Little Orphan Anvil: The Complete Trilogy by Joseph Beekman (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📕

dark energy washing over him.She then looked away from him and waved her arms upin a vapor-like motion, mumbling strange curses to thesky.

When she heard Will’s heavy breathing nearby,she shot an evil glare towards him. Floating over tohim with her mist-blackened, ghostly form, she let outanother ear-piercing wail. She then glared down at himas he lay there paralyzed, and her mouth began to formsentences he could not, at first, begin to understand.

“With the darkness of my soul, you shall feel mywrath forever!” she hissed more clearly; her eyesswaying back and forth from Will to Tinspar.

She remembers me! Will thought frightfully. Sheremembers us both!

Then, in a flash of luck, Will saw Anvil descending quickly down upon the burial spot, hovering justover the witch herself. The robot’s spidery-limbs wereextended and his body began spinning in a fast motionof lightning speed.

The witch shrieked loudly in a series of chantsand curses, trying in vain to stop Anvil from his maddisplay of metallic dynamics. The robot spun fast,whirling just above her like an iron spin-top.

Will then remembered about having to alert Anvilto shine his eye-lights up to the canyon walls. Findinghis voice, Will hollered towards the robot: “Anvil!—your eyes!”

While his lower body spun fast, Anvil zoomedhis eye-lights out from his dome topthe dome topwhich then remained fixed in position. Two brightlights beamed forth, streaking white light up into thehigh tops of the canyon cave pockets.

But Will could also see the great black cloudsamassing; they were quickly descending down into thenarrows: the witch had summoned them down in afutile attempt to end the madness that had entered herdomain, and threatened her plans!

Seeing the clouds falling fast, Tabitha coveredher head completely with her cloak, and crouched as fardown into the crevice as she could. She began softlywhispering prayers.

Meanwhile, Tinspar had found his courage; hesprung himself up off the ground. He unsheathed theiron-bladed pole from his back and started swingingtowards the witch with blinding fury. The bladed-poleseemed to have no effect upon her ghostly form; thewitch just laughed and howled, spitting upon hisuseless attempts.

Finally, as the clouds loomed heavily upon themwith the grim threat of the sleeping spell drawing closerwithin the volcanic gases, the incredible occurred:Aleeria and the stone trader ghosts had arrived—andthey were in full force!

They swooped inwards from all directions. Likeone massive tornado, the ghosts surrounded the burialspot, flying fast in a huge circle around the witch andthe little robot—a great swirling, ghostly machine ofmotion. Their sudden action stopped the witch’simmediate power over the movement of the clouds—but only briefly.

Tinspar realized it was time to flee: there was nopoint in fighting a spirit, unless one had a spell to castof their own. He quickly grabbed Will, and togetherthey hauled themselves back into the crevice.

There they had found Tabitha bundled up in hercloak. She was hunkered down in a dark corner in thelowest part of the crevice. Seeing her face wrapped upand her hands cupped over her mouth, they quicklycovered up their mouths and noses, too—they hoped itmight prevent the sleeping spell from the gas cloudsentering into their bodies.

As the cyclone of ghosts continued around thewitch and Anvil, Aleeria flew in underneath the robot’sspinning body to confront the witch face-to-face. Shesaw that the witch was in some strange trance, drawingthe clouds in closer to the river bottom to doom themall. With but one chance left, and no time left to waste,Aleeria cast a spell around the witch in an attempt toblock her powers.

The witch felt the force of Aleeria’s spell beingthrust into her soul. She batted her eyes wide open inshock, and then went into a rage. It was the first time,since their previous time in the Land of Iron and Anvil,that the witch had seen Aleeria.

In a haunted fit of madness the witch let out aterrifying howl that blew the sorceress far into thecanyon walls, beyond the crevice.

While the witch was distracted with her focusdirected towards Aleeria, Anvil continued to hover andspin in a blur of high-speed motion above her body.Within the vast blur of the ghosts own swirling tornado,Anvil’s body began to separate. The bottom half of therobot lowered as the top half raised, creating an opening inside his iron-plated body.

As Anvil’s body retracted, Aleeria saw her onechance to do what she knew had to be done: shecommanded the ghosts to quickly summon all of theirstrength and sorcery together, and to then cast a spellthat would forever seal the witch into the iron body ofthe robot.

The circling ghosts immediately lifted the witchinto their spinning vortex. The witch howled andwailed, attempting to cast some spell of her own againsttheirs, but to no avail—the ghosts had her in a giantfunnel of mist and fog and magic. They soon spun hershrieking soul into the opening of the robot’s body.

With lightning speed, Aleeria flew into the vortexand cast a spell that would reverse the spin of Anvil.While the witch was being held in place by the stonetrader ghosts and their magic, Anvil began spinning theopposite direction. Seconds later, both his top andbottom body sections sealed themselves shut, lockingthe soul of the witch forever inside the robot—herwretched spell, as well as her threat to the realm, wasbroken.



Time seemed to stand still as Will and Tinsparremained huddled in the crevice waiting, a lost lookstamped upon their faces. They stared upwards, eyesfixed on the black clouds that hung motionless over thecrevice.

Are we dreaming? Have we fallen to the spell?Will wondered.

He had heard all the madness that had beenhappening over by the witch’s burial spot, but then allat once everything went silent. He couldn’t tell if thewitch had been defeated and now all was safe, or, wasshe still up there, grimacing, knowing her spell from thevolcano clouds had put them all into a deep and eternalslumber?

Suddenly some dust and rock pebbles fell downupon their shoulders. Will and Tinspar startled fromtheir dreamy daze. They turned around and looked upat the opening edge of the crevice.

In the shaded gloom of the