Blackfire: The Rise of the Creeping Moors
The Books of Bairnmoor, Volume II
James Daniel Eckblad
For
Mary Ann Urbashich, my wife
In Memoriam
Herbert Ellis, Literary Editor
Blackfire: The Rise of the Creeping Moors
The Books of Bairnmoor, Volume II
Copyright © 2017 James Daniel Eckblad. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1629-7
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-1631-0
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-1630-3
Manufactured in the U.S.A. December 4, 2017
~introduction~
Introduction to Volume II of the trilogy, including spoilers for Volume I:
In Volume I the reader was introduced to four extremely challenged young teenagers—Elli, Beatríz, Alex, and Jamie—who, in the basement of the Millerton library, were summoned by way of the ancient messenger Peterwinkle to learn of their “call”—by someone no one has ever seen named “the Good”—to set out on a quest to save a world existing perpendicular to their own. With reluctant consent, given largely because the children were told that they alone could accomplish the mission—if accomplishable at all—these exceedingly unlikely heroes, variously disabled by facial disfigurement, verbal abuse, blindness, and Down syndrome, entered the world of Bairnmoor (“land of children”), striving to release from her imprisonment far away beyond The Mountains the child Queen, Taralina, and so save her world—as well as their own—from annihilation by the evil Nothingness of Sutante Bliss. Protesting—first to Peterwinkle and then to others on the journey—that they had less ability than virtually anyone else to undertake such a mission, the children nevertheless set-out, trusting “the call,” and so discovered along the way the secret to how it is that anyone can come to possess the capacities needed to attempt that which is otherwise impossible.
On their journey through Bairnmoor’s haunted forests and mysterious moors, towering mountains and magical valleys, the children encountered various creatures, some terrifying and evil, intent on destroying them, and so their mission, while others they encountered were awesome and good, fulfilling their own mysterious “calling” to assist the children. Early on the children encountered Hannah—a woman of advanced age not apparent from her stunningly youthful appearance—who gave them their initial instructions and warnings for the journey, as well as a giant millipede known as a Mortejos that tried to devour them. They also chanced upon a stick man called Thorn who had just saved the oblivious children from certain death at the hands of Wolfmen and other vile creatures constituting Sutante’s vast army. In addition to Thorn, who swore to never leave the children, though soon forced to do so, the children were confronted in the singing Forest of Lament by the unicorn Childheart, who would, with huge misgivings, end up leading their mission party. They were astonished by the sudden appearance of a Four-winged condor named Starnee, as well as by a “host of angels” in the form of a squadron of flying toads. And then there was Kahner, a child belonging to the Den of Liars, whom the other children ended up both first trying to kill in self-defense and then healing and embracing as a valuable, though bewildering—and finally lethal—companion for the journey. But no encounter was as intense and unsettling and notable and perplexing, if not more terrifying, than the encounter by all four children at different times with Blackfire—a white dragon whose nature and significance in the cosmic scheme of things seemed randomly evil—or, at best, inscrutably irrelevant.
Toward the end of Volume I, leading up to the beginning of Volume II, Thorn and three of the children—Beatríz, Alex, and Jamie—survive an encounter with a vile Thrasher at the end of a long passageway in The Mountains, thanks to the timely arrival of Starnee. At this point, the children and Thorn note the inexplicable absence of Kahner, who only moments earlier was with them in the passageway. The five questing companions soon discover at an open castle window high above the ground none other than Elli, whom Sutante Bliss’s daughter, Santanya, is holding captive. On escaping from the castle with the assistance once again of Starnee, Santanya sends out troops to capture the children, Thorn, and the condor. However, forces loyal to Sutante, but inexplicably hostile to Santanya, also spy the children from their encampment at the dead Queen’s castle some distance away and send out warriors to apprehend them, thereby engaging the two wicked sides in competitive battle. Although circumstances seem grim for the children and company, Childheart arrives just in time to rescue Elli and Beatríz and, with Starnee’s help, deliver them to the stairwell in Taralina’s castle that will hopefully lead them down to the Queen’s tomb—where the girls will attempt to open the tomb door with their black key, and thus fulfill the most critical portion of the prophetic poem engraved on the tomb door:
At close of time the door be shut
Against the child within without;
The lock a seal against the death
Of nothingness about.
Through space and time a child shall come
To open this eternal door;
The Queen, released from imprisonment,
Will spread her life forevermore.
The child shall come with forces fierce:
Evil, legions of children to meet;
And with the sword of right and good
Adultish nothingness defeat.
From some dimension far beyond
The reach of our eternity;
The child shall come and open wide
This portal with a diamond key.
While Starnee and Childheart continue to battle enemy forces by the hundreds at the top of the castle stairs, the two girls descend the steps and enter the tomb hall. They begin to dash to the tomb door, only to be abruptly blocked by dozens of warriors bolting from their hiding places. Then, to the shock of the girls, Kahner steps from among the warriors and tries to persuade Elli and Beatríz that, as their friend (who will, he says, explain everything later), he wants to help them get into the tomb. Instead, Kahner tricks them. He steals the black key and tries to kill the girls, hitting Elli in the back with a spear that propels her (and Beatríz whom Elli is shielding in her arms) into the locked tomb door. The impact of the girls’ bodies forces the door open, causing the girls to tumble into the tomb, apparently killed. Then, as if on its own, the door swings shut and locks. At this final moment in Volume I, it is unclear what has happened to those doing battle above ground: Alex and Jamie, Thorn, and of course Starnee and Childheart who, where Volume II opens, are doing battle at the top of the stairs, hoping against hope before their deaths to fight just long enough to allow the girls to get to the tomb with the diamond key.
~one~
Like a swarm of giant insects, raging Wolfmen stormed into the castle courtyard to finish off the condor and unicorn, and so bring an end to the children’s quest and all that remained of Bairnmoor. Starnee and Childheart were simply hoping against hope to last just long enough to allow Elli and Beatríz to get to the Queen’s tomb, and so keep the quest alive.
Some of the Wolfmen bolted into the courtyard one at