Zanell asleep in the tree beneath him flashed once more in his mind. The smile on her face, the orange-yellow sun reflecting off the curvature of her cheeks—this was the memory he would take with him. This was the reason his legs were capable of running when movement of any sort shouldn’t have even been an option. This was the reason he would never simply close his eyes and go to sleep.

  This was the reason he would do the impossible.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 48

  WAR ELEPHANT

  *

  When the mammoth-sized foot of the digging creature came into contact with Tommy Jarvis’ ball of light, it didn’t so much squash the boy and his purple scientist companion as it drove them underground. Much to the surprise of Arthur Crumbee, the boy’s glowing bubble held firm against the weight of the stomping appendage. The great beast’s foot stomped the sphere downward, burying it beneath the previously frozen Ochan soil. In this moment, encased in dirt and stone, everything went black. Covered by pounds of gray-tinted clay, the roar of the battle above lowered to a muffled hum. Tommy Jarvis was covered in sweat, his clothes soaked and plastered to the skin underneath. His breathing was ragged and his head hung low. Thick clumps of sopping wet hair clung to his forehead and nearly covered the whole of his face. Every time a bead of sweat dripped from his chin and dropped onto the superheated humming sphere below, it evaporated on contact. Arthur wrapped his legs around the boy’s waist, his arms more sore than ever as he struggled to maintain his position on Tommy’s slippery back. Somewhere above the mountain of dirt covering the sweaty duo, the gargantuan three-toed foot of the digging beast slammed into the ground once again, driving their protective bubble further downward. Tommy Jarvis grunted and choked momentarily while trying to swallow. His arms were sore, his muscles strained to the point of no return, and then just a bit beyond. Wedging one of his chubby feet into the side pocket of Tommy’s jeans, Arthur Crumbee scooted his way onto the boy’s shoulder with a pained grunt. The air inside the the bubble was stuffy and only getting stuffier. He was having trouble breathing. The foot of the digging beast collided again with the ground above, shaking the surrounding dirt and straining the resolve of Tommy Jarvis further still. Arthur draped one arm over Tommy’s forehead and leaned as far as he could over the boy’s shoulder. The monocle slipped from his eye and dropped into the basin of the crackling ball of energy.

  “Listen to me, child.” Arthur stated bluntly between heavy, sweat-soaked breaths. “If there is in fact something you can do, might I take this opportunity to formally request that you do it?”

  Again the appendage of the digging creature smashed into the ground above. With every stomp it was packing them further into the ground, compressing the dirt around them and making escape all the more improbable. Arthur realized that while Tommy’s bubble had indeed saved them from the force of the creature’s foot, if they remained buried they would eventually run out of air. They would suffocate. The little man readjusted his body once again before pulling Tommy’s head upward with the palm of his hand. The boy looked terrible. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes glassy. His gaze was distant and lost, a far cry from the confident creature that stumbled into Arthur’s cave in the middle of Aquari, and barely a shadow of the thing that elicited the unexpected reaction from the god particle. For the first time since Arthur had met the boy, he saw him as exactly that: a boy. He wasn’t a creature with incredible powers that held sway over the very particles of life. He was scared. He was confused, and he was hurting. He was just a child: a powerful child indeed, but still just a child.

  When the digging creature’s foot slammed into the ground again, Arthur and Tommy found themselves being pushed further into the densely stiff Ochan soil. Time was running out.

  The Mangelian scientist lifted Tommy’s floppy head again with his palm. “Please, child.” In this moment the tone of his voice had changed. No longer was he speaking to a great and powerful thing he needed to pick apart and understand. The boy didn’t know any more than he, and if he did, he had no idea how to properly put that knowledge to use. No, the strange blond-haired creature with the light pouring from his fingers wasn’t something to be held in regard and marveled at. It was a creature like any other, and it needed his help. “Listen to me, child.” Arthur stated through ragged breaths, using his pudgy fingers to prop open Tommy’s eyelids and stare into the glossed-over pupils underneath. For a brief moment he noticed the subtle hint of his reflection in the tears emerging from the corners of the boy’s eyes.

  “I know it hurts. I know it does. I also know what’s inside of you. That thing you took from the cave…it was there at the beginning. It was there before the idea of form and shape had meaning.”

  High above, the ground shook.

  Arthur ignored the sounds and remained focused. “They never agreed with me. I tried to tell them, but they never agreed with me. I firmly believe it was there even before their was a before…before meanings had meanings.”

  Tommy’s mouth closed tight. His eyelids flickered and remained open without the aid of Arthur’s digits. The little scientist noticed this subtle hint of recognition and grinned.

  “It’s inside you now, Thomas. Maybe that’s where it was always meant to be. I don’t know. Whatever the case, it is yours now. If you have it within you ability to use it, then do so. Do not hesitate.”

  Tommy’s eyes rolled backward, staring directly into the tiny violet pupils of the sweaty little man dangling over his shoulder.

  “I implore you, child. Please. There is no reason to be scared. Do it now.”

  Nearly ten feet above the sweltering pair, the foot of the Ochan-controlled digging monster pounded once more against the ground, then proceeded to dig its heels into the already flattened soil. Quite unexpectedly, however, a single cone of light exploded from the soil beneath the creature’s heel. A second emerged from the dirt between two of the beast’s toes and three more followed seconds later
. All at once the cones of sizzling light folded like fingers over the creature’s immense foot. Grabbing hold of the leathery flesh, they began pushing upward. As more of the fingers blasted from the compacted dirt, something vaguely resembling an arm followed not far behind. A shoulder materialized next, and immediately after that appeared what could only be called a head. Teetering unevenly on three legs, the long-necked creature growled angrily, lost its balance and toppled to the side. Its body slammed into a section of the castle. Its incredible weight obliterated the structure, instantly reducing it to a pile of cracked stone, snapped timber, and bent steel. What eventually emerged from the hole in the ground where Tommy Jarvis and Arthur Crumbee had been buried was far more than a simple sphere of light. While the essence of the light remained, it was reshaping itself into something vastly different. The previously simple bubble was in the process of morphing into a shape far more complicated. The glowing beams stretched like taffy, bending, twisting, and moving as if it was a living thing. After crawling from the hole in the ground, the new thing created solely of coiled light lifted itself onto a pair of legs nearly a hundred feet high. The glowing fingers attached to its glowing arms bent themselves inward and into a pair of glowing fists. Hovering deep within the chest of this bizarre new creation and obscured by the flashes of lightning crackling and sparking across every inch of its body was Tommy Jarvis. Hanging tightly onto Tommy’s back, his heart beating faster than it had beat in all of his years, was the little scientist, Arthur Crumbee. When Tommy lifted his arms, the colossal being of light responded in kind. When Tommy breathed, its chest heaved in perfect synchronization. When Tommy screamed, a mouth emerged from the nothingness of its face and bellowed so loudly that the very foundations of the tyrant king’s castle shook.