Below the Moon

by Alexis Marie Chute

  Tessa has no time to gather the others or even call out for help. She finds a palm-sized rock at her feet and hurls it. It smashes against the Lord’s head, just above his left ear, with a painful crack. All at once he is on the ground, and Tessa on her feet. She rushes to Archie. Together they watch the Lord’s body convulse. His silver robes are sullied with smears of green moss and damp earth.

  “Should we do something?” Tessa chokes on the words.

  “If we touch him, he’ll burn us,” Archie says with a wheeze, his eyes wide and his face as pale as the bark of the white woodland. Even in his quivering state, the Lord spreads his hands along the ground, feeling for the gloves, which he finds and puts on with difficulty.

  Tessa and Archie turn toward the trees, suddenly ablaze with light. Ardenal appears, the flame at his neck engulfing his hair and shoulders, and he rushes to his father and wife. By this time, the Lord is still, the quivering abated, and he pulls himself to sit upright. Azkar and Islo arrive, their bodies also aflame, and Kameelo swoops down to land on a branch overhead.

  Islo bares his teeth. “What has happened here?” He stoops to collect the Lord. The ruler accepts the help and straightens to his feet, leaning heavily on his warrior.

  “I do not know,” the Lord says tentatively.

  “You wished to speak with the human,” Azkar reminds him.

  “We spoke.” Archie’s voice breaks, and he clears his throat. “Don’t you remember, Lord? I offered you the debt of my service, till my final days, as payment for my crime.”

  The Lord touches his head where a tiny trickle of blood oozes and simmers lightly against his skin. “Then how am I wounded?” he asks, on the cusp of rage.

  “The rock,” Tessa answers. “I saw it fall.” She points to one tiny floating island above them. Beneath the chunk of levitating earth, dirt hangs in the air where roots blow in the wind. Hovering stones and curling vines connect the enchanted island to Baluurwa. “I saw the rock dislodge and drop, so I ran and tracked it here. It struck you to the ground, Lord.”

  The Lord presses his fingers to the gash to cauterize the wound. He appears to consider Tessa’s words carefully. While she desires to swallow the lump choking her throat, she holds back, unwilling to break her composure. In the periphery, the remainder of the company arrive in the clearing.

  The Lord’s countenance is muddied in confusion before he says, “Service until your death, Archibald. Yes, I accept this for your thievery, though we all may die prematurely if we do not carry on and find cover at the base of Baluurwa.”

  “You are right, Lord.” Nameris nods. “The sky is slipping into black. It will be harder to evade the debris of the mountain by nightfall.”

  Kameelo leaps down from the tree. “I flew ahead. There is a cave not far away. It may be the start of a tunnel.”

  Chapter 5

  Tessa

  Tell me what really happened, Mom.

  I don’t think I can, Ella.

  What good is your gift of telepathy if you won’t talk candidly? Spill the beans, please! The vibe feels weird now.

  I didn’t see it all, and what I did doesn’t make sense. I wish I could get into the head of the Lord … Something’s happening to him. Don’t ask me what because I don’t know. The skin on his hands … it’s … it’s … unnatural …

  Unnatural how?

  It’s like a … like a poorly stitched quilt. Some parts are red, but mostly he is a sickly orange. Splotchy. Freckled with tiny dots of black. His skin puckers.

  Like my scar.

  Yeah, like your scar. But in all the wrong places. It might cover all of him, but I only saw his hands, and only for a moment …

  Hmm.

  We’re trusting him for now, Ella, but not forever. Something’s going on here. If only I could whisper to Archie without all the others hearing.

  Is what Grandpa said true? Did the Lord really let him off for stealing the glass?

  I don’t know that part. All I know is that when I arrived, Archie was on the ground. The look on his face was not like that of someone who’d been shown mercy, who’d made a deal that saved his life. He was terrified—

  Of the Lord?

  Yes. The Lord was on all fours, like an animal. And his fire looked like a serpent, slithering out of him to kill Archie. The Lord said family is weakness and talked about some Olearon named Dillmus.

  Do you know who that is, Mom?

  No. Not a clue. But whoever it is, he’s dead now. The Lord killed him.

  What do we do, Mom? I’m freaking out!

  Don’t let anyone see on your face that something’s wrong.

  Tessa looks over at Ella on the other side of the company hiking through the dark, lit by the Olearon’s flames. She says out loud, “Hey, Ell, want to walk with me for a bit? Luggie, do you mind?” The Bangol shakes his head of protruding stones. Ella winds her way through the group. Tessa laces her fingers through her daughter’s. “Love you, Ell.” Ella nods and smiles weakly. The warmth of Ella’s hand is weak. Tessa continues to comfort her daughter, though her lips do not move.

  We’re going to be okay, Ella.

  How do you know?

  I don’t.

  Well, that’s inspiring!

  Ella, you’re squeezing my hand too tightly.

  Sorry, Mom.

  We’ll figure this out. We always do, right? When you were diagnosed with cancer at ten. When your dad left two years ago. When six months ago, you woke up unable to talk. We always figure things out, and this is another one of those times. Once everyone is asleep, I’ll speak with your grandpa Archie. If the Lord is dangerous, we’ll sneak away in the night, leave the Olearons in the cave.

  With Luggie, too?

  Yes, of course. He knows this place. Maybe he can hide us somewhere the Olearons and Bangols can’t find us. We’ll make our own way into the mountain. Locate the Star, whatever it is, and your cure. The Bangols know how to make Tillastrions to transport people between Jarr and Earth. Luggie will help us. We’ll get you healthy and then get home.

  And what about Dad?

  Tessa bites her lip and doesn’t answer. Ella tugs on her arm and squeezes her hand harder than before. Finally, Tessa turns to her daughter and shrugs.

  Tessa peers through the crowd at an Olearon half a foot shorter than the rest. He speaks in the musical tongue of the fire beings, which could be a foreign language of one of Lady Sophia’s arias. It is smooth and ringing, like silk and bells. Ardenal’s skin is fiery embers, his eyes coal. His hair is matted into a tall Mohawk—a style the Arden that Tessa remembers could never have pulled off—beneath which a flame roars in the settling dusk, giving light and heat.

  Ardenal wears the royal-blue warrior jumpsuit and heavy black boots. When the sun was hot, many sunsets ago, Tessa watched as Ardenal removed the top of his jumpsuit and tied the arms around his waist. His back and chest shone like a dew-kissed rose at first light. Tight skin, even in tone, and rippling like the turbulent ocean when the Atlantic Odyssey first embarked from Barcelona. Their voyage feels like it was lifetimes ago, and Tessa strains to think back years. In her mind, his red skin pales to peach, his lyrical language becomes awkward, and the blazing hotness shifts to a comfortable seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.

  When they married, Arden’s hair was a deep chestnut that fell in his eyes. His blue eyes, like Ella’s, the color of a pale sea, sparkled with a boyish whimsy that caused Tessa’s chest to burn. His eyes touched her heart through his chunky black glasses, which had the habit of slipping down the gentle slope of his nose. Like Archie fumbling with his watch, so, too, was Arden with his glasses—endearing habits. Arden would push up the frames with one exacting finger to touch the space between his eyebrows, and then he would smile, seeing the world sharply once more.

  Tessa and Arden wed in Archie and Suzie’s yard. It was early summer and the goatsbeard plants in the garden were already five feet tall, their blossoms tipping their stems with plentiful white plumes. The flowers bowed to the
alpine strawberries and the hot-pink fireweed that favored the Pacific Northwest. Tessa’s dress had a modest amount of lace and was ankle length and flowing, like her hair, which spilled down her back in loose blond curls mimicking the sway of a woman’s hips. Arden was barefoot and laughed at himself. “Khaki pants and plaid!” he had joked with a gasp. His fellow PhD candidates wore pale suit jackets and bow ties.

  Their vows had been simple and personalized: “My friend, my lover, my equal, I choose you today, and in every tomorrow. I vow to stand beside you in sadness and in joy, in argument and in laughter, in body and in spirit. You are the light of my life, and my enduring treasure. Whatever our tomorrows may bring, I give you my heart. Keep it safe, as I will yours.”

  Tessa had memorized the vow, not wanting to read it but to look directly into Arden’s eyes, meaning every word. Still, she tripped up, saying, “My friend, my lover, my sequel,” to which their friends and family sniggered. Tessa did, too. When it was Arden’s turn, he matched her fumble with his own. “You are the light of my life, and my enduring pleasure.” The blush of his cheeks turned Olearon-red. “Treasure! I mean, treasure!” Their first kiss was long and warm, and smelled of mingling flowers and sweet summer sun, and forever.

  Tessa smiles to herself now. How could she have known there would be another part to their relationship, a sequel in its own right? Arden walked out of their home and lives two years ago, without a goodbye, only a note that Tessa alone read before crumpling it. She hadn’t told Archie or Ella. All it said was, “Love you, Tess. Be back soon.” It didn’t mean anything to her that morning. Not even that night. Arden often stayed late at the university, researching Egyptian dynasties, or so she thought. She now knew the truth. Arden’s search for Ella’s cure led them here, to the stony faces of the Bangols, to the simmering heat rippling the air above the Olearon’s necks, and to the doom of the mountain before them as they approach its base.

  When Arden didn’t return to their cozy Seattle home after a day, after a week, Tessa panicked. She phoned the police, the university, and all of his friends and colleagues. She stalked every one of his favorite spots: the friendly university pub, the looming graduate library on the second floor, the quad between buildings where freshmen sprawled over textbooks and each other, but there was only Arden’s ghost—evidence of him, but not him: the patch of dirt in the quad where the considerate oak tree cast the perfect shade for reading; his favorite beer on the pub menu, Pike Brewing Company’s Scottish ale; and, his books.

  There were stacks and stacks of books in his shared office at Seattle University, where the wall shelves were filled in with hardcover volumes, and at home, too. Books filled the nooks of his bedside table and under his side of the bed. Books lined the useless space between their kitchen cabinets and the ceiling, though never gathered dust. Arden would move through their bungalow like a Roomba, avoiding collisions though never really seeing. His nose and glasses were locked in a peculiar intimacy between the hard covers of textbooks or historical records. From room to room he would navigate, connecting one sentence in one ancient book to a paragraph in another.

  What sequel can Tessa and Arden have now?

  Tessa received no word from Arden in seven hundred days. She counted: seven hundred nightmares of chasing his ghost; seven hundred calendar pages carrying the weight of everything—Ella’s cancer, the bills, full- and part-time jobs, Archie (oh, helpless Archie) and her own shadow of loneliness. She was alone. That was a fact. Arden was the one she confided in and also the one who understood not to ask the questions about her family that would send pangs of self-pity through her like waves in a storm, beating her down. It always reminded her.

  Tessa was alone.

  Arden’s absence echoed her early-life solitude, which broke her as a child. It was a wild pain then, but not since. She vowed never to let it be again. After the first hundred days of Arden’s disappearance, she built up the walls around her heart so high that they passed the sun and moon to dwell amongst the stars. I’ll never let anyone in again, she vowed.

  Even Ella’s illness, her ever-present turmoil, makes Tessa dizzy. It is sure to be another loss too great to bear. Higher go Tessa’s walls—more fortified, more enduring. She squeezes Ella’s hand as they walk through the blue forest. Her daughter’s warm, petite hand fits so perfectly within her own, like a baby bird nestling beneath its mother’s wing.

  Suddenly, Kameelo appears from above in the inky sky. He lands with a thud at the front of their company. “The cave is a hundred breaths ahead. Its mouth is twelve feet tall, and much, much deeper though, unfortunately not a tunnel. It is empty, however, with space for us all.”

  “Thank you, Kameelo,” the Lord replies. “We will rest the remainder of the night there. Eat, sleep, and then by dawn’s light—as little of it as we are offered—ascend Baluurwa. Islo will divide our company into five groups of three who will search out the tunnels by quadrants, in even increments of time. When the time is spent, we will return to the center of the first quadrant, report, and redraw our searching boundaries.”

  “There will be at least one Olearon per group …” Islo begins.

  Under her breath, Tessa whispers sarcastically, “Of course.”

  “… I will inform you of your group before dawn,” Islo finishes.

  “To the cave!” orders the Lord.

  Chapter 6

  Luggie

  Ella surrenders to fatigue and is limp in Luggie’s arms as the company crosses the uneven threshold into the mouth of the cave at the foot of Baluurwa the Doomful. Luggie cradles the girl’s head, and her hair—blond like her mother’s—slips through his fingers and bounces in playful waves in the moonlight. Ella’s pale pink lips are parted and her breathing is shallow. It is only in sleep that her body betrays her illness; her awake self presents a confident facade.

  Tessa, Archie, and Ardenal flock to ensure Ella is laid snugly on the cave floor before they scatter to plot strategy for the next day’s unknowns.

  Luggie sits on the far side of Ella, her body buffering him from the rest of the company. No eyes flit in his direction. The hunger for the secret history of the Olearons burns in his chest. He calculates the risk of retrieving the enchanted glass square from his sack without arousing suspicion. The burning desire for knowledge outweighs the fear that pricks his mind with warnings.

  The glass feels like power in Luggie’s hands, the sensation heightened by the possibility of discovery. The perimeter of the square is lined with gemstones that sparkle in every color. At his touch, a silent thunderstorm appears on the surface, where a swirling black void consumes angry clouds until white lettering—in Bangol—rises, spilling its secrets like candlelight in the dark cave. Luggie, shielding the light with his shoulders, devours the history that blossoms and disappears before his eyes.

  It was in our season of harvest in the lands beyond the glass city when I—the 30th Lord of Olearon, Dunakkus—first noticed the peculiar way I felt upon the glass throne.

  One day I returned to the citadel, weary from the long hours spent before sunset, cutting, culling, and reaping the twelve-foot-tall stalks. Naiu, the life force that feeds everything, was strong then in the many sunsets at the beginning of my reign; I was crowned when only a child and grew to maturity within my post. The magic flowed from the sun through crystal columns—the crystaliths—in our western field, intensifying and radiating from their bases into the soil. The Naiu was great and our harvest was rich and abundant. I, as all other Olearon Lords before me, did not sit idly by as my warriors worked until the light was spent and their children asleep. I bore the effort alongside my subjects.

  On this particular day, I returned to the citadel and ascended the steps to my crystal throne.

  My Maiden, my soul partner, knew my state. She left me to fetch vulai bread and the silver wryst to drink, knowing I needed restoration. I was left alone but for the green birds and the awakin butterflies that fluttered above me high at the apex of the citadel, though they
, too, were weary. The birds were eager for rest, and the awakins unfurled their second set of wings, their nighttime pair, never risking to land.

  The glass throne was cold despite the warmth of my exertion, but that was not the only sensation it elicited. A deep rumbling seemed to rise from beneath me, as if the earth were contracting in labor. Swift pricks of energy, like sparks, nipped at my thighs. I leaped down from the seat and ran my hands over the glass. It was frigid, though hummed with a vibration that caused my fire to quiver.

  Suddenly, one rectangular section of glass from the fire-molded throne clicked open a finger’s length. Out of the crack blasted light so intensely white and piercing that I shielded my eyes. The birds overhead fluttered in confusion, and I, too, could not comprehend. The rectangle pulled free from the throne, and then I realized it was a seamless drawer, not meant to be discovered.

  The throne had been polished countless times each sunrise and sunset, so I presumed that access to this drawer was the ruler’s alone. This caused me trepidation. The Lord before me, my uncle Telmakus, was a conflicted and suspicious figure. If he had hidden an object in the throne, I could only surmise that it would cause me, and my loved ones, much turmoil.

  When my eyes adjusted, I could see that there, in the glass drawer, was an outfit so beautiful that I immediately wished to cloak myself in it. There were gloves, a neckpiece, and a crimson undergarment and leggings to be worn beneath my gold and silver robes.

  I slid my hand into a glove and noticed how strange it felt against my skin—flush and tight like lizard scales. The seams appeared nearly invisible, as if I had been adorned by my own flesh. The red was a different shade, however; rusty, orangey, and sickly, I had to acknowledge. I likened it to the elder Olearons—those nearing death, ill, or inept.