Below the Moon

by Alexis Marie Chute

  I respect Luggie’s compassion. It will make him a good ruler, unlike his father, Tuggeron. Still, why the Lord of Olearon supports Luggie and wishes him to be the next Bangol king, I don’t know. There’s a motive there I haven’t put together. It makes me suspicious of the Lord, of Luggie, of everyone. What are people keeping from me? What side deals have they struck? I can’t ask. How can I draw these delicate questions?

  The artisan market is up Plaza León, an angled street to the left from where Luggie and I walk along Calle de la Cilla. We pass a gutted supermarket where there’s a welcome mat of splattered food. The wooden doors to a cafeteria have been wedged free and are nowhere to be seen. Maybe Zeno has a use for them elsewhere. A children’s playground looks like a junkyard for rejected abstract metal art. The twisted slide is beautiful in its own way.

  I wonder how long Mom and the Bangols were here before the rest of us arrived to have already caused so much damage. Dad told me that time moves differently between a mother world and its derivative. That’s the only way I can explain the Bangols’ progress.

  We begin up a slight incline, not even a hill, and it’s too much for me. Luggie—like the clichéd knight in shining armor—lifts me from my plodding feet and carries me. The cancer in me knows we’ve returned home, and I feel it stewing. A headache blooms between my eyebrows and I press hard on the spot, in the failed hope for a fraction of relief. The road continues upward, appearing to lead us into the fading sky. I’d been so happy to arrive home to see the sun, but dusk has settled in. At least it’s a rosy one.

  I’m almost asleep, lulled like a newborn in Luggie’s arms, but then I see it: an outdoor lamp, the kind for a street with no room for a post in the ground. The lantern style is traditional with frosted glass and brass fittings. It’s held upright by a metal arm that juts out like someone playing tag and is affixed to the front of a continuous white wall. It is one marker Mom told me to look for.

  There, across from the lantern—which flicks on, almost like a beacon, as the dark descends—I spot what seems like one of the only two-story buildings in the area. It has a faded green door, in front of which balance fifty or more stone spearheads. They’re aimed up, deadly arrows pointing me toward Mom.

  I’m nodding like a bobblehead, something I’ve gotten used to since being unable to speak. I jump down and wobble. Luggie banishes the enchanted stones with one sweep of his hand. I reach the door first and find it locked—big surprise. Luggie calls back one of the stones and hides it between his palms. I’ve never seen him control rocks this way, and I think his skill startles him as well. His fingers mold the rock as if it were clay. He forms a key-shaped pick and slips it into the lock. A moment of fiddling and the door swings open.

  A deafening blast occurs down the road, behind us, back at the plaza of Haria. Dad! Grandpa! My worry is converted to adrenaline. Somehow, I sprint up the decaying stairs to the door at the top guarded by an enchanted puzzle of soccer ball-size rocks. I press my back to the side wall and Luggie sends the stones past me and crashing down the stairs.

  I’m in Mom’s arms. There’s crusted blood on her forehead, turning a lock of blond hair a muted pink. She says all the words I’m thinking: “You found me,” and “I’m so glad you’re safe,” and “I love you.”

  More crashes of earth and scraping of lava rock follow.

  “Have you seen?” Mom asks Luggie. “How far along is the fortress?”

  “It is hard to estimate.” Luggie looks around the simple room, then spots what he’s searching for—a ladder leaning in the corner, then a trapdoor to the roof. The three of us climb up—even me, since I want to see—past the angled wooden beams and through the trapdoor.

  The roof is flat and brittle. Mom squeezes my hand so tightly it hurts. We all cough, even Luggie who is made of clay and earth, and shield our eyes from filling up with dirt. Mom peers toward the plaza of Haria, where Zeno’s shop is being outfitted as the entry to the new Bangol fortress. Luggie, in contrast, is gazing north toward the low ranges of volcanic mountains and their porous craters. “They will head there next,” he says. “What a magnificent field of rock.”

  I want to tell him, “Now’s not the time to admire the landscape, Luggie!” but I’m distracted. My eyes are pulled much farther south than the plaza of Haria. The building where we stand, at a higher elevation than sea level, affords us a lookout over the rest of the island. I distinctly recall the size of Arrecife’s beach where the Atlantic Odyssey docked while we visited Lanzarote. The sweep of sand was broad before, but nothing like this. The lip of yellow now forms a huge stretch of shore along the coast.

  More sand.

  A thick, long beach.

  A black hole of dread opens in my stomach, sucking in every hope I had for a peaceful negotiation with the Bangols and for a quick journey by Tillastrion back to Jarr. Everything has become a million times worse.

  I point, but Mom and Luggie don’t see. I make a fuss, but they’re still blind to it. My mind is a landslide of turmoil and Mom can’t hear my troubled thoughts. Her head is too noisy with panic, too distracted with plans to stop the Bangols, to save me.

  Yanking a piece of paper from my sack, I quickly communicate my message. Mom reads it and drops to her knees. She says the word to Luggie, who can’t read our language. Mom covers her mouth but through her fingers I can hear her say with a gasp, “No!”

  Chapter 35

  Archie

  Ardenal releases a lone grapefruit-sized fireball, which captures every Bangol’s attention as it sizzles through the air before colliding with the base of the gentle mountain to the north. An effective diversion. Two guards abandon their watch of the green door leading into Treasures in Haria’s artisanal market. Archie and Ardenal slip inside the shop and bar the entryway with a flip of a lock.

  “I wondered when you two would arrive.”

  “Zeno,” Archie begins, panting, then speaks too quickly for his tongue to keep up. “You must stop this. People are hurt—they’re dying out there. You’ve destroyed whole communities, homes …”

  “And what of my home? My community? My family?” Zeno waits for a reply, and when Archie stands mutely, the Bangol continues. “You see, you have no answer for that. Tuggeron brutally murdered my father, the true king, and my twin brother. Tuggeron tortured me, using the power of Naiu against me. He sent me to live here—away from every Bangol I have ever known, to be treated like a freak instead of a king.”

  Ardenal hangs back in the wisps of incense and the shadow of a ceiling-high wooden cabinet, allowing Archie to approach the rear of the store. “Zeno, you’ve had it rough—I don’t take that away from you,” Archie says, kindlier now, his mouth catching up with his mind. “But Tuggeron is gone and you have this one chance to rule the Bangols justly, as I know you can. Remember our talks on the way east? A king who is loved is one who leads with wisdom and restraint, not with careless violence.”

  “Jarr-Wya is dying, Archibald. A good king saves his subjects, which is what I have done. I have given them a chance to thrive. The Lord of Olearon is obsessed with the Star, and that will be his downfall.”

  Zeno sits on a stool behind a glowing glass counter. When Archie first met the Bangol here, Zeno had hidden his face beneath a camo-patterned wide-brimmed hat. It wasn’t until Archie neared and the creature looked up from the oxidizing jewelry behind the counter that he noticed Zeno’s radiant yellow eyes. Archie stumbled back then, petrified at the sight of someone inhuman, someone birthed of nightmare. Now, however, Zeno is clothed in hupper fur across his chest; his arms are bare, as is his head of sharp stones that encircle his skull like a crown. He no longer hunches where he sits but stretches his neck tall, which straightens his whole posture as if he is strung together on a pulled string. And this time, Archie approaches the cracked glass display as a friend.

  “Oh, do not look at me like that,” Zeno says with a sneer. “You cannot convince me to go back.”

  “This isn’t your world, Zeno—I don’t
care how long you’ve lived here,” Archie retorts. “Your world is Jarr. Mother worlds must nurture their derivatives, not overtake them. You must feel the weakness in your hands, your blood, your mind since returning. You must feel this absence of magic, of Naiu, more than any of us. Now that I’ve smelled the air on Jarr-Wya, I know the scent in this shop is a reminder of the fullness of Naiu.

  “Returning to Jarr after my banishment was amazing. The Naiu in me came alive. I could tell because of my power in our fight.” Zeno inclines his head past Archie to where Ardenal hangs back in shadow. “I was as strong as I ever was.”

  Archie nods. “That’s right, Zeno. You’re meant to live close to that source, a source of life and goodness that everyone—and I mean everyone—will lose, along with our lives, if we don’t work together to save it.”

  Zeno holds a ball of rusty-orange clay in his hands. He rolls it like cookie dough into a smooth ball, then squashes it flat. “Back on Jarr-Wya, I could levitate this piece of clay while I slept. Here, it took forty mature Bangols, full cheek-stones and all, to break off that piece of mountain. I am sure you have seen it—the foundation of the eastern wall of our new fortress.” Zeno balances the clay ball on the fine tip of one sharp fingernail. He drops his hand and the ball stays in place, hovering before his eyes.

  “It is a pity,” continues Zeno, “to lose the strength so innate to the Bangol nature. However”—the ball falls into his waiting palm—“can you not feel it, Arden? That we grow stronger by the minute?”

  Ardenal contemplates the Bangol’s claim, then slowly nods. “I did not notice until now, but … yes,” he stammers. He tests his abilities, igniting and extinguishing himself in a flash. The wooden floor is scorched black. The puny fireball he conjured just moments before seems feeble, powerless in comparison. “But how can this be?”

  “I do not know,” says Zeno slyly, “and I do not care.” His eyes narrow, and the meager foundation of Treasures rumbles, dislodging small rocks and cement debris. Zeno collects a rock into his hand and tosses it to Archie, who fumbles it. The pebbles continue to roll out from the building’s walls and foundation, along the stained, splintering floor. They behave like lines of ants crawling up Ardenal’s and Archie’s legs. The father and son kick and brush away the stones, but they hop over their hands and encircle their necks, choking them slowly.

  “Now, Arden, Archibald … we have far too much history between us for me to kill you both without even the smallest sliver of regret. Instead, I will show the mercy you taught me, Archibald, which is so honorable in a king. Return to Jarr-Wya and tell the others, tell the Lord of Olearon, that we Bangols give them our land there, that we will not be needing it any longer—”

  Zeno’s speech is cut off when a group of Bangols send a boulder through the locked door of Treasures. Green fragments of wood fly through the shop. Sawdust settles on the carved cabinet and glass display case and onto the brown ash of spent incense. The stones around Archie’s and Ardenal’s necks fall to the ground with a clatter. Borgin enters through the blast hole, his voice chiming above the ringing in their ears. “My King, forgive our intrusion. The door was locked.”

  Zeno flushes with anger. “What is so urgent, Cousin?” Under his breath he mumbles, “I was fond of that door.”

  Borgin pushes forward two humans, followed by a third captive, all with rough sacks pulled over their heads and shoulders. Archie recognizes the prisoners’ clothing immediately and runs to them. Ardenal makes it there first.

  “Tessa, Ella!” Ardenal exclaims, smiling. He yanks the sacks off the women’s heads and singes the fraying ropes around their wrists. He kisses Tessa and Ella, leaving behind warm red lip prints on their cheeks that linger before fading.

  Archie pulls the sack off the third captive, and immediately Luggie’s face is contorted in fury as he locks eyes with Zeno.

  “Ah, Tuggeron’s heir … now this is more interesting,” says Zeno.

  Borgin adds, “I thought you would want to kill this one yourself.”

  A wide, wicked smile spreads across Zeno’s face. “For once, Cousin, you have done something right!” With a flick of his wrist, he commands the marching pebbles that choked Archie and Ardenal, directing them through the dank shop to encircle Luggie.

  “Wait,” Luggie says, wheezing. “I am not the enemy on your doorstep. Neither is the Olearon army, or the Steffanus sisters, who are also here, only a block away.”

  “A block away? It might as well be a world away. They will never arrive here in time to save you.”

  “The Millia,” Tessa cries. “Zeno, the Millia are here!”

  The pebbles drop one by one from Luggie’s neck, and he speaks. “We saw them first as a broad golden beach, spreading many ship-lengths inland from the shore. As we watched, pillars of sand rose into the sky, nearly touching the clouds. They crashed down onto helpless buildings, people, animals. Even now, the Millia slink inland. When they arrive here, your fortress will not protect you. We will all be dead.”

  “That’s not all …” says Tessa with a whimper. She looks to Archie and Ardenal for strength.

  Ardenal holds Ella in his muscled arms and gives her his warmth. Tessa steps forward. Archie can see his daughter-in-law burying her fear, pushing it down beneath a deep sigh before continuing. Her eyes flick open, and they no longer tear with worry but blaze with bravery.

  “Jarr-Wya is here, too,” she says flatly. “The Millia weren’t lying when they confronted us at the Bangol fortress, your old fortress, after you slipped away with the Tillastrion. They said the storm spread their grains of sand across the island. The flood brought their shores farther inland. They attacked us”—Tessa’s pale green eyes meet those of every Bangol in the room—“and when our company operated a new Tillastrion, well, we must have worn enough flecks of sand that were touching other flecks of sand and—”

  “You brought the Millia and Jarr-Wya here?!” roars Zeno.

  “You brought them here!” repeats Borgin.

  “Silence, Cousin!”

  “No wonder our powers are restored,” muses Ardenal, a sober edge to his voice.

  Zeno grinds his teeth and the sound sends chills up Archie’s back. The Bangol king storms past Tessa, past Borgin, and past the other guards pointing stone mallets and rock-cut spears at Archie, Ardenal, Ella, and Luggie. Zeno disappears through the hole in his shop with the crowd in Treasures filtering out behind him.

  Zeno digs his piercing nails into the bark of a nearby tree, one of only a dozen left unbroken, and scales it. He then leaps from its branches to the roof of Treasures. He calls forth stones from the rubble and climbs up them one step at a time till he stands on the roof of a still standing two-story building. He peers south.

  “We are fools! All of us,” Zeno calls down. His voice is resigned, and Archie detects a hint of sorrow behind his words. “How long have the Millia sprouted up in deserts across Jarr-Wya without our suspicion?” Borgin begins to suggest an answer, but Zeno cuts him off. “And now they will be the death of us all. There will be no happy ending.”

  Luggie calls forth smooth stones from a flattened building nearby and walks up them from the square-tiled pedestrian plaza to the crumbling roof. He stands shoulder to shoulder with Zeno. Luggie points a grey finger to the sea beyond the golden beach.

  “We do not need to play the fool any longer,” Luggie growls. “We can right the wrong we have neglected for too many sunsets.”

  “Call every Bangol,” Zeno orders Borgin. “Bring them down from the mountains, craters, surrounding towns. We need every stone wielder. Every Jarrwian.” Zeno looks at Luggie and down at Ardenal, Archie, and Tessa. “Olearon. Steffanus. Sprite. And human, too. We must face the Millia and Senior Karish. Now is the time to fight!”

  Chapter 36

  Tessa

  Adrenaline courses through Tessa, as if she, too, is strengthened by the presence of Jarr-Wya. The creatures of Jarr clamber through the streets—the Olearons, Steffanus warriors, sprites, and Ba
ngols—descending in elevation as they march and fly toward Arrecife.

  When Lady Sophia catches her first glimpse of Jarr-Wya, she nearly faints. “O, Dios mío,” she wails. “The eighth island! Just like you told us, Captain Nate! Before we boarded the Atlantic Odyssey. You said some sailors and locals believe the Canary Islands are the mountaintops of sunken Atlantis. Or, that a mythical thief captured the sun and buried it inside one of the islands. Or, what I now see before my eyes!” Lady Sophia fans her face with a plump hand. Lillium flutters over with a leaf and fans it to cool the flushed singer.

  “The eighth island,” Nate says gruffly. “But this isn’t that myth, Lady Sophia.”

  The opera singer objects. “You told the passengers that only the setting sun will reveal the location of the eighth island, and the sun is almost spent—”

  “Folklore. Children’s stories to keep the young from venturing out in boats by night.” Nate storms forward at a pace Lady Sophia is unable to match. He hulks past Azkar and Nameris, who exchange a look. Warriors silently bolster each other for battle. Kameelo flies low overhead, watching the shifting sand and reporting to the Lord.

  Nate finds Tessa in the mob and takes her hand. His touch sends a shiver across her skin. Conflicting emotions flash through her: the comfort of protection, fear of the unknown, trepidation for the future, and, even in its most frail stage of blooming, love. Nate watches Tessa’s face with a wrinkled brow. He squeezes her palm against his own and waits for her to mimic the gesture. Tessa does, though it is weaker than she intends, and she forces a smile, which Nate appears to accept.

  Ardenal jogs to Tessa and Nate, and says, “In my research, I encountered the legend of San Borondon. He and his troupe of Irish monks set sail across the Atlantic Ocean. An old poem told of an island discovered by the monks. They came ashore, only to have the landmass begin to move. They realized they had landed upon the back of a giant sea creature.”