World's of Ash
(hardcopies and paperbacks found at:https://www.austinmacauley.com/us/author/rutan-jonathan-lee)
Chapter Seventeen
Once more, she was flying with lungs ready to burst. For some reason, words like crime and despicable, hate, too, and outrage flashed across her mind. Ash’s recent want of some change began to fade, just like every other want already had.
Still, other words—things like elation, joy, and I’m glad I did it, glad—was also floating near to the center of her heart. It was difficult to know what exactly she was feeling.
However, the one thing Ash did know for certain was that her Poppa Henry had been right. Hitting Emily bought her some time. Freddy and Phyllis were too surprised to stop her. They just watched as Emily fell to her knees, blood flowing quite free from what had to be a broken nose.
And there it was—the one thing that brought Ash back to her truest self. The blood, it made all that elation and joy come to an immediate halt—the hate and despicable winning out. She would apologize for that punch, probably apologize a lot, very soon.
Ash fled into the gym and flew by a stunned Coach Littleton who was sweeping up the basketball court alone. “Can you see him; can you sense him?” Ash asked as she brought her mirror to her lips.
The gym became a blur as she rounded a corner. The library was only a few feet away. But it revealed nothing to let her know if her brother was inside. “Can you see Peter?”
“I,” Poppa Henry said. He eyed her carefully. “I haven’t left to find him, and I won’t go.”
“Why?” Ash asked.
She reached the library. She was outside of two rather large doors. They were giant oak with glass windows at their center that let her see the school librarian inside: an older lady who was reading a book from behind a black metal desk.
Row upon row of shelves, which reached almost to the ceiling, surrounded the woman. They made trying to find Peter a difficult proposition. Ash would have to go in—that was a given—but if Poppa Henry was going to stay in her mirror, it meant a long process of only asking where Peter was while Emily got back on her feet.
“Why won’t you go?” Ash continued. There was noise behind her, the sound of someone, a good three someones, running through the gym and blowing past Coach Littleton. Emily had gotten up much faster than expected. “Didn’t you say you wouldn’t get lost anymore? There are mirrors in here and panes of glass, just step into them and help me find Peter before someone I hurt comes back to return the favor.”
“Ash,” Poppa Henry said. He wasn’t calling her Little Ash. Was he upset? “Don’t be foolish. You knocked down one obstacle. If she returns, we will deal with her, but we have other problems. Look at how much light is here!”
Ash looked this way and that as she stepped inside the library, the librarian smiling awkward at her. School had, at last, truly finished for the day—most students shouldn’t have been around. It was clear this woman just wanted to sit and read rather than to have to deal with some girl.
But Ash ignored her inquisitive grin. She looked only towards a bank of windows that were over on the left.
The library was a tiny squared-off area which sat alone in the middle of two hallways that were not that far from the gym. All its walls were thick glass held together by strong steel dividers and the occasional wood door. They were walls that usually didn’t look out onto anything except empty lockers and empty stretches of marble.
The library also split the school into differing levels. The sixth and seventh graders were off to the left as well—they had a hallway all to themselves—with the eighth graders and their basement subsection found to the right and down another hall. Any library window shouldn’t have had any natural sunlight pouring through it, yet Ash knew one truth that most of the kids at her school probably never understood.
There was a door that was down the hall reserved for sixth and seventh graders—a tiny emergency exit that, unlike the one in the gym, worked fine. It had a sensor attached to it which would go off and wail rather loud if anyone touched it.
Yet late in the afternoon, at around four, when intramurals were winding down and the school let the last stragglers go home, sunlight poured through that door. It had a window—a huge rectangular one with crisscrossing lines of silver embedded deep within the glass. Ash had many a day stared at it, putting a hand up to her eyes to block the light flooding through it, as she’d waited for Peter.
But as she stared now, much later in the day than ever before, closer to four-thirty, maybe five, the sun was beyond pouring. It seemed more like there was no window at all on that door—only a blinding and pure yellow. Such light let the whole left side of the library be bathed in uninterrupted warmth. Ash couldn’t find one shadow that would be safe from people who could travel through worlds.
“So much,” she whispered. She kept her blue mirror close to her face no matter how weird it must have looked to the librarian who still smiled her way.
“Then I shouldn’t,” Poppa Henry said. “If Casten or Arathus—”
“Can I help you?” the librarian asked.
She was a nice older woman in her late sixties with a soft doughface and dark hair tinged a touch gray. Ash had seen the librarian many a time during her stay at middle school, but as the woman put down the book she was reading, Ash realized she couldn’t remember her name.
It could have been Mrs. Abernathy or Mrs. Amber. It started with an “A,” Ash knew that, yet with Poppa Henry in a mirror only a few inches from her lips, with Emily Baker, too, somewhere behind, and with sunlight threatening to allow people inside who wanted to take her away, she couldn’t come up with anything else.
“Please, Poppa Henry, we have to hurry,” Ash said. She smiled back at the librarian yet held her blue mirror closer. “Just go.”
“Okay,” Poppa Henry said. “I don’t like it! But I’ll go!”
“Young lady,” the librarian said, “may I help you?”
It was Anthony, Mrs. Anthony, the name popping into her mind as Ash dropped her hands to her side. She was a woman who most likely wouldn’t have cared if Ash had lost her name since she herself probably had no clue who Ash was.
“Yes, I’m here to get my brother,” Ash said. Once more, there was noise behind her. Something loud was happening, yet this time, when she turned, Ash didn’t just hear someone, she saw them.
Emily—blood still flowing—and Phyllis and Freddy banged loudly out of the gym with Coach Littleton only a step or two behind. A towel stained dark red was wrapped around the coach’s hand. It looked as if he’d held Emily up to try and fix her, but Emily had broken free.
“Are they coming for you?” Mrs. Anthony asked. She stared at Emily, Freddy, and Phyllis who had again been waylaid by Coach Littleton. The man was fast. Though he’d been last out, he’d caught up. He had Emily by her arm. “And what does that have to do with your brother?”
Ash sighed. “Mrs. Anthony…” She needed to go. She had even less time. “Don’t you remember me? I’m the girl always waiting on Peter Ash. I’m his sister. I’m Ash—Amanda Jane Ash. Do you know where Peter is?”
“I see a lot of students,” Mrs. Anthony said. She picked up the book she’d been reading and found the page she’d been on. “You can’t expect me to remember all of them all the time, especially when I have to suffer through this ghastly age. I have also worked in this wonderful school for thirty years—lots of kids passing through, lots of faces I shouldn’t have to study, yet I study them. No one can expect me to remember everything.”
She smiled once more as Ash began to think that her previous assumption, Mrs. Anthony being nice, may have been based more on her soft features—an odd waddle under her chin, perhaps her kind eyes—rather than anything real. Her eyes still seemed kind and her face did radiate warmth, yet it was clear Mrs. Anthony didn’t care one bit about any kid she’d oddly said she studied. Emily Baker could burst inside with murder on her mind, and as long as Mrs. Anthony could enjoy her book, Ash was sure she wouldn’t be bothered in the slightest.
“Mrs. Anthony,” Ash said. Her voice was sharp and cutting, a bit high pitched too because behind her, more noise, the sound of Emily screaming and Coach Littleton hollering, rose and rose. Ash walked forward, hand already stretched out, and pushed the book Mrs. Anthony was reading down. It was an act that like punching Emily, or running past a wolf, was something she never would have done the day before. “His name is Peter Ash. He should be the only kid in here. Please, let me know where he is.”
“That little boy, the one who doesn’t seem special no matter what everyone says, you wait for him?” Mrs. Anthony asked. She looked with distaste at Ash before she cast her eyes back over Ash’s shoulder. “What is going on out there?”
“Never mind, where is he, where is Peter?”
“The only boy here is near the encyclopedias in the back. I remember because usually no one is there. Usually, I just have a kid who hangs out in my math and science section.”
Mrs. Anthony got to her feet. She didn’t look at Ash. She peered instead at the hallway with the most curious expression that Ash had ever seen. There was even a moment when Ash had a strong urge to turn and look as well. But instead, she bolted.
She had always thought Peter must enjoy the sections found in the farthest corners of the library, but narrowing it down was a huge help. She doubted Mrs. Anthony realized that both kids she’d mentioned—the one who most often was in the math and science section and the one who was now with the encyclopedias—were truly the same, but they were. Even in her absent-minded unconcern, she’d narrowed down exactly where Peter would be.
“My word,” Mrs. Anthony said. It was a sharp and sudden outburst—almost a scream. “Did that boy—did he hit Jefferson?”
It was the last thing Ash got as she whipped around the black desk and made a quick angle to the right. She headed towards a far wall where only one worn and hardly used shelf of books awaited.
The doors to the library exploded open as Mrs. Anthony no longer almost screamed. She managed to yell quite loud.
“There she is,” Ash heard Emily say, a garbled and mangled cry barely rising above Mrs. Anthony’s continued shrieks. “Get her!”
Ash ran harder. She was tired of it, tired of flying down something, the Unkindness, the gym, now the last few sections of the library, but she ran. The rows of shelves bled into one until she reached a final section and turned down it with the hope of seeing Peter with a book in his hands and an anxious face wondering why no one had yet come to pick him up.
She found Arathus and Casten. They were joined by others, by one short and squat man with heavy green robes and thick brown leather pants, the same short man Ash had seen at the lake. A tall willowy beauty with strange white hair was there as well; Ash finding a whole group she hadn’t wanted to ever meet.
However, it was when she realized Peter was in their clutches that everything got way worse. Her tiny brother—with Casten’s hands on his shoulders—was right in the middle of this awful fellowship.
“Peter,” Ash said. Her voice lost all its strength as she held tight to her blue mirror and wondered if she should look at it in the vain hope her grandfather would be there.
She never should have sent him away.
Chapter Eighteen
“Ash,” Peter said. He looked only at her. “What’s going on?”
Ash couldn’t answer. Something heavy and large took her by surprise. She was grabbed by the waist and slammed to the ground.
It was Phyllis. All Ash could see of her was her happy and idiotic face, the rest of her two-hundred-plus pounds hidden yet easily felt.
Phyllis had always been a mousy black-haired girl with squinty black eyes trapped beneath puffy cheeks that threatened, often, to swallow those eyes completely. No matter how rich she was, her girth made school intolerable. It was a curse of overeating—plus other such unattractive qualities like a bad hereditary trait for greasy skin—that pushed aside any comfort money could afford.
Phyllis knew teasing and struggle, and long ago, she’d gotten close to Emily to survive; Emily not minding in the slightest. Though she and her family were well off, Phyllis was pure money, and Emily couldn’t ignore that. She had the beauty and the confidence, but Phyllis had the cash and a willingness to share with anyone who was popular. In another world, Ash could imagine how Phyllis and she might have bonded over the hurt they both had suffered. But with Emily’s encouragement, Phyllis had become nothing more than the muscle, the weight to Emily’s threats whenever Freddy wasn’t around to do the heavy lifting.
“I got her,” Phyllis squealed. She jabbed a knee into Ash’s side as she giddily turned to the approaching Emily.
They’d burst their way into the library and had flown past the still screaming Mrs. Anthony who’d at last begun to put some words back into her hysteria. Ash could barely hear her, it sounded like she was saying, “Let Jefferson go,” and “How dare you hit him?” But Ash wasn’t certain. She could guess that Freddy Williams, another large child, yet one with more muscles and less brains then Phyllis, had finally gone from threatening his classmates to being violent with a teacher. It was the only way Phyllis and Emily could have gotten to her.
“Keep her down,” Emily said. She was almost to the back row, her voice still muffled and syrupy, as if she was talking through thick liquid. “I don’t care anymore! I’m going to break her face!”
Neither had seen the three figures or the dog just yet. It was the only explanation that came as Ash struggled under Phyllis’s grasp and finally managed to turn her head. Phyllis had knocked her well past the Light Benders, yet Ash was just able to catch it when Casten let go of Peter. She watched as he moved around some nearby shelves to judge the situation from a safe and concealed position.
Most every Light Bender was whispering quickly to one another. But, the shortest—a strange fellow with a thick black beard and two axes strapped to his back—Ash couldn’t help but to also catch every bit of a sudden grin that began to form upon his lips. How could she not catch that? After Casten walked off, the short fellow used one stubby arm to keep her brother still while, with his other, he held dirt caked knuckles over Peter’s lips. He was all Ash was concerned about.
She sent daggers of rage his way as his grin was noted and judged. It made her think the Light Benders were happy. Casten may have been the only one who didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by what was going on, but whenever she looked elsewhere, Ash knew.
The woman with the white and willowy hair held a furrowed brow, and Arathus’s maw was pulled back into a fierce yet silent snarl. They were ready to attack, yet Ash kept returning to the smile of the shortest—maybe the Light Benders wanted to wait a second so she could be pummeled?
However, when Emily finally made it to the back of the library—and also failed to notice anything in green—Casten had to react. He shook his head and moved. He looked first at the short man and the white-haired woman—made sure they did have Peter—and then he ambled slowly towards Ash, his hand gripping the black and red leather hilt of his sword with fingers gone tight with irritation.
“You hit me,” Emily said. Her hands were over her nose, that alone most likely garbling up her speech and making it so she moved slower than the usually glacier Phyllis Manning. “You’ll pay!”
“If she pays for anything, she will do it in Penthya,” Casten said. His voice was mighty. Mrs. Anthony’s screams were drowned out by him, Emily nearly jumped out of her skin because of him, and Phyllis hurriedly stood up.
Casten had authority in his words, Ash couldn’t deny that as she stood as well, and Emily turned. Ash caught her expression—it was so dramatic as it changed from pure anger to utter disbelief.
Emily saw the clothes Casten was wearing, the green cloak which covered much of his brown leather pants and pretty much all of a green wool shirt even Ash hadn’t yet seen. No matter the authority Casten exuded, Emily may still have made a snide comment or two about his pants—or maybe that shirt—but then she caught sight of his sword.
Even while sheathed, the weapon was impressive. Its black hilt was laced with lines of dark red that caused all eyes to be drawn to it long before the gleaming silver blade was revealed. But Ash had already seen that blade, how it came to a sharp point at its tip, how it had flecks of something just as black as its hilt running all up and down its length. Emily was nervous by getting a glimpse of it, yet Ash couldn’t stop worrying about what would happen if Casten pulled that sword out.
“What—who are you?” Emily asked. Her words were tiny and halting. She was having trouble forming them in her mouth.
Casten never got a chance to reply. More figures arrived.
They were just there. One second, nothing was behind Casten or near to Ash—the next, large gray shapes were moving down each row with their own weapons already drawn.
They were Light Benders, had to be, but rather than wearing any kind of green cloak—or brown leather pants—they were virtually naked, except for long and tattered bits of cloth around their waists. It was all mud splattered and torn, yet somehow each bit stayed put. It was rather impressive.
“Penthyan coward,” the largest and closest gray beast said. He held a curved sword, every gray beast held swords, their blades thick and sharp, yet not as shiny as Casten’s. “Give the kin of Ash to us!”
Casten did as Ash had feared. He swung his blade free as he eyed all the creatures nearby, the ones back towards Peter and Arathus and the ones closer to Ash and Phyllis.
However, no matter how much Ash may have been concerned about what would happen when Casten drew his sword, she never could have guessed the outcome that arrived. Someone passed out. Emily froze and went silent, yet as she became a statue, Phyllis collapsed. She screamed soft and was on the floor, hitting not nearly as hard as Ash had thought someone of her size would do.
“Impossible,” Casten said. “The Errun can’t…not again. How did you refind your way?”
Casten stared only at the gray beast who’d called him a coward, one that as soon as it was named, became something Ash realized she should have recognized. With wide unblinking black eyes—and a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth—the creature was an exact representation of what Poppa Henry had described whenever he’d talked of Penthya and some of its greatest nightmares.
“How?” Casten continued, “the throne is damaged, and you…your kind has less strength then us? How did you capture enough magic to…?”
“I am a Pride,” the Errun that Casten was talking to said. “Maybe I have the same power as Syndon. Maybe as his son…”
“Chood,” Casten said. He shook his head wearily. “I should have known. If you have the wretched blood of Syndon in your veins, I can only imagine the perversions you are capable of.”
“Many,” the large Errun, Chood, said. He stepped closer to Casten. “I am capable of so many perversions, and I will gladly do them again and again if it means I can gain freedom from the wasteland that is my home!”
More Errun closed in. The other Light Benders back towards Peter pulled out their weapons.
“No one told you to go there,” Casten said. “It’s your own fault for living in the Western Wilds. If you don’t like it, I suggest you go back to wherever you came from.”
Chood pointed the tip of his sword at Casten’s face. “If you only knew what we left behind! We can’t go home, but if we suffer, you shall suffer too! You’ve neglected Cathedral, and that, Elf, has allowed us all the time we could have ever wanted! We can bend light again, and this time, we will not lose our gift! The children of Henry Ash will come with us!”
Casten leapt but not towards Chood. He went for Ash. “Morgan,” he yelled as he flew, “take the boy—return to Penthya!”
Emily got in his way.
Ash wasn’t sure. She didn’t really see what happened. It just seemed as if Emily had finally decided to move, yet only succeeded in jumping right into Casten arms. She hit him and bounced—was flung into the waiting grasp of another Errun who scooped her up as if she was a delightful prize it had not expected.
As for Casten, he was hardly fazed. Emily’s hit knocked him back, but it didn’t send him sprawling. He kept his feet. He even had enough presence of mind to quickly lash out and sever the head of the Errun who had Emily in its grasp.
“He’s protecting her,” Chood said. He was pointing only at Emily who had returned to a state of mainly frozen, catatonic-like shock. She did nothing except wipe at a spray of gray that hit her in the face. “She’s the granddaughter!”
Things moved rather fast after that. Ash was already acting like Emily—she was not doing anything other than breathing. The only movements she made were slight turns of her head as she looked this way and that to stare at what was going on.
The white-haired woman—the one who had to be Morgan—Ash saw how she grabbed at Peter and seemed to catch her breath, how she began to concentrate as if getting ready to go somewhere, to maybe bend light and escape as Casten had told her to do. She hesitated.
Ash saw it all. Morgan looked towards Casten and the Errun heading his way. She even nodded as if she’d made up her mind. She let go of Peter and brought up a bow that was strung on her back. An arrow appeared in her hand a second later.
One of the Errun at Casten’s rear found a large, sharp stick in its throat as it slid to the ground. Morgan’s onslaught was furious. Chood took his focus off Casten as he snarled something Ash couldn’t understand.
But whatever it was, the rest of the Errun turned towards Peter. He was staring just as Ash was doing. Instead of trying to escape, he, too, wasn’t moving, yet the small man who now had two axes in his hands—or maybe he was a Dwarf since he had to be Penthyan—wasn’t.
The Dwarf was smiling even more broadly as he dove into the horde coming his way. He fought madly, almost crazily, his little legs flying around much faster than Ash would have thought possible. Laughing in utter glee, he dodged around the many taller Errun as his two axes went about their terrible work. With Morgan busy firing arrows, and with Peter, Ash, and Emily standing stock-still, it was easy for him, and for Arathus who was at his side, to go to work. They all fought amazingly. Before the Errun realized what was going on, most were dead. It looked as if Casten and his group might win.
More Errun came from nowhere, Ash watching in horror as they headed for her brother. She saw how the large white wolf she’d been so terrified of back in her room got hit. Arathus took an Errun blade down her side, howling fiercely as her flank was sliced open. The Dwarf quickly jumped to her, got rid of her attacker, but the damage was done. Arathus fell to the ground in a heavy heap, whining sickly as the Dwarf tried to keep her safe from any more harm.
“Get out,” Casten said. He finished with the few Errun who’d stayed to deal with him. “Morgan, go! Take Yorgeth and Arathus with you!”
The last Errun near to him, Chood, suddenly struck as Casten got his sword up just in time. With Emily, he hadn’t been fazed when she’d run into him. And with all the other Errun, he hadn’t seemed out of sorts either, but for this, he broke. Casten stumbled.
“I told you I was his son,” Chood said.
He flexed his meaty arms as he lifted his sword once more Casten’s way. Most of the Errun were over by Peter or were lying dead near to her, but Ash still caught Chood checking this way and that to make sure. What was he up to?
“But,” Chood continued. His quick bit of checking was done. “That is only something I say when any of my Band are near. I will let you know a secret, Elf! I am Syndon, not his son, and my power has only grown while you pitiful Penthyans thought me dead!”
Chood, no, Syndon—could it really be him—raced towards Casten, moving quicker than anything Ash had yet seen. Quicker than Arathus, than the wolves of the Unkindness, even the Dwarf she now knew was named Yorgeth. For a moment, Syndon was standing a few feet away—then he was right in Casten’s face.
“Casten!” Morgan said. She tried to run. But another Errun got in her way. She had to dispatch it with an arrow she didn’t bother to put into her bow. She jammed its tip right into the Errun’s neck.
“Go,” Casten said. He dodged Syndon’s blows and succeeded in avoiding almost all. But, one snuck through. It tore into his thigh as he fell to a knee. “Yorgeth, get her—get her and the boy and go!”
Ash had been splitting her attention between the fight Casten was having and the battle raging a few feet away. Morgan and Yorgeth were outnumbered—were slowly losing—but they seemed to be doing much better than Casten even though Morgan had been forced back near to the fallen Arathus.
Everyone was encircling Peter—they kept the approaching Errun from sneaking up from behind. But Ash could tell that Yorgeth was conflicted, as easily as she’d seen the smile on his face, she could now make out his worry. He had one hand on Arathus, but the other was held before his eyes as he looked at Peter and then at Morgan.
Ash knew what he was considering, and suddenly, she found she could move. As much as she’d wanted to keep Peter away from anyone dressed in green, she prayed Yorgeth would take him. Surely the tiny man would want to keep any kin to her Poppa Henry safe, yet as she flew towards the Dwarf, she knew different. He was conflicted because he could only grab one if he was also holding onto Arathus, and it seemed he was siding more with Morgan then with Peter.
Ash took two leaping steps, but she was already too late. In an instant, Peter was alone.
Chapter Nineteen
Ash thought about that morning. Peter hadn’t heard her yell. He didn’t know she would have done anything to be rid of him, but she knew. How could she lose him without saying sorry?
She tried to run faster. Just a few minutes ago, she’d been a blur on a highway—and in this very library, she’d been pretty quick as well—yet now, she knew she was running, but it was also like she wasn’t moving at all.
The world took on clarity. Peter was grabbed by one Errun with three fingers instead of four. He gave a quick yelp of pain. But then he surprised Ash by striking with a speed that was impressive.
Ash never would have thought it of her lanky little brother. He swung an elbow, broke a nose, and some of those words—like joy and elation—returned. They raged along Ash’s heart, her brother, she herself, they both had acted rather unlikely this day, and she could no longer deny: a part of her still believed those actions to be awesome.
But while her assault on Emily had sprung her free, all Peter’s attack did was to give him a brief reprieve. For a moment, the Errun at his back howled in agony as thick gray blood spewed down its chin and onto its chest. Peter turned, his glasses barely staying on his face as his mop of wild brown hair whipped around. He looked this way and that, but there was nowhere for him to go.
More and more Errun arrived from out of the sunlight streaming into the library. Peter was swallowed by a swarming mass of gray with hard leather skin and hands that were almost as dangerous as their swords. The last sight Ash had of him was of Peter, again, looking right at her. He was petrified.
He vanished, all the Errun around him vanished, and Ash fell to the floor. No one had yet laid a finger on her, but she could no longer stand.
Her brother…she could hear it. The emptiness of his absence was a deafening roar she couldn’t quite get a handle on.
Ash stared towards the front of the library. Mrs. Anthony was still there. She was yelling at Jefferson and…wait, was she talking about Coach Littleton? Ash had never heard that man’s first name before, he was just coach. But it had to be him. Mrs. Anthony was telling Jefferson to stop messing with that boy. It didn’t seem real.
Mrs. Anthony was a quiet woman who read books from behind her black metal desk and checked out novels for any student who wanted one. She wasn’t a screamer and she never yelled about students hitting their teachers or teachers striking back at their students. Nothing was connecting with the woman, and the library, which Ash had always known.
Ash turned to the row where her brother had been, everything was still empty, but she stared and stared as if convinced she was seeing it wrong. She blinked hard and shook her head, but Peter never returned no matter how much Ash tried to wish him back.
She looked over her shoulder. She had forgotten all about Casten and Chood—no, Syndon, it was Syndon. Everything in this library was getting new names, maybe even Emily was about to step forward and say that, actually—in an attempt at full honesty—she wanted to call herself Patricia or Molly because why not.
Emily…Ash couldn’t believe it. She’d let Emily slip from her mind.
But as she turned to her, Ash was prepared. New name, new face, she was certain she could handle any surprise, yet Emily was as she’d been before. Frozen in horror, just as Ash had returned to being.
Poppa Henry, wherever he’d gone, because he sure wasn’t back in her mirror, had said her parents had been taken, and now with Peter abducted, Ash had nothing. All she could do was look around, detached and utterly removed from a world that had knocked her off her feet.
“Where are the other kin?” Syndon said.
He now stood over Casten who lay on the floor with his hands at his stomach. A wide and gruesome gash was visible where only a green shirt and, most likely, unharmed skin had been before. Syndon still had his sword, and a few other Errun were with him as well, but Casten had nothing.
His sword, so mighty, so powerful, had been sent flying to land down near to Ash. In fact, it had gone a bit past her. It lay close to where Peter had been though Ash hadn’t noticed a thing when it must have flown on by.
“You are wounded,” Syndon said. He brought the tip of his blade to just under Casten’s chin. “I already have the male cub, and the female is over there. With us, they will never come to harm as they would have with you. Tell us where Henry Ash’s son is so we can save him.”
“Save him for what?” Casten asked. He struggled with each word as he clutched at his wound. A river of bright green, Ash looked twice, but yes, it was green, came up from beneath his fingers. “Save them so they can be slaves in the Western Wilds?”
Syndon laughed. It sounded like he was dying. “Better than Trial so the Silver Throne and all the others can be set right. Just how much of their blood will be drained to do that?”
“None,” Casten said. “The old ways are no longer needed.”
He could barely get his words out, yet what he’d said was enough for Ash. Was that what the people of Penthya were going to do? Were they going to bleed her family dry?
“Four centuries of chaos,” Syndon said, “of violence and madness following Denthro’s death, and still you believe Penthya to be a beacon of light? You’re as wild as us, how many battles between former friends have you had for control of Castle Watch and its thrones? How much Penthyan honor and glory has flowed along your streets in the name of peace and putting the proper leader into a position of power? The old ways are your ways.”
Casten leaned up. He took one of his hands off his wound to do it, and it must have hurt him terribly, but he got as close to Syndon as he could.
“We already have Steven,” he said. “The son is already in Castle Watch, and no magic you have will ever get you to him. He is all we need.”
Syndon quickly knelt. He ignored the wound on Casten’s stomach and jammed a finger into the center of the gash on Casten’s thigh.
“Do not presume me a fool,” he said. “Not all Errun are the mindless beasts most of you Penthyans think us to be. In the years since Denthro’s death, we have learned more than just bending light. We know all about the five thrones, and Steven Ash may have been what was needed before he had children, but now with them alive, it will take each to bring back the Bright. You need the boy that we already have, just as you also need that girl.”
Syndon pointed to who he was talking about. But again, it wasn’t Ash he stretched towards. He still thought Emily was the one he needed. He nodded to the few remaining Errun to take hold of her, and only when they had her in their grasp did Ash realize what must have happened.
When Casten had first lashed out, he hadn’t swung his sword at Syndon, he’d not gone for any of the many Errun that had been near to him either. He’d only killed the Errun he’d bumped Emily into. That must have made every beast think she was their target.
Somehow, they could feel that some kin to Poppa Henry was close. But without knowing exactly who those kin might be, they’d made a mistake.
“We have the children of Henry Ash’s last remaining child,” Syndon said. But how could they allow for such an error? Emily looked nothing like Peter. “Don’t think me foolish or stupid, and don’t think that I don’t know you have to have them all. If the Seal is weak, then either Henry Ash or his daughter is dead, and if that is the case, you will need Steven and his children, and if you have Steven, then wherever he is, we will go. We will tear your civilization apart. We will even tear apart that other girl over there. She will be an example.”
Ash saw Syndon’s finger dance her way, another slight nod of his large head a secondary indicator of what he wanted. She was going to die; an Errun with a sword drawn, one walking right for her, the last bit to fall into place. Syndon may have had a desire to save the kin of her grandfather, but in a cruel twist of fate, he was about to wipe one of them out forever.
The Errun got closer. Ash remained unable to move—she didn’t see the point in trying.
Something happened. Ash couldn’t tell what it was, but something flashed out, like a moving ray of sunshine. It flew towards her, bent to pick something up, and suddenly turned to run past the Errun who was still coming her way.
Ash couldn’t believe it. The ray…it didn’t bother to help, it just charged at Syndon. All Ash could do was hold her breath and wait for the end.
It never came. Ash turned to the nearby Errun. She was terrified that when she did, it would get even closer, but she had to look.
The thing had become like her—frozen, its eyes slack and devoid of life. Except, no…it wasn’t like her at all. It was dead.
Ash watched as the beast finally began to move, or at least watched as one part of it did. Its upper half slid back and fell to the floor. The thing that had rushed past hadn’t ignored her. It had sliced clean through the Errun and its sword as it went.
Ash blinked hard and took a second look at what had saved her. It was Poppa Henry. As she turned, she saw how what she’d taken for a bit of moving sunshine was really her grandfather’s Reflection—alive and free of whatever it had sprung from. This time, her grandfather looked like the glass walls of the library. His solid form didn’t reflect those he was fighting, but rather it allowed for Ash to see everything through him.
Her grandfather had also picked up Casten’s sword and was holding his own much better than Casten had. Syndon was only grunting and snapping his jaws in frustration each time Poppa Henry deflected a blow which Casten probably couldn’t have handled.
“Errun scum!” Poppa Henry shouted. Casten’s sword was singing as Poppa Henry flung it around in a display of swordsmanship Ash was in awe of. She didn’t see how Syndon could withstand it.
Syndon smiled. Like his laugh, it made him horrible—as if a mask of cancer had been set upon his lips. “A part of Henry lives,” he said. “You created a Reflection, but you should have been like me, like Syndon, you should have used your magic to possess your own spawn, for in the form I control, I can last much longer then you!”
Again, not many heard Syndon’s words. The Errun in the library were mostly around Emily or were standing close to Ash, and in another attempt at full honesty, they looked way too stunned to grasp what was being said. Apparently, even when you were a being from a world like Penthya, it wasn’t every day you saw glass come to life.
However, Ash didn’t miss a thing, and it appeared her grandfather heard as well. Poppa Henry froze—everyone was doing that today—as Syndon fled. He scampered over to the Errun who still had hold of Emily.
“You can’t!” Poppa Henry screamed. “Ophallo is dead, and…and when he went, you were in the one place he took with him! I know! I heard! The Silver Throne burned Cathedral! It’s the only reason I live! The only reason why all the five thrones could ever be as broken as Casten told me they were!”
“Yet,” Syndon said, “we are here! I am the proof!”
Chapter Twenty
Ash heard sneakers—she guessed four—squeaking as they tore into the library. She also caught the sound of someone choking or maybe it was a grunt of displeasure. Whatever the case, everything was about to get way too crowded.
“My Little Ash,” Poppa Henry said. “Are you with me?” A hard and solid hand, one kind of cold and going a rotten, grayish black reached out to take hold of her shoulder. “Ash, are you there?”
Ash turned to her grandfather. Impurities were starting to appear all over his body. Beyond the grayish black, pock marks of midnight—like tiny eyes into darkest space—were now spreading slow across both his arms and along his chest and neck. What was wrong with him?
“P-Peter,” Ash said.
She’d been wrong. The sneakers, even Mrs. Anthony who was still screaming, were not about to make this library anymore crowded. Syndon was gone, light somehow swallowing him and his followers as Ash had stayed on the floor. Anything that showed up now would just be filling up the empty.
“Not crowded at all,” Ash laughed. She didn’t know why she was doing that. She felt more like crying.
“What?” Poppa Henry asked. He tried to shake her lightly, but his hand, it was no longer rotten gray, it was putrid black. It must have messed him up. “Ash, are you okay?”
Ash tried to see her grandfather’s face inside the thing before her. “They took Peter,” she said.
“I know,” Poppa Henry said. He stopped shaking her. That was nice. “But we’ll get him. Peter and your parents, we’ll get everyone—we’ll even get that girl they took. But you have to stand—could you just—will you get up for me?”
Somehow, Ash stood. Her knees buckled slightly, but with Poppa Henry’s help, she managed.
She heard a sharp squeal of rubber, a sound of someone who’d run hard only to come to a sudden halt. Her grandfather left her side.
Ash turned. Good old Jefferson, Coach Littleton in the flesh, was there. And in his arms—trapped in a very harsh and probably very uncomfortable headlock—was Freddy Williams. He pounded violently on Coach Littleton’s side. Trapped as he was under the coach’s left arm, he didn’t seem to be getting much air, but the swollen lip on Coach Littleton’s face, and a bruised and puffy eye as well, let Ash know that Freddy had already put in enough licks to deserve whatever he was finding.
“What’s going on?” Coach Littleton asked.
Ash wanted to explain. Coach Littleton deserved something, maybe a short story or two about Penthya to fully clarify what the Errun were and why they’d come to her school.
But quickly, she saw she didn’t have to say a thing. Coach Littleton’s face went slack as he lost all interest in her.
It was the dead Errun. Somehow, Ash had let them slip—maybe her brain remained troubled by what had happened to her this day, maybe she would be letting things slip for a while. Still, the more she let that sink in, the more Ash knew it didn’t matter. The dead were noticed now, that’s what was important.
Bodies were a sort of crowd. They littered the rows behind Ash and the floor right in front of her. There was even poor Phyllis, still alive yet lying in the midst of gray blood and body parts. And there was Casten. Ash couldn’t find him, but he had to be around somewhere, perhaps the library didn’t have as much empty as she’d supposed.
Coach Littleton let go of Freddy. It was clear the slack had traveled from his face to encompass his entire body. He was too stunned to hold onto anything, but keeping Freddy under control quickly became a non-issue. When Coach Littleton set him loose, Freddy went whiter than Ash thought possible. He took in the chaos of the library and swayed. Ash was certain he, too, was about to hit the floor, maybe even land next to Phyllis.
Something scooped her up. Something hard and with black fingers gathered her off her feet, and suddenly, Ash saw how it wasn’t just the dead Errun or Phyllis or even an injured Elf that had to be such a shock to her classmate and her coach.
Poppa Henry, with Casten under his other arm, grabbed her and ran towards the same section of glass he’d just come out of. He jumped out of one world and into another, Ash only having a quick second to wave goodbye before she dreamed.
It had to be the journey between worlds. Or perhaps it was only when that journey happened through glass. Ash hadn’t dreamt when Poppa Henry had yanked her through a puddle, but here, she was doing just that.
“The courtyard,” Poppa Henry said, “was red brick. But not like any red you’ve ever seen.”
This dream was vivid. It felt like she was in the past—at an age of almost ten perhaps, resting a warm comfort as her grandfather told her some great story.
Ash was nestled in her bed. Her eyes were shut—but she wasn’t asleep. It was the best way—her mind alive with a heavy brush filled with reds and oranges, some deep blues as well, and an ocean of green. She was painting with her Poppa Henry’s words.
“Imagine red,” Poppa Henry said. His voice was velvet, an extra cover of warmth. “Are you imagining?”
Ash squeezed her eyes tighter. “Yes.”
“Good,” Poppa Henry said, “very good. Now take that red, and add a dash of amber sunset, a sprinkle of your very own streaks of crimson, and a touch of heat.”
“Like fire.”
Her eyes were still closed, yet Ash was sure she caught her grandfather shaking his head. “Not fire.” He went silent for a second. “More like—like a warm embrace from your father after he’s been at work for far too long. The heat of comfort—it has a color all its own, did you know that?”
Ash frowned. That didn’t make sense. “No.”
“Well, it does,” Poppa Henry said. “Love, passion, those are classic examples of red, a bright scarlet perhaps, or maybe a deep river of rouge. But take that amber sunset or a burning dawn, and you come close to comfort. Can you see it? When your dad slowly opens the front door—what do you feel?”
Poppa Henry knew of how, when she’d been really little, Ash had once waited on her father. Long before her mother got too busy with work, her father was the one always away, and sometimes, if he came home early enough, Ash would sit by her front door and smile when he finally stepped inside. She had even told her Poppa Henry of how her father would pretend not to see her until she laughed for him to pick her up, yet she’d never told Poppa Henry of how that had made her feel. She’d always thought she didn’t have to.
“I feel,” Ash said. She was about to open her eyes. “I feel—”
“Keep imagining,” Poppa Henry said. A hand was at her brow, her grandfather’s palm softly pressing down. “And no looking. What do you feel?”
“I’m laughing,” Ash said. Suddenly, all those brush strokes of red brick were altered into a landscape of that door and how she used to be picked up. “I’m happy.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I—”
“And is there color?” Poppa Henry asked. “Picture happy in your mind, just picture it. Tell me, what do you see?”
Ash huffed. She didn’t understand. She was nine—well, almost not nine, and she was getting older all the time. But this—it seemed childish. It was definitely not something a just-about-to-be ten-year-old should have to deal with.
And then she had it. A deeper image of her front door, how it swung toward her on a whisper, she saw herself waiting—and there it was. A touch of red, a ticklish lick of silk, it danced along the edges of what was in her mind. Poppa Henry was right. Feelings could have color. This red was warm, yet not a fire. It was more like being wrapped in red velvet, the warmth of bed sheets you’d been hiding in during the coldest of nights.
Ash pulled at her grandfather’s hand and opened her eyes. “That kind of heat,” she said. This wasn’t childish. She’d been given a gift. It made her feel more mature. “The bricks had a red like that.”
“Exactly,” Poppa Henry said. He sat back in his chair and threw his arms out in joy. “It was so red, and there were so many bricks—endless amounts. They came from the slopes of the Cliffs of Random, right where Bayden ends and the Northern Reaches begin. Not too far up—too far and you get too close to the Giants. But a ways along a valley found between the Sentries and down a cave filled with precious jewels.”
Poppa Henry brought his arms back over his chest as Ash once more closed her eyes. She could just about see the valley, a cut of green walled in by rock. She needed more.
“What are the Sentries?”
“Two mighty peaks,” her grandfather said, “harsh granite things that jut up towards the heavens. One seems to be staring into Bayden and Penthya—the other is turned to the north and all that the Giants call their own. If ever you wander into that part of the cliffs, the Sentries will lead you home.”
Ash had it now. The rocks around the cut of green were dark and rather sinister. “And the bricks were taken from a cave?”
“Well,” Poppa Henry began, “actually, the Dwarves who mined that part of the cliffs didn’t find brick—they just pulled out buckets of thick red clay. It was as if they had pieces of the heart of Penthya, such a vibrant—”
“The heart,” Ash said. Her imagination was no longer painting anything she liked. “That doesn’t—”
But she should have known. Though Penthya could go dark, her Poppa Henry would never let it get too bleak.
“It’s okay,” he said. A hand was back at her brow. But rather than resting over her eyes, fingers patted her head. “It’s like feelings having color, it’s—it’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful?”
“Absolutely, think of your heart, all the love you have for your parents, for you brother—”
“I don’t—”
Poppa Henry laughed. “Yes,” he said, “you do. You love Peter, I know you do, and what if you could take that love, your heart, and present it to him, to your mom too, or to your dad. You’re still fine, nothing is hurting you, but you’ve given them the most amazing thing ever: the very center of yourself. That is what the red clay was like. It was as if Penthya or Bayden or just the Cliffs of Random wanted us to know how much they loved us. They gave us a gift.”
Ash smiled. Gifts were being handed out everywhere this night.
“Penthya gave you its heart?”
Poppa Henry took his hand from her head. “Yes,” he said. “The Dwarves thought the clay nothing, they were content to throw buckets of it out into the open, but we would take it, heat it, make it into brick, and then put those bricks into the streets that wove in and around the most amazing castle you’ve ever seen.”
Ash perked up. “Watch?” she asked. She opened her eyes again. “You’re talking about Castle Watch?”
“Is there any other castle?” Poppa Henry asked.
Ash adored Watch and any story that dealt with it. The place was such a wonder.
How her Poppa Henry described it—a large mansion, something with white walls made of thick oak, with long hallways too, that were dotted here and there with suits of armor and also pictures of revered heroes. Castle Watch always sounded kind of familiar—like something she could possibly find in her own world—but there was so much more.
It was protected by magic so strong any attack would be doomed to fail before it even started. And there were the five thrones—a silver one that sat in the center of two golden ones which themselves were set between two others made of bronze. Ash didn’t think any other castle, or house—or mansion for that matter—would ever have chairs like that in them.
“Is this—” Ash asked. It suddenly came to her. She loved to hear about Watch, but she absolutely adored hearing about the castle when it was the center of one particular story. “Is this the Isabella and her mystery husband thing?”
Poppa Henry gave her a happy grin. “So smart,” he said, “it is.”
“But—” Ash felt as if she was glowing. Without any prompting, her Poppa Henry had let her know she was brilliant. “But you’ve always—it begins with the man, with Isabelle’s man, riding his horse into the courtyard. You’ve never—why are you telling me about bricks?”
Poppa Henry leaned forward. “Even familiar stories,” he explained, “can be made new. I have told of how Watch was named by David Random, by a man who fell into Penthya from our very own world. I’ve told you about Isabella, too, and her mystery husband, but I’ve never said what kind of bricks her mystery husband was on when he saw her. I just thought you might like to hear this story in a slightly different way.”
Something well known, spun new. It was yet another insight that helped Ash to better understand the world. She felt even more mature, yet still innocent and young. How was her grandfather giving her magic and letting her see how that magic was cast at the same time?
“And the bricks?” Ash asked. She could do it too. If she thought really hard, she knew she could come up with something new. “Did they—how did they sound when the hero rode upon them?”
Poppa Henry smiled again. “Good question.”
He closed his eyes tight—Ash doing the same a second later. Now they both were dreaming.
Hooray for competing parties expositing extensive plot-relevant details to each other in public and conveniently in front of the main protagonist!
But seriously. On the one hand, you have that. On the other hand, you have monologue exposition from Poppa Henry. Between the two, you have Ash, who, like the audience, doesn't know anything and is discovering things as they happen. Given how this is YA and not GoT (where the characters are already part of their world and not discovering it forcefully), I can let it slide personally. All the same, having two competing interests yelling things at each other that are conveniently relevant is a little cheesy.
An idea to keep the cheese to a minimum while still keeping any surprises in tact (that Casten didn't know Syndon was still alive, etc.): Remove the protagonist (Ash) from the scene. Actually, remove the parties from that particular scene. Casten and Syndon are in the grocery store and both want the last can of tuna. (Stay with me.) Now what are they discussing? Rather than shouting, "[Relevant Main Character] (Henry) is dead now and we're going after his children!" they might be saying:
Casten: "How are you alive? How did you get here? Why are you here? What's your interest in this can of tuna?"
And the other party, not wanting to divulge their evil schemes (watch The Incredibles and see how they toyed with that trope), might respond
Syndon: "You thought me dead! Ha! What fools! We are not slavering beasts driven by instinct! We got here by our own cunning, and we are TAKING this can of tuna!"
Casten: You don't have the power to fight us and cross the barrier with the tuna!
Syndon: The barrier is broken, but it doesn't matter because we have great power! Enough power to defeat you and cross the barrier with ten cans of tuna!
And so on. Just a thought. But I mean, that can tip the other way into getting no information and relying on Henry's evasive monologues. I don't know.
The librarian confused me a little. I totally know people who are completely indifferent to their surroundings, but did she leave the library to see to the Coach/Freddy fight? Would there not have been bookshelves being cloven in half from swordplay and other environmental damage? Is there some kind of time magic, where librarian et al might have been frozen so they didn't actually see anything until afterwards when no one was around to hold the spell? Is there distraction magic? Or is she just that much of an idiot? As long as you know the answer, and maybe it's given a brief blurb at some point, that's fine. Otherwise, it's a little strange to me.