Title: Book One of the Chosen of Shannara
Authors: DracoStarbo ( dracostarbo@yahoo.com ) and Lunablue ( deadredsocks@yahoo.com )
Disclaimer: The Shannara universe belongs to Terry Brooks and affiliated companies.
Warnings: This story contains language and ideas that can be found offensive.
Authors Notes:
As always, Loved something? Hated something? Let us know, by reading and reviewing. Or flaming. Or sending hate mail. We do except all forms of MasterCard, Visa and stalkers are generally appreciated.
Ha ha! We're finally getting this formatting thing down. Fanfiction.net is so hard to format with for some reason . . . maybe later on we'll go back and fix the other chapters, edit them up and all that. But not now, getting these chapters finished, beta'd and published every Wednesday is hard enough as it is.
We are sorry for the delay in this chapter. Our reason of being late is the fact that we had Winter Brake last week and we thought that we would have plenty of time to get the chapter up. Ha-ha. Our relitives had other plans for us. So, here it is at last - at least it's long!
And Lunablue moved!! ;_; Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Not fair!! Not fair!! Now we're going to have to send the fic back and forth by e-mail! *sniffle* And because we can't spend hours on end bs-ing around or writing the fic, then I do believe that the chapters will be updated every two weeks now. Sorry everybody!!!
Reviewers Response:
Sora Potter,
WE SHALL COUNTINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Terra Tigra and Pantera,
Thank you for that long review! ^__^ And for staying up until 2:00am reading it. We take pleasure in knowing that we're costing you your sleep. (jk) We were flattered by it. And we don't mind long reviews - we love them! Lastly, let all who think Terry Brooks suck burn!
Chapter Six: Scream Into The Night
* * * *
The first thing Walker Boh noticed when entering the tavern was his nephew Brinn being held back by Lukc and some strange, blonde boy.
"What in the Four Lands is going on here?" His commanding voice faded off as he saw the wrecked state of the room. Lukc and Aiken released Brinn, who's troubles now laid on the same path as Walker Boh, and no longer with Jez.
"Uncle Dark?" sobbed Gok, from his kneed positioned on the floor. Walker saw that he was holding a body, but turned away and clutched in the boy's arms, Walker couldn't tell who it was. He had no time to think upon it, for his nephew gave him the answer he had dreaded on his travels. "Oh, Uncle Dark, they're dead. All of them, my family, we were to late and now they're all dead!"
A wave of sorrow and disbelieve washed over the Druid as he recognized Coll in Gok's arms. The bodies of Par and their respective wives, no longer hidden by the shadows of doubts from Walker's mind, all lying in distorted positions across the rooms common. Slowly, feeling the weight of eternity on his shoulders, he knelt down beside his nephew and placed a hand on the boys back.
"From the earth we come Gok, and in the end it is to the earth we all must return. Your family loved you, children, so remember the good times and stop your tears. You are men now. All of you." Walker said in a painful voice, knowing this was no time to brake down and weep to the heavens, but wishing so much to have the lesser need of keeping up a strong imagine for his remaining family to cling to.
Giving the boy one last pat on the back, the Druid arose and surveyed the room, taking in the four strangers odd appearance. Memial, her chestnut colored hair knotted, a stray leaf hanging in it and her jeans had dried stiffly, was standing in front of the door with Deidre, who had hundreds of shallow scratches on her face and blood caked on her small Strawberry Shortcake T-shirt. Aiken was standing off to the side looking uncomfortable, his long sleeved shirt ripped to ribbons and his jeans in an even worse state. Jez was still sitting in front of the fireplace, warming her feet and eating her food, not looking the least bit uncomfortable, or damaged by whatever had caused the other three strangers to be in their current states.
"Who might you four be?" he questioned, his dark voice deepened with sorrow and suspicion.
"We be Memial," she gestured to herself, and then the others as name dictated the gesture be given. "And this be Aiken, Deidre, and Jez. Who be you?"
"This is our Uncle Dark, Walker Boh, but most people just call him Walker," Lukc answered for his uncle.
At this Deidre's high pitched voice burst into the room, startling everyone but Aiken, who was used to it by now.
"Uncle Bo? Your name is Uncle Bo?! My Uncle's name is Bo, that's so cool, that you guys share the same name and all that. I once met a girl who had my name, but she had brown hair instead of black like mine. I loved her pretty brown hair; I want brown hair. But Uncle Bo says I shouldn't dye it because he likes it just the way it is. He always likes everything about me 'just the way it is.' It's so annoying! Sometimes I just get so annoyed with him, that I want to him with my stick! I did that once, hit him with a stick, I mean. But he didn't die like the flying green stick creatures did. He. . ."
At the mention of flying green stick creatures Walker snapped out of his glazed daze and interrupted the girl's annoying chatter. "Flying green monsters? What flying green monsters? What do you speak of girl?"
He turned and stared at her with all the intensity he could muster, as if by pure force of will he could extract the answers from her. Under the intensity of his eyes, Deidre shriveled back and seemed to shrink in on herself.
"Umm," was all that Deidre could do was whimper fearfully.
Then Aiken was there, standing in front of her and staring the druid face on. "She speaks of creatures, taller than you, that glow green and reek of evil. They attacked my companions and your nephews earlier this morning, at a lake. I would assume the death of the people in this room was caused by the same monsters." Not once did his voice tremble as he faced the formidable, older man.
They stood there, Aiken and Walker, staring at each other, measuring one another up. Testosterone was heavy in the air as they held their private battle. Then it was over as Walker shook his head to clear away all of his extra mental confusion and focused on what was important.
"These creatures, have any of you ever seen them before?"
"No, but the blonde girl over near the fireplace seemed to know about them, at least, she called them by name. Um, Jez, I think's her name."
This time it was Jez who suffered the infamous gaze of druid Walker Boh - or, should have suffered, except she just sat there content as a cat with cream.
"What were they?" Walker asked.
She tilted her head to the side and smiled secretively, then whispered stingingly:
"They are the ones who haunt young children under the beds. They are the ones whose wings fill the sky Created from your nightmares, creatures who lord over hell
With the last half-sung note of her little poem, Jez fell back into a blissful state of watching the fire dance on the logs. Everyone stared at her, with a little confusion, for a moment, before Aiken spoke up.
"Yeah . . . She's also a little crazy."
"A little?" Brinn growled, to which Aiken just shrugged. "That *thing* has no feelings whatsoever! She is as bad as those monsters that attacked us by Rainbow Lake!"
Jez pouted her lips and sniffled. "Yoo dwon't like me?" she asked in an overly played little kid's voice. "I twat we was friends."
Clutching his fist in rage, Brinn began a low growl in his throat. Lukc, who had been standing next to Brinn for safety measures, grasped the shoulder of Brinn and spoke softly, "Now's not the time for that, Cousin."
Once his cousin had un-tensed his muscles, Lukc turned his attention to his uncle, he inquired, "Do you know of anything of what these creatures might be, Uncle Dark?"
Uncle Dark shook his head no, reflecting for a moment on a time when Par and Coll were just children and they would call him the Dark Uncle. Walker wasn't sure on how the words got mixed around, but it had somehow happened. "I have no information about these creatures. They aren't Shadowen - those were wiped out long ago, before any of you were born."
"Burning the soul, racking the body, That's their fun, They know no sun, They carry Night with their retched hearts, And blacken the earth like midnight, From fire and the cool abyss, they're evil's knights, They are the Vo'galth."
"I grow weary of the monster's constant rambling rhythms," Brinn snarled.
"Stop calling her a monster," Memial spoke up, causing a few glances to travel her way. "You're only turning your hopeless feelings into anger and it doesn't help to do that at this time."
"Oh, what does a stupid girl know about anger and hopelessness?! You ever come home and find - find THIS?!" he gestured wildly at the room, feeling the hot tears burning the back of his eyes.
"No, but that's still no reason to be angry at Jez!" Memial snapped back, ignoring Deidre's plead to not fight. "And for your information, it looks like I'll never get home at all!"
A cold silence filled the room, and for a moment, it seemed that time had stopped for a heart beat. Memial stood near the door, flush with anger. Deidre and Aiken, just a body apart from Memial, gaped at the girl, unbelieving were their hearts, but shattered were their ears. The Ohmsford boys looked shocked at the bite of her tongue, but the ones who remained unaffected by all of this were Walker Boh and Jez. Walker just stood still, as if not to brake the moment. However, Jez . . .
Jez fell out of her chair, laughing as if she heard the funniest joke in the world. Clutching her sides and rolling on the ground, she gasped for air as the laughter bubbled out of her lungs like a harmonious child skipping along the sidewalk of a bright, sunny day.
"Fuck," Memial shook her head and placed her face in an hand.
"As . . . unusual as this girl seems," Walker sighed, "she the only with the answers for the moment."
He walked over to the girl, Jez, who was just calming down, shook her shoulder to get her attention. "Girl. Jez. What do you of these creatures, the Vo'galth?"
"Oh, that they're really cool, and bad asses to the core. But if they can get their asses beaten by *those* two-" she pointed to Memial and Deidre "- then they can't be all that powerful."
"And you have no other information on them?" Walker inquired.
"Hmm, let me see," she dragged out her words, and sped up her response with a grin. "Nope!"
"She's a crazy monster," Brinn accused once more. "How does she know all of this? Is she on the side of the Vo'galth herself?!"
"There is no use in making accusations you cannot prove, Nephew," Walker shot him a disapproving glance. "I know this is a hard time for you right now . . ."
"Father," Gok whispered, the first word he spoke in a long time. The dead, cold body of Coll he still clung to in his arms, the only warmth upon that body was from the teenager boy, who could feel as if his own life were being sucked out into his father's. Maybe, if he held on long enough . . . "Father . . ."
"Gok, come on," Lukc knelt beside his brother. "Stop this, please. It's hard enough as it is."
"Bu-but . . . Father," Gok sobbed.
"Gok, you're going to have to let go," Brinn sat on the other side of his cousin, and tried to pry Gok's hands off the dead man. "Come on, Gok, you know this isn't healthy!"
"No!" Gok screamed and tightened his grip on the body, nearly doubling over in the effort.
"Gok, let go, now!" Lukc demanded, doing his best to retch his brother off, but Gok refused to yield.
"NO!"
Then Walker Boh was behind him, scooping him up with hardly any effort, and it was then that the four other teenagers noticed that Walker Boh had only one hand. His right arm was cut off just below the elbow bend. Walker, with his one good arm, jerked Gok off the body and dragged the screaming and crying boy away from it.
"No! Father! Let me be my father!" Gok shouted, struggling with all of his might.
Brinn, a step behind, followed his cousin and uncle outside. Lukc took a glance to Jez, Aiken, Deidre and Memial, mumbled that he was sorry and then headed off of to the rest of his family.
"Shit . . ." Deidre mumbled sorrowfully.
"Yeah, shit is right," Aiken echoed.
Jez was staring at the fire now and had been threw the whole episode, waving her hand in front to rid herself the imagines that scene brought back from years ago in her own life. . .
* * * *
Gok was still screaming and thrashing as Walker Boh held him tightly. His brother and cousin, tried to call to him, but his screams where too loud. They tried to touch him, but his limbs lashed out like angry snakes. For fifteen minutes, it seemed helpless.
Lukc got a firm grip on Gok's arms and pushed them down, Brinn slapped Gok as hard as possible with an open fist. Gok, shocked, stopped yelling for a moment. A moment was all that was needed.
"Dad said that he was proud of us," Lukc rushed the words in fear of Gok acting up again. "Do you think he'd be proud of you now, if he saw you acting like this?!"
With a few blinks, Gok's limbs fell limp and he no longer struggled in the arm of his uncle Dark. He realized how much warmer Walker felt compare to his father. It was all too much to take at once . . . He was nearly killed and then found his parents dead . . .
Walker released the young boy and watched sadly as Gok sank to the ground in a fit of sobs. His family knelt by his sides: Lukc to his right, Brinn to his left, and Walker behind.
"Wh-wh-why?" Gok choked between sobs.
"We don't know," Brinn whispered, "But it happened. We all wish it didn't, but . . . it did."
Holding Gok's shoulder to make sure he stayed upright, Lukc noticed how much of a child Gok still seemed. He was so small and his eyes were dominated by innocence. Even with his cool, non-caring outer shell that was developed from years of years of being the butt-end of jokes from the school kids, Gok was still the youngest, the most child-like, of them all.
"C-couldn't you do anything?" Gok's voice was thick. The one he referred to did not need to be addressed by name.
"I tried, Gok. I tried," Walker said in a low voice, close to his nephew's ear. So wrapped up in misery, Walker forgot for a moment his cool, distant attitude and let the three boys hear his inner being speak for the first time. "I'm just as sad as you that they left like this. It was an unjustly thing to happen to anyone."
Something from Walker's voice - his tone, his word, or his complete honesty - had Gok taking his last few sobs, until he stopped crying all together. A single and last tear fled the scene, caring away a bit of the ache that tore at the boy's heart. With a low voice, much like Walker's, Gok expressed his last unanswered fear. "What's going to happen to us now?"
"By law, the alehouse is yours now - all three of you," Walker informed. "However, we have some more pressing matters at hand. I must find out more about the Vo'galth, whatever I can. And you must all be kept safe. Look at me boys."
The three teenagers, who were so roughly pushed into adulthood with the passing of their parents, turned to gaze at Walker with helpless eyes. Even if they were now men, they were still young and didn't know what to do. Walker wished none of this had happened.
"You all have the Wishsong," Walker said what they needed to hear in his best, study voice. "Use it only when you absolutely have to but don't hold back when your lives are threatened. You three on the last of the Ohmsfords; you have a history of heroes in your blood."
Confidence slowly crept back into the boy's eyes and they were soon thinking the same thing. It was time to stand up and to for fill their family name. It was time to find a way to beat the Vo'galth.
They all got up, one after the other, and were just about ready to make the plans to presume their adventure, when suddenly Brinn blurts out, "Memial!"
"What?" Lukc questioned.
Brinn turned to his cousins and asked, "What are we going to do about Memial, Aiken, Deidre, and Jez? We just can't leave them stranded; they didn't even know what the Four Lands are!"
To this, Walker was taken back a little bit, though he hid his surprise. In rapid-fire thought process, he came to a theory that might explain where they were from. "Did they say where they were from?" Walker asked cautiously.
"Um, no," Brinn pondered. "Oh, wait! They said . . . something, when we first met them today. I can't remember what it was, but it sounded like a name of a place, possibly where they lived."
"Let's go ask them," Gok piped up, then seemed to take a mental step back. The Ohmsfords had left the four teenagers in the alehouse, with his dead family, he just remembered.
"Gok, why don't you help me get the horses ready?" Brinn offered quickly.
"Okay," Gok was already walking towards the stables and away from the alehouse.
Brinn followed after him, running a mental list that he made for their many trips to Rainbow Lake or Tyrsis or Leah when their friends were home and not off fighting for the Gnomes' freedom. The list was of the usual things to pack for trips: clothes, food, tents, and all of the little things that go with them.
* * * *
In the alehouse, Memial had started to clear a straight path to certain areas of the common room, needing something to take her mind off of the dead bodies sprawled on the floor. At one point, she had made it over to the door where the Ohmsfords and Walker Boh had gone. When she stilled heard the screaming of Gok, she quickly went to the other side of the room, knowing that they didn't want her help and she could hardly stand it herself.
Aiken took it upon himself to put the bodies into a more realistic position. Coll, Gok's father, didn't really need to be moved, however, the others weren't so lucky. The other man, who looked just like an elf from Aiken's fantasy novels, had a broken arm and his head was twisted nearly all the way around, making his neck look like a ringed cloth. The woman who had rich, auburn hair falling in loose, natural curls to her waist was draped over a broken-in-half table with a look of horror sealed into her face. The best Aiken could do was put her on the ground and close her eyes. The last woman, with ordinary looks of any human being, had two sets of four claw marks across her back. Though there wasn't any way of knowing for certain because Aiken didn't pay attention to how many fingers the Vo'galth had, he was quite sure that the claw marks were made by those creatures. Who else could have-?
"Ack!" he jumped back after flipping the woman over. Blood stained her clothes and her skin was ripped opened in a few places, to and pass the bones. Aiken had seen a lot of violence in movies and comic books and pictures on the news - even saw a car accident where the guy got a peace of glass in his eye - but this was nothing like any of those. All of the other times he saw batter bodies he only saw the blood and here, on this woman, he could see the bone; this was the first time ever being this close to an actual, brutal killing in his life. It wasn't a fun thing.
Deidre felt the same way. She had been basically standing around, trying to figure out what to do. At first, she helped Memial, but in the end, she decided that sticking next to Aiken was the best thing for. (Memial just doesn't like Deidre's motor mouth.)
The smell of the dead was horrible. It must have been at least a few hours now sense they were dead. The place reeked of blood and expired meet. Faint hearted as Deidre was, she managed to stay with Aiken by avoiding the bodies and remembering that she really had no other person to go to. Well, there was Jez, but something about her made Deidre vote for the bodies. It wasn't the fact that she was a lunatic. It was the fact that she was a singing . . . off-key.
"I'm sorry, Mama
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant make you cry
But tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet
One more time
I'm sorry, Mama
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant make you cry
But tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet
One more time . . ."
Jez sang carelessly, even adding her own beat and tone to it every now and then. The fire kept her warm and gave her something to look at other than the other teenagers in the room. //What I wouldn't do for my CD player right now. . .//
But just as she wished it, the back door opened up and Lukc and Walker came into the room. Lukc seemed to pale, but he didn't make eye contact with the bodies and breathed threw his mouth. He could do this; he won't brake down like his brother.
"Lukc, go get the things needed for your trips," Walker ordered.
Lukc, though he would've liked to stay and find more out about the other teenagers, didn't offer any protest. Pass the bodies on the path created by Memial, he took leaps of two stairs until he was on the second floor and in his room, gathering his clothes.
Walker watched the teenagers watch him. All of them (aside from Jez, who didn't seem to care about anything but the fire), were uncomfortable and scared, try as hard as they could to hide it. Deidre was half hidden by Aiken's body, while he stood at full height, and Memial stood off to the left, holding a broken chair.
"Where did you come from?" was the first thing out of his mouth.
"Africa," Memial piped up, happy to be of help. "Everybody knows that."
"I think he was looking for something more up to date," Aiken half-growled.
"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" Deidre asked, covering her mouth with her sleeve.
Walker said nothing, but gestured his hand to the front door. Aiken led the way, holding onto Deidre's hand as she followed behind. Memial was only few steps behind, for her quick conversation with Jez. Jez apparently didn't want to leave the fireplace, but got up and followed Memial out anyway.
"We're from America," Aiken answered Walker as soon as they were in the shadows of a side alley of the alehouse.
"Gilroy, California," Deidre offered. "Well, at least that's where we all lived. I was really born in Vietnam, but came to California when I was little. Uncle Bo is from Vietnam, too, though he sounds more like it, doesn't he? I mean, my name isn't Vietnamese, though I kind of want it to be. I guess my parents wanted me to sound American-like. But I don't see how Deidre sounds American. For that matter-"
"Hush-hush-hush!" Jez rasped out, making everyone stop and look at her. "Do you hear that?"
They all stopped and listened, straining their ears to catch a glimpse of what she had heard. People were still riding the night in horse drawn carriages, though the crowd was thinning. For some reason, no one was heading to the alehouse, looking for a good show and meal that night - possibly a room to sleep in. It was then that Walker noticed a clock of darkness upon it. It was a very simple spell, most of it involving the area around it and no magick at all; it made everything seem dark and forbidden. Whatever had attacked Par and Coll didn't want anyone to find the bodies for some reason. But . . . why?
"What are we suppose to hear?" Aiken finally asked.
"I think I hear it," Deidre whispered. "It doesn't sound like any sound that I've ever heard."
"Of course it doesn't," Jez whispered back. "Your mouth goes non-stop so you couldn't know what silence sounds like."
Deidre opened her mouth to protest, but clamped it shut when she realized that she would just ramble on and on with her non-stop mouth - just like Jez said. Aiken, however, wouldn't take it sitting down.
"Hey, why don't you just go back to your fire place and burn yourself!" he hissed.
"Aiken," Memial shook her head. //He's such a hot head. I can tell this, and I haven't even known him for twenty-four hours.// "Don't make get the freakin' eraser again."
A flash of angry runs across his cheeks as he remembers that early that day they were all in the library and Memial and Jez were tormenting him with a pink eraser. But his anger soon passed into longing, as he wished to be back. His parents were probably looking for him, or wondering where the hell he was.
//So, they are from the Old World,// Walker confirmed. But still, as that answered one, it brought up even more questions. "How did you four come to be here?"
"Well," Memial starched the back of her head. "This might sound crazy, but I think some green fog and Vo'galths brought us here."
"Vo'galth," Jez corrected. "You never add an 's' even when it's pluralized."
Memial shrugged, "Whatever." She turned back to Walker, "So, yeah, some Vo'galth brought us here, I do believe. Hey, you seemed to the knowledgeable one around here. Where *are* we?!"
"In a different time," Walker answered solemnly. "If I am to guess correctly, you're from the Old World, the time of science. You are thousands of years in the future, where magick has replaced science."
A wave of awe and disbelieving faces swept over the teenagers one by one as they realized that impact of his words.
"You mean that somehow we've been transported from our time," Aiken gestured to the ground at his left side and slowly brought his hands over to the right in an arch to show movement as he said, "And landed thousands of years in the future, where there's *real* magick?!"
"Yes."
"But there's still no dragons?!" he blurted.
"What's it with you and dragons?!" Memial couldn't help but ask with a snicker.
"Who cares?" Deidre snapped, half out of protection for Aiken, and the other half out of impertinent. She controlled herself a little bit and found the exact words she needed to get to the point. "Walker, if we're in the future, how'd we get here? And how do we get back?"
"I do not know," his voice never wavered. "I need to find the answers and you need to stay out of trouble."
"You know something," Memial almost whispered. "Are you almost know it, don't you?" When Walker didn't respond, she gave a full-out, cheesy grin! "Oh, c'mon, we're all in the same boat, aren't we?"
He sighed and said, "Stay with my nephews until we meet again."
"You're leaving?" she frowned.
"Tomorrow, after all business has been taken care of."
And with that, he moved past the teenagers, back into the inn, where he ushered Lukc out to the stables as to avoid another "Gok" scene. The teenagers stayed outside a little bit longer, talking over things.
"Okay, so we're in the future," Aiken counted off his fingers as he summed up the day, "all our families are *clearly* dead, we have been mixed up with some magical shit with a family, and there's NO dragons."
With a sigh, Memial wondered aloud, "Should I have told him about the water thing at the river?"
"You mean you haven't already?"
"Nope." She shrugged. "I just didn't see a good way to approach the topic."
Jez laughed harshly. "Ha-ha! There's no way to approach that topic that's 'good.'"
"Yeah, okay, you're right. I'll tell him if I get a moment alone. Something tells me, though, we're in for a long day tomorrow."
With those words, they all went to the stables by following the path and helped the Ohmsfords until they were all too tired to continue working. No one wanted to go back into the alehouse, so they made their beds in the stable and it was the first time the teenagers from the past ever slept in hay.
Authors: DracoStarbo ( dracostarbo@yahoo.com ) and Lunablue ( deadredsocks@yahoo.com )
Disclaimer: The Shannara universe belongs to Terry Brooks and affiliated companies.
Warnings: This story contains language and ideas that can be found offensive.
Authors Notes:
As always, Loved something? Hated something? Let us know, by reading and reviewing. Or flaming. Or sending hate mail. We do except all forms of MasterCard, Visa and stalkers are generally appreciated.
Ha ha! We're finally getting this formatting thing down. Fanfiction.net is so hard to format with for some reason . . . maybe later on we'll go back and fix the other chapters, edit them up and all that. But not now, getting these chapters finished, beta'd and published every Wednesday is hard enough as it is.
We are sorry for the delay in this chapter. Our reason of being late is the fact that we had Winter Brake last week and we thought that we would have plenty of time to get the chapter up. Ha-ha. Our relitives had other plans for us. So, here it is at last - at least it's long!
And Lunablue moved!! ;_; Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Not fair!! Not fair!! Now we're going to have to send the fic back and forth by e-mail! *sniffle* And because we can't spend hours on end bs-ing around or writing the fic, then I do believe that the chapters will be updated every two weeks now. Sorry everybody!!!
Reviewers Response:
Sora Potter,
WE SHALL COUNTINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Terra Tigra and Pantera,
Thank you for that long review! ^__^ And for staying up until 2:00am reading it. We take pleasure in knowing that we're costing you your sleep. (jk) We were flattered by it. And we don't mind long reviews - we love them! Lastly, let all who think Terry Brooks suck burn!
Chapter Six: Scream Into The Night
* * * *
The first thing Walker Boh noticed when entering the tavern was his nephew Brinn being held back by Lukc and some strange, blonde boy.
"What in the Four Lands is going on here?" His commanding voice faded off as he saw the wrecked state of the room. Lukc and Aiken released Brinn, who's troubles now laid on the same path as Walker Boh, and no longer with Jez.
"Uncle Dark?" sobbed Gok, from his kneed positioned on the floor. Walker saw that he was holding a body, but turned away and clutched in the boy's arms, Walker couldn't tell who it was. He had no time to think upon it, for his nephew gave him the answer he had dreaded on his travels. "Oh, Uncle Dark, they're dead. All of them, my family, we were to late and now they're all dead!"
A wave of sorrow and disbelieve washed over the Druid as he recognized Coll in Gok's arms. The bodies of Par and their respective wives, no longer hidden by the shadows of doubts from Walker's mind, all lying in distorted positions across the rooms common. Slowly, feeling the weight of eternity on his shoulders, he knelt down beside his nephew and placed a hand on the boys back.
"From the earth we come Gok, and in the end it is to the earth we all must return. Your family loved you, children, so remember the good times and stop your tears. You are men now. All of you." Walker said in a painful voice, knowing this was no time to brake down and weep to the heavens, but wishing so much to have the lesser need of keeping up a strong imagine for his remaining family to cling to.
Giving the boy one last pat on the back, the Druid arose and surveyed the room, taking in the four strangers odd appearance. Memial, her chestnut colored hair knotted, a stray leaf hanging in it and her jeans had dried stiffly, was standing in front of the door with Deidre, who had hundreds of shallow scratches on her face and blood caked on her small Strawberry Shortcake T-shirt. Aiken was standing off to the side looking uncomfortable, his long sleeved shirt ripped to ribbons and his jeans in an even worse state. Jez was still sitting in front of the fireplace, warming her feet and eating her food, not looking the least bit uncomfortable, or damaged by whatever had caused the other three strangers to be in their current states.
"Who might you four be?" he questioned, his dark voice deepened with sorrow and suspicion.
"We be Memial," she gestured to herself, and then the others as name dictated the gesture be given. "And this be Aiken, Deidre, and Jez. Who be you?"
"This is our Uncle Dark, Walker Boh, but most people just call him Walker," Lukc answered for his uncle.
At this Deidre's high pitched voice burst into the room, startling everyone but Aiken, who was used to it by now.
"Uncle Bo? Your name is Uncle Bo?! My Uncle's name is Bo, that's so cool, that you guys share the same name and all that. I once met a girl who had my name, but she had brown hair instead of black like mine. I loved her pretty brown hair; I want brown hair. But Uncle Bo says I shouldn't dye it because he likes it just the way it is. He always likes everything about me 'just the way it is.' It's so annoying! Sometimes I just get so annoyed with him, that I want to him with my stick! I did that once, hit him with a stick, I mean. But he didn't die like the flying green stick creatures did. He. . ."
At the mention of flying green stick creatures Walker snapped out of his glazed daze and interrupted the girl's annoying chatter. "Flying green monsters? What flying green monsters? What do you speak of girl?"
He turned and stared at her with all the intensity he could muster, as if by pure force of will he could extract the answers from her. Under the intensity of his eyes, Deidre shriveled back and seemed to shrink in on herself.
"Umm," was all that Deidre could do was whimper fearfully.
Then Aiken was there, standing in front of her and staring the druid face on. "She speaks of creatures, taller than you, that glow green and reek of evil. They attacked my companions and your nephews earlier this morning, at a lake. I would assume the death of the people in this room was caused by the same monsters." Not once did his voice tremble as he faced the formidable, older man.
They stood there, Aiken and Walker, staring at each other, measuring one another up. Testosterone was heavy in the air as they held their private battle. Then it was over as Walker shook his head to clear away all of his extra mental confusion and focused on what was important.
"These creatures, have any of you ever seen them before?"
"No, but the blonde girl over near the fireplace seemed to know about them, at least, she called them by name. Um, Jez, I think's her name."
This time it was Jez who suffered the infamous gaze of druid Walker Boh - or, should have suffered, except she just sat there content as a cat with cream.
"What were they?" Walker asked.
She tilted her head to the side and smiled secretively, then whispered stingingly:
"They are the ones who haunt young children under the beds. They are the ones whose wings fill the sky Created from your nightmares, creatures who lord over hell
With the last half-sung note of her little poem, Jez fell back into a blissful state of watching the fire dance on the logs. Everyone stared at her, with a little confusion, for a moment, before Aiken spoke up.
"Yeah . . . She's also a little crazy."
"A little?" Brinn growled, to which Aiken just shrugged. "That *thing* has no feelings whatsoever! She is as bad as those monsters that attacked us by Rainbow Lake!"
Jez pouted her lips and sniffled. "Yoo dwon't like me?" she asked in an overly played little kid's voice. "I twat we was friends."
Clutching his fist in rage, Brinn began a low growl in his throat. Lukc, who had been standing next to Brinn for safety measures, grasped the shoulder of Brinn and spoke softly, "Now's not the time for that, Cousin."
Once his cousin had un-tensed his muscles, Lukc turned his attention to his uncle, he inquired, "Do you know of anything of what these creatures might be, Uncle Dark?"
Uncle Dark shook his head no, reflecting for a moment on a time when Par and Coll were just children and they would call him the Dark Uncle. Walker wasn't sure on how the words got mixed around, but it had somehow happened. "I have no information about these creatures. They aren't Shadowen - those were wiped out long ago, before any of you were born."
"Burning the soul, racking the body, That's their fun, They know no sun, They carry Night with their retched hearts, And blacken the earth like midnight, From fire and the cool abyss, they're evil's knights, They are the Vo'galth."
"I grow weary of the monster's constant rambling rhythms," Brinn snarled.
"Stop calling her a monster," Memial spoke up, causing a few glances to travel her way. "You're only turning your hopeless feelings into anger and it doesn't help to do that at this time."
"Oh, what does a stupid girl know about anger and hopelessness?! You ever come home and find - find THIS?!" he gestured wildly at the room, feeling the hot tears burning the back of his eyes.
"No, but that's still no reason to be angry at Jez!" Memial snapped back, ignoring Deidre's plead to not fight. "And for your information, it looks like I'll never get home at all!"
A cold silence filled the room, and for a moment, it seemed that time had stopped for a heart beat. Memial stood near the door, flush with anger. Deidre and Aiken, just a body apart from Memial, gaped at the girl, unbelieving were their hearts, but shattered were their ears. The Ohmsford boys looked shocked at the bite of her tongue, but the ones who remained unaffected by all of this were Walker Boh and Jez. Walker just stood still, as if not to brake the moment. However, Jez . . .
Jez fell out of her chair, laughing as if she heard the funniest joke in the world. Clutching her sides and rolling on the ground, she gasped for air as the laughter bubbled out of her lungs like a harmonious child skipping along the sidewalk of a bright, sunny day.
"Fuck," Memial shook her head and placed her face in an hand.
"As . . . unusual as this girl seems," Walker sighed, "she the only with the answers for the moment."
He walked over to the girl, Jez, who was just calming down, shook her shoulder to get her attention. "Girl. Jez. What do you of these creatures, the Vo'galth?"
"Oh, that they're really cool, and bad asses to the core. But if they can get their asses beaten by *those* two-" she pointed to Memial and Deidre "- then they can't be all that powerful."
"And you have no other information on them?" Walker inquired.
"Hmm, let me see," she dragged out her words, and sped up her response with a grin. "Nope!"
"She's a crazy monster," Brinn accused once more. "How does she know all of this? Is she on the side of the Vo'galth herself?!"
"There is no use in making accusations you cannot prove, Nephew," Walker shot him a disapproving glance. "I know this is a hard time for you right now . . ."
"Father," Gok whispered, the first word he spoke in a long time. The dead, cold body of Coll he still clung to in his arms, the only warmth upon that body was from the teenager boy, who could feel as if his own life were being sucked out into his father's. Maybe, if he held on long enough . . . "Father . . ."
"Gok, come on," Lukc knelt beside his brother. "Stop this, please. It's hard enough as it is."
"Bu-but . . . Father," Gok sobbed.
"Gok, you're going to have to let go," Brinn sat on the other side of his cousin, and tried to pry Gok's hands off the dead man. "Come on, Gok, you know this isn't healthy!"
"No!" Gok screamed and tightened his grip on the body, nearly doubling over in the effort.
"Gok, let go, now!" Lukc demanded, doing his best to retch his brother off, but Gok refused to yield.
"NO!"
Then Walker Boh was behind him, scooping him up with hardly any effort, and it was then that the four other teenagers noticed that Walker Boh had only one hand. His right arm was cut off just below the elbow bend. Walker, with his one good arm, jerked Gok off the body and dragged the screaming and crying boy away from it.
"No! Father! Let me be my father!" Gok shouted, struggling with all of his might.
Brinn, a step behind, followed his cousin and uncle outside. Lukc took a glance to Jez, Aiken, Deidre and Memial, mumbled that he was sorry and then headed off of to the rest of his family.
"Shit . . ." Deidre mumbled sorrowfully.
"Yeah, shit is right," Aiken echoed.
Jez was staring at the fire now and had been threw the whole episode, waving her hand in front to rid herself the imagines that scene brought back from years ago in her own life. . .
* * * *
Gok was still screaming and thrashing as Walker Boh held him tightly. His brother and cousin, tried to call to him, but his screams where too loud. They tried to touch him, but his limbs lashed out like angry snakes. For fifteen minutes, it seemed helpless.
Lukc got a firm grip on Gok's arms and pushed them down, Brinn slapped Gok as hard as possible with an open fist. Gok, shocked, stopped yelling for a moment. A moment was all that was needed.
"Dad said that he was proud of us," Lukc rushed the words in fear of Gok acting up again. "Do you think he'd be proud of you now, if he saw you acting like this?!"
With a few blinks, Gok's limbs fell limp and he no longer struggled in the arm of his uncle Dark. He realized how much warmer Walker felt compare to his father. It was all too much to take at once . . . He was nearly killed and then found his parents dead . . .
Walker released the young boy and watched sadly as Gok sank to the ground in a fit of sobs. His family knelt by his sides: Lukc to his right, Brinn to his left, and Walker behind.
"Wh-wh-why?" Gok choked between sobs.
"We don't know," Brinn whispered, "But it happened. We all wish it didn't, but . . . it did."
Holding Gok's shoulder to make sure he stayed upright, Lukc noticed how much of a child Gok still seemed. He was so small and his eyes were dominated by innocence. Even with his cool, non-caring outer shell that was developed from years of years of being the butt-end of jokes from the school kids, Gok was still the youngest, the most child-like, of them all.
"C-couldn't you do anything?" Gok's voice was thick. The one he referred to did not need to be addressed by name.
"I tried, Gok. I tried," Walker said in a low voice, close to his nephew's ear. So wrapped up in misery, Walker forgot for a moment his cool, distant attitude and let the three boys hear his inner being speak for the first time. "I'm just as sad as you that they left like this. It was an unjustly thing to happen to anyone."
Something from Walker's voice - his tone, his word, or his complete honesty - had Gok taking his last few sobs, until he stopped crying all together. A single and last tear fled the scene, caring away a bit of the ache that tore at the boy's heart. With a low voice, much like Walker's, Gok expressed his last unanswered fear. "What's going to happen to us now?"
"By law, the alehouse is yours now - all three of you," Walker informed. "However, we have some more pressing matters at hand. I must find out more about the Vo'galth, whatever I can. And you must all be kept safe. Look at me boys."
The three teenagers, who were so roughly pushed into adulthood with the passing of their parents, turned to gaze at Walker with helpless eyes. Even if they were now men, they were still young and didn't know what to do. Walker wished none of this had happened.
"You all have the Wishsong," Walker said what they needed to hear in his best, study voice. "Use it only when you absolutely have to but don't hold back when your lives are threatened. You three on the last of the Ohmsfords; you have a history of heroes in your blood."
Confidence slowly crept back into the boy's eyes and they were soon thinking the same thing. It was time to stand up and to for fill their family name. It was time to find a way to beat the Vo'galth.
They all got up, one after the other, and were just about ready to make the plans to presume their adventure, when suddenly Brinn blurts out, "Memial!"
"What?" Lukc questioned.
Brinn turned to his cousins and asked, "What are we going to do about Memial, Aiken, Deidre, and Jez? We just can't leave them stranded; they didn't even know what the Four Lands are!"
To this, Walker was taken back a little bit, though he hid his surprise. In rapid-fire thought process, he came to a theory that might explain where they were from. "Did they say where they were from?" Walker asked cautiously.
"Um, no," Brinn pondered. "Oh, wait! They said . . . something, when we first met them today. I can't remember what it was, but it sounded like a name of a place, possibly where they lived."
"Let's go ask them," Gok piped up, then seemed to take a mental step back. The Ohmsfords had left the four teenagers in the alehouse, with his dead family, he just remembered.
"Gok, why don't you help me get the horses ready?" Brinn offered quickly.
"Okay," Gok was already walking towards the stables and away from the alehouse.
Brinn followed after him, running a mental list that he made for their many trips to Rainbow Lake or Tyrsis or Leah when their friends were home and not off fighting for the Gnomes' freedom. The list was of the usual things to pack for trips: clothes, food, tents, and all of the little things that go with them.
* * * *
In the alehouse, Memial had started to clear a straight path to certain areas of the common room, needing something to take her mind off of the dead bodies sprawled on the floor. At one point, she had made it over to the door where the Ohmsfords and Walker Boh had gone. When she stilled heard the screaming of Gok, she quickly went to the other side of the room, knowing that they didn't want her help and she could hardly stand it herself.
Aiken took it upon himself to put the bodies into a more realistic position. Coll, Gok's father, didn't really need to be moved, however, the others weren't so lucky. The other man, who looked just like an elf from Aiken's fantasy novels, had a broken arm and his head was twisted nearly all the way around, making his neck look like a ringed cloth. The woman who had rich, auburn hair falling in loose, natural curls to her waist was draped over a broken-in-half table with a look of horror sealed into her face. The best Aiken could do was put her on the ground and close her eyes. The last woman, with ordinary looks of any human being, had two sets of four claw marks across her back. Though there wasn't any way of knowing for certain because Aiken didn't pay attention to how many fingers the Vo'galth had, he was quite sure that the claw marks were made by those creatures. Who else could have-?
"Ack!" he jumped back after flipping the woman over. Blood stained her clothes and her skin was ripped opened in a few places, to and pass the bones. Aiken had seen a lot of violence in movies and comic books and pictures on the news - even saw a car accident where the guy got a peace of glass in his eye - but this was nothing like any of those. All of the other times he saw batter bodies he only saw the blood and here, on this woman, he could see the bone; this was the first time ever being this close to an actual, brutal killing in his life. It wasn't a fun thing.
Deidre felt the same way. She had been basically standing around, trying to figure out what to do. At first, she helped Memial, but in the end, she decided that sticking next to Aiken was the best thing for. (Memial just doesn't like Deidre's motor mouth.)
The smell of the dead was horrible. It must have been at least a few hours now sense they were dead. The place reeked of blood and expired meet. Faint hearted as Deidre was, she managed to stay with Aiken by avoiding the bodies and remembering that she really had no other person to go to. Well, there was Jez, but something about her made Deidre vote for the bodies. It wasn't the fact that she was a lunatic. It was the fact that she was a singing . . . off-key.
"I'm sorry, Mama
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant make you cry
But tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet
One more time
I'm sorry, Mama
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant make you cry
But tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet
One more time . . ."
Jez sang carelessly, even adding her own beat and tone to it every now and then. The fire kept her warm and gave her something to look at other than the other teenagers in the room. //What I wouldn't do for my CD player right now. . .//
But just as she wished it, the back door opened up and Lukc and Walker came into the room. Lukc seemed to pale, but he didn't make eye contact with the bodies and breathed threw his mouth. He could do this; he won't brake down like his brother.
"Lukc, go get the things needed for your trips," Walker ordered.
Lukc, though he would've liked to stay and find more out about the other teenagers, didn't offer any protest. Pass the bodies on the path created by Memial, he took leaps of two stairs until he was on the second floor and in his room, gathering his clothes.
Walker watched the teenagers watch him. All of them (aside from Jez, who didn't seem to care about anything but the fire), were uncomfortable and scared, try as hard as they could to hide it. Deidre was half hidden by Aiken's body, while he stood at full height, and Memial stood off to the left, holding a broken chair.
"Where did you come from?" was the first thing out of his mouth.
"Africa," Memial piped up, happy to be of help. "Everybody knows that."
"I think he was looking for something more up to date," Aiken half-growled.
"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" Deidre asked, covering her mouth with her sleeve.
Walker said nothing, but gestured his hand to the front door. Aiken led the way, holding onto Deidre's hand as she followed behind. Memial was only few steps behind, for her quick conversation with Jez. Jez apparently didn't want to leave the fireplace, but got up and followed Memial out anyway.
"We're from America," Aiken answered Walker as soon as they were in the shadows of a side alley of the alehouse.
"Gilroy, California," Deidre offered. "Well, at least that's where we all lived. I was really born in Vietnam, but came to California when I was little. Uncle Bo is from Vietnam, too, though he sounds more like it, doesn't he? I mean, my name isn't Vietnamese, though I kind of want it to be. I guess my parents wanted me to sound American-like. But I don't see how Deidre sounds American. For that matter-"
"Hush-hush-hush!" Jez rasped out, making everyone stop and look at her. "Do you hear that?"
They all stopped and listened, straining their ears to catch a glimpse of what she had heard. People were still riding the night in horse drawn carriages, though the crowd was thinning. For some reason, no one was heading to the alehouse, looking for a good show and meal that night - possibly a room to sleep in. It was then that Walker noticed a clock of darkness upon it. It was a very simple spell, most of it involving the area around it and no magick at all; it made everything seem dark and forbidden. Whatever had attacked Par and Coll didn't want anyone to find the bodies for some reason. But . . . why?
"What are we suppose to hear?" Aiken finally asked.
"I think I hear it," Deidre whispered. "It doesn't sound like any sound that I've ever heard."
"Of course it doesn't," Jez whispered back. "Your mouth goes non-stop so you couldn't know what silence sounds like."
Deidre opened her mouth to protest, but clamped it shut when she realized that she would just ramble on and on with her non-stop mouth - just like Jez said. Aiken, however, wouldn't take it sitting down.
"Hey, why don't you just go back to your fire place and burn yourself!" he hissed.
"Aiken," Memial shook her head. //He's such a hot head. I can tell this, and I haven't even known him for twenty-four hours.// "Don't make get the freakin' eraser again."
A flash of angry runs across his cheeks as he remembers that early that day they were all in the library and Memial and Jez were tormenting him with a pink eraser. But his anger soon passed into longing, as he wished to be back. His parents were probably looking for him, or wondering where the hell he was.
//So, they are from the Old World,// Walker confirmed. But still, as that answered one, it brought up even more questions. "How did you four come to be here?"
"Well," Memial starched the back of her head. "This might sound crazy, but I think some green fog and Vo'galths brought us here."
"Vo'galth," Jez corrected. "You never add an 's' even when it's pluralized."
Memial shrugged, "Whatever." She turned back to Walker, "So, yeah, some Vo'galth brought us here, I do believe. Hey, you seemed to the knowledgeable one around here. Where *are* we?!"
"In a different time," Walker answered solemnly. "If I am to guess correctly, you're from the Old World, the time of science. You are thousands of years in the future, where magick has replaced science."
A wave of awe and disbelieving faces swept over the teenagers one by one as they realized that impact of his words.
"You mean that somehow we've been transported from our time," Aiken gestured to the ground at his left side and slowly brought his hands over to the right in an arch to show movement as he said, "And landed thousands of years in the future, where there's *real* magick?!"
"Yes."
"But there's still no dragons?!" he blurted.
"What's it with you and dragons?!" Memial couldn't help but ask with a snicker.
"Who cares?" Deidre snapped, half out of protection for Aiken, and the other half out of impertinent. She controlled herself a little bit and found the exact words she needed to get to the point. "Walker, if we're in the future, how'd we get here? And how do we get back?"
"I do not know," his voice never wavered. "I need to find the answers and you need to stay out of trouble."
"You know something," Memial almost whispered. "Are you almost know it, don't you?" When Walker didn't respond, she gave a full-out, cheesy grin! "Oh, c'mon, we're all in the same boat, aren't we?"
He sighed and said, "Stay with my nephews until we meet again."
"You're leaving?" she frowned.
"Tomorrow, after all business has been taken care of."
And with that, he moved past the teenagers, back into the inn, where he ushered Lukc out to the stables as to avoid another "Gok" scene. The teenagers stayed outside a little bit longer, talking over things.
"Okay, so we're in the future," Aiken counted off his fingers as he summed up the day, "all our families are *clearly* dead, we have been mixed up with some magical shit with a family, and there's NO dragons."
With a sigh, Memial wondered aloud, "Should I have told him about the water thing at the river?"
"You mean you haven't already?"
"Nope." She shrugged. "I just didn't see a good way to approach the topic."
Jez laughed harshly. "Ha-ha! There's no way to approach that topic that's 'good.'"
"Yeah, okay, you're right. I'll tell him if I get a moment alone. Something tells me, though, we're in for a long day tomorrow."
With those words, they all went to the stables by following the path and helped the Ohmsfords until they were all too tired to continue working. No one wanted to go back into the alehouse, so they made their beds in the stable and it was the first time the teenagers from the past ever slept in hay.