Below the Moon

by Alexis Marie Chute

  Islo nods solemnly. His black eyes meet those of each of the company. His gaze is controlled, mechanical, as he analyzes each member. Archie feels x-rayed, and for the first time since stealing the secret history of the Olearons, he is glad it is not tucked inside his bag.

  Islo, like Azkar, is broad shouldered for an Olearon, his arms and back bulging with toned muscle. His hands are firm as boulders, and through his thick neck glow orange veins that throb indiscreetly. Islo’s eyes finally rest on Azkar. The two Olearons were childhood playmates, though more like adversaries, Azkar told Archie back in the glass city. With held breath, Archie watches them scowl at each other. Azkar breaks the gaze and turns forward, his march now a storm that sweeps the company through the blue forest.

  “No members of the Steffanus race remain on Baluurwa,” says Junin, comforting the humans. “They have been gone many sunsets. No oracles have been scratched onto our glass city. No fires light up the western face of Baluurwa like stars in the black. While we seek to appease the Millia to the south and the Bangols to the north, the heart of the island is calm. We should have no trouble upon our arrival.”

  “No trouble except finding the safest way in, and through,” grumbles Nameris.

  Archie peers at the Lord of Olearon. The towering red leader insisted on accompanying the newly formed company, certain, like Junin, that nothing lurks in the shadow of Baluurwa. Archie does not worry about the Steffanus sisters. It is the thought of Bangols that tears through his nerves like the colorful sparks of lightning cutting through the plum sky. In the glass city, Ella drew for Archie all she had experienced as a prisoner in the Bangols’ journey east—from her time in their clay baskets, protected by the young sibling Bangols she befriended, to the stone-heads’ camps as blue forest turned to white, then to sand and sea air. Archie could sense her fear as she painted images of her days locked in a stone cell at the end of a bridge over the eastern sea, where King Tuggeron bound humans to stones and let them sink to the Star at the bottom of the sea.

  What if the Bangols lay in wait for them in the tunnels of Baluurwa? Archie feels too cowardly to present this concern to the Lord. The ruler is only concerned with the Star. All he speaks of is finding and destroying the dark sphere beneath Jarr-Wya, while Tessa’s only desire is to unravel the cure for Ella, to disentangle it from the mystery of the Star. These two desires—health for the island and health for my granddaughter—while often appearing to conflict, Archie thinks, are finally aligned.

  Archie can hear Duggie-Sky’s stomach grumble from where the boy sits on his shoulders. “Hungry, little fella?”

  “Uh-huh. Dinner soon?” the boy says.

  “We must put more ground behind us,” Islo barks.

  Azkar nods slowly, annoyed to support Islo. “It is almost night—”

  “How can you tell?” says Tessa, who shuts her mouth quickly with a click of her teeth.

  Azkar glares at her, squinting so tightly that his eyes appear like black smudges of soot. “—and since our speed is slow, we will camp at the base, then scale the mountain by day.”

  Nate, still walking close beside Tessa, asks, “How much longer?”

  “Depends on our pace,” Nameris answers, looking back at Lady Sophia.

  “Oh, my darling, thank you for noticing! I really am doing well, aren’t I?” The singer laughs. She claps her hands and flashes Nameris a smile. The Olearon looks forward and continues to march without speaking.

  “I’m guessing about three hours,” Nate says, answering himself. “From my time captaining ships, I’ve grown skilled at eyeing distances. I’d guess about ten miles if we keep on like this.”

  Lady Sophia’s laugh is a trill amongst the gloom, and not just Archie finds himself grinning. “Is that all?” she says. “Well, we’ll certainly earn our supper!” She looks up at Duggie-Sky. “At least, most of us.” She scrunches her nose playfully at the boy, who disappears from Archie’s shoulders and reappears at Lady Sophia’s side, where he slips his hand into hers. “Now that’s better.” She giggles.

  “Too much delay and frivolity,” the Lord grumbles to himself. He grits his teeth and hastens his stride.

  If the Lord is so concerned about speed, why bring any of the humans along? Archie wonders. This is not the only thing that perturbs him about the Lord of Olearon; Archie also finds his attire a curious choice.

  When the Lord overtook the Atlantic Odyssey, capturing its passengers and the Constellations Cruise Line staff, he wore the royal-blue battle jumpsuit, the same as his warriors beside him, though not rolled up at the sleeves and legs. Archie made out the Lord’s ruddy chest, ankles, forearms. Now, however, he is clothed in royal attire. The Lord wears fitted silver-gold breeches that sheathe him past his shins and a matching doublet decorated with clear and silver gems surrounding a glass breastplate. Over all this, he wears a robe with folds of golden fabric that begin at sharp points rising from his shoulders and draping down to his feet like Naiu-rich waterfalls. The robe is dirty at the hem. It features a firm swirl of fabric beneath his chin that swoops down to his wrists, concealing his red-hot skin in an iridescence like ice.

  The Lord’s hands are sheathed in tight gloves decorated in colored gemstones that conceal his skin, as do his warrior boots. The only red flesh visible is that of the Lord’s face, with its sharp, angular cheekbones reminiscent of the glass city, dark eyes like dying embers, and blood-hued lips. The black eyes are unreadable to Archie and ever searching. The Lord’s broad forehead leads up to the steep rise of his Mohawk of thick dreadlocks, decorated with vivid-colored glass beads. Like those that hopscotch along the perimeter of the secret history, Archie remembers.

  “I have been desiring to speak with you, Archibald Wellsley,” the Lord begins. He startles Archie out of his wandering thoughts. The others in the company notice but keep their eyes on the blue bark trunks beneath the trees’ large carrot-colored leaves. Archie was staring so intently at the Lord that he didn’t realize he was being studied with equal scrutiny. He slips one hand inside one of his trouser pockets and grazes its contents.

  Archie’s fingertips tingle where they touch a leaf folded around one of his reeking socks. What the makeshift packaging contains offers him the slightest bit of comfort, especially with the Lord glaring at him. No one but Duggie-Sky knows what he carries; the boy watched earlier as Archie collected the magical plant. Archie dreaded this particular conversation with the Lord and hoped the Olearon’s preoccupation with the Star would prove a permanent distraction. “Are you sure it’s even necessary, Lord?” Archie begins. “I barely looked at the glass, and I’m terribly sorry, truly—”

  The Lord’s words cut off Archie with an abruptness that causes Ardenal, Tessa, Nate, and Lady Sophia—though not Duggie-Sky, who is oblivious—to shuffle away nervously. The opera singer tugs the boy gently. The red of the Lord’s face burns at Archie, as if all his heat was relocated to his cheeks to sizzle in place of the absent sun. “In your world,” the Lord continues, “what is the penalty for stealing from a king?”

  “Well, I can’t say I rightly know one way or anoth—”

  “Because in the world of Jarr, on the island of Jarr-Wya, we Olearons punish, by scorching, those who rob the ruler—though, this is not enacted kindly as in the ceremony for our warriors, for the Maiden.” The Lord rests a hand on his chest as he speaks her title with affection.

  Archie learned from these red beings that their connection to their lovers transcends even death—that they are connected from one life to the next, one world to another, on one lavish journey together through time and all manner of creation that Naiu conceived. The bond between Lord and Maiden, the rulers of the Olearons, becomes therefore exponentially more intimate over time. When one dies, that one’s spirit comes to reside in the body of the living member of the pair. In one manner of thinking, the Maiden, upon her death, arrived first at the glass city to be with her Lord before the rest of the bedraggled company ventured back on foot.

  The Maiden
, now inhabiting the body of her Lord, is silent to all but him, and she shares her wisdom with him. The one piece of information Archie wishes the Lord would be blind to is that he is guilty of removing the secret history from the throne within the glass-domed citadel.

  “I stumbled in by accident, Lord, really.” Archie blunders over his words. His lies are insects on his tongue, and he spits them out bitterly, repulsed at his pathetic attempt to save himself. The Lord sees his words for what they are. Archie resigns himself to the truth.

  “This place, this island … it’s doing something strange to me, inside of me,” he says. “I’m bolder, braver than I’ve ever been, and more foolish, too, obviously.” His hand remains on the bundle in his pocket. Contained inside the leaf and sock is a small bouquet of Banji flowers. The first company delivered the flora to the man-spider Rolace, who needed the Naiu they possess to spin his power-giving web. The flowers are also a hallucinogenic and can disorient and disarm an enemy quickly. Archie collected his stash of Banji—As an insurance policy, he thought—when the others weren’t looking, swearing Duggie-Sky to secrecy, and proceeded to forgot about it. Until now.

  “Certainly more foolish, Archibald Wellsley.” The Lord points with his chin. “Pause here,” he says to Islo and Yuleeo, who grunt out orders to the company. “A moment alone, Archibald.” He gestures to a patch of darkness in the shade of the azure forest.

  Ardenal steps past Yuleeo’s guiding arm, approaching his father. “Lord, I beseech you—”

  “You will have your goodbye, warrior, though that time has not come,” the Lord snarls at Ardenal. “Stand down.”

  Archie is led between the blue trunks, which shine dully without the sun. “I understand there are things you must do,” whispers Archie. “But, please, not until we save Ella. The reason I sought out Zeno and his Tillastrion and portal jumped to Jarr-Wya was to reunite my family, together and well. Even if I must die … please, Lord, not until I’ve done my part to save my granddaughter.” His hushed voice grows impassioned. “Please, I know I can be of use on this one last mission. Then you may dole out your judgment on me and burn my breath away till I’m nothing. Please—”

  “Archie!” The Lord’s pitch is higher, and his voice suffused with feminine softness. “Archibald, cease your blubbering.”

  Archie looks to the Lord, confusion rippling his forehead like troubled waters. He scratches the thick new growth of black-flecked stubble on his chin. “Lord, are you all right? Your voice, it—”

  “Shhh! Do none in your world possess a sliver of tact? Go, now, farther that way.” The Lord points, still speaking strangely.

  Azkar and Islo, their shoulders butting up against each other, elbow through the wood behind them. “Is something amiss, my Lord?” Islo asks first.

  “No, fools! Guard the child. If she is indeed needed to destroy the Star, she must not fall into the Bangols’ hands. Go!”

  When the two warriors are long strides away and Archie is alone with the Lord, the red face bends low and the leader asks, “Can you not sense who I am?”

  “You are,” Archie begins tentatively, “the Lord of Olearon.” He pronounces each word slowly, as if his declaration might ensnare him more tightly. He observes the softened expression on the Lord’s face. The lips that now curl upward, but not with anger or disgust. The wide, waiting eyes. The angled way the Lord stands. And the voice. Higher and kinder.

  Archie brightens. “How can it be? How can you speak through him?” He releases the package of Banji flowers and removes his hand from his pocket.

  The Lord smiles, and the expression is at odds with the fabric of the silvery-gold suit. “Do you remember what I told you and our original company when we stood on the precipice of facing the Bangols on the eastern shore? I have worked tirelessly to bind up my soul into one singular entity, to lie to the one I love, to my soul’s other half.”

  “Yes, Maiden. I do.” The memory resurfaces in Archie’s mind and hovers on the cusp of his understanding. “And so you can do this, be with the Lord and speak through him …”

  “Without his knowing.”

  “Amazing, Maiden.”

  “I cannot sever the connection between us for long, so listen closely.” The Maiden, in the Lord’s body, stoops, dropping to a breathy whisper Archie strains to hear. “There is much I must weigh. What to reveal and to whom. Everything will burn in its appointed time. Dying when I did … my moment of passing was a choice, you must understand, Archibald. Yes, to save our company in the east, but also so the rest of you might go on to save all the worlds.”

  “Maiden—I don’t understand.”

  “My love and I are united in this form, but we are not alone. Do you not recall anything I told you, foolish human? That the Lord is not himself ?” The Maiden scowls, which is more befitting the Lord’s demeanor. Slowly the memory of her confession slips back through Archie’s ears and he hears it anew. His jaw falls open. The Maiden’s frown dissolves. “It is true. There is another who dwells—harshly and wickedly—inside this shell. I have built up my reserves for many hundreds, if not thousands, of sunsets, to withhold my wisdom from both Lords, to save us all once more.”

  “The Lords?” Archie mumbles the words as if the insect wings and legs have returned to his mouth. It does not make sense. His tongue forms the beginning of many uncomfortable questions, forbidden questions he should never ask, as they would reveal the knowledge he gained from the secret history. Archie is mute, the words trapped behind his teeth. Just when he has settled on the one question he must have an answer to—Which Lords?—something in the Maiden’s expression changes.

  Archie sees a flicker of grey light glimmer ever so subtly across the charcoal eyes. A shiver rises from the Lord’s feet to knock his knees together and ascend through his spine, stitching tight his posture so it is erect once more. When the Maiden speaks again, the voice is gravelly and bottomless. The words cause the hot sweat on Archie’s forehead to freeze in place. He tumbles back onto the moss bed of the forest floor.

  “Archibald Wellsley! Where have you taken me?” roars the Lord of Olearon.

  Chapter 4

  Tessa

  Tessa’s head snaps toward the trees, where the Lord called out. While the Olearons talk in a huddle of blue jumpsuits and red skin, she slips away from the company. Ella sees her, but Tessa raises her pointer finger to her lips, even though Ella cannot speak. Nate does not notice Tessa as he plays catch with Duggie-Sky using a violet-colored fruit. Nor does Lady Sophia, who plunked herself on a root, her back cradled there as she fans her face with several orange leaves. Her eyes are closed.

  Tessa tiptoes through the blue forest. It is easy to spot where the Lord has taken Archie. The Olearon’s face illuminates the blanket of diffused light that hangs over the trees. She ducks behind a stump, not wanting to startle the Lord and cause his fire to burst from his neck to burn a hole through her heart.

  Archie is looking frantically from side to side. He slinks backward through the moss and the skeletons of dead leaves. Patches of mud coat his hands.

  The one word her ears catch perturbs Tessa, and it rattles around in her head. Archie called the Lord Maiden. “Maiden?” she breathes.

  The Lord sends from his face a band of hot breath that quivers in the damp forest air and distorts Tessa’s view like the summer heat on a southern highway.

  “Why do you address me as such, Archibald Wellsley?” The Lord spits. “To wound me? Impossible.” His laughter knots Tessa’s stomach into a twisted ball, and her mouth turns to sand. “With every passing sunset, my power grows. Family is a weakness. The others will be more loyal without you. We all will have less to lose.”

  The Lord pounces. He is on his hands and knees, looming over Archie. Tessa creeps forward. She bites her lip. I should turn back for the others. Ardenal will help, she thinks. Or perhaps I could dart out and surprise the Lord? Maybe he’ll be startled long enough for Archie and me to get away …

  “It was glorious to crush
Dillmus between my arms, to squelch his reign over his flame, to let it run wild through his veins and consume him. I watched as his fire burned through his eyes, melting them, and glowed upon me like the firm touch of the midday sun in days now past. It was beautiful. It helped me to see that nothing can remain in the wake of flame and desire. Except for me, that is.”

  “Dillmus?” Archie stutters, seeming to Tessa that he remembers the name vaguely. How can he know that? Tessa wonders. She sees Archie slip one hand inside his pants pocket.

  “To see the skin of Dillmus curl, his fingernails transform from black to wisps of ash. I breathed him in. Every Olearon cowered in fear, but not I. Oh no, Archibald Wellsley. Too much had been taken from me. It was my honor to steal the life of another. And it was just the beginning. And why not you, too, human?”

  “Please, Lord—”

  The Lord narrows his eyes. He pinches the finger of one black glove and slides it off, then the other. Archie gasps. Tessa covers her mouth. The red skin of the Olearon is no longer even in tone. Patches of the Lord’s hands are pinky-orange and tender, inflamed and creased in distinct scars that join it to the blazing red as if adhered with an unskilled touch.

  “What happened to you?” Archie says, wheezing.

  “Who happened to me.” The Lord chuckles, his mouth falling open and his teeth glaring as he looms over Archie, casting a dark shadow across the old man. His ruddy lips are on fire, his tongue one great flame. The Lord’s jaw cracks open to a gaping hole and the flame creeps out in a band of sweltering light. It curls through the space between him and Archie, who retreats until his back is flush to a blue tree. The old man’s eyes reflect the snake of fire.

  Archie fumbles with something in his pocket. Maybe he’s struggling to retrieve the glass dagger from the Olearons, Tessa hopes. But why would he keep it in there, where it might stab him in the leg? No, he’s got something else in that pocket. Whatever it is, he’s not pulling it out quick enough to save himself.