Junin’s lips part. “No!”
Chapter 21
Archie
I don’t understand … is Arden the one who will save us all?”
“Archie, you crashed into an invisible wall—”
“Laken?”
“Who? No, Archie, it’s me, Lillium. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see the enchantment coming. It is such an obvious thing, now that I think about it. Hiding a stone wall behind the stardust bark of the blue forest, making it reflect the sky and the walls around it. I bet it trips up more intruders than the pit of carakwas!”
“When am I?” Archie shakes his head as if marbles are rolling around in his skull.
Lillium startles. “Uh, you are now, Archie. Only a few breaths have passed.”
“Where’s the sunset?” Archie shuffles to his feet. His head throbs, and he cups his forehead where shooting lasers of ice cut through his mind. There is no lingering rose tint in the sky, no brightness of twilight. “I don’t get it,” Archie says, wincing. “One second I was up there”—he points to Baluurwa and its vine-linked floating hunks of rock—“and now I’m down here …”
Lillium purses her lips and makes a puckering sound. “Not sure what to tell you. You were running. Bam! Ground. And now. That’s it.”
“I spoke with a Steffanus—Laken.”
“Before you came to the Fairy Vineyard?”
“No! Blast it, Lillium. Just now! Although, it was then—many years ago.”
“How about for now we agree to discuss this later and continue on? The Haaz giants still track us. They’ve picked up slingshots, and I do not mean the ones the Bangols hide in their pockets. These shoot boulders. I’ve been watching them fly over the walls of the maze for my last fifty breaths. I’ve charted them—where they rise, not where they fall. That’s how I can tell the pack approaches. The rising place is getting nearer to us, Archie.
“Plus,” Lillium continues, more determinedly, “there is something else we need to worry about.”
“Ugh, my head.” Archie blinks rapidly as he wrestles with his headache. “What else could there possibly be, Lillium?”
She points. Archie turns his gaze toward the treacherous stone walls around them, then beyond. In the distance, past the western entrance to the Bangols maze and fortress, is a massive wave rivaling Baluurwa in height. It is about to swallow the Great Tree poking above the flooded vineyard.
Archie’s hands fall from his head. “Ella,” he says. “Arden, Tessa …”
“All I can hope is that they woke up soon enough.” Lillium’s voice is weak. “And that they saved the Life Ohmi.”
“The wave is not angled in our direction. It’s coming inland from the sea straight west. The mountain will take the brunt of it.”
“Water will still flood this way, Archie. So, as your sprite guide, I sternly advise you to begin running—now!”
Lillium dives into Archie’s pocket as he begins to race, zipping around the invisible wall and deeper into the maze. This time, his steps are unsteady. He sprints with outstretched arms and fingers, which slows his pace considerably. He feels pained, fatigued yet crazed, and his brow scrunches in anticipation of another unexpected collision.
“Right, left, straight. Right. Right. Right. Don’t argue with me, Archie—I know it doesn’t make sense!”
Lillium directs Archie, as she did before, but this time they do not chat or poke fun. He navigates the maze silently but for his padding footfalls, and the grunts of the Haaz beasts that search not far away. Boulders whiz through the sky, followed by thunderous crashes and the rolling and settling of new rubble. Sprite bones claw at Archie’s arms as he cuts corners tightly, but he never slows. The disgruntled Haaz pack howl like full-moon wolves.
“So much for the secrecy of our mission,” grumbles Archie. “The beasts’ll wake everyone on the island!”
Lillium ignores his complaints. She hums to herself and talks quietly to the star-freckled silhouettes on her wings. Archie overhears her. “You really think we’ll survive this?” Lillium asks. “I hope so, Wingies! I hope you’re right!”
Suddenly, the maze ends.
Archie’s feet skid, and he nearly tumbles, and Lillium, too, as she clutches the buttonhole of his pocket. It is a dead end. He runs his hands along the stones. “It doesn’t appear to be a diversion. Feels pretty solid to me. Ouch!” He plucks a sprite bone from his palm. “I thought you said go straight.”
“I did, and we should have. I do not know how this wall appeared here.” Lillium flutters upward, and Archie watches her go, higher and higher till she twinkles like a lonely star above him.
“Lilli, the walls … they seem to have grown, or is it just me? They feel taller.”
“Definitely taller, Archie. And more of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Lillium begins, “we’re closed in.”
Archie turns on his heels to look back. There, from where they came, is a menacing maze wall, only an arm’s length away. Archie grunts, purses his lips. He approaches the new stones and studies the wall closely, watching it as if it will shift into a different configuration—or be the first to blink. Archie plucks every sprite bone he can find before backing up and ramming into the wall with all his weight.
“Oh no, Archie.” Lillium covers her eyes. “Be careful!”
Archie does not tell the young sprite that his shoulder, the same one that was hit with a Haaz thrown stone, feels back to its normal strength. It courses with energy, as if relishing the exertion and longing for more usefulness and destruction. He does not tell Lillium how his blood tingles in his veins—how when he left Earth, his body ached with arthritis and his half halo of ivory hair was shedding steadily, clogging the shower drain, to Tessa’s perpetual annoyance. He does not tell Lillium that he feels alive, in an incrementally greater way with each passing day on Jarr-Wya, and that he is secretly pondering the decision whether or not to return home to Earth.
Home. That word has taken on bizarre implications for Archie. He is beginning to forget the smell of his old armchair, the fluorescent sheen from the bathroom light that made his face look pocked, and even his desire for predictability. He never forgets his Suzie, the love of his life, mother of Arden, grandma of Ella. He aches for her, but she is all he misses of his former life.
Archie rams the wall again, and it quivers but does not budge. “How can a two-thousand-pound wall come from nowhere?” he says, fuming. “Nowhere!” He kicks the wall and shoves it with rage. He picks up a loose pebble and pitches it. The pebble ricochets, nearly connecting with Lillium.
She pouts her red lips and folds her arms. As she does so, she notices the dusty earth beneath Archie’s feet as he continues to stomp and huff. Archie pulls more sprite bones from the walls and snaps them in two.
“What is happening, Archie?”
He follows Lillium’s gaze down to where the center of the twenty-five-square-foot expanse quivers, unsettling and funneling itself. As in an hourglass, the dirt and pebbles and sprite bones quietly rush together into one point that dips low. Both human and sprite are without words. Lillium flutters to Archie’s pocket. He shuffles backward until his shoulders sting with the cold of one enchanted wall.
The funnel grows wider. The dip tunnels deeper. “Archie, I cannot carry you,” Lillium chirps from her hiding spot. “Wherever you go, my Wingies and I go, too.” Gobo buzzes in solidarity. Lillium loops her arm through the buttonhole, shuts her eyes into tight lines, and braces herself. Gobo buzzes and slips in beside Lillium.
“It’s been lovely knowing you, Lilli.”
Within the vortex of silt and stone, swooshing fills Archie’s ears. He cannot hear if Lillium replies. He cups a hand over his pocket, and with the other he reaches. Archie kicks and struggles, searching for a way to break free from the sharp funnel dropping them into the heart of the island. The light of the moon and the dying sun, changing shifts above, is stolen. Even Archie’s own voice, his pained grunts, are lost. T
he funnel continues widening, so there is no up and there is no out.
Then, through the flowing earth and clay and rock, a grey finger appears. Then another. Finally, a whole hand slips through and brushes aside what separates Archie from … who? He struggles to see.
The dust and rubble continue to fall, but Archie realizes he is floating, hanging in the air at one fixed spot. The earth fully parts and there, standing before his wafting body, is a short creature. Stones grow from his head like a crown. His eyes are bloated, banana-boat yellow, and squinting.
Tuggeron!
No. Archie is mistaken. No cheek stones grow from the Bangol’s face.
It is Luggie!
“Hello, Archibald,” the young Bangol says with a smile. “Here.” Luggie pulls Archie, with Lillium and Gobo safe in his pocket, out of the churning stones and to his feet on stable ground.
“Thank you, Luggie,” says Archie. “You saved us—we were going to be crushed to death.”
“No, you weren’t. This is my home. I have power over it as much as any Bangol, despite my number of sunsets. When I heard the racket of my Haaz cousins, I knew I needed to come save you two. They must be a recent addition to the defenses of my father. I shifted the walls so I could get to you quickly, but you were headed north, a trick of the maze. The only way to stop you from reaching the sea—where there is a steep cliff drop hidden behind an enchanted mirage of unbroken path—was to keep you in the west, then lock you in place. I have never created an earth tunnel before, but it worked. Now here you are.”
Archie is speechless. He pats Luggie’s back, and the Bangol flushes with pride. Luggie leads him and Lillium to the inner edge of the maze with a view to the epicenter of the Bangol fortress. The fortress consists of a large circular area surrounded on three sides by the stone maze except for the northern edge, which is a peaceful shoreline beyond a rocky cliff, as Luggie said. There, waves lap mischievously in the storm.
To their left is the amphitheater. It is shaped like a band shell, rising and curving over a roughly cut stage. Stairs lead up to one end. A stone throne sits in the middle of the stage, stained with dried blood and caked in crumbling mud and foodstuff. Two passageways like flared nostrils have been cut out of the stone shell behind the throne, allowing the sea breeze to flow into the fortress.
Rock and earth structures are built five stories high with winding stone steps, enchanted by Naiu to float on their own without supports. Archie can see fat Bangols climbing up and down the stairs, each step dipping under their weight. Bangols shuffle here and there. The fortress is alive, as if it were midday. One Bangol hurries alongside a group of rolling boulders, winding a path to a crumbled section of maze under repair, across the fortress from Archie and Lillium.
There is an area of stacked clay baskets still strung to deflated fabric balloons. In pockets around the fortress, wire cages hold weary awakins. The butterflies flutter unhappily in tight mobs. Their purple pairs of wings flap with fatigue and they begin to unfurl their daytime pair, though the light arrives sluggishly.
“The poor awakins,” Archie whispers.
Lillium is distracted. “I told you, Archie,” she says, her voice the lowest he has ever heard it. Her eyes are locked on the gaping chasm at the center of the fortress, dug deep into the earth. “Metal.”
The Bangols have not only discovered metal, Archie realizes, but also its many uses. Below the crust of the island, illuminated by Naiu-enchanted torches burning white flames, rises a mammoth machine. In Archie’s estimation, it is comprised of many smaller machines, chugging along together toward a common task. Archie cannot even guess at what that would be.
Gears labor noisily, like squabbling children, while wheels made of brass and inlaid with blue wood interconnect with square cogs and provide steady torque. These keep the whole machine chugging out black smoke and deviant sparks, with more screeches of grinding metal followed by the hollers of dissatisfied Bangols. Sweat drips off the stones growing out of their skulls. Their usual attire—hupper and sasar fur, leather belts, and thick hide breastplates—exacerbate the heat they feel radiating out the belly of the machine.
Archie and Luggie slip into a low hollow formed of a crumbling maze wall, just in time for another intruder to appear. “Zeno,” Archie whispers under his breath. Luggie looks ready to pounce, but Archie holds him back, placing a warning finger to his lips. Archie, too, wishes to intercept the familiar, scheming Bangol, but Tuggeron, the Bangol king, steps out of one passage hole in the band shell and lounges on the rock throne, surveying the fortress.
Zeno is undeterred. Covertly, he meets the gazes of many of the Bangols stationed around the chasm. They stare at Zeno from the corners of their eyes to avoid drawing attention from the band shell. Archie waits for them to sound an alarm, call the Haaz pack, or worse: send huge boulders crashing down on Zeno, also obliterating him, Lillium, and Luggie where they hide.
The worker Bangols blink their round yellow eyes at Zeno. Some rise from their stations and others resume their tasks, while one contingent reaches for slingshots, stone mallets, and axes. None advance in Zeno’s direction, however. To Archie’s bewilderment, the Bangols proceed casually to the amphitheater, shuffling along to where Tuggeron awaits them. It is as if their spotting of the rightful heir to the throne, the banished one, is nothing out of the ordinary.
Tuggeron is sprawled on the stone seat, one leg swinging carelessly over an armrest. A part of the stone crumbles, but he doesn’t flinch. He grins wickedly down at the assembling Bangols, his warriors and workers.
“How goes it?” Tuggeron asks. “Is the beast ready to transport us to the Star?”
“N-n-not yet.” A timid Bangol steps forward. “This is the largest Tillastrion I have ever seen, perhaps that the whole of Jarr has ever beheld. These things take time.”
“How much time do you think we have, Borgin? Huh? Chergrin was a much better second-in-command. Too bad he became the carakwas’ lunch. Let his death be your lesson: you are only valuable as long as you are useful. Understand?”
“Valuable as long as useful.” The timid Bangol nods and backs through the crowd, headed for the open wound in the earth. Borgin is tall for a Bangol, though he hunches in his unkempt garb. His sour odor parts the Bangols along his way, and he disappears into the crater.
Tuggeron laughs from his bulging gut. “I do not sit on the Bangol throne because I am nice. No, no, no. The last king was weak. His heirs were weak, too. Remember Winzun? One of the twins? How he snuck back to Jarr I have no idea, but I took great pleasure in stuffing his pathetic body with stones and filling the bellies of the black flyers with his flesh. That is what happens to those who disobey.
“And the one thing we learned from Winzun—before he returned to the dust and clay of Jarr-Wya—was how to build a better Tillastrion.” Tuggeron roars the last words. “The Star is calling to me. I can feel its power. Already I am under its spell.” He laughs again, which turns into a cough, and he spews green phlegm on the stage. “Bring her out!”
A limping Bangol with aged, yellowing head-stones drags out a lumpy sack. It reminds Archie of a recent drawing where Ella depicted her time as a Bangol captive. She was restrained within a sack like the one that contorts on the stage. Whoever is in the sack now looks to be enjoying the confinement as much as Ella had. The new captive kicks and thrashes, tripping the old Bangol, who responds with a solid punt. The sack is motionless long enough for the Bangol to untie the knot and dump out the body.
Archie’s gasps. “Xlea!” he says.
Lillium shakes her head, unknowing.
“She’s a Steffanus, just a child,” he explains in a whisper. “The only one born so far from the still-growing round of seeds. She may be small, but don’t underestimate her. She grew Duggie-Sky two feet taller before our eyes. Ah—she still has her notebook! She’s proud of that book. Said she recorded all of her travels between Jarr and Earth.”
Lillium bites her lip. “I think she is going on another trip v
ery soon.”
Tuggeron roars again, grabbing his spilling gut. “She was so easy to catch,” he bellows. “Here I was thinking we had to scoop up one of those swimming humans—the ones with scales—that we spotted beyond the reef ! Instead, this little demon came strolling down Baluurwa. In search of more humans, were you?”
The Bangols jeer and throw stones. Xlea is bleeding, a small river of crimson trickling from her temple beneath her youthful antlers, their gold smudged yet radiant.
“Bangols—say hello to our guide to the Star!” Tuggeron booms. The ground rumbles like an earthquake as the assembled Bangols stomp and raise their hands, causing pebbles and boulders to levitate above the earth, then crash back upon it.
“I will die before helping you! The Star is our only hope—” Xlea cries, her voice small but commanding. Tuggeron punches the girl across the face and she crumbles.
Archie thinks aloud. “I have a feeling we don’t need to plant Tanius’s antler on the amphitheater,” he says. “I bet the Steffanus warriors are on their way here already.”
“Look!” Lillium tilts her head toward the southern maze. “The Lord, his henchman Islo, and Duggie-Sky!”
“They are smart to hide on the periphery like us,” Luggie says.
Archie’s, Luggie’s, and Lillium’s attention is called back to the amphitheater by Tuggeron’s brash announcements. “This wretched little Steffanus, like her sisters, is made of two worlds. If the Star truly came to rest beneath Jarr-Wya from Ardenal’s world, Earth—as the Maiden of Olearon told me on the eastern shore—then the Steffanus is who we need.”
Xlea stands feebly, then spits on Tuggeron, who only howls with more laughter.
“Part Earthling, part Jarrwian,” explains Tuggeron, “she is an easy world-hopper, drawing on both her identities. For those Bangols unaware: to operate the machine—our great Tillastrion, biggest of any the worlds have ever known—we need one person from one world to build it and someone from another to operate it. That is how these things go.”
Below the Moon Page 18
