Little Orphan Anvil: The Complete Trilogy by Joseph Beekman (good beach reads .txt) 📗

“—to control the witch’s soul!” Will flatly stated,completing the sorceress’s thoughts. “It’s her old sleepspell—all over again! Her soul will be used like apuppet on their own horrible strings of that sinistersorcery!”

Aleeria swirled over to the other robot; she haddeep concern in her eyes.

“They are very serious, Will; they want nothingmore of this “metallic magic” that you call your ironcraftsmanship.” She waved her hands over the ruinedrobot. “And they intend to erase it from existence! Iheard them whispering curses into the cauldron as theystirred its evil mix—they were repeating the name ofyour former homeland and its volcanic mines.”

Will’s face turned pale; he was speechless.

“You see, right before I made my way out of thatdark land, I saw that their evil brew had begun totransform; it was changing in shades of color, andseemed to be growing into some kind of…monster.”

“Hells bells!” Will growled, a shiver of fearrunning up his spine. “It will most certainly be nearimpossible to defeat them!”

“Now don’t you go abandoning hope, my dearblacksmith,” Aleeria cautioned gently. “We must keepour wits about us!”

Will cringed at the thought of what would everbecome of the lands and the villagers, should the darkmagic of sorcery finally have its way and spread itspoison throughout the realm.

“We must go—we have to warn the Land of Ironand Anvil before it’s too late!” he cried.

Aleeria lowered her eyes. “I would have mademy way to your former homeland to try and alert thevillagers,” she said softly. “But if I had shown up—aspirited sorceress, as I am—warning them of the newthreat…well, let’s just say they would have lookedupon me as some sort of mad ghost, full of trickery!”

She looked back into Will’s eyes. “However,with someone like you by my side, then I think theywill be more trusting and believe in what I know—”

“—and what new evil awaits!” Will said, turninghis attention to Anvil. He propped the robot’s bodyupright, and then opened its dome-top to peer inside.

“I do agree with you, my lady. But first thingsfirst: I have to try and fix up ol’ Anvil here! I hope tobring his own magical soul back to life!”

Aleeria moved over to take a look. She shookher head; her ghostly, red hair dazzled in the air like afine mist mingling with the falling snow. Keeping hergaze fixed on Anvil, she remarked: “Anvil’s soul is stillalive, Will. Remember what I had always said aboutthe soul inside of a body?”

Will creased his brow, keeping his eyes on Anvil.“Yes, yes, I remember. You said it’s to be considered asone dead…” His eyes suddenly brightened, and heturned to face her.

“Oh yes! That would mean Anvil’s soul is outthere somewhere, and very much alive!”

The sorceress smiled. “That’s right! Since hisiron body lays lifeless before you, so it is my belief thathis soul is alive, freed sometime after the final sparkleft his electrical eyes.”

“I thought I had heard a ghostly whistle as Ipassed this way!” Will said. “It wasn’t long after hisbody had been buried beneath those stones!”

“I believe it,” Aleeria stated softly, her eyesglistening tenderly. “The witch-lady’s soul, however,remained dead; locked inside Anvil’s body after mymagic, and the magic of the stone trader ghosts, hadsealed it in there.”

“Until rather recently, that is,” Will whispered,referring to the others that had released her soul.

Aleeria motioned her ghostly hands in the formof applauding. “Very good, Will! You’re catching on!”

“Okay, let’s not get into all this soul-swappingstuff any further,” he said, rubbing his hands together,feeling the frosted wind chilling his bones. “I need torepair Anvil’s body so that his soul can return to it!And then we need to giddy-up and really get going!”

She nodded. “Yes we do, so be quick—we haveto warn everyone before it’s too late!”

Will closed Anvil’s top. “I’ll do my best! And Ithink with some heavy-duty elbow grease, Anvil will befishin’ the great rivers of this realm like he had in theold days!”

“Even though he’ll be back among the dead—being that he’ll be inside of his iron body again—Ithink he’ll still catch some pretty fine fish!” Shegiggled, giving him a wink. He chuckled, shaking hishead.

Then swirling her spirited form around, Aleerialooked up towards the caves in the canyon walls. “Ineed to have a few words with the ghosts up therebefore we make for the Land of Iron and Anvil.”

Will scratched at his chin in thought. “One quickquestion, Aleeria…” She turned around, folding herarms. “How is it that you and those witches made it sofar up north in such a speedy manner?”

“I am a spirit, my dear!” she stated matter offactually, spreading her arms out. “And as a spirit, I amable to move with great haste! As for those witches—they were able to summon a tornado through the darkfabric of time; it swept them quickly to the north!Since I was able to catch the vapor trail of that tornado,I was then able to follow them!”

“Wow…well, I’ll be!” he said, always spellboundby the magic of sorcery. His own world—his ownmagic—had always been one primarily grounded inscience; taking ideas he would then hammer out on ananvil and weld together with plates of metal.

“Okay, I’ll see you in a quick spell!” she said.“It’s going to take the both of us much more than that ofany magical tornado to get us across the realm…and intime for our warning to be heard!”

She then flew off to the caves, lurking far above.

Will quickly grasped two of the robot’s spidery,metal limbs and dragged him towards a small crevice inthe side of the canyon wall. He lowered his gaze intoAnvil’s darkened eye-lights.

“So, my friend…let’s get that magical spark ofyours back into your eyes!”

~CHAPTER III~A MONSTER of SORTS

Banging, screeching, and thunderous poundingechoed far throughout the shadowy and stifled makeshift mines of the volcanic iron mountains. Blood red,fiery light swept through the dust-filled passageways,where the walls and the ground vibrated continuouslywith the drilling and hammering of the iron ore.

Many men and women, including a few of theteenage