The Crescent Stone

by Matt Mikalatos

  The archon rubbed his earlobe. The network of golden tattoos that covered his visible skin shimmered. The choker with the small crescent crystal crackled with power around his neck. “I believe your friend Hanali made that particular deal. I was not aware of it until this moment, though I cannot say I am surprised, nor that I disagree with his choice. How do you find these dirty little things, Hanali? Do you scout the Wasted Lands yourself?”

  “Many of them come to me, my lord,” Hanali said. “Indeed, this young girl’s family needed food and offered her service for . . . well, for whatever we had need.”

  “How clever of you,” the archon said. “Did they understand the terms?”

  Hanali held Madeline’s eyes for a moment, then looked back to Thenody. “The Scim did. Their child did. The human girl did not.”

  “She’s dying,” Madeline said.

  The archon stood and walked lazily to them, apparently unconcerned about the magical sword in her hands. He looked carefully at the Scim girl. “Not for several weeks at least,” he said. “Would you agree, Hanali?”

  Hanali didn’t move from his seat. He sipped at his tea. “Two weeks at least, sir. Beyond that it is hard to say.”

  An owl the size of a hang glider flew to the edge of the garden, and a Black Skull dropped to the ground. He carried a sword, and his white robes were covered in blood. “Stay back,” Madeline said. Darius hesitated, then stopped.

  “I see,” the archon said, looking at Darius with interest. “You’re going to save the world, is that it?” He tugged on the fingers of his left glove, letting it fall to the grass at his feet. “The Scim obey your orders now? Hmm. Curious.” The network of golden tattoos on his hand glowed with a bright, almost blinding intensity.

  Jason came running into the garden, a large knife in his hand. He stopped when he saw Thenody. A young girl dressed in rags limped in behind him. “Oh,” Jason said. “You again.”

  The archon’s lips turned up in amusement, but his eyes were hard and cold. “Indeed.” He turned to Hanali. “Who are we waiting for? The Scim rabble-rouser, yes? What was his name? Break Stones?”

  “Break Bones?” Jason asked.

  “Ah yes. Charming. Break Bones. We can wait for him, I think.”

  Shula balled up her fists. “Why are we all standing around like we’re at a tea party? Let’s get him.” She ran at the archon, letting loose a savage war cry.

  The archon gestured toward her, palm up, and she fell to the ground, frozen in midstep. She skidded across the ground and came to a halt near his feet. “But you are at a tea party, my dear. Children like yourself should sit quietly.”

  Baileya slipped in beside Jason, breathing heavily. She had her double-bladed staff in hand. Then Break Bones came loping across the garden, a sinister look in his eye.

  “Hey, where’s Dee?” Jason asked.

  Break Bones sneered. “She could not fit through the doorway. She is not pleased I escaped.”

  “Oh dear,” the archon said. “It has become much too crowded. The garden looks positively cluttered.” He spoke to Break Bones. “I have soldiers in your village. I have but to touch a certain mark on my left wrist and they will receive the orders to kill. So be silent. Or at least polite.”

  Break Bones did not speak in response to this but tightened his grip on his ax. Madeline could see Shula breathing, so she knew she was okay. Yenil leaned against Madeline, breathing hard. Still . . . they had Baileya and Darius. She thought Hanali would help them. Break Bones would at least work to get the stone, even if he wanted to do something different with it. She thought that, even with his magic, together they might be able to take Thenody down.

  Hanali said, “I would advise all of you to remain still. The archon is powerful, and if he sees you coming, he will easily stop you with his magic.”

  “True,” the archon said. He seemed unconcerned that Hanali was warning them to bide their time. “The question you are all asking yourselves, however, is whether I have the Heart of the Scim. Of course, I do.” He put his hand to the choker at his neck. He unfastened it and held up a small stone . . . shining black, oblong, with a great chip in one side. “It is not so dramatic as my decoy. Amazing, is it not, that all our magic flows through such a little thing? The great crystal above the palace, your bracelets, all of Elenil magic—powered by this bit of stone. But that is the way of magic, I suppose.”

  Hanali looked down at his feet. “Forgive me, Archon Thenody, but I have always understood none but the Elenil should know they have seen the true Heart of the Scim.”

  Gilenyia said, “Why have a decoy at all if you are going to tell such a large assembly the truth?”

  Thenody laughed. “Not one of them will leave this balcony alive, so what does it matter?” He turned the little stone in his fingers, holding it up to the light. He glanced at Hanali. “I see the hunger in your eyes, Hanali.”

  Hanali said nothing, but for a brief second his eyes flickered toward Gilenyia.

  “Yes, I know about her, too,” the archon said. “Though I am surprised she allied with you given her understandable hatred of the Scim.” He must have noticed the surprise on Madeline’s face, because he laughed and said, “Do you mean to say you have not told your human pets? How wonderful. You brought them to this place with no knowledge. I underestimated you, I think, Hanali, son of no one.”

  “Son of Vivi,” Hanali said.

  “Yes, but Vivi died when you and the Maegrom let the Scim into the city, didn’t he? It is quite a price to pay.”

  “Whoa, hey what?” Jason said. “When Hanali did what now?” Birds had begun to settle in all the trees and bushes around them. Large and small, brightly colored and drab. All silently perching. A few flew overhead, watching.

  Thenody inclined his head toward the birds, as if greeting more guests. “I have invited the messenger birds to come see what will happen next. I would like everyone in the Sunlit Lands to see and hear what happens in this little garden.”

  “I don’t understand,” Madeline said quietly.

  “It is simple enough, my dear. Hanali has always been . . . unorthodox. It has been ascribed to his youth. His recruiting of humans has become more and more . . . eccentric. A violent girl from Syria I can understand. Those two boys Jason fought alongside, perhaps. But then he chose you. A rich girl with power and privilege who would require a great deal of unjust magic simply to walk among us. A girl who would be horrified to know the price she paid, if she could be made to see it. The kind of girl who would be used to power and privilege enough to believe that she could change things. Who would have hope and confidence, not shrink away and accept her lot in life. Someone who would speak up.”

  Jason nodded. “It all makes sense. Then Hanali needed someone who really loved pudding. Someone who wasn’t afraid to eat it every day. For breakfast most days, but maybe he would be willing to eat it for lunch sometimes. Or even for dinner, even though that would mean saving it all day and that the next meal would also be pudding.”

  Hanali smiled, his eyes never moving from the stone in Thenody’s hand. “I needed Madeline,” he said, in an almost dreamlike voice, as if he was remembering something. “An activist.” His eyes moved to Jason. “I did not think I needed you at first. I do not know who put you in my path. I realize now I needed a truth teller. A prophet. To help her see, and to stand beside her.”

  “It is not the first time you have tried,” the archon said.

  “Some have shied away from the truth. Others have despaired rather than taking action,” Hanali said. “This time . . . some unseen hand aided me in my choice of champions.”

  “All this so you could be archon in my place.”

  “Perhaps,” Hanali said. “Though only to undo our centuries of injustice. I did give the Scim entry the night of the Turning. They were meant to take the tower, not raze the city. And not to kidnap Madeline or try to take the Scim artifacts, which I would have returned to them when I took power.”

  The archon laug
hed at that. “Oh, you are young, Hanali. How delightful. I suppose they were not meant to murder your father, either.”

  Break Bones lunged for the archon. Thenody gestured, a look of disgust on his face, and Break Bones crumpled to the ground, groaning in agony. The archon twisted curled fingers toward him, and Break Bones tried to stand but couldn’t. Thenody released him, and Break Bones got to his knees, panting, but could rise no farther.

  “Do not approach me without permission,” Thenody said, his face returning to the placid calm of a moment before. “Is that the Sword of Years you carry, Madeline? Yes? How lovely.”

  “It is magic,” Madeline said, tears burning her eyes. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She couldn’t get near him, couldn’t strike at the stone or Thenody.

  “Indeed. I know it well. It could shatter the Heart of the Scim, destroying the Elenil connection to those filthy creatures. It would undo centuries of progress and beauty. You know this, of course. Your world is no different. I am no scholar, but I understand your own injustices have brought progress.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jason cleared his throat. “He’s saying that the White House was built using slave labor. Or that computers and cars and planes and . . . and rockets were made better, made possible because of World War II. That if it weren’t for the Holocaust, we would never have made it to the moon. That America would never have had a black president unless we had slavery first.”

  Thenody sipped his tea with his left hand, the right still holding the Heart of the Scim on display, mocking them. “The gears of an empire grind without respect for individuals. One does not throw away progress because a few people die along the way.”

  Madeline struggled to get her words out. “But . . . but that’s such a narrow, strange way to say it. It’s not worth killing Jewish people so we could get, I don’t know, so we could get iPhones. Some people got rich off of slavery, but that’s not an argument for it, that’s a sign of the sickness.”

  “Nonsense,” the archon said. “This city—this beautiful city—would be impossible without sacrifice. The Scim entered into our agreements willingly. Who are you to say you know better? Who are you to end an agreement made by our two sovereign nations?”

  “I am Madeline Oliver,” she said. “I hold the Sword of Years, a magical weapon created by the Scim people. It has fallen to me to choose how to use it, and I will do the right thing. The prophecy said I would bring justice to the Scim, and that is what I am going to do.”

  “Who am I to stand in the way of prophecy?” Thenody said, turning to smile at the messenger birds. “Step forward then, girl, and I will give you a choice.”

  Madeline stepped toward him warily.

  “Look back at the tower,” he said.

  Madeline did. It rose above them, shining in the sun. Despite everything, that white tower framed against the cloudless blue sky, the giant crystal crescent glowing with power, was strikingly beautiful.

  “My archers are in the tower. I do not need them, of course, but they have trained their weapons upon your heart and the hearts of each person on this balcony.”

  “Including you?” Jason asked.

  Thenody ignored him. “Hanali has wagered everything on you humans. He thinks you will make a decision to upend our entire society, to create chaos, to bring suffering to all the people of the Sunlit Lands, all for your simplistic notions of justice.”

  “And what do you say?” Madeline asked.

  “Not that we care,” Jason said.

  “I say that you are selfish little things and that you will leave it all in place.” He set his tea on the table. “I will let you choose. You may have three options. One, you may raise your sword and kill me, allowing Hanali to take my place.”

  “Tempting,” Jason said.

  “Two, you may destroy the Heart of the Scim, eradicating all Elenil magic. The Scim will be released of their bargains, as will you and the other humans.” Thenody smiled. “I believe your own self-interest will prevent this choice.”

  “I do like pudding,” Jason said, and Madeline saw that he had been edging closer to the archon.

  “Or three, I will allow all of you to leave. Alive.”

  “We could kill you and leave alive,” Jason pointed out.

  “Ah yes,” the archon said. “I should have explained that more clearly. If you choose to kill me or destroy the stone, my archers have been instructed to kill all of you save Hanali and Gilenyia, as I do no harm to the Elenil people.”

  “How many archers?” Madeline asked her friends.

  “I count twenty,” Shula said.

  “Five more in the garden itself,” Baileya said. “Twenty-five.”

  Thenody wasn’t bluffing, then. At least, she didn’t think so.

  She examined her three options. Kill the archon and let Hanali be in charge . . . although Madeline was unclear if it were even certain that he would be the next archon. Or destroy the stone and free them all from the Elenil magic. She looked to Darius, trying to read what was in his eyes, but he only gave her a firm, supportive nod.

  Break Bones said, “Kill him.”

  “No,” Madeline said. She was not going to kill anyone. She had decided that, at least.

  “To destroy the stone will kill thousands,” Break Bones said. “It will be a catastrophic failure of magical systems across the Sunlit Lands. And it will deny us the power we deserve! It will destroy injustice but deny us justice!”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Madeline said.

  “It is the right thing to do,” Hanali said. “You are correct. But is it for you to do? Or should the Elenil and the Scim figure it out together? Is it your place to choose for us?”

  She looked to Jason, but he only said, “I’ll back your play, Mads.”

  “Me, too,” Darius said.

  She raised the sword. She could almost feel the archers taking aim, preparing to loose their arrows when she made her choice.

  She couldn’t kill the archon. She knew that for certain. Night’s Breath was dead because of her. She had failed to save Inrif and Fera. That was already three deaths too many on her conscience. She couldn’t add the archon’s. Not even if it was just. What had the Peasant King told her? Stopping injustice with violence was like throwing gasoline on a fire.

  So it had to be destroying the stone. It seemed right and good to destroy it, but at what cost? Would it really mean the death of thousands to so suddenly alter the magical landscape? Could she live with that, even though she wasn’t the one who had built the unjust system? And was that any different, really, than killing Night’s Breath?

  Yenil was gasping for breath. She sank to her knees.

  Madeline couldn’t accept that. Maybe she couldn’t destroy the whole system, but she couldn’t participate in it anymore. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let Yenil pay the price, not if she could help it. The Garden Lady’s advice rose in her mind. To change the world, change first a heart.

  She was about to force the Elenil to change their system, but would it matter if they hadn’t changed their hearts? Wouldn’t they just find a way to rebuild it, to replace it? Was it possible to change both? She knew this much: she was still benefiting from this unjust system. She was forcing everyone else to change when she hadn’t changed herself. It was her heart that needed to change, her heart that could change the world.

  She dropped to her knees and put her left arm on the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Thenody said.

  She raised the sword high.

  “That was not one of the choices,” he said, reaching toward her.

  “There are more choices than those,” Madeline said.

  She brought the blade down with all her strength, smashing it into the center of her bracelet. An intense flash of light burst from her arm, and her tattoo burned so brightly she could see it even with her eyes closed. Crippling pain shot through her body. She fell backward into the grass, her arm smoking
. She felt the magic draining from her tattoos like molten lava coursing through causeways in her body.

  She couldn’t breathe. Her back arched, and she inhaled with all her might and only got a half a breath, a quarter of a breath. Darius was by her side, his arms beneath her, trying to cradle her, to comfort her.

  The archon was laughing. “Hanali, how delightful! She surprised me after all. What strange and creative creatures they are. It won’t change much in the scheme—”

  Yenil leapt to her feet with a feral scream. Madeline turned to look at her, wanting to tell her it was going to be okay now, that she would be able to breathe and live a normal life, but she couldn’t say a word, could only gasp for air and watch in horror as Yenil snatched up the Sword of Sorrows.

  Jason lunged for her and missed. Baileya shouted but was too far away. Gilenyia did not move, and a smile twitched to life on Break Bones’s face.

  The archon turned from Hanali, startled to find the Scim girl directly before him, already swinging the Sword of Sorrows. The blade met flesh, and the archon’s left forearm flew from his body, bright golden light seeping from it and from the stump of his arm.

  He fell beside Madeline, his face white with shock.

  Gilenyia stooped over the archon, shouting instructions to people Madeline couldn’t see. The garden they were in wilted immediately, turning brown. Trees cracked and fell. Flowers dropped to the ground, dead. The garden must have been powered by the archon’s magic. The balcony began to crumble. A screeching noise came from the tower, and the massive Crescent Stone above listed to one side, then shattered, great chunks of it smashing into the garden and taking pieces of the tower with them as they careened to the square below. There were screams and shouts.

  Madeline felt Darius lift her in his arms, heard him whisper, “To the ends of the earth.” A hummingbird zipped through the garden, its high-pitched chirp standing out, somehow, from all the panicked sounds around her.

  Then it all went still.