To his surprise, while he had been a world away with Laken, his youngest brother, Dillmus, was primed to become the 30th Lord of Olearon. The transformation was already under way. Never before in the history of the Olearons had the mantle been bestowed while the current Lord still claimed the title. Telmakus felt as if his breath was being sucked from his lungs, his skin severed from its muscle. It was a torture that completed the change in him.
When Telmakus startled a group of warriors returning to the city in the cover of a moonless night, demanding to know where they had been, they told him that Dillmus had ordered them to seek out the diviner in the mountain. They told him they had learned that one lonely Steffanus remained—Laken.
Telmakus decided he must speak with her before events transpired that could not be undone. He was convinced he could draw out of her, because of their wayward friendship, some thread of logic and hope that could bind up all the madness that throbbed in his head.
When Telmakus reached Laken’s tunnel, its concealing branch was a black crisp, its leaves obliterated. He rushed into the darkness, igniting his skin to reveal the hidden place. There, on the floor of dirt and stone, stood five of his most trusted warriors. They had set out with the others he had encountered not long before—those who returned to the glass city to inform Dillmus that the deed was done. These warriors before Telmakus were the ones set on performing it. One held a glass blade to Laken’s throat. Her wings had been cut from her silver back and lay motionless on the dusty tunnel floor, weeping their spilled blood into the darkness. Laken trembled from antler to naked foot.
The outrage of Telmakus was all-encompassing. The Olearon warriors, now dragging Laken, backed away from their Lord’s fire, which reached out to them in their betrayal. They raged in return, sending curling flames toward Telmakus. They spoke to him as one should never address a Lord. The warriors’ blades reflected the red of fire, tinged with blue, back into Telmakus’s eyes. They released Laken, kicking her forward, and demanded she repeat the prophecy spoken only a moment before Telmakus’s arrival. Her eyes were pleading but not harsh. Her voice was but a quiver; no malice was needed as the words themselves were enough.
Laken’s Oracle:
“A half-blood Olearon will return to Jarr, and the race of Olearons will cease as they have been known since the first sunrise and their first spark. With this knowledge, the Steffanus sisters will come forth once more to the Olearons, but this time not for help—but for vengeance.”
Telmakus plowed past Laken, who crumpled to the ground, shielding herself from the heat that glistened on her scared face. Telmakus’s eyes were fixed on his warriors. They did not have a chance to scream.
When Telmakus returned to the glass city, he answered no questions. He shut out the elders. The sun blanketed the pasture, grassy paths, and the glass structures with even, unbiased light. When Telmakus emerged many hours later, his jaw muscles protruded from beneath his sharp cheekbones. His long red fingers were balled. He tore grass from his path and released it, clearing a path for himself through the gossiping crones. The blazing grass traveled before him into the warrior-training paddock, cutting asymmetrical shapes into the earth, where it crumbled into ash.
Elders approached. They asked if Telmakus had seen the Steffanus, if she had cast any ill oracles upon them. He ignored the less ardent elders and shoved down the persistent.
His brother, Dillmus, met his eyes, and in a breath the kin were as close as lovers, but there was no affection left in either. Dillmus demanded to know the whereabouts of the missing warriors. Telmakus did not answer, only glowered back. Dillmus demanded that his older brother release the lordship to him, that there was only one son of Teemun fit to rule the Olearons and wipe out the Steffanus race once and for all. When Telmakus remained silent, Dillmus tripped him with glowing-hot snakes of grass. He called forth nearby objects, setting them on fire in the air, and rained them down on Telmakus’s head, only to have the silent ruler obliterate them and smash his brother’s attack.
Dillmus, who by now lusted for his half-earned title, proved inept at usurping the rightful Lord. Telmakus embraced Dillmus so tightly that the younger brother lost control of his fire. His flame ripped through the cracks in his flesh and tore through his eyes. The blast emanated through the paddock, collapsing the lungs of many nearby elders. Those who opposed Telmakus shrank away swiftly, while the loyal stood erect and narrowed their eyes.
In the sunsets that followed, many were scorched unceremoniously. Telmakus, his faith lost, set his mind to a singular task. Power. Power and the numbing of his heart. When even these became too great, his fire growing beyond his control, his half-heartbroken, half-petrified spirit shattered through him. His loyal warriors collected the pieces of his body—more than one hundred in all—and stored them in a secret compartment beneath the glass throne.
The eldest sister of Telmakus, spiteful Mazi, perished with Dillmus, and thus the lordship of the Olearons was passed to Jeeleano’s son. Jeeleano raised him with her kindness, her forgiveness, and most of all, her true love of peace. His name is Dunakkus. The 30th Lord of Olearon.
Chapter 15
Archie
Archie throws himself behind a boulder as another whizzes past him to shatter on a stone-and-earth barricade, narrowly missing his head. Dust and shards of rock cloud Archie’s view of the western entrance to the Bangols’ fortress. The smooth, grey face of the giant Haaz swings to its left, then to its right. Its body pauses, still and barely breathing, though it clenches its meaty fists where muscles bulge like mountain ranges between its bones.
Lillium, the sprite tasked with helping Archie divert the attention of the Bangols, had warned him that this would happen—that they would meet a Haaz along their way and that the Bangols likely hired their similarly ash-colored cousins to guard their fortress as the stone-heads’ suspicion grew. Blooming alongside this suspicion is their lust for the Star and all the lands of Jarr-Wya.
“Over there, Archibald!” Lillium chirps and points to safety as she flutters nearby, hanging in the air an inch out of reach from the Haaz. Her voice, small and high pitched, rings out above the rumble of settling rocks. The Haaz ignores her as it holds its breath, reading Archie’s vibrations through the earth. It waits.
The place where the creature’s eyelids should part is unbroken skin, but Archie can see its eyeballs search the inside of its flesh. When Archie makes up his mind to jump into the crevasses between rocks, where Lillium pointed, the Haaz seems to sense the microscopic shift in his weight and it lunges as well. Archie thrusts himself forward and slides into the narrow opening a second before the Haaz crashes against the rocks. It groans and howls wildly. Like an undisciplined toddler, Archie muses where he cowers beyond the fifteen-foot-tall creature’s grasp. The Haaz rises and swings its arms about, scratching its knees, which it can easily reach without bending, and punches the stone wall. It howls once more, then disappears into the maze of boulders where it hid when Archie and Lillium arrived.
Archie runs his fingers through his hair, now filling out with deep brown patches where his bald spot once reflected the sunshine. Since arriving on Jarr-Wya, Archie felt invigorated, as if awakening from a deep sleep. His driver’s license birthdate may read 1947, but he doesn’t feel a day over fifty, as his head of hair and the energy in his pounding veins can attest.
Archie cowers in the stone crevasse, his knees to his chest and his eyes closed, as the trembling of the mound of stone abates. The Haaz is gone—for now. Archie listens. When the wafting dust settles on his khaki pants and the low swoosh of shifting pebbles grows still as they fill the spaces between larger stones, Archie reluctantly opens his eyes. There are no silver-lined shadows cast by the moon. The black is even and velvety and outlined in the bewitching starlight. There is no sound but for the rapid panting of Lillium, who clings to Archie’s hair as if grasping the reigns of a horse.
“That was close,” she whispers so quietly that Archie can barely hear her fine, singso
ng voice.
“That was close,” he mumbles, contorting his body in the narrow space. He inches closer to the opening and pauses. No grey-as-death hand reaches in for him. No sightless face exhales rank breath into the hideaway. Archie crawls another inch, and then two, until he squints.
The dusty entryway to the Bangols’ maze is clear. There the grass—that which fights its way through the sunbaked, cracking mud—is matted and flattened. Bones of fairies, the size of toothpicks, have been collected into spilling piles and wedged between stones in the maze to stab the skin of those who venture between its passageways. The smell of unwashed bodies, caked in sweat and dirt and Naiu, wafts through the breeze.
“I think it’s gone, Lillium, but that can’t be good,” says Archie, sliding on his stomach to gain a better vantage point. “Our job is to distract the Bangols, and therefore the Haaz, while the others sneak through. We need to create a commotion. Draw the beast back.”
Archie waits for the sprite to answer, and when she doesn’t he turns his head to look over his shoulder. All he can see are the two tiny human-like feet that connect to the sharp angles of her legs. Lillium’s femurs jut backward and are thick with strong muscles under her shiny pale green skin. Her thin tibias are covered in protruding bristles that help the sprites catch themselves on leaves, vines, and trees. Lillium notices Archie observe her legs, and she slips her awakin wing dress down to her ankles.
“I thought I was brave, Archibald, but I am not,” mutters Lillium. “Maybe I am the silly spriteling the others always call me. I hate that. Silly spriteling. But look at me—it’s true. When facing the Haaz, I am small. I have no power.”
“Come down here,” Archie says, huffing.
The sprite releases his hair and slides down his forehead to jump off the tip of his nose, where a fresh scab rises on his skin. Her tall red hair sways rhythmically as she moves. All sprites are born with frizzy ruby hair, and most braid and twist it into the shapes of birds or magical beings. Lillium, on the other hand, lets her curls grow freely in every direction as if she is a tiny Olearon flame. She flutters onto Archie’s outstretched palm, where she settles to sit, cross-legged, arms folded, bottom lip jutting out.
“Now, Lillium. Don’t talk like that,” Archie says. “You are more than your wildest dreams. Believe me.”
She sucks in her lip and looks into his eyes. “Tell me more. Please,” she replies, suddenly bashful.
“Well, in my life, I’ve always dreamed of being somebody. Life happened, though, and I got complacent. Comfortable. Scared, to be honest. Terrified. I saw those I love slip away. My mother. My wife, Suzie. Ella. I thought, Who can be brave in the midst of all this uncertainty? Never knowing how things will turn out? I wondered if risk would deliver anything but more pain. I was paralyzed. I haven’t lived most of my life, Lillium, and that’s the truth. But that isn’t my fate. I have this one last chance. Fear isn’t your fate, either. You have more courage in your two ounces than I have in all my two hundred pounds.
“When my company stumbled into the Fairy Vineyard, what did you do? Did you curl up and cower in your vine leaves? Did you hide in a nook of a blue tree? Did you fly skyward till the air thinned and no one could reach you? Did you hide behind Queen Jeo?”
“No.”
“No. What did you do?”
Lillium shrugs. “Queen Jeo welcomed you, as you say.”
“But before that, when our company first set foot in the vineyard, and you spotted us on your watch—what did you do?”
“I pelted you with ohmi.”
“And?”
“I bit your nose.”
“Right.” Archie touches the scab and winces. “And it’s quite the bite you have, young lady. My point is, when the moment comes, you’ll choose bravery. The strength is in you. I can sense it. Just look.” He grins.
The sprite looks down at herself. While Archie spoke, Lillium began to levitate above the coarse skin of his hand. As she rose, her arms and legs spread wide and tense, her jaw clenched, and her red lips spread into a fierce smile.
“Now, if that isn’t the face of a warrior, I don’t know what is.”
Growing self-aware, Lillium shakes her arms and legs and flutters her wings, flipping about in the air. “All right, Archibald. I’ll follow your lead. Maybe I can do this, but only if you are beside me.”
“Deal.”
“And please do not tell the other sprites about my moment of weakness. Please! They will tease me to no end. It will be ‘silly spriteling this,’ and ‘silly spriteling that.’ Oh, I couldn’t bear it.”
“That’s fine by me. Now pop out there, carefully now, and see if the coast really is clear. Maybe you can fly high and spot the others. I do hope the Haaz creatures haven’t grown wise to our plan.”
“Off I go,” Lillium chirps as she whooshes out of the crevasse.
Archie rolls to his back and looks up to the stones above his head. “One wrong move and a thousand pounds will crush me flat. If it brings the eyes of the Bangols here—and the Haaz giants—then it’ll be worth it. A quick death. A noble death. As long as the others find Ella’s cure.” Archie closes his eyes to listen once more. The sound of Lillium’s wings, a rapid hum, fades as she investigates. “I hope Ella, Arden, and Tessa are safe at the Fairy Vineyard. Nate and Lady Sophia, too, though I’d be fine if Nate was in my position instead. Nate …” Archie lets out a throaty growl.
Lillium returns with a flash of red hair and glittering wings, followed by the buzz of her aged pet fly, Gobo. She lands soft as a feather on Archie’s chest.
“It’s no good. No good at all,” she says, breathing heavily, her tiny chest puffing up. “The Haaz we thwarted, along with ten of its friends, felt the vibrations of the others—the Lord of Olearon, Islo, Duggie-Sky, and Luggie—and they headed in their direction. The Haaz pack was running to the southern entrance of the maze, which leads into the Bangol fortress. But I did it, Archibald! I was brave.”
“Great, Lillium … What did you do?”
“I found the largest stone I could carry and flew over the pack. When I dropped it, the stone shattered. Burst to dust on one smooth head, cutting the giant’s skin. At first the group of Haaz stopped where they were, flailing about blindly, their fingers spread and touching the air, feeling the flap of my wings above them. But they could not reach me. The cut one was bleeding badly, the wound spreading. The gash tore open more broadly, and I could see its black skull. The wound split the skin of the giant’s forehead in two and continued down the bridge of its nose. All I could do was watch, dumbfounded.
“The other giants put their hands on the cut one. Then the wounded Haaz, he dug his nails beneath both sides of his ripped skin and pulled. Ugh.”
Lillium clutches her stomach, wobbles woozily, and faints on Archie’s chest. He scoops her up and rolls over, resting his hands on the earth and cradling the sprite.
“Lillium! Please, Lillium, go on!”
The sprite stirs. “The Haaz pulled back its skin from its face,” she continues, “which was dripping with red above the rough black bone. That was when I saw it: the creature’s eyes. I have only ever known them as shifting mounds of skin, like toy balls rolling beneath a blanket, but they are bone white. The cleanest white but for a perfect dot of black at their center.
“The Haaz paused to focus its eyes. Eyes that have never before seen anything—not sunshine or moonbeams, stone or sea. Not even its own face looking back at it in those that surrounded it with both curiosity and horror. When the Haaz realized it was okay, it tore away the loose flesh. Then the others around it, their fingers and arms outstretched, still sensing my vibrations, pointed skyward. The Haaz with the crazy eyes looked up and spotted me.”
Dust begins to rain onto Archie’s hair. A pebble bounces off his shoulder, then another off the crown of his head, and another two off his arms. “What is that rumble, Lillium? Why is everything shaking?”
“The Haaz saw me, Archie. Its growl was hungry. Now that it
can see, it is faster, too.”
“They must be nearly here!”
“By vibration alone they tracked the Lord’s contingent to the southern entrance, but they left the south unguarded at the order of the sighted Haaz. They pursued me. These creatures love the taste of sprite. That is great, right? Our plan to create a diversion is accomplished! I was so brave, I knew you would be proud! But Archie”—Lillium’s voice is pleading—“we must leave. This crevasse will prove only a minor deterrent for the pack.”
Archie pulls himself out of the narrow opening, leaping to his feet and racing to the stone entrance of the looming maze. While the Bangols may appear savage, the entranceway is decorated in a sophisticated stone pattern of alternating colors, some the red of baked clay and others marble grey. As Archie saw on the apex of the Bangols’ arches over the eastern sea, the capstone above his head is skillfully carved in the shape of an island as tall as it is wide.
“Treasures,” Archie says under his breath. Treasures was the name of Zeno’s shop in the city of Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Archie had gone in search of the shop after reading the final clue in Arden’s notebooks. There he found Zeno, and so began the domino effect that brought the Atlantic Odyssey to Jarr-Wya. Zeno, whom he still considers a friend—albeit a selfish one—stole away at his first opportunity. Archie can only imagine the power-hungry Bangol seeking revenge on King Tuggeron, who killed Zeno’s twin brother, Winzun, and their father.
The maze capstone above his head sends a pang of distress through Archie. He worries for Zeno and what has become of him since they parted in the east, but he worries more about the current plan. He begins to wonder what unknown horrors the Bangols have created and what surprises await them. A peach pit of fear forms in Archie’s stomach.
“Which way?” Archie’s voice is feeble, and with heightened nerves he looks frantically from side to side. Once through the archway, a stone wall greets them dead ahead. “Left or right, Lillium?”
Below the Moon Page 12
