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

had been utterly destroyed. They could see thedark outlines of a few villagers wandering around in ablind fog, lost within the sleeping spell from the witch’sgas clouds.

“Oh my,” Will sighed. “The witch-lady got tothem—” He looked away, shaking his head. “Remindsme of those poor orphans she had seduced with thesame spell…”

“Thank them spirits!” Haley put in. “We haveour breathing gear on!”

“Shush!” Tabitha hissed, staring up through therain at the volcanic mountains. She could see thewitch-lady’s awful face snarling; spewing forth the darkspell clouds from her giant pumpkin form. “Remember,the old witch-lady is still up there in all of thatmonstrous mess!”

“Hold up there, young lady,” Will whispered.Tabitha turned about, looking into Will’s eyes. “I’mstaying here—over yonder in one of them old lavapits.” He pointed through the heavy downpour of rainto a few sunken holes nearby. “I’ll wait around thisarea if Aleeria decides to drop in.”

“Okay,” Tabitha whispered sadly, understanding.“I’ll see you real soon…”

“Of course, you shall!” he said. “We still haveplenty of rivers in this realm to fish when this is allover!”

Her eyes sparkled and Will knew that she wassmiling under her iron headgear.

“So get to it, young lady! Let your heart andyour hope guide you safely!”

Tabitha nodded, watching the old blacksmith turnand trot off towards the lava pits. He paused briefly asAnvil hovered over to him. Will gave the robot a gentlepat, and Tabitha could feel that Will was wishing for therobot’s safe return. Anvil then followed after theothers.

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When they finally arrived at the bottom of thebiggest of the three volcanic mountains, they quicklyducked underneath a rock outcropping.Lightning wassplashing throughout the darkened sky above them, andthe rain was continuing to pour down.

Jonathon tapped on Tabitha’s shoulder; sheturned around and saw that he was pointing to a sealedshaft in the mountain’s side. The shaft had a small irondoor that lay partially buried between a few large piecesof lava rock. Tabitha nodded, letting the others knowthey would go through there.

Anvil used a tiny drilling saw from his iron bodyto pry the door open. When the door creaked apart, therobot was the first to enter, allowing his eye-lights tolight the way within the dark passage. Tinspar followedbehind, lighting the salvaged iron lantern they hadcarried with them from the crashed balloon. Tabitha,Jonathon, and Haley then hustled in behind them.

Deep inside the dark and dank passageway of theold mining tunnel, the air felt moist and dirty. As theyscurried forward, moving from one tunnel to the next,they were constantly reminded of the awful rumblingsthat stirred throughout the mountains. The walls wouldshake terribly, and they had to duck at times from thefalling rock and other debris. There were also cracks inthe surface of the passages that threatened to trip themas they worked their way further towards the top of thevolcano.

“How much farther do we have to climb?” Haleyasked, breathing heavily. The air was growing hotter,and their iron headgear was starting to become a realburden to wear. “Isn’t there some sort of mine shaftthat can elevate us up there a bit faster?”

“There should be one or two along the way,”Jonathon replied, darting his eyes back and forth alongthe low-lit walls of the passageways. “The way weentered the mountain hadn’t been used for hundreds ofyears…at least from what I’ve heard.”

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Finally, after scurrying from one passage to thenext, they spotted an elevator mine shaft: it was caged,and was large enough for ten workers to fit inside.Fortunately, it was still working.

As they moved up in the elevator, they peereddown to where the red and orange lava pits glowed.There were also countless lava rivers that bubbled andcrisscrossed throughout the bottom of the volcano.

“That’s where the magical iron ore is minedfrom,” Tabitha explained to Tinspar, who was staring inamazement at the immense display of the lava flowsand steel structures that jutted up and out from the wallsbelow.

The mining structures had towering steel drillsbuilt into them, but now they all laid in ruins from thefury of the witch-monster having shaken the volcanoesto their cores. What was most disturbing, were theblack plumes of smoke that rose straight into the heartof the witch-pumpkin, herself! The witch-lady wasturning those gases into the dreaded sleep spell,breathing them into the winds.

“Look!” Haley shouted, pointing up throughcaged ceiling of the elevator.

They looked up and saw the awful vine tentaclessnaking across the walls of the volcano.

As the elevator rose even higher towards the top,they suddenly saw the witch monster—her giantpumpkin form was directly above them!

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Will was growing impatient. He was hunkereddown within one of the lava pits, waiting for some signfrom the spirit sorceress. The rain was still comingdown hard, and blasts of lightning continued to streakacross sky.

What is Aleeria up to? he thought, pounding hisfists into the side of the mud-drenched pit.

He glanced up to the volcanoes and could see thewitch-lady’s evil face twisted upon the giant pumpkinmonster. She glowered down upon the landscape,showering the air and the land in great plumes of darkgases.

While Will was lost in thought, staring up at thewitch-lady monster, a sudden sound of metal and ironbroke his attention. Peering over the lip of the hole hewas hiding in, he scanned his eyes through the rain, andover the drenched, muddy landscape.

To his astonishment, he saw several of the deadrobot-droids rising!

What in the devil’s below?

And then, suddenly, hundreds of the robots thatlittered the landscape began to rise—their iron bodieswere swirling like mad through the air. Most of therobots were of different iron craftsmanship, createdfrom many different blacksmith’s.

As they coursed throughout the land, moving uptowards the witch-monster, Will was delighted seeingthe many, varied shapes and sizes of the magical robotdroids. He stood up and started shouting and clapping;forgetting, for a moment, his fear of the witch.

“What do you think?” Aleeria whispered in Will’sear. He jumped in fright, startled by the sorceress’ssudden appearance.

“Spirits below, Aleeria!” he said, plopping backdown into the pit. “What, pray tell, is going on? Youscared my old heart into another realm!”

She floated down to him. “Sorry, honey!” shesaid sweetly. “So what do you think of it? This