Above the Star

by Alexis Marie Chute

  Hoisting himself upward over the torn steel of the hull and the splintered wooden portholes with cracked and missing glass, Archie reaches the warped railing and climbs it like a ladder, higher and higher. He tumbles to his knees on the ship’s deeply tilting deck, tripping over the remains of a charred pool chair and slipping in the water that drips from his trousers. Lying prostrate on the deck, he shimmies up the forty-five-degree angle, gritting his teeth against the pain at his singed chest.

  “I’m too old for this,” Archie wheezes as he pulls himself through a burned section of wall into the darkness beyond the promenade deck. He straddles the divide between floor and wall, one foot on each. “Now, where am I?” He scrunches his forehead in concentration and looks around, then runs down the first corridor to his left. He pauses when the path forks. The signage, wallpaper, and cabin numbers are blackened, melted, or missing entirely.

  Archie chooses a path to his right, then to his left, stepping around a curling iron, a lonely shoe, and a door broken from its hinges. His jog slows to a slink and it’s all he can do to lift one heavy arm to put a hand on his chest to calm his breathing. “I’m not going to make it . . .”

  Picturing Ella and Tessa, down on the shore, caught between flame and an even greater threat, Archie shivers. “Arden, wherever you are, help me. If there is something in your notebooks that could get the girls and me outta here, please guide me to my cabin . . .”

  “Da da?”

  Archie holds his breath. “Arden?”

  “Dad?”

  Archie follows the sound of the soft voice to another door, busted from its frame and leaning against the corridor wall.

  “Arden?”

  “Da da?”

  Archie flips the door and it tumbles and slides down the slanted floor. There, at Archie’s feet, is an African boy around four years old. “Hey there, little fella,” says Archie. He looks from side to side, but there is no parent looking for the child. The ship is silent but for the steady dip of water and the sizzle of filament in lightbulbs about to dim. “I guess you’re coming with me.”

  The little boy stands and reaches for Archie’s hand. “We do have to hurry, little fella . . . er, what’s your name?”

  “Dad? Where’s Dad?” the boy asks again.

  “I hear ya, kid. We’re all looking for someone. And right now, I’m looking for something.”

  Archie and the boy aimlessly wind through drenched and darkened hallways until the old man’s eyes suddenly widen. “There!” Archie chirps, and points. The little boy—whom Archie has decided to call Duggie-Sky because of the child’s Pacific Aviation Museum T-shirt of a cartoon superhero riding a 1950’s Douglas A-3 Skywarrior aircraft—smiles and matches Archie’s pace.

  Archie shoves aside the cracked door of his cabin, where he and Zeno had operated the Tillastrion. The secured furniture remains in place, though the pillows and mattress—plus the contents of Archie’s toiletries bag, which Zeno had riffled through; and the stack of tourist books about the seven Canary Islands Archie had left in a tidy pile on the desk—lie mangled on the floor. The toilet steadily overflows. Archie and Duggie-Sky step in with a splash, and glass from the bathroom mirror crunches beneath their shoes. The room that had once been illuminated with sapphire clouds from the whirling sphere is now dim and Archie struggles to see.

  “Where is my bag, Duggie-Sky? Look for a shoulder bag! Oh bother, where did I leave it?” Archie gropes around in the ankle-deep water. Duggie-Sky too lifts waterlogged articles of clothing with his tiny hands and peers beneath the desk. “Ahha!” Archie cheers. He twists the fractured chair out of the corner and heaves his bag from the water. He again struggles with the zipper and curses under his breath.

  “Where’s Dad?” Duggie-Sky asks quietly.

  Archie peers into the bag, which is half full of soupy black water and paper pulp. He tips it and drains as much as he can without dumping the notebooks, using his fingers as a strainer.

  “Dad?”

  Archie pries open one book but its pages wilt and tear. The old man groans. “They need to be dried! Maybe even one can be salvaged, but I’ll never be able to read them like this. All I need is one page, just one clue of how to get Ella’s cure and then get out of here. . .”

  “I want my dad!” the boy cries.

  “Yes, Duggie-Sky, you’re right! We must be off!”

  Chapter 16

  The Lord and Maiden of Olearon are silent for a moment. “No,” they disagree with Senior Karish in unison. “These humans are ours. You cannot have them,” the Lord refuses.

  The sand howls and sneers. “You cannot possibly care for all these humans, if indeed the Olearons struggle as you say. What will you feed them?” Senior Karish laughs. “Who knows how much they eat—or what!”

  “They are our concern,” the Maiden responds calmly.

  “Fine, as you wish!” The golden shapes twirl and morph, taking on the silhouettes of thrashing four-legged creatures with long fangs that drip sand. Again, Senior Karish rises two feet above the rest. He pounces toward the Olearon barricade. The red beings ignite, their flames reaching twenty feet above them. “You are wasting precious time!” Senior Karish growls and leaps over their fire. The sand that falls from his feet melts into shards of glass within the heat of the flames. The Olearons break their line as they shimmy and shield themselves from the deadly raining slivers.

  Senior Karish lands with a spray of yellow and pins a nearby woman. Tessa recognizes her from the Constellations Cruise Line staff. The woman looks to be twenty-five. She has no time to scream before the creature steals her voice in one bite of his broad jaw, tearing away her flesh. The Odyssey passengers shriek and cower, shoving and climbing over each other as they withdraw toward the water. The sand glistens with the woman’s blood.

  Turning back to the Lord and Maiden, Senior Karish snarls through crimson teeth, “Return, return to your glass houses! To your glass city! Send a company to deal with the Bangols. Another to harvest your fuel. Once we Millia sense a healing beneath our beach, then you may take your boat, and our alliance will thrive in peace—or, shall I continue here?” He snarls menacingly, though playfully.

  The Lord and Maiden shift where they stand. “The people must be spared,” the Lord huffs, though with failing resolve.

  “Ahh!” screams an Olearon on the far end of the barricade as another sandy creature fans his claws through the warrior’s chest.

  The sharp sound of a crack, then a crash, turns every head in the direction of the Olearons’ boat. A panel of glass, like the one Tessa broke along the bow, sends an eruption of twinkling, silvery fragments in every direction. Tessa gestures with a tip of her head to Ella, then drops her eyes to her daughter’s protruding Bomber jacket pocket. Ella slips her good hand in and clutches the dagger from Olen. Ella bites her lip, but Tessa nods reassuringly.

  “I don’t need to say it, Lord, Maiden; we Millia can crush your boat in an instant. Our shore can gobble you up. The Olearons at your houses will never know why their rulers and warriors fail to return. But they will not be left to die in peace. Oh no, no, no! We will sweep inland and blast through them. They will weep that they do not die quickly enough!”

  “You would break our pact and enter our land?”

  “It would seem that you have already broken our pact, no?”

  “Enough, Karish!” the Maiden demands. “Enough!”

  “It is true, we cannot care for all these,” the Lord of Olearon admits slowly. “We will do as you say—defeat the Bangols, collect our fuel. Return for our ship. But—”

  “Ah, ah, ah!” warns Senior Karish.

  “But you cannot have them all.”

  “Half,” Senior Karish demands. “Half or nothing.”

  The Lord leans toward the Maiden and whispers, “We are defenders, not murderers—but Karish is right. We cannot feed the humans and let our own perish. We can still do right by saving the few we can.”

  The Maiden turns to gaze at the frighten
ed Odyssey passengers with her unchanging, charcoal-black eyes. She raises a red hand to touch where Tessa guesses her heart must be, in a similar place to humans. The Maiden bows her head in a silent gesture before facing Senior Karish. She nods slowly.

  “We give no further concessions,” the Lord of Olearon breathes, his flames roaring around him.

  Senior Karish changes with a flash back into the form of a man and claps greedily. “Of course not, we wouldn’t think to ask anything more, anything more, of our great friends, the Olearons! We Millia are very happy to continue this wonderful alliance that has kept our races in peace these many sunsets.” He turns to the snarling gold beasts and gestures with his sandy spray. “Divide the captives!” To the Olearons, Senior Karish says, “Kindly step aside, friends.” The pleadings of the humans grow, but none of the two races—Millia or Olearon—pay heed.

  The Olearons begin the long trudge to the forest and allow the sneering Millia to approach the begging, weeping humans. The Millia force a line amid the group and one shouts, “You fifty, over there!” pointing to the Olearons who watch without emotion as they retreat. Those passengers, realizing they have been saved, bolt inland on the wavering sand. Azkar looks back toward Tessa and Ella and, seeing they have been spared, continues his march. Captain Nate and his cruise director, Valarie, along with the opera singer, Lady Sophia, are also driven forward, to the forest.

  “No! Wait! Please let me go!” a man yells. Tessa recognizes him from the ship; another passenger. He rushes and shoves people aside to join the saved and begins to run. A wall of sand erupts in front of him. The man hits it hard and flips onto his back. His skin has been shaved from his face by the quickly rising fragments of broken shell. He lies thrashing, hands bloodied, before he is buried beneath the sharp sand and is silenced.

  Tessa clutches Ella as they run toward the Olearons. Ella’s eyes search the passengers. She signs Grandpa—her outstretched fingers and palm, bouncing away from her forehead—but Tessa does not see. She too frets about her father-in-law. Tessa yells over her shoulder, “Archie? Ar-chie?”

  “Tessa!” Archie yells from behind the slithering wall of sand. He is holding a little boy in his arms and has his bag slung over his shoulder. Archie raises a hand, though not in a wave for help, but in a gesture of goodbye. Tessa clenches her teeth, regretting every harsh word she had ever spoken to the man. She reads his lips: “Go! Go!” he repeats.

  “GOOD,” Archie says to himself as he watches Tessa hasten her pace, towing Ella along, not letting her daughter fall behind. Archie holds Duggie-Sky close to his chest. The boy whimpers. They had not found his father among the living, though those that cower around them will not live much longer. “Snuggle in close, Duggie-Sky. You don’t deserve this, little fella—but I do.” Archie tucks Duggie-Sky inside his jacket. “No need to watch. Close your eyes,” he says, rubbing the boy’s back.

  The sandy figures—their forms flickering from two-headed serpents to monstrous winged bulls to human shapes to malicious bulging shafts—begin to slowly close in on the passengers—taunting them—and roaring with laughter at the deafening screams.

  Chapter 17

  Tessa does not break her pace when she reaches the joyous humans spared by the Millia. Still suspicious of the Olearon warriors, the people trail a few paces behind their fiery protectors who lead them toward the forest. Tessa shoves her way through the Odyssey passengers approaching the red bodies. The Captain calls to her but Tessa only waves to him to wait, and continues. Valarie has her arms wrapped around Nate’s waist, though the captain lumbers forward without embracing the woman at his side. Searching the Olearon’s stoic faces, Tessa sees the scar. “Azkar! Azkar!” she cries.

  Azkar drops from the line. “You call for me?” he asks with bent head, his chin tucked, his eyes narrowed.

  “You looked at my father-in-law like you knew him,” Tessa says. “Archibald Wellsley. His white hair, his jaw . . . remember? Please—he’s not here! He’s with the other group, by the ship. Please, Azkar—please save Archie!”

  As Tessa speaks, another Olearon warrior approaches from the line. He is as tall as the rest, but his flaming hair is shorter and his gait not as graceful. “What is it?” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  “The Lord warned you about revealing too soon, Ardenal,” Azkar huffs. “I’m sure he will speak with you about stepping out of our barricade to protect the humans.”

  “What is wrong, Azkar! Tell me now!” the other warrior barks back, ignoring the reprimand.

  “Look, Ardenal!” Azkar points to Tessa and Ella. The warrior sees the women and reaches out his hands in their direction. Azkar steps between them and shoves the warrior’s arms away. “No time! The third human, the one the Maiden saw in the sky, Archibald Wellsley—he is with the others to be sacrificed to the Millia.”

  Ardenal’s black eyes widen. “I thought you were on guard! I never should have listened. I never should have let them out of my sight! Guard these two now, Azkar—or I’ll beat you to embers!” Ardenal looks back at Tessa and Ella one last time before he sprints away, his long legs stretching the fabric of his warrior’s jumpsuit as he runs. Sand sprays up from the toes of his boots and his fire flares wildly from his neck.

  “Ardenal?” Tessa wonders at the name, but she is herded onward.

  “Let’s move,” Azkar barks at Tessa and Ella. “We need to cover much ground this day.” Tessa protests but Azkar again shoves her forward with his broad hand.

  WHEN finally, Ardenal reaches Senior Karish, the Olearon is breathing heavily. “What now?” sneers the leader of the Millia. “Is our deal off? Have you come to die?”

  “There is one in this group that I must have,” Ardenal wheezes. “We have given many concessions. Now I ask for one from you.”

  “I bore of this,” Senior Karish says dismissively. “Take the one—and only one—and remove your stinking Olearon feet from our beach, or it will bring me much pleasure to remove you myself!”

  “Thank you, Senior Karish.”

  “See? None can say that I’m anything but merciful. Merciful. You’d better hurry; your kin already cross through the trees.”

  Ardenal turns to see the last of the passengers slip into the forest at the start of a path that leads to the foot of the tall mountain. He pivots back to the group of weeping cruise passengers who scream at the taunting Millia and cower on their knees in the sand. He winds through them and they cling to his blue jumpsuit, staining him with their blood. Ardenal pulls humans off of him as they cling to their last hope for safety, whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Then he spots him: Archie, slouched on the perimeter.

  “Come with me,” Ardenal orders, grabbing the old man by the arm. “You can trust me. My name is Ardenal. I will explain later, but for now, hurry!”

  “Careful now!” Archie yelps. He opens his jacket just enough so that Ardenal can see the little boy cradled there. The child’s head and torso are concealed, but for his scrawny legs that dangle in the open at Archie’s waist.

  “We can’t!”

  Archie plants his feet. “I’m not going without him.” Duggie-Sky peeks at the Olearon while clinging to Archie. “I can’t bare for the child to die alone.”

  Ardenal clenches his fists and stands as stone for a moment before relenting. “Fine! Stay in front of me. Wrap your legs around him,” Ardenal orders to the boy as he tears Archie’s bag from his shoulder and flings it over his own. “Faster!” He implores Archie as they weave through the desperate crowd.

  “You have the one you require?” a mound of sand asks as it shoots up an inch in front of Ardenal’s face. The Olearon wipes his hand through the sand as if parting a waterfall and continues to march for the trees.

  “Yes, I have the one,” he answers over his shoulder.

  “Leave. Leave. Leave,” moan the Millia.

  “Take me with you!” the people scream to Ardenal, but he does not regard them. Archie watches his feet as they plow through the sand, avoiding
the eyes of the pleading humans. They beg and barter for their lives. The angry few throw their belongings at Ardenal and Archie, calling them cowards. Duggie-Sky ducks his head below Archie’s collarbone, his body trembling from forehead to foot.

  The wails of the passengers turn shrill behind them. Archie looks back as Ardenal grips his arm and hurries him forward. The Millia have surrendered their forms and are no longer jeering. They rise on a wind of their own conjuring. Sand, shell, and powder lacerate the air and slices through the people one by one, shredding them to pieces of exposed flesh and bone, sending sprays of hot blood back onto the white ship. Ardenal grabs Archie and helps him run.

  Instantly, the beach is eerily silent. Not one person is left standing. The shore is blanketed in crimson, which leaches into the sea in graceful curls. Then, a slurping, sucking sound replaces the hushed stillness.

  Tears fall from Archie’s eyes as he pauses to stare at the massacre. With each shallow breath, his shoulders and head jut up and down. His tongue grows dry from panting. His forehead is pinched with the deepest of creases and Archie’s mind spins dizzily in his head. More tears. His body spasms, his muscles contracting, flaring, throbbing erratically. Archie sets Duggie-Sky down to stand on his own two tiny feet, as he steadies himself with arms outstretched at his sides.

  Archie—overcome by the carnage of death, and the guilt that his actions sealed the tragic outcome for so many innocent lives—moans finally, “What . . . what’s that sucking noise?”

  “It’s the Millia. They are drinking the blood.”

  Chapter 18

  Ardenal releases Archie’s arm once they cross into the forest and put distance between them and the beach. Duggie-Sky slips off Archie’s hip once more, from beneath the flap of his coat, and crouches on a dry rock to watch Ardenal with both curiosity and guarded apprehension. Archie stumbles and topples over. He kneels on the muddy path freshly pressed with footprints. His forearms and fingers tremble from carrying Duggie-Sky. He presses them against the ground, using his weight to calm himself as he rocks from knees to palms. His breaths wheeze painfully.