The Crescent Stone

by Matt Mikalatos

  “I am as loyal as he has given cause for me to be,” the knight said carefully. “Now. Peace, children. Leave my chamber. Do not come here again without permission.”

  They said their good-byes to the lady, who inclined her head to them. Madeline realized with a start that she did not wear gloves and that her dress was open around the neck. She did not dress like the Elenil.

  The knight escorted them down the spiraling tower stairs. At the wide wooden door he paused.

  “I fear you will not obey me regarding the Festival of the Turning,” the knight said.

  “We will!” Madeline said.

  “I’m not making any promises,” Jason said, and Shula pinched his arm.

  “It is a great deal to ask of you to stay in the castle,” the knight said. “Jason has made his frustrations plain.”

  “Just being honest,” he said.

  “I will make this agreement with you. You may go to the festival in the day. Walk among the people, hear the stories, eat the food. But when the time comes for the Fall of Dark, you must make all haste back here. Magic will be upended in those hours. Madeline, you will not be able to breathe. Jason, what wounds you had may return. Shula, yours, as well. When night has passed, we will see how you have all recovered. I may allow you to attend the Celebration of the Sun.” He paused, looking at each of them in turn. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Madeline said. “We understand. We can go to the festival, but we must be home before night falls.”

  “Shula,” the knight said. “Bring them here if they disobey me in this.”

  “I will, Sir Knight.”

  “Keep a special eye upon the fool.”

  “Hey!”

  With that the knight slammed the door shut. They heard the sound of the heavy wooden bar falling into place.

  “That went better than expected,” Jason said.

  “Are you kidding?” Madeline asked. “We got caught.”

  Jason shrugged. “I thought we might get killed. Or thrown in a dungeon. Also, what is that delicious smell?”

  Madeline sniffed the air. Golden pastry. Beef? Onions, for sure. Some sort of savory pie, maybe. Jason floated toward the kitchen like a fish on a line.

  Shula put her hand on Madeline, stopping her. “You can’t breathe without magic. It is a difficult situation.” Shula hugged her. “We all take hard roads to come to the Sunlit Lands.” She traced the scar on her own face. “If your every breath draws on your magic, though . . . that is more magic than any Elenil agreement I’ve ever heard.”

  Madeline didn’t know what to say to that. “It’s keeping me alive.” The thought of losing her magic during the Festival of the Turning made her queasy.

  Shula took both Madeline’s hands in her own. “Your bracelet,” she said. “How far has it spread?”

  Madeline had been trying not to look at it, not to notice. It had helped to cover her mirror. Still, she could almost feel it, like a burning itch from an infection, spreading across her body. “All the way up my arm and onto my shoulder. It’s branching out onto my shoulder blades. It will be on my neck soon, and it’s spreading onto my back.”

  Shula’s face fell, and a dark look of determination moved across it, like a cloud. “Your term of service, then, how long was it? A year?”

  “Yes.”

  Shula dropped her hands. “We still have time, then,” she said. Then, again, as if reassuring herself, “We have time.”

  24

  THE FESTIVAL OF THE TURNING

  When the world was young and foolish, the people burned the cities.

  The oceans, enraged with violence, flooded villages and carried away children. The ground shook, and the sky wept blood. The people cried out day and night for help.

  FROM “THE ORDERING OF THE WORLD,” AN ELENIL STORY

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” Jason said for the third time.

  Baileya stopped in the festival throng and looked down at him with those glowing silver eyes, her brown hair in loose waves around her face. “I do not know this word.”

  “It’s someone who cares for children,” Madeline said, grinning. Madeline and Baileya had instantly hit it off, which made Jason nervous. Baileya and Shula were already friends too, from fighting together against the Scim. Jason had been following behind them through the crowd like some sort of fourth wheel. Wait. Third wheel? But there were four of them. Four wheels were good. Whatever. He was following behind them like the fourth, less happy, wheel.

  “I do not understand,” Baileya said. “There are no children with us. So you are telling us that you do not need someone to watch the children who are not here?” She looked at Madeline and Shula. “Is this a joke among your people?”

  “It’s a saying,” Madeline said. “It means he doesn’t think he needs anyone to watch over him. He can take care of himself.”

  Baileya put her gloved hands on Jason’s shoulders. “You are a man who always speaks truth, Wu Song. Do you need someone to watch over you?”

  Jason couldn’t look into those silver eyes for long. He had a hard time concentrating on her question when her hands were on his shoulders. He tried to ignore the thrill of energy coursing through him and focus. Did he need someone to watch over him? So far he had escaped a weird mermaid thing on the way into the Sunlit Lands (okay, okay, with Madeline’s help), made friends with some warriors, adopted a rhinoceros, and fought some nightmare monsters using magic. On the other hand, he had managed to make an enemy of the most powerful Elenil in the city, and he had accidentally told Break Bones about Madeline, then released Break Bones into the world. Those were pretty big mistakes. He cleared his throat. “On second thought, it might not be bad to have someone watch over me.”

  “I will be that person tonight,” Baileya said. “The Knight of the Mirror has ordered this.”

  “Okay,” he said. His knees felt weak.

  “Madeline and Shula also will take care of you,” she said, dropping her hands. “You will have only three ‘babysitters.’ Now come, we must get to the palace in time for the story.”

  Madeline looped her arm through Jason’s. “Come on, buddy. I’ll take care of you.”

  The crowd pressed in around them. There were people from all over the Sunlit Lands. You had to be careful not to step on the tiny grey-skinned folks called Maegrom—they were the size of toddlers. He hadn’t seen any other Kakri, like Baileya. He wasn’t sure there was another person like Baileya in the whole world anyway. A clutch of women with shadowy blue skin passed. “Aluvoreans,” Madeline said, rubbing nervously at her wrist. There weren’t, he noticed, any Scim. He asked Baileya about it.

  She pulled them underneath the awning of a fruit stand and bought a small, hard, yellow fruit for each of them. “The Festival of the Turning is celebrated by many of the people of the Sunlit Lands. The Scim celebrate differently than the Elenil. Some have been given permission to return to their people for a time. Others are gathered in some quarter of the city, no doubt.”

  “Do you wish you were among your people?” Shula asked.

  Baileya took a bite of her fruit. “The Kakri do not celebrate the Turning,” she said. “We have a festival close to this time, when the third and fourth spheres meet. I do not think we will hear the music of the spheres’ meeting here in Far Seeing. That I will miss. It is a festival where stories are given freely to one another among my people. It is a cherished night.”

  “If the Scim are all holed up in some other part of the city, we should be able to stay out as long as we like,” Jason said.

  Madeline stiffened. “I won’t be able to breathe, though, Jason.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Shula didn’t say anything, but she would have wounds returning to her, too. And Jason . . . well, he’d either be half dead, or he’d be fine. The daylong reversing of magic was going to be a mess for all of them. Jason didn’t know if he’d rather be in a hospital bed or completely well, because if he was well that meant Night’s Breath, whoever he w
as, was dead. Dead, and it was Jason’s fault. He had told himself he was going to look into it, but he never had. He wasn’t sure if that counted as lying to himself.

  “The first magic to Turn,” Baileya said, “will be the light. Night will come upon Far Seeing. Other magics will begin to Turn soon after. It is unpredictable. But this much is certain . . . whether within a few minutes or many hours, all Elenil magic will Turn by night’s end. We should make our way to Westwind during that first hour of darkness, so that you may each be settled safely into your beds.”

  “I sleep in the stable,” Jason said absently.

  “We will stay in the outer ring of the crowd, before the stairs leading to the gardens, so that we may leave the festivities early and return you to Westwind. Besides, we have no Elenil to accompany us to the inner courts.”

  The magistrates, all nine of them, stood upon a massive dais that had been constructed in front of the main entrance to the palace. Jason shivered at the thought of Archon Thenody catching sight of them. He didn’t want to be in the same room with that guy ever again. “Where are the guards?” he asked. There were always people milling around with swords or pikes or some sort of weapon. Today he didn’t see any.

  “Everyone’s celebrating,” Shula said. “All wars and grievances are set aside for a day. Tonight it will be day in the Wasted Lands and night in Far Seeing. The wealthy will go about in rags, and the poor will feast. It has long been tradition among the Elenil and Scim and all the peoples of the Sunlit Lands that there can be no fighting or war on this day, the most holy of their celebrations.”

  “They’ve given everyone the day off,” Jason said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s crazy,” Jason said. “They don’t have any guards on duty?”

  Shula shook her head. “A small group of guards remain on duty. But the thought that someone would attack during the Festival of the Turning is inconceivable to them, and all the gates are locked. If someone were to try to break into the city, they would have plenty of warning. They would have to fight, in any case, because the humans would not have any fighting skills. Besides,” she said, “the Maegrom have an agreement with the Elenil. They use their earth magic to block the entrances to the city and guard the walls. No one can get into the city during this time.”

  Baileya said in a low voice, “It is foolish of the Elenil to be so careless. It was only 137 years ago that the Maegrom broke the Treaty of the Turning to attack my people with magic. Even now there is a city hidden among the dunes where some of my people live under their curse.”

  “Are you saying we’re not safe?” Madeline asked.

  “My people can celebrate without setting aside caution,” Baileya said.

  Jason snorted. “They must be fun at parties.”

  “Yes,” Baileya said. “There is much dancing.”

  A thought occurred to him. “Are you carrying a weapon now?”

  Baileya reached into the loose blue folds of her sleeves and pulled out two long wooden shafts with a metal connector on the end of one. “The blades are easily accessible.” She nodded, as if confiding to a friend that of course she kept a roll of paper towels in the kitchen in case of spills.

  “I only have my fists,” he said.

  Shula laughed. “I hope there’s no trouble, then!”

  Madeline laughed, too, but Baileya considered Jason carefully, sizing him up like a football coach weighing a freshman at tryouts. “Do not forget your feet,” she said with level sincerity.

  “Yeah, okay,” Jason said, looking down at his feet. Baileya’s taking everything he said with complete seriousness had confused him at first. Now, though . . . he was getting used to it. Baileya treated him like someone worth listening to. She treated him like an equal, even though she was better than him at everything. He looked up from his feet to see her smiling at him. He blushed, and her smile widened.

  “They’re about to say something,” Madeline said. Grateful for the interruption, Jason turned toward the magistrates.

  Archon Thenody stepped to the front of the dais. He wore a long robe that was emerald green and gold. The golden sheen of his skin matched the robe precisely. Madeline said, “Jason, look, he’s not wearing that covering he usually wears. I wonder why?”

  Jason shrugged. “My mom always says you have to wash your sheets once a week. Probably laundry day.”

  “It is to show the extent of his magic. It will be more dramatic when the magic fails,” Baileya said. “Now listen.”

  The archon raised his arms, waiting for the crowd to quiet, and then he said, “May the light shine upon you.” His voice reverberated through the city square, as if the stones of the buildings themselves were speakers. No doubt it was magic, but it made Jason feel like the archon was all around him, beneath his feet, dissolved into the wall beside him, watching and aware of anything Jason might do here, in his city.

  The crowd answered in unison, “May it never dim or wane.” Oh, that first part was what the woman at the fruit stand had said to him. It must be a traditional or old-fashioned greeting, because he didn’t hear it often. Hanali, for instance, had never once used those words.

  “The world is about to Turn,” Thenody said, and the crowd cheered. “Many centuries ago, before we learned to harness magic, this was a chaotic, dangerous world. Our ancestors lived lives of considerable toil filled with pain and the constant fear of death. Different peoples have used magic in different ways. But we, the Elenil, have wisely made this great city. We have used our magics to bring light to the Sunlit Lands. We have grown beautiful buildings. We have extended our lives in more years and beauty than any people before us.” He held his arms up at this, and the people cheered again.

  The Crescent Stone, pulsing with purple magics, descended from the top of the palace, floating down toward the archon’s hands. The stone was enormous, three or four times the size of the archon, and it floated with a slow but implacable motion. As it came closer to the people below, it began to shrink. It didn’t happen all at once. Jason thought at first it was moving down and also away from him. By the time it reached Thenody, it was small enough for the archon to hold it up in two hands. “Our magic is made possible by this great gift: the Crescent Stone.”

  “I thought it was called the Heart of the Scim?” Jason looked to Baileya for confirmation. He also noticed that Thenody had used the stone from the top of the tower, not the stone in the glass room. It must be for show, he realized. It was more dramatic to have a gigantic crystal fly down from the apex of the tower than to walk a smaller stone down the stairs. And likewise, he must not want to put the real stone in harm’s way. Interesting.

  “Some do not care for the true name,” Baileya said in a low voice. “You would be wise to be cautious when using it.”

  “Once a year,” Thenody said, “we live as our ancestors lived: in a world without magic. In a moment I will silence the stone, and bit by bit magic will leave us. But fear not, my friends! This lesson in darkness will end in light. For tomorrow, our magic will return.”

  Jason watched the crowd. So many interesting people and creatures wandered through the crowd. Something like an ape, but with ten-foot-long arms and purple-streaked hair, made a whooping sound. A group of the little Maegrom stood on a stand they had constructed, bringing them more or less into Jason’s sight line. There was a man dressed in what looked like seaweed leather and a woman in a green robe and a tall hat covered in flowers. Three human-looking people stood about halfway between him and the dais, their backs to him. They wore black clothing, and slung backward over their shoulders were what appeared to be white masks. He couldn’t see the masks clearly because they were partially covered by hoods the three people had left hanging down over their backs.

  “Do people dress up, like for Halloween?” Jason asked. “Is that a thing during the Turning?”

  “No,” Shula said.

  “Look at those three,” he said. As he watched, the middle one shifted, and an arrow’s fletchi
ng poked up from under his robe. He readjusted, and it disappeared again. “Um. They have weapons. From here it looks like they’re dressed like the Black Skulls.”

  Baileya, without a word, stalked into the crowd, shrugging her weapon from her sleeves and assembling it.

  “There’s Rondelo,” Madeline said, pointing into the sea of people to their right. “Sitting on his white stag. We should tell him.”

  “It’s probably nothing,” Jason said, staring at the middle figure, who had moved his robe to put his hand on the hilt of a sword. “Wait, it might be something.” Jason pushed his way forward toward Baileya, calling back to Madeline, “Get Rondelo!”

  Baileya had her long staff with the blades on either side out now, and the crowd parted before her like water moving aside for a ship. She spun the staff twice, as if reassuring herself of its heft. Jason pushed into her wake and ran to catch up. He didn’t have a sword or bow, but he might be able to grab something off one of the Black Skulls if Baileya managed to stop one of them.

  Hanali appeared beside him, matching him step for step. “The Sunlit Lands,” he said, “are full of things that are not what they appear to be.”

  “I’ve seen those Black Skulls in action,” Jason said. “Also, nice outfit.” Hanali was wearing a tuxedo that looked suspiciously like a toned-down version of the insane riot of clashing colors Jason had worn to the Bidding.

  Hanali smiled, his teeth and eyes sparkling. “What color,” he asked, “are those skulls again?”

  Jason blinked. The Black Skulls were wearing black robes, but their skulls were white. The exact opposite of the Black Skulls he had seen on the battlefield. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  Baileya grabbed the shoulder of the middle stranger—the White Skull—and spun him around. His face shone with a strange iridescence, almost as if it were covered with small, fine scales. He had no hair—what had appeared to be hair from behind was only more, differently colored scales. His eyes had yellow irises with vertical slits in them, and sharp white teeth crowded his mouth.