The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (82 page)

“
What do you mean by
‘dealing’ with us?” Louis asked meekly, a trace of fear about his
face. He was eating a granola bar with nervous agitation, even
after the fact he’d ravaged two bowls of cereal fifteen minutes
prior.

“
He means, child, the Lord
of the Storm intends to do all of us harm,” replied Kodiak for
Joaquin, somehow her deep, motherly voice easing the harsh reality
facing them.

Although, Louis still
blanched at the thought. “Oh,” murmured the boy,
stricken.

Elena let out small
squeaky whine.

Mugzy was quick to console
the girl, beckoning for her to come over to him.

The girl obeyed, sitting
in his lap as she now liked to do.

“
Yes, that is correct, the
Lord of the Storm intends to hurt us all, real bad,” ventured
Joaquin in a quieter voice. “It was his hope to gather those of us
posing the greatest threat to him, keep us under strict guard and
slowly round up the others, until he had us all. Then, his plan was
to take us before the Jüle Throne, which actually turns out to be a
rather unholy place. Once there, we are to be sacrificed, one by
one, in the face of the sanctity of the Lord of the Light. This act
will open The Way for him to leave his evil plane of existence and
enter the Melded World. From here, he will begin his conquest in
earnest.”

Heads dropped, shoulders
drooped. This was far worse than any of them had envisioned. The
burden of it was nearly crushing.

“
However, what Metohkangmi
didn’t account for was the Fingers of the Light, the Five Familiars
of the Kring-Hël – the Fist - whose ties to this plane superseded
even Fenris and his vile gang of monsters.

“
You see, by sending Kenai
at a time when the very first dimensions of this place were being
formed, the Lord of the Light and his Nöhreg opened a tiny gateway
into the Melded World for the transplanting of the four remaining
behind on our world. Thus, at that moment of the Rending, they too
would be shifted here along with the rest of us. It was this small
bit of help, these wonderful animals that have tipped the balance
backward a tiny fraction. It is by no means a level playing field,
but it is a little less severe in favor of the Storm… and let me
tell you that is a good thing, a very good thing.” Joaquin rueful
tone was near mocking.

“
Why sound so disdainful
about it?” asked Kenai, tilting her head. Her look was equally
hard.

Joaquin breathed a heavy
sigh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound that way.” He
thought for a while. “Well, maybe I did, but that’s not important
right now. What is important is after my little visitation last
night, there will be no more help from the Lord of the Light or the
Nöhreg or anyone else for that matter. Metohkangmi has constructed
this Melded place so we would beyond the reach of aide, any
whatsoever.”

“
Oh my god, are you
serious?” exhaled Andrew. As he spoke, anger and frustration soaked
through his voice. He began hitting his fist against his
knee.

“
I know, dude, it sucks
big-time,” agreed Joaquin.

“
How the hell are we going
to be able to stand up to an entire nation of evil? I mean, the
Lord of the Storm must have millions has at his beckon call?!?”
This time is was Jason who shouted his question. His voiced echoed
painfully throughout the cave. He stood, running his hands through
his hair. He seemed on the verge of tears. He mouthed a four-letter
word, walking off a few paces, hoping to cool his
indignation.

Joaquin let them vent for
a time.

Elena turned to sob in the
crook of Mugzy’s arm.

Mikalah climbed onto
Sophie’s lap. She put her tiny hand upon the still interwoven hands
of her brother and the teenage girl sitting next to him.

Anthony just glared up at
the ceiling as if he was asking why him, why now.

Mr. Pata’s ears drooped to
the point where they almost folded entirely onto
themselves.

Kodiak, the mightiest of
the animals, shook her giant head in disbelief and let it drop to
her legs where she was resting them upon the ground.

“
I know it sounds
hopeless, you guys. Believe me. It took me half of the night before
I stopped crying like a bitch. It took a long time before I could
think straight. After I’d been told there would be no more help, I
think I lost it for a time.” There was emotion now in Joaquin’s
voice, raw, unfettered. He had hoped to keep it out of his
undertones, because he didn’t want to weep in front of all of them.
He forced himself to breathe it all back, to swallow it before it
got out of hand.

“
After a while,” he
croaked through a throat still chalked full of despair and dread,
“when I finally did stop crying, I remembered the last words that
the Nöhreg told me.”

The older kids turned, at
differing times, to stared back at him.

“
I remembered… the Legacy
of Truth. Suddenly, I knew. Everything they’d told me fell into
place. It made sense. I think I even dreamed of where it is or
maybe I was awake. I couldn’t tell if I was or wasn’t.”

“
You knew what? Joaquin,
what fell into place?” questioned Anthony, letting go of the hands
clutching his own. He turned to face Joaquin in a more
directly.

“
Remember when I said in
the past only the secondary powers of the Kring-Hël were needed and
that time around things would be different?”

Anthony leaned even closer
toward him. “Yes, go on.”

“
Well, I didn’t mean all
was lost. Even though everything seems bad, and it probably is, we
do have at our disposal a way to unlock the primary Gift of the
Kring-Hël. I’m talking about the primary power locked within you,
Anthony, the true potential of the Kring-Hël, realized and in full
strength,” retorted Joaquin with a tired smile broadening the
features of his face.

“
How?
How do we
unlock
this primary thing you’re talking about?” demanded Anthony,
his eyes like daggers boring into Joaquin with such intensity, the
larger boy sat up straight, blinking rapidly. He was stunned by the
dramatic change in the other. He nervously cleared his throat.
“Well, ok, it’s like –
dude, could you
stop looking at me like that?”

Anthony caught himself,
stammering of a sudden like he’d been doing something he shouldn’t.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, glancing around embarrassed.

“
Ok, ok, it’s ok, man,
it’s just that… Well, forget it,” said Joaquin, stumbling over his
own words. “Umm, where was I… oh yeah, ok, the Legacy of
Truth!”

His abrupt outburst made a
few of them jump.

Even Garfield started and
leaped to his feet in a very cat-ish motion, all claws and fangs.
When he realized there was no imminent danger, he turned to give
Joaquin a level glare. He sat back down, facing
away
from the entire group, in
obvious mortification. He tried to veil it with catlike
indifference.

“
The Legacy of the Truth
is a talisman,” began Joaquin.

“
A what?” piped up Mikalah
her small face all scrunched up in confusion.

“
A talisman is like a
thing that symbolizes or possesses great power hidden within an
object. I was told it could be anything – a necklace, a crown, a
cloak or even a weapon of some type,” described Joaquin in simpler
terms. “Anyway, this talisman, this what-ever-it-is, when possessed
by the Kring-Hël, will unlock the primary aspects of his Gift. It
will bind the twelve of us in a great circle of power. If we are
able to get our hands in it and if can unlock the true Gift within
Anthony, then maybe, just maybe, we will have a chance to defeat
the Lord of the Storm. Maybe we have a chance to save our lives and
the lives of every single person we have ever cared about back
home.”

Joaquin hoped none of the
others could detect the fact he hadn’t told all of what he knew. He
wanted to be truthful, but it wasn’t the time or the place to be
entirely forthcoming. Besides, it was Anthony who should know
first. After all, it was Anthony’s task, Anthony’s decision, not
his.

“
So, dude, where do we
find this Talisman?” inquired Andrew. His eyebrows were raised as
if he didn’t really expect Joaquin to know the answer.

Joaquin shook with a few
quiet laughs. “Dude, you aren’t going to believe this, but the
Legacy of Truth, the Talisman of the Kring-Hël, lies in a cavern
whose entrance is marked by a huge crucifix in the middle of a
clearing that used to be in Scholl Canyon.”

Jason swung back around to
face his friend. His face was a cast of outraged disbelief. “Are
you telling me the only thing available to us, the only thing that
might give us a remote chance of survival is buried in the middle
of a garbage dump!”

There were gasps and sharp
intakes of breath throughout the cave.

“
Yup, my man, laying in a
pool of water in the middle of a ginormous cavern, in the middle of
a clearing that, a few days ago, was filled with thirty years of
human waste. There lies the key to our only chance of
survival.”

Only stunned silence
remained.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Anxiety and
Angst

Day Two, Friday, a Minute
Later…

“
So, when do we
leave?”

Mikalah turned her head to
look Andrew’s way for a heartbeat, glancing about at a few of her
companions to see their reaction to his query. She wondered what
was going to happen next. Her small eyes darted from person to
person. She was still perched atop Sophie’s lap. Both of her hands
clutched onto the teenage girl’s arm, where it crossed her body
protectively.

“
Leave for where?”
inquired her brother from the same log she and Sophie were sitting.
It was early in the morning and already Anthony sounded tried. She
didn’t like the way their misfortune was wearing on him. She could
sense the stress was bearing down hard on him, weighing heavily
upon his shoulders, clouding his mind.

“
Leave for Scholl Canyon
or where ever this freaking Legacy of Truth lays waiting for you to
pick up and save us all. What the hell else would I be talking
about?” responded Andrew, a little too strong from Mikalah’s
perspective, but Andrew had always been a little
excitable.

And
impatient
, she added as an
afterthought.

“
Dude, I think we have to
do a bit more planning before we head out blindly into whatever
weather is awaiting us out there. Don’t you think?” asserted
Anthony, muffling a sigh as he looked at the ground in front of
him, thinking.

“
What are you talking
about, Tony? Let’s get some shit together. Let’s go get this Legacy
thing and get this done, so we can bone the hell out of Dodge.
Dude, I want to go home!” Andrew spoke as if he hadn’t heard
Anthony’s reply, or simply didn’t care.

Mikalah watched her
brother cradle his head in his hands, clearly displeased with
having his thoughts disrupted. She had seen him respond like this
whenever he felt someone had intruded upon his personal,
mental
space. She
frowned from Sophie’s lap, hoping Andrew would get the
hint.

“
Come on, Tony, let’s get
going,” implored Andrew standing up and gathering some the items he
had already claimed for his own.

“
No, man, don’t you get
it?” said Anthony through an exasperated exhale of air.

Andrew stopped. He gazed
at Anthony with tiny bit of shock on his face. It only took a
second to melt into frustration. “Get what?”

“
Get
IT
,
Andrew!” replied Anthony in a louder voice. “We
cannot
afford any mistakes, Andrew.
We cannot just get up and walk out of here in search of the Legacy
of Truth, all bad ass and shit! We’re gonna get our asses handed to
us if we’re not careful. Didn’t you listen to anything Joaquin
said? Don’t you understand the size of the forces allied against
us? They number in the thousands! Maybe in the millions! Didn’t you
hear what he told us? We have to be wary, Andrew. Now is definitely
not the time to be reckless or rash. We definitely cannot afford to
act stupid in any way!”