Below the Moon

by Alexis Marie Chute

  “Another children’s story,” grumbles Nate.

  “I am not supposing that any of the myths are true,” Ardenal answers.

  Junin, stalking along nearby, continues his thought. “But they can lead us to wonder: is this the first time Jarr-Wya has visited the human world?” The question is left to hang in the air.

  The hodgepodge army reaches the coast, near a tiny square town called Los Ancones, with low lava-black cliffs supplying a direct view south. What they see causes Pinne and Quillie to cling to each other and Lillium to dive inside Archie’s breast pocket. Ella tears her eyes from the sight to bury her face in Luggie’s hupper furs. Tessa drops Nate’s hand and covers her lips with trembling fingers. She feels a warm hand on her shoulder and turns to see Ardenal.

  The Steffanus sisters sharpen one dagger on the second they carry with a shing sound that frays Tessa’s nerves. The Olearons stand tall, unwavering, and all but Ardenal are aglow from head to foot in the seductive curl of flame. The Bangols dig their feet into the earth, strengthening their will to win.

  From the coast of Lanzarote, Baluurwa the Doomful can be seen, along with the smaller islands, with their vines and rocks, that float airborne around its midsection. The glass city of the Olearons reflects the fading Earthen sun, which is a mere sliver of orange on the horizon. The dilapidated arching bridges of the Bangols are silhouettes on the opposite side of the island. Between the two extremes, the southern shore is naked earth in the absence of the Millia’s gold village.

  The sea between Jarr-Wya, the fateful eighth island, and the coastal town of Arrecife is turbulent, but not from wind or storm. Massive spiraling shells emerge from the surface. Tessa knows the shark-like rows of teeth and strong, treading legs that the water conceals. The shellarks carry sandy figures on their backs. The Millia have assumed human form. Drowned wyverns leap from the sea with their webbed wings, spewing boiling water and leaving a trail of floating electric-violet blamala crabs belly up behind them.

  One golden figure reaches the beach, forgoing its ride to stand at the center of the rising columns before becoming a column himself. A despicable voice snarls out as loud as thunder—Senior Karish. The sand continues its relocation from Jarr-Wya to Lanzarote, then up the northern coast, rushing, amalgamating, and dispersing repeatedly—until it arrives at the feet of the waiting Jarrwian.

  “Your idea, your idea, Zeno, was a good one,” says Senior Karish, hissing his words. The sand settles with a patter like rain. “We listened, always listening. But why should the Bangols have all the fun, all the fun?”

  Zeno steps out from the grunting Bangols and past the Olearons that part for him like splintering trees in a wildfire. “This is my island, Karish. My world. Conquered and built upon. You are too late.”

  “Oh no, I do not believe so—right on time we are, right on time. You dimwits underestimate we Millia. Our expansion across Jarr-Wya was calculated. Our new pockets of desert allowed us to wipe out the Banji flowers, which gave Rolace—rest his hairy legs—and the Steffanus sisters, and even you Bangols, added strength.”

  Tessa notices Archie’s eyes grow wide. He fumbles in the pockets of his trousers, digging for something. She watches him shift to the periphery, where he retrieves a pale and brittle leaf that crumbles to reveal a folded sock. He retucks the stained sock and whatever it conceals back into his drooping pocket. He leaves his hand there, too casually. Duggie-Sky also has his eyes on Archie. Tessa can tell the boy knows what the old man’s hiding.

  “As our deserts grew, so did our dominion over Jarr-Wya,” continues Senior Karish. “Truly we are now the rightful Lord of that island, rightful Lord. And thanks to you all, we are not limited to Jarr-Wya alone. This place looks lovely.” The sandy wave gestures without hands to Lanzarote. “And the land is not all we want,” adds Senior Karish, menace beneath his belittling tone.

  “What else?” demands Zeno.

  “We Millia crave the Star more than anything. We overheard the winged women in our desert nearest Baluurwa the Doomful. They were speaking of their tunnels through the mountain, which reach down to the Star. We also overheard that there is one in your company intimately connected to what we desire. That this human’s life or death is a key to releasing the full power of the Star in all worlds.”

  “No!” screams Tessa. Her heart feels as if it will explode through her chest. Her breath is stolen from her lips. She pushes through bodies, oblivious to who they are, and pulls Ella to herself. Ella’s face is the white of new snow and her hands are icy, despite the blanket of nearly suffocating humidity hanging over them.

  “We should have left her hidden in Haria,” Luggie whispers to Tessa.

  “I have heard enough!” bellows Ardenal. He heaves a fireball twice the size of himself that slices through the muggy air with consuming flames. The ball bursts through the Millia’s wave, turning a gaping section into inanimate glass that shatters on the lava rock below.

  “You underestimate us,” the Lord says firmly, his lips parting his flames. “Our powers are restored through the presence of Jarr-Wya. We unite in its defense until our last fire, flight, and stone.”

  Senior Karish cackles, “So be it, so be it.”

  Chapter 37

  Ella

  The moon is shining on us once more. I’ve grown used to seeing its pale face beaming down on my equally waxy-looking cheeks. The sky here is clearer than it has been for days on Jarr-Wya, where the storm shielded the moon with leaf-spinning wind and lightning bolts of a thousand magnificent colors.

  This is the calm breath before battle.

  Dad is the first to charge, all brave and strong. His body is a beacon so bright, I can’t look at him too long or my vision fills with spots as if I’ve been staring at the sun. He’s joined by Junin and Azkar, then Islo and Nameris, and more Olearon warriors, who link together to form a bonfire so massive that the Millia are forced to lurch back or be melted to glass.

  The Millia are driven south, and briefly I think this will be easy—but I’m dead wrong. Senior Karish is cunning and relentless. The wave transforms back into a hundred tornado-like columns that funnel sand sky-high above the tallest flames. The tops of these columns form black flyers of pure sand with massive gold wings that sprinkle sand into flame. The Olearons are forced to separate and flee or be pierced by the melted granules that have now turned to raining slivers of lethal crystal.

  The Steffanus warriors meet the gold flyers in flight and force their daggers into the twin necks and snapping beaks. The women’s eyes freeze and burn, their shredded gowns twisting through the breeze. They are both glorious and terrifying at once. Part of me wishes to be up there, to feel as light. Mostly, though, I want to help but I don’t know how.

  “Sing,” Luggie says, and it takes me a second to realize he’s talking to me, not Lady Sophia. I shake my head, but he implores, “Let out everything you want to say, Ella, and tell your birds what you want them to do.”

  Finally, I understand. I step away from Luggie and Grandpa Archie and Mom, not wanting to hurt them. My chapped lips part and I scream out all the anger I’ve buried inside my silent world, all the things I’ve been incapable of saying. A flock of green birds—which I both loathe and love—erupts from deep in my gut. Their feathers floss my teeth and carry the force of my breath, hot and horrifying, into the blackening sky. A green wind that curves and snaps like garden snakes trails behind them. My eyes are on the gold flyers and the Steffanus warriors, who tumble through the sky by the Olearons’ firelight.

  My green birds pierce through the sandy fowl, separating their grains in rocketing bursts. Steffanus wings beat and break the writhing, struggling-to-fly Millia, who rupture into smaller birds that wrangle my green flock, impaling their hearts. Steffanus daggers dice the petite golden birds which, along with the decimated gold flyers, crash to the lava rock below in glittering mounds. These piles rest still for the duration of a heartbeat and could easily be mistaken for the start of children’s sand castles built
on lazy beach days.

  The stillness is consumed by blood-chilling howls as the sandy mounds reconstruct into famished sasars. The deadly massive wolf-like creatures prowl in packs. They’re a head taller than my nearly five feet and their shoulders are twice as wide as my hips. Mom and Luggie brace me, holding me up, and I release more green birds, which fly alongside the Steffanus sisters in the war for the sky.

  The gold sasars lunge for an Olearon arm or a human leg or a stony head. A tall ruddy warrior buckles under the weight of one golden creature. Then a Bangol falls, too.

  “You will tire, will tire fast,” Senior Karish growls through a sasar’s sharp fangs. “But we will not. It is only a matter of time till this island, whatever it’s called, is submerged in a fallen rainbow of Jarrwian blood.”

  “With blood flows life, real life, not its sandy impersonation,” says the Lord of Olearon, who has a devilish look in his black eyes. He scowls in a way I’ve never seen; it’s distinct from his usual stoic stance. He quivers, and his burnt red lips retract. “You are the fool, Karish. You! What effect did you suppose the island of Jarr-Wya would have on its creatures once brought to the derivative world?”

  Senior Karish doesn’t respond right away. In sasar form he digs at the earth, sharpening his claws, and turns in circles as if chasing his tail.

  “I can see,” continues the Lord in a vicious snarl, “that you are coming to appreciate your predicament. You have brought to this battle the very island that equips your enemy to prevail against you. Naiu, radiating through Jarr-Wya and alive in us who breathe, is stronger than any evil enchantment trapped in the rubble of shell.”

  The Lord lets his words sink in, like Mom does when she’s intent on making her point. He laughs, deep and wicked, and orders those at his sides, “Drive the Millia to the beach! Drive them across the sea to Jarr-Wya!”

  Boulders rush past us; I recognize them as pieces of Haria that had been used to construct the Bangol fortress. A sacrifice on the part of Zeno, I recognize, and hope that Grandpa Archie is right about him after all.

  The stone-heads roar and run as fast as their short grey legs will carry them, wielding rock mallets and fatal slingshots. Other Bangols approach empty-handed. They fan their fingers to detach the unforgiving lava rock and project it forward. A cluster of Bangols unite their Naiu, forming a towering three-story-tall stone monster that throws punches at the sand. The lifeless rock formation attacks so fast that a section of sand is unable to take on new forms between hits.

  Many Olearons create projectile weapons of fireballs and burning coils of grass and shrubbery. Dad, Junin, Azkar, Islo, Nameris, and the Lord assemble groups of Olearons that once more link into mobile bonfires that pursue and drive the Millia toward the coast, cornering the sandy shapes on a broad sweep of beach.

  Glass covers the earth, and I’m careful where I step. Grandpa Archie swings me gently onto his back, giving Luggie leave to join the fight alongside the Bangols. Luggie passes me his sack before running off.

  Luggie, stubborn and brave—my heart twitches in my chest. I want him to stay with me—through the growl and stab of sand, the Steffanus warriors’ shrieks, and the trembling of excavated earth—but I sense he desires to test the limits of his maturing powers. The skin on his cheeks, around the newly budded stones, is still tender and flushed. I watch Luggie go until I’m forced to look away.

  Mom is pulling Grandpa Archie and me inland, away from the screams of the wounded and the dying. We find ourselves in a vineyard of white grapes planted in black volcanic-ash soil in individual shallow hollows. On the Lanzarote tour Mom and I had taken during the port break, we learned that the vines on the island are pruned based on a lunar cycle. I tear my eyes from the battle at my back to where the moon I grew up watching hangs innocently in the twinkling night sky.

  We hide inside one of the hollows, surrounded by a knee-high semicircular stone wall called a zucos, a word I learned on the tour. Zucos protect the grape vines from the ruthless sea winds that easily uproot unguarded plants. We’re in a field of zucos.

  In these heartbreaking moments, as our friends and their families risk their lives to protect those they love and their home, I realize I’m with two of the people who have given up so much for me and for our family. For the past two years, it’s been me, Mom, and Grandpa Archie—for family dinners, attending my doctor’s appointments, cleaning the house, and the hundred other normal things that make up daily life, so different from what I now know in this mixed-up place.

  We peer over the zucos and watch a wave of sand splash down hard on a group of Olearons. I pray with everything in me that Dad isn’t in that group. The Bangols direct the earth to fold and collide with a pack of Millia sasars, which bursts apart. The Steffanus warriors continue to battle the gold flyers and the smaller golden birds that break off from cut chunks of sand. I release new flocks of green birds that race to the battle. The sprites mount my birds’ backs. Lillium organizes the sprites into groups, each determined in their goal. She leads the fowl into the heart of the sandstorm, her red hair twisting through the breeze like Olearon flame.

  Pinne and Quillie aren’t with Lillium. They’ve taken shelter in a nearby zucos. I can make out their sparkling wings in the distance, inland, well beyond the reach of the perilous battle. Their mission is clear: they must protect the Life Ohmi, the grape that ensures the existence of future generations of sprites.

  My throat hurts, and my mouth is dry and caked in feathers. Mom urges me to sit. I can’t do anything but obey. A bunch of white grapes makes a squishing sound beneath my weight. A headache threatens to split my skull. Cancer, why now? I think. Mom overhears me.

  How are you feeling?

  Fine! Gee, don’t worry about me, Mom. We’ve got more important things to focus on right now.

  As my harsh thought snaps out at her, Grandpa Archie flattens us onto the vine. A boulder wielded by the Bangols has burst apart at the hand of the Millia. A piece of rock flies through the sky and crashes a foot beyond our zucos.

  “Ell, you okay?” Grandpa Archie asks, panicked.

  I nod. Then I look at Mom. Her head is bleeding. A steady gush streams from a cut near the goose egg from Zeno’s blow. The shard of rock did its damage. More of her blond waves are stained crimson.

  Grandpa applies pressure to the gash, but Mom doesn’t respond. Nor does she stir at my pleading hands that clutch hers. “She’s knocked out cold. Ell, stay here with your mom. I’m going to get Arden.”

  I shake my head, “No,” and drop Mom’s hands and sign the word. Then “Stop”—a downward chop with my right hand that connects to the flat palm of my left. I rub my chest, signing, “Please.” My whole body trembles. Mom can’t die. Mom can’t die. Mom can’t die. Grandpa can’t leave me here alone!

  “Ella, deep breath,” Grandpa says. “I feel it in my bones: I’m not going to die here, on Earth. Which means we’re going to get back to Jarr—alive—I’ll make sure of it. Olearon blood flows through my veins. Which means it also flows through yours, Ella Wellsley. I’ll explain it all soon, but for now, please hear me: you’re stronger than you look, stronger than you feel. Now is the time. Muster your courage and draw on the Naiu that lives within you.”

  Chapter 38

  Ella

  Grandpa Archie leaves me in the white grape vineyard, tucked in a zucos, stunned, alone with Mom, whose bleeding has slowed, and also alone to stew on the bizarre reality that I’m only part human. This news has me squeamish, uncomfortable, as if I haven’t ever really known myself. If I don’t do something with my hands, the shaking will overtake me and I’ll enter into a full-on panic attack.

  I dig into my bag for paper and my paintbrush, but it’s Luggie’s bag I grab by accident. In it is the royal-blue tunic from the Olearons, unused, and something else—a thin, sharp object—oh! This must be the glass square Grandpa Archie stole from the Lord’s citadel. How did Luggie get this? Hmm.

  There’s no one here to get me in trouble, so of course
I study the glass. Its surface is bordered in glimmering rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. I brush dust from its surface, which is frigid and tingly to the touch with the electric prick of static. Whoa! Billowing clouds appear and flow across the square, melting into black. White words emerge through the darkness in a language I know by sight to be Bangol, thanks to Luggie and Nanjee, who taught me what they could while our awakin-flown balloon carried us above the blue and white woodlands.

  I can’t read Bangol, but the glass, as if sensing it is no longer Luggie who holds it, bleeds the letters away and new words appear. These I understand.

  What I found beneath my glass throne, the pieces of him—Telmakus—have fully adhered to my skin. Ashamed, I hide the new flesh below the royal Olearon robes, the sleeves and pant legs rolled down. I am regretful of my decision to trust him. At first this transformation granted me unmatched strength, but also, I have discovered, unyielding fear.

  My uncle Telmakus, the 29th Lord of Olearon, experienced such terror and rage that he was driven to madness. These now plague my mind as well. Telmakus was broken in spirit, having lost his love from another world, and been betrayed by his warriors. He allowed anger to multiply in him, to consume him, tearing out the good in his heart and replacing it with evil.

  This secret history has taught me much, but knowledge is not always accompanied by wisdom.

  I have been a fool.

  Believing I was greater than Telmakus, I wore his ravaged life on top of my own, wielding his power but also growing in his delusions. Wisdom would have insisted I burn the pieces of him, destroy the wicked enchantment that preserved his being inside that drawer. But now I am becoming him, slowly, and I cannot stop it. Telmakus takes over my mind at his will. He speaks through me, fights through me, plots conflict and destruction, contrary to my desire for peace.