The Last Stand of Daronwy

by Clint Talbert

  “No. Nothing anywhere.”

  “Anywhere?”

  “The reports are beginning to come in. Grandor, Skarnsk, Tillianfeld, Quartzite.”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. At least we took plenty of his army with us. The other cities weren’t so lucky. They fell in less than an hour.”

  “Skarnsk and Tillianfeld?”

  “Gone.” Lightningbolt shook his head.

  “What of the tower?”

  “Which tower?”

  “The Adept’s Tower, in Tillianfeld.”

  Eaglewing could read the memories from Lightningbolt’s face without having to delve in his mind. It was in that tower that they began their training, there that they met for the first time. Twins born in years of war, separated at birth, reunited eleven years later in that marble tower with its high arched windows. It was there they were initiated as Master Adepts.

  Lightningbolt swallowed. “Gone.”

  Eaglewing looked down and found his sword half-buried in the rubble of a house. He pulled the blade free.

  Lightningbolt gestured. “Come on. I have a horse.”

  Eaglewing limped after his brother. Each step surged pain into his lower spine.

  A knock on the door shook the rubble, making it disappear into the wooden paneling of Daniel’s room as Mrs. McClain poked her head in the door. “Jeremy, that was your mom on the phone. She said you need to get home for church.”

  Jeremy hung his head. Saturday Mass. Why did they ever invent Saturday Mass? “Yes, ma’am. Thanks.”

  As he pedaled home, Jeremy wracked his brain for what Eaglewing and Lightningbolt’s next step would be. The options were bleak. Halfway to his house, he glanced to his right and saw the last of the golden autumn light flutter across the trees of Twin Hills. Had that voice the other day been God’s? Had God chosen him for something? But what? Maybe he hadn’t listened hard enough. If he prayed tonight at church, maybe it would speak again and show him the way out.

  The minute he knelt in the pew, his hands went up, fingers pointing to the sky like an antenna, and he started to pray. “God, what do you want me to do? How can I save Father Pat? How can I find the doorway to another world?” He repeated the simple prayer until it was a mantra, weaving an undulating rhythm in his mind. His mom nudged his shoulder to let him know that Mass had started and he needed to stand while Father Boylston and Father Pat walked up the aisle.

  The Mass trundled along at its two-thousand-year-old pace, with the sonorous Father Boylston droning on and on. Each time Jeremy’s knees hit the pew, he started praying his mantra again, waiting for something to happen, secretly hoping for some kind of sign. But there were no thunderous voices from the heavens, no doves appearing out of nowhere, no water transforming to wine. There weren’t even cryptic voices in his head. It was just another Mass, just another sermon read to the congregation by Father Boylston.

  Jeremy shuffled to the altar for Communion, following his parents. When he arrived, Father Pat glanced down and smiled at him. He should tell Father Pat; Father Pat would know what to do. But he couldn’t talk in the Communion line. He was already taking too much time by standing there, indecisive. Father Boylston’s eyes plunged into Jeremy’s skin like icepicks. He took Communion, scooted to the right, made a quick sign of the cross, and tried not to run back to his seat.

  He began praying until a fragile chord interrupted his fervent chant. A soft, open, woodland sound—a song of Lothlórien on an instrument that only elves could play—sang through the rafters. Could anyone else hear it? He glanced about. Everyone could hear it. They stared at Mr. Leblanc in the choir loft, playing a wooden instrument so plaintive, so soul-searching. It embodied the search for Christ, the search for a miracle and the beauty of finding it. The choir sang:

  And He will raise you up on eagles’ wings,

  Bear you on the breath of dawn,

  Make you to shine like the sun,

  And hold you in the palm of His hand.

  Jeremy opened the hymnal to gawk at the words. The song was called “On Eagles’ Wings,” but before he could read any further, Mr. Leblanc played the flute again and a chill of recognition crept up his neck. This was the music of King Arthur’s court in exile, waiting to come back to the world. This was the music of moonlight on a wooded glade, echoing across the centuries from a time when magic immersed the world in torrents of mystery and marvel.

  The song ended, leaving an eerie silence in its place. The congregation was frozen, stone-still. Father Pat stood, holding up his hand to prevent the congregation from following him. He stood at the microphone a moment, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “And that, my dear people, is an Irish flute. I ne’er thought I’d hear one since leaving Erin. Let’s give Bob a hand. Thank you.” Applause clattered across the congregation. Was this the sign? Jeremy dropped to his knees and prayed again for direction. No voice came. Mr. Leblanc put the flute into a box, shutting away the only music that could awaken the dormant magic Jeremy sought.

  Mira’s ringlets danced in the sunlight as she laughed at something Josh said. The other girls in the Pink Ladies club whispered around her, then they all laughed. The T-Bird boys pushed them on the merry-go-round, and every revolution seemed to take them a little farther from Earth.

  “… attack Kronshar himself. Jeremy?”

  “Yeah, I think so, too. What was Niritan’s plan?”

  “I just told you. To attack Kronshar’s castle.”

  Some of the girls were shrieking to slow down. They clutched the metal stiles like sailors on a capsizing ship. Not Mira. She smiled into the sky while the wind blew in her hair. One hand rested on the rail, the other was extended, palm up.

  “There is no hope,” Jeremy said, finally turning his eyes to his friend.

  “Yeah. That’s what all the wizards and the council have been saying.”

  Jeremy blinked at Daniel, cocking his head. “Right. No hope. So, um… how are we going to do it?”

  “I think he’s got to be starting to create an impenetrable defense around his palace, because if the demons know where the Stones are, they are going to try to breach the world boundary and take them. We have to strike before that happens.”

  “Mmm.”

  “So, Niritan should propose that we—”

  “Hey!”

  They both turned to see Josh marching across the cracked concrete of the old basketball court.

  “Hey,” he said again. “I ain’t forgotten you. I’m watching you. You better keep away from Mira, you understand me?”

  Jeremy shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. His foot kicked at a crack in the concrete where long blades of grass grew. “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t hear you!”

  “I said yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  Daniel snorted a laugh, earning him Josh’s attempt at a withering gaze. He looked like a confused mastodon.

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Okay.” He started back toward the clutch of Pink Ladies, turning to point at them both again. “I’m watching you.” The finger moved from one to the other. “Both of you.”

  Daniel shook his head. “He should really get a life.”

  Jeremy sunk down onto a set of red and blue tires buried together to make a small hill for the obstacle course.

  “What’s wrong? Why do you let him bother you?”

  Jeremy stared up at Daniel, uncertain how to describe what he felt watching Mira smile so broadly around Josh. It felt like something in his chest had cracked open, leaving a hole. But more importantly, more urgently, it made him realize that he should leave. That he should escape. He would never be Josh, he would never stop pollution, he would never make a difference. So why should he remain here? He had to find a way out and find it soon. “Because I�
��m running out of time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.”

  Coach Penicillin’s shrill whistle saved him from the further questions written across Daniel’s face. They joined the other students trudging across the playground to form a line to go back to their classrooms. A crisp autumn wind rippled out of the north, breaking over the queue like sun-dappled water. Jeremy raised his head, inhaling its luscious, cool scent. Somewhere on that wind was the way out.

  Resigned to having homework whether he worked in class or not, Jeremy spent the quiet math hour with The Two Towers snuggled inside the crease of his math book. He wanted to shout for joy when the Ents marched on Isengard. He glanced at the line of trees outside the window of the classroom. He imagined those trees coming to life, marching on the school and tearing it apart piece by piece. The sun was well into the west when he got home. Jeremy dropped his bags in the living room, crept out the unused front door, and sprinted across the street into Twin Hills.

  He crossed his arms over his chest as he walked the shadowed trails in his school clothes without a gun or knife or stick. Every broken twig in the darkness compounded his defenselessness, but perhaps a portal would open if he wasn’t ready for it. In books, people were never ready for it; one minute they were in one world, the next minute they were somewhere else. He rubbed his arms, then shoved his hands in his pockets. He’d forgotten to take a coat, and while the days were warm enough, the evenings were cold. He shuffled through the fallen leaves, head down. Why did he have to be the one to write the president? Why did he have to found the Pollution Club? Why was he so oddly “chosen?” And what, really, did that mean? Did he just make it up?

  A black shadow snatched his foot, pitching him forward. Jeremy’s hands snagged in his pockets, and he hit the dirt hard, landing on his elbows and face. A dark trench cut through the trail, from the pond to Swamp Creek. It was barely a foot wide and little more than six inches deep. Was this another of Loren and Roland’s pranks?

  They were idiots! First Faker, now this. They would drain all the water out of the pond. The sky had grown darker—there wasn’t enough time to get a shovel and come back. He had to dam it with what he could find. Jeremy rolled a thick log to the edge of the pond where the little channel had been started. Using a smaller stick to dig beneath the log, he wedged the log between the trench’s opening and the pond. He stomped on the log to set it into place.

  Shooo-wheet!

  Jeremy glanced up as if he could see his house. He jammed some sticks behind the log and covered them with dirt. Shooo-wheet! Dad’s second call! He jumped on top of the entire mess, driving it into the mud, sealing the entrance of the ditch. Mud splattered his jeans; he’d have to deal with that later. Scurrying through the underbrush, he gathered an armful of dead leaves, stuffing them into the impression that remained, and covered them with dirt. He stomped it all down into a beaver-like dam. Icy water leached into his shoes. Shooo-wheet! He didn’t have to time to see if they would hold. He sprinted down the trails in soggy shoes, wondering how he was going to explain his muddy clothes.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Daniel stepped to the edge of the smaller hill in Twin Hills, shielded his eyes, and stared out over the sandy expanse of the Mini Desert. “It’s a long way to go.”

  Jeremy looked out over the same gray autumn wood, watching it transform in his mind into a basalt rift valley with steam fumaroles puffing sulfur into the air. The only way into Kronshar’s lands undetected would be from the northeast, through this desolate rift valley. “Yeah. We can’t stop once we get down into that valley. We have to cross it.”

  They wound their way down the embankment, past the last scraggly dregs of plant life. The air warmed as they descended, and the reek of sulfur became nauseating. The floor of the great valley was crushed black basalt. They pushed the horses into a canter. Streams ran hot and bright blue, full of minerals and poisons from deep in the earth. The air shimmered off the black ground.

  Huge piles of slag that had been vomited up from the earth smoked in the distance both to the left and the right. Nothing grew or lived here. “No wonder there are no guards out here. This air is killing me,” said Kavarine, one of the adepts who they had taught to use the Stones. She coughed.

  Naranthor nodded. “We should use a folding spell.”

  “It’s too dangerous here,” said Niritan. “We might end up on one of those things.” He pointed at a young volcano beginning to build its slopes just south of them. “Not to mention, Kronshar’s sentinels would certainly detect the magic.”

  “What does it matter? Won’t those sentinels notice the Stones?”

  The adepts exchanged glances, but none spoke.

  “As I told you, it is a chance we take.”

  Deep gouges cut through the earth in places, slowing their progress. Eaglewing began looking at the sun, then at the distance before them. The other side of the valley was still too far away to be seen. He urged the horses faster, hoping they could cover more ground before nightfall.

  As the sun set in a crimson slash in the sky behind them, the ground began to rumble. Pebbles skittered over the rough rock of the valley floor. “This doesn’t seem good,” Lightningbolt said.

  The horses balked, eyes rolling. Eaglewing tried to urge his horse on. A deafening explosion ripped through the air, shaking the ground. The wizards threw shields and Eaglewing drew his sword. To the north, they could see the plume of smoke in the air from the towering cone of a volcano. Rumbling down the mountain, a gray cloud rolled away from the volcano like a low-flying storm.

  “Ride!” screamed Niritan.

  They urged the frenzied horses into a gallop, and Kavarine created a shield over them as a white-hot hail of brimstone and ash rained down. They could see the lava marching like a red and black army. The hot volcanic storm overtook them. Niritan pulled energy from it and fed it into their speed in such a way that the magic would be masked to any outside observers. Their horses’ hooves only hit the ground once every five strides. As they ran on the edge of the searing air belching up from deep within the earth, the black rock flashed past beneath them; entire ravines opened and closed as they glided over them. When the cloud began to dissipate and slow, Niritan relaxed his magic, bringing the horses back to the earth slowly—a footfall here, a footfall there. Soon their hooves were clattering against the rock again, sparks flying from their shoes. The adepts reined in. Their horses shivered, covered in sweat.

  “Do you think they saw that?” Eaglewing said.

  “No.” His brother shook his head, dismounting. “Niritan covered the magic with the energy of the volcano. It would have looked like another part of the eruption.”

  Kavarine frowned at her singed cloak. “That was close.”

  Eaglewing nodded, holding up his cape and peering through several burn holes in it.

  Niritan opened his mouth to speak, then looked up. All of them felt it at the last second, and none of them had time to react. The boulder crashed to the ground next to them, cracking the rock. The adepts belatedly ducked, shielding their heads with their hands. The horses stared at it, rooted to the ground in fear before trying to bolt. The adepts scrambled to grab their reins and calm the beasts. “Now, that was close,” said Naranthor. He laughed and eyed the dark sky above.

  Kavarine coughed. “I don’t know how much more of this place I can take.”

  “We can’t keep going tonight. We should camp here.”

  Lightningbolt stared in the direction of the volcano. “Do you think we’re safe?”

  “Nowhere is safe in this valley, but Eaglewing is right,” Niritan said. “We must stay here tonight. The valley is much shallower and broader than it once was.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  Niritan nodded. “In my youth, I crossed here. We went in search of a particular v
olcano, one with passages deep into the earth. Within it, we found the right kind of crystals. The Ancient Master, Eriankian, who was ancient even then, was with us. None of us were able to watch, but as his last act, he used those crystals to create the Red Stone.”

  “You saw him create the Red Stone?” Naranthor asked.

  “No. That’s the problem. I remember the wild energy, the incredible power he bent to the task. We had many other wizards from all races here as well, each carrying a Stone. He was trying to create a blue Stone, a twelfth Stone. But instead, he created the Red Stone.”

  “Do you know how he did it?”

  Niritan shook his head. “That is what I have been trying to puzzle out from my memories since we arrived in this valley. I remember the essence of the magic, remember the kinds of spells they wove. But I do not know where or even if we can find such crystals again.” Sadness passed through his eyes. “The world was a much younger place in those days. And this valley was far deeper.”

  “If we delve into one of those volcanoes, it could easily be the very end of this quest, and Kronshar will ravish the world without anyone to stop him.” Eaglewing crossed his arms, feet planted, as though he’d wrestle the idea to the ground.

  “I realize this, warrior.” Niritan’s gaze shifted to the orange glows on the far off volcano. “But, what are our chances for success with our crude use of the four Stones against his five, against he who has the control of the Red, and thus can possibly control them all whether or not we have them in our possession? We could be simply bringing him the tools to use against us and the rest of the world.”

  This had been the debate long before they left on this fool’s errand. Eaglewing sighed, turning to his horse, and unsaddled the mare.

  “You know he’s right, Eaglewing,” said Naranthor.

  “Of course he’s right,” said Lightningbolt. “But there must be a way to stop Kronshar. It can’t be entirely hopeless.”