The Crescent Stone

by Matt Mikalatos

  “No.”

  Thenody rubbed his smooth jaw. He had not put his gloves back on, and Madeline wondered how such a dainty hand could have so painful a grip. “I am filled with wonder that he has not mentioned those artifacts, since it is only a month past that the Scim came looking for them. To mention them would be no risk, since nothing can be taken from his hand. But perhaps he has been too busy gazing into mirrors. Surely he has not betrayed the Elenil and turned those artifacts over to the Scim. Although—it is strange that they have ceased warring against us.”

  Jason slurped his tea, loud. “You’re saying you think the knight gave them back their stuff in exchange for . . . something he wants. Whatever it might be.”

  “The opposite,” the archon said.

  “You’re saying he took the artifacts away from the Scim, and in exchange they took something he wants?”

  “No, fool, I am saying he would never betray us in such a way.”

  “Ookaaaay,” Jason said slowly. “But we would have never thought that.”

  “You’re trying to plant the idea in our heads,” Madeline said.

  Thenody spread his hands wide. “Not at all. But if he had traded those artifacts away . . . I would want to know. I would want you to tell me. It could mean that you, my children, are not safe.”

  Madeline set her teacup on its saucer and, no table being near her, set it at her feet. “I think I’ve had enough.”

  The archon’s face twisted in rage. “You dare dismiss me?”

  “Enough tea,” Madeline said, making an effort to sound calm.

  Thenody stood angrily. He clapped, and all three teacups disappeared. Madeline gasped.

  “Hey, I wasn’t done!” Jason said. “I was just getting to the sugar sludge at the bottom.”

  “I am done, however, and you wait upon my leisure,” Archon Thenody said, walking away from them.

  Bright Prism appeared again, bowing low, and escorted them from Thenody’s quarters. The journey out was not as long as the journey in. They passed a few dank corridors and a blazing hot kitchen. The servants’ passageways, probably.

  “Those doors,” Jason said. “I don’t think we actually went anywhere. The magic here doesn’t work like that. He’d need to have three people waiting to come through another door into the palace if the three of us wanted to come out of it.”

  “It was an illusion,” Madeline said. “I don’t know why, but he’s trying to make us see things that aren’t there.”

  Bright Prism led them back through the golden doors, and they stood on a wide landing. They could see the Heart of the Scim glowing in the glass room at the center of the tower, just one floor above them. They could just walk up to it if they wanted. Bright Prism bowed and said, “The master wanted you to have this, miss.” He held out a box meticulously wrapped in golden paper, with ribbons spilling off it.

  “It’s probably socks,” Jason said. “He’s just the type to give out socks. White ones, probably. Those short athletic ones.”

  Madeline opened the gift. Inside was one glove. A left glove, like the one she had lost, as golden as the archon’s magic-infused skin. It filled her with dread to touch it. Her skin crawled just looking at it.

  Bright Prism said, “He asked me to say, ‘To remind you of our talk overlooking the sea.’”

  Madeline’s stomach fell. A burning sensation started in her center and moved up into her face, a boiling, furious heat. “Tell him I hope to repay him one day,” Madeline said. “A thousand times over. Tell him that.”

  The Scim bowed. His small black eyes darted left and right before he spoke. “Lady, you ought not say that.”

  “Say those exact words,” Madeline said. “Now, which way is out?”

  Bright Prism pointed a large hand toward a stairway which hugged the outer wall. “That way, lady.”

  Of course he would make them take the stairs. Hanali was gone, no doubt sent away the moment she and Jason had gone through the golden doors. She balled up the archon’s glove and threw it over the side. She watched it float a few stories, crumple, then fall. She didn’t see where it landed.

  Jason said, “Do you think they have magic toilets here? Because I want to use one before we go back to Westwind.”

  “Yes,” Madeline said. “I’m sure they do.”

  It was a long walk to the bottom of the tower. Madeline spent the entire time figuring out what to do. It seemed she had somehow made an enemy of the most powerful of the Elenil—the people she was sworn to serve. The Scim army had withdrawn, though it appeared they wanted to kill her.

  She couldn’t believe it, but today she sort of missed chemistry class.

  22

  THE KNIGHT’S SOLAR

  Where is the fountain which brought joy to the city, clean and clear at its heart?

  FROM “THE DESERTED CITY,” A KAKRI LAMENT

  Madeline felt thrown off her rhythm. The confrontation with the archon went against everything she had expected. She wouldn’t be waiting around anymore, waiting to see what other people told her to do. It was time for action.

  Her legs had nearly given out by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs. They found Hanali leaning against an elaborate marble handrail and watching the unicorns munching grass in the garden below.

  They started to tell him what had happened, but he shushed them. He smiled broadly, chatting amiably all the way back to the knight’s castle. When they crossed the threshold of Westwind, he whispered, “Do not speak negatively of him. Not in this city and certainly not where magic is in use. Do you think he cannot hear?”

  He whisked them into the great hall and called for the knight. The two of them listened with furrowed brows as Madeline and Jason told their story. The end result was not, as Madeline had hoped, a promise to keep them away from the archon. Instead, the knight and their benefactor debated which activities were safe for them in the city.

  “They are not to leave the city limits, that much is plain,” the knight said.

  Hanali sniffed. “They have been watched carefully since arriving, just like any of the new arrivals. The one exception was allowing them on the battlefield. Even then I watched Jason from the wall, and Gilenyia accompanied Madeline.”

  “You are not to leave this castle during the Festival of the Turning, with or without accompaniment,” the knight said.

  Madeline objected that she didn’t know what or when that was, although she did remember the archon mentioning it. Jason objected that a festival sounded like a party, and it hardly seemed fair to be locked away in a castle. “Not a nice Disney castle, either,” he said. “No offense.”

  Furious about the whole thing, Madeline stormed off to her solar. Which, being at the top of one of Westwind’s towers, was a long hike, especially after descending hundreds of flights of stairs at the palace. She had run out of anger by the time she made it to her room. She collapsed on her bed.

  A half hour later a sheepish knock woke her. She opened the door to find Jason, a goofy smile on his face, a loaf of slightly burned brown bread under his arm, and a cutting board covered with a thick, salty cheese. Shula stood beside him, holding an enormous bowl of a red, juicy citrus fruit called burst. Jason had named it, of course, and failed to remember the common name. When placed on the tongue the skin of the fruit nearly exploded, and the flavor was both tongue-numbingly tart and chocolatey sweet at the same time.

  Madeline and Shula tucked their feet up on the bed, and Jason pulled a large chair over, and they descended on the food. Halfway through her second slice of brown bread, Madeline began to feel human again. Partway through her third, she lay back on her bed, one hand under her head, the other on her full belly.

  “I’m beginning to wonder,” she said, “if the Elenil are the bad guys here. Something is seriously wrong with the archon, and it doesn’t seem like a huge request by the Scim to have their artifacts returned to them.”

  Shula popped some cheese in her mouth. “Artifacts returned, and you and Jason tu
rned over,” she said.

  Jason added, “Killed, I think. Not just handed over. Break Bones was very clear about Madeline’s ‘lifeless body.’”

  “Whose fault is that?” Madeline asked, throwing a crust of bread at him.

  “I said I was sorry!” Jason protested. “He asked me your name. He didn’t say, ‘I’m going to murder someone, let’s brainstorm names.’”

  “The Scim are monsters,” Shula said. “The Elenil have their faults, yes, but who threatened to murder you? The Scim.”

  Jason, his mouth full of food, said, “Break Bones said he wanted to usher in centuries of darkness. I can’t even remember how many he said. At least five.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have let him go, then,” Madeline said.

  “Who kidnapped me?” Shula asked. “Who held me prisoner in the wastelands? They gave me rotten meat and filthy water. They left me in public so they could throw garbage at me when they walked by. They beat me trying to get answers about you two, and trying to get me to tell them where their artifacts are.” She paused, the muscles in her jaw flexing. “I don’t even know what happened to Diego.”

  That was the boy who could fly. He had escaped the Scim but hadn’t returned to Far Seeing. The knight couldn’t find him. Madeline put a hand on Shula’s knee. “I’m sorry, Shula.”

  “I don’t see how the Scim can be the good guys,” Shula said.

  “On the other hand,” Jason said, “Break Bones wasn’t in a day spa. He was chained in a dungeon. So the way the Elenil treat their prisoners isn’t much different.”

  Madeline crossed to the small, arched window in her solar, which looked out toward the city wall. “The city is so beautiful, though. The singing fountains! The palace gardens! Even the marketplaces are colorful and well organized. The Elenil create such beautiful things. The palace! It’s amazing.”

  “It is beautiful,” Shula said. “It was the Scim who hurt me, and the Elenil who used their magic to heal me. You, too, Jason. The Elenil are bright, beautiful people. They don’t live in squalor and make speeches about destroying the light.”

  At the mention of Jason’s healing, Madeline stiffened and looked straight at him. He stared back, one eyebrow raised. He knew something was wrong but hadn’t asked her directly. Not yet.

  “The magic,” Jason said, “works in an interesting way. If I want to use a sword, I have to take those skills from someone else who earned them. While I have those skills, someone else doesn’t. Or Shula, when Madeline healed you, that Scim woman had to take your wounds. Which naturally brings up the question, if I was nearly dead when I was healed by the Elenil—”

  “Wait,” Madeline said, interrupting him. She wasn’t ready for this conversation. She couldn’t talk about it, not right now, and she couldn’t bear the thought of what Jason would say when she told him that Night’s Breath had died so he could live . . . and that neither Jason nor Night’s Breath had any choice in the matter. “Shula, what is the Festival of the Turning like?”

  “I’ve only been to it once,” Shula said.

  “Once more than us,” Jason said. Then, his voice bitter, “The knight doesn’t want us to go. He says it isn’t safe.”

  “He’s right,” Shula said. “Did he tell you why?”

  Madeline shook her head. “He’s not the most talkative.”

  Shula scraped the scraps of cheese from the cutting board out the window, into the moat below. “For one day, all the magic of the Court of Far Seeing is reversed. It’s an entire day without Elenil magic. The Crescent Stone must rest for a day, and all the magic that runs through it must cease. The people of the Sunlit Lands celebrate the day in different ways. They go to their own territories and tell the story of the coming of magic to the Sunlit Lands and how the Majestic One—a magician from centuries ago—made the place. Rich people wear rags, and the poor dress in fine clothing. It’s a time of reversals, and people playact that they are something other than what they are. The highest society people take pride in appearing to be impoverished, because it announces their high status at other times.”

  “I don’t see how it puts us in danger,” Madeline said, making room for Shula to lean on the windowsill. “The Scim will be in their home territory. Who is going to harm us?”

  “There will still be Scim here. If one of them hurt you, there would be no healing magic available. You never told me what your deal with the Elenil is, but you’ll lose that for the day too. I won’t be able to light myself on fire in battle.”

  Jason said, “Madeline can’t breathe by herself. She’s got a terminal illness. So she won’t be able to breathe?”

  “Jason!” Madeline shouted. It wasn’t right for him to share that—it was hers to share or not. People looked at her differently when they knew. It had happened a hundred times with her friends. Her disease wasn’t contagious, but people acted as if it were. They made suggestions about how she could take care of herself, even though she was healthier than most. Or they gave her pitying looks . . . as if they were healthy because they were better than her.

  But Shula acted as if she had just learned Madeline had asked for a haircut. She didn’t make a big deal out of it or look at Madeline with pity. She only rubbed the long scar on her face and said, “That’s right. Once the ceremony starts, all magic starts to fail. We could go to the palace for the beginning, but once night falls, she won’t be able to breathe.”

  “Night falls?”

  “Of course. Once a year the Elenil experience true night and see the stars. It’s their magic that keeps Far Seeing in perpetual day. When the sun sets, magic starts to fail . . . It takes a while, and some magic fails faster than others. But before the night is over, you won’t be able to breathe. I won’t be able to light on fire.”

  “I won’t get pudding for breakfast,” Jason said, but his jovial tone of voice rang hollow, and he looked nervous.

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Shula said. “Was that your deal? Pudding every morning?”

  Jason acted offended. “Every morning for the rest of my life. Except festival days, apparently.” He deflated a little. “What about you, Shula? You just got healed a few days ago. Will that be undone?”

  “Yes,” Shula said, “though my Scim counterpart will have healed some by then, so I’ll only get a portion of that damage back, and only for the day.”

  Madeline beat Jason to his question. “What if someone was almost dead and healed?”

  Shula shrugged. “It depends. If the counterpart died from the wounds, then the transfer is sealed and permanent. Someone like that would remain healthy. If the counterpart has been recovering, they would get the wounds back for the day.”

  Jason held Madeline’s gaze. She could tell what he was thinking: on the Festival of the Turning, he would know what had happened to Night’s Breath. Madeline wouldn’t be able to avoid the conversation any longer. She tried to hold his gaze, but she couldn’t. He must suspect, because why would she be avoiding the conversation if all was well? A pang struck like a knife in her ribs. The thought that Night’s Breath was gone, dead, because of her had been keeping her awake, watching the light on the ceiling of her chambers. That decision kept Jason alive, she reminded herself. That ridiculous, overly truthful, loyal, infuriating guy who had gone from chemistry partner to good friend mostly on the strength of picking her up when she had fainted and driving her to the hospital. That had to count for something.

  The archon’s accusations against the knight lingered in her mind. What if he wanted to keep them in the castle so he could trade them away to the Scim? If he had already given the Scim the artifacts, maybe she and Jason were next. She didn’t think the knight would do such a thing, but no one had seen the artifacts in some time, according to the archon.

  “We have to search Westwind,” she said. “We have to find the Scim artifacts. It might help us figure out what is going on.”

  “I don’t even know what they are,” Shula said. “It’s not a topic the Elenil
share about freely.”

  “The archon mentioned some of them to us. There was a sword called the Sword of Years, I think. A robe called—what was it, Jason? The Robe of Ascension?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said. “Plus something called the Socks of Silence. Lets you sneak around all sneaky like. I don’t know. I clearly can’t remember.”

  Madeline ignored him. “There was a mask, I think, too.”

  Jason jumped out of his seat. “Ahhh! That kid with the bark mask was so creepy!”

  “Calm down. That was before we even got into the Sunlit Lands.”

  Shula paced the room. “Could we just ask the knight to show them to us?”

  “No way,” Jason said. “That’s crazy. Let’s tromp all over his home opening locked doors and hope he doesn’t notice.”

  “If he’s secretly working with the Scim, we don’t want to tip him off that we know,” Madeline said.

  Shula, still looking out the window, said, “He left earlier, going toward the palace. He never tells us what his business is day to day, but he will be gone at least an hour or two. So. Where do we start?”

  Madeline had been thinking about this ever since Thenody had suggested the knight might have done away with the artifacts. If the artifacts were well hidden, that might make them as impossible to find as if he had already given them to the Scim. The only way to prove his innocence was to find the actual artifacts, all of them. Not that she needed to prove his innocence, but she needed to know if she and Jason were safe. “Is there an armory?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Shula said thoughtfully. “I’ve been in there, though. Not much to see.”

  “Nothing in the stables,” Jason said in a tone of voice that suggested he honestly believed this to be a helpful data point. “Or the kitchen.”

  “The knight’s solar?” She still thought it strange that in a castle a private room was called a solar, but she wanted to use the correct terms.

  “It would make sense for the artifacts to be somewhere near where the knight sleeps,” Shula said. “If someone broke in, he would want to be nearby.”