The Battle for WondLa

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  “Thank you,” said Eva. She watched him limp down the rubble-strewn alley. The Dorcean looked back at her one last time before turning the corner and disappearing.

  The air-whales called from their circling overhead. They had remained near the palace, thus preventing the warships from entering the airspace. Just a little longer, my friends, Eva said to them.

  The sand-sniper watched both the whales and Eva with independent rotating eyes. Eva pointed to the shattered domed skylight in the palace where the royal banquet hall was located. “See that opening? I need you to meet me there. Can you crawl up to it?”

  I can crawl. I am strong.

  Eva approached the sniper. Spikes, some as long as half a meter, projected from the graspers. Tentatively and carefully Eva stroked one of the spikes. “If you help me, I promise your freedom.”

  The sand-sniper touched the top of Eva’s head with one antenna.

  I do not do because you ask. I do because you met my hive. You met my queen.

  “I did?” Eva wondered about the snipers out by the ancient ruins.

  Since she did not consume you, I will not consume you.

  “I understand,” said Eva, and backed away from the spike graspers. “At least you’re honest.” She peered up at Queen Ojo’s tower high overhead. “I have to go now. I need to make a stop before we rendezvous. Wait for my call, and I will meet you inside.”

  You will call. I will wait. I may die, but my nymphs will live. The sniper clicked loudly and crawled toward the palace.

  Eva ran across the grounds of the menagerie into the round pavilion where she had sensed the turnfins. For the most part the ornate structure had remained undamaged, despite the destruction that surrounded it. The circular skylight was missing, allowing a lone beam of sunlight to shine down into the room. The many cages that had once held birds of every sort were now empty and abandoned. Perched on a circular bench in the center of the pavilion was a clacking gaggle of turnfins and other birds. Eva held her arms out. “I wish I could fly.”

  As they had done once before, the turnfins flapped their wings and landed on Eva. In unison they lifted her up off the ground. They flew through the open skylight of the pavilion and up to the alcove of Queen Ojo’s quarters.

  CHAPTER 33: TRUTH

  This is it.” Eva pointed to her destination. The turnfins released her, and she landed on her feet on the balcony.

  “Wait for me, my flock.” She pushed open the doors to the queen’s bedchambers. Eva stood at the top of the stairs, her eyes roving around the empty room. “I need your help. Will you come?”

  Like a burst of color the captive flock of treowes flew up from their perches and circled around Eva.

  We sing the prettiest song. We sing the purest song.

  I need you to sing one special song for me, Eva thought to them.

  “One special song for me,” they repeated aloud in unison.

  “Thank you, my beautiful friends. Let us go.” Eva walked back out onto the balcony and climbed up onto the ledge. To the west she saw the sun hanging low in the cloudy sky. Around her the growing flock of birds competed against the gusty wind to stay close. We fly with you, they sang. We fly for you.

  Eva looked down at the skylight roof to the royal banquet hall. It was countless stories below. I ran and ran from Loroc and now I run to him, she thought. Was this my fate after all? She removed her tattered poncho and let it drift from her hands. It danced away in the wind. My ending has yet to arrive. Eva ran her fingers over Rovender’s cord, still wrapped around her waist. “Rovee, you are my WondLa,” she whispered.

  Eva leaped off the balcony. The flock of birds caught her in midair, and together they dove straight toward the hole in the domed skylight below.

  Eva alighted on the tile floor of the banquet hall, carried by the combined flock of turnfins and treowes. Where is Loroc? Where are the leaders? Where is Rovee?

  Cylindrical specimen cells from the taxidermist’s lab now lined the perimeter of the room. Eva suspected that each cell contained a representative of the various Orbonian tribes. The snouted head of the taxidermist poked out from behind one of the cells. Through thick-lensed goggles his beady eyes scanned the hall and he pulled a remote out from a pouch on his utility belt.

  “You!” he said in his nasal tone. “You came back? Perhaps you are not as smart as the Prime Master believes.”

  “I’ve outsmarted you both before. I’m sure I can do it again.” Eva walked between the cells. Though the cell walls were coated in condensation, she could see movement. The prisoners inside were still alive.

  “Don’t bet on it. Master is much more powerful than the queen and now is as clever as his brother was.” The taxidermist stayed put but kept his goggled eyes on Eva.

  “He can’t be that smart if he has you working for him,” said Eva.

  “I can’t wait to capture you, little dirt-burrower,” the taxidermist said with a sneer. “Once you’re paralyzed, I am going to enjoy watching your skin dissolve and seeing what it is that makes you so self-assured.”

  “I have to admit that Loroc did find one thing in you.” Eva kept moving through the rows of cells. “It takes a certain deplorable individual to betray someone like Zin.”

  “Don’t be so quick to judge. You betrayed him too.”

  Eva stopped. “That is not true.”

  The taxidermist snickered.

  “But that doesn’t matter now,” Eva continued. “Zin and I came to understand and respect each other. A trait you obviously do not have.”

  The taxidermist clucked in condescension. “You don’t get it. It’s all about survival, dirt-burrower. You must—”

  “Do what you have to in order to survive?” Eva finished his sentence.

  “Exactly,” the taxidermist said.

  “I wonder, how will you survive, then, after this journey ends for you?” Eva kept walking around the cells. “Without your remotes and chemicals, you will be at a severe disadvantage.”

  “What gibberish are you talking with ‘this journey’?” the taxidermist asked.

  “Oh, I may not be the one who will end your life. In fact, I have no desire to do so. But your list of enemies is long. It grows every time you kill another specimen.”

  “These specimens don’t care,” the taxidermist said with a snort. “They’re just animals.”

  “Every specimen has a family—a family that loves them and mourns the end of their life. Eventually your end will come,” said Eva.

  “As will yours, dirt-burrower.” The taxidermist gnashed his pointed teeth.

  “It will,” Eva responded. “But I am at peace with the denizens of Orbona. The spirits of the deceased will welcome me on my next journey. How will they receive you?” Eva stepped out in front of the row of cells. Without so much as a chirp or squawk, the turnfins, treowes, and other birds fluttered in from outside and alighted on the cupolaed tops of the cells. There were more birds now present than before, as if a call for aid had gone out. Indeed one had, for Eva had been silently calling the birds with her abilities the entire time. All eyes of the flock were fixed on the taxidermist.

  “You . . . you’re tricking me!” the taxidermist squealed. He looked up at all the birds watching him. “This is some trick! I know it!”

  “Is it?” Eva walked right up to the runty creature and knelt down in front of him. “Look within yourself. Count the souls you’ve paralyzed and embalmed. Not for food. Not for sustenance or shelter. I’m not even sure you did it for knowledge or understanding. And now you plan to do the same to the leaders of your very own city?”

  “That is correct. Every representative.” Loroc’s monstrous tentacled mass slid into the banquet hall, bringing to mind holograms Eva had seen of an octopus crawling across the ocean floor. Behind him the two towering pillar guards lumbered into the room. “I put them all here for the time being so I could personally oversee the battle at Faunas and your own termination. I should have known your audacious behavior would bring
you right back to me.”

  “Yes, you should have known, Prime Master.” Eva felt the sand-sniper’s presence nearby. I have to do this at just the right time, she thought.

  “He is THE Prime Master, the ultimate ruler, as you’ll soon see.” The taxidermist scurried behind Loroc.

  Eva faced them both. “We’ll see if your leader will protect you on your next journey, taxidermist,” she said. “If you ask me, anyone who turns on his own family is not one to be trusted.”

  “No one asked you.” Loroc aimed the pillar guard remote at her. “Get her,” he said in his chorus of voices. The guards stormed toward Eva.

  Eva slipped quickly away from the pair of behemoths toward the hole in the skylight of the hall. One of the guards lashed out with a clawed arm to strike her. It missed and smashed one of the taxidermist’s cells. The limp body of the Halcyonus leader fell out and onto the floor. Eva paused and glanced back, wondering if the leader was alive or dead. In a split second she looked up to see the hand of the other pillar guard coming at her. She leaped out of the way, but its sickle claw came down on her foot. Eva howled in pain and curled up behind a cell. “I need your help now,” she whispered.

  From outside, the mother sand-sniper crawled in through the hole in the skylight. Her immense length moved surprisingly fast by means of numerous legs. Both pillar guards backed away from the sniper, which was as long as they were tall.

  “What is this thing doing in here?” Loroc ordered the pillar guards, “Kill it!”

  The sniper coiled around Eva, knocking cells aside in the process.

  “I can’t stand.” Eva spoke to the sniper. “I’ve hurt my ankle.”

  Trust me. Trust me. Trust me, the sniper said to Eva.

  “I trust you,” said Eva.

  Look through my eyes.

  “See what I see,” Eva replied.

  Do as I do. They spoke in unison.

  The sand-sniper reared up and rose to her full height. In her secondary legs that had once held its clutch of eggs close, she now held Eva. Eva saw through the sniper’s eyes—the heat signature of the prisoners in the cells, the birds flying around the room, the electric circulation of the pillar guards. She saw Loroc as a gigantic dark entity with layers of light twinkling inside him, like nesting dolls.

  Loroc gasped. “How? How is that possible?”

  The Eva-sniper swiped the legs of one of the pillar guards. It toppled over, nearly taking the second guard down with it. Many of the floating prison cells collided in the guard’s wake.

  “Kill them!” Loroc pointed the pillar guard remote at the Eva-sniper.

  Eva spoke to the mother sniper. “We don’t want to kill the guards. They are under his control. We just need to get them out of here.”

  We will cripple but not kill. We will cripple but not eat.

  The Eva-sniper shot around and rose up behind the guard who was still standing. At lightning speed it snapped its graspers at the guard’s back, striking him like a hammer. The blow sent the guard crashing down toward Loroc, who barely averted the collision. The first pillar guard stood and wrapped its hooked arms around the Eva-sniper’s segmented body. But the Eva-sniper doubled over, slid right through the guard’s tight grasp, and crawled under its legs. She seized the guard around the waist and flung it backward. The pillar guard crashed through the doorway and landed in the hallway beyond.

  “Sheesa! I can’t believe how strong and fast you are,” Eva said. It was then that the second pillar guard struck the sand-sniper on her back, knocking Eva free from its grasp. Eva crawled under the cells, now collected at one end of the room. Like an enormous dark octopus, Loroc slithered past the sand-sniper and rushed toward Eva.

  Holding on to a nearby cell for support, Eva scrabbled up to her feet and called the birds. Above, a riot of turnfins and other birds swooped down onto Loroc.

  “Not this time, little nymph.” He swatted the flock away. “These birds won’t save you!”

  On one foot Eva hopped out in front of the specimen cells. A turnfin landed on her shoulder. In its beak it held the pillar guard remote that it had swiped from Loroc during the fray. The turnfin dropped the remote into Eva’s hands. She aimed the remote at Loroc. “Guards, destroy him.”

  Both pillar guards left the mother sniper and charged, attacking at once. Loroc wrapped tentacles around their clawed hands and grappled with them to keep them immobilized.

  Eva gave the remote to the turnfin, and it flew off with it in its beak. She hopped around the room, making her way past the clash of Loroc and the giant guards, and came to the sand-sniper lying coiled on the floor. Eva ran her hands over the spiked carapace and realized the sniper had been stunned from the blow of the pillar guard. A nearby movement caught Eva’s eye. The taxidermist was worming his way past the melee toward the opened doorway of the banquet hall.

  Ignoring the fiery pain of her twisted ankle, Eva bolted to intercept him. She arrived at the battered doorway, blocking his escape.

  “Give me that.” She pointed to the cell remote in the taxidermist’s hand.

  “Forget it, dirt-burrower. I’d rather—”

  As fast as the knifejack, Eva punched the taxidermist in the snout, sending the goggles flying from his head. The runt howled in pain and fell onto his back. Eva straddled him and continued to pummel his face. Every bit of anger, pain, and fear that he had caused her and her friends fueled blow after blow. Breathing hard, she paused and looked at her shaking hands, now covered in his ochre-colored blood. She yanked the remote out of his belt and left him lying on the tiled floor.

  Eva crouched down and glanced at the buttons on the remote while the battle raged on between Loroc and the guards. There was a gruesome rending sound as Loroc ripped the arms from one of the guards. Loroc spun around and threw the giant arms at Eva. She ducked away from the enormous projectiles and hid behind a cell. The arms crashed through the doorway and landed out in the hall, where they wriggled about, mindless. Nearby, on the floor, the taxidermist crawled about, blindly searching for his goggles. Back in the banquet hall the amputee guard fell to the floor like a dead tree falling in the forest.

  Eva blocked out the sadness that she felt for the felled guard. “I’m running out of time. What button do I press?” She aimed the remote at the nearest cell. Wincing, she pressed a button with a round circle printed on it. The condensation that normally coated the glass walls of all the cells evaporated. Inside a nearby cell was Queen Ojo. The queen placed a hand on the cell wall. Excited, Eva pressed another button, causing the paralyzation rod to rise up inside everyone’s cell. “Oh no.” Eva gulped.

  “Very good!” Loroc wrapped his tentacles tight around the legs of the second pillar guard and pulled. In a shower of sparks and plasma the guard was torn in half vertically by Loroc’s incredible strength. He dropped both pieces to the floor and came down upon Eva, seizing her with a tentacle. “Now let me finish what you’ve so kindly started for me.” He reached for the taxidermist’s remote. The sand-sniper struck the tentacle that held Eva, severing it in one stroke. Loroc roared in fury.

  Eva fell to the ground and threw the remote across the banquet hall, away from Loroc. A turnfin scooped it up and carried it away. Eva looked up to see Loroc face off with the sand-sniper. The two circled the hall, sizing each other up. Even though the mother sniper was much larger, Eva knew that Loroc would kill her. It was obvious he was just too strong.

  “Stand down.” Eva slowly rose to her feet. The piercing agony of her ankle gave way to a numb throbbing pain. She could feel her foot swelling up in her sneakboot. The sand-sniper rotated one of its eyes back to Eva while keeping the other on Loroc. “You’ve done enough,” Eva said. “This is my fight. Go be with your nymphs.”

  In a flash the sniper shot through the doorway of the banquet hall. She paused, looking down at the taxidermist who was still crawling about on the floor. The sniper seized him with her graspers and bolted down the hallway and out of the palace.

  Before Eva could
turn back to face Loroc, more tentacles wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her body.

  “How ridiculously noble you are, sending your pet monster away so that you may fight your own fight.” Loroc floated into the center of the banquet hall. Inside all of the cells the leaders watched helplessly. “I don’t know what all your gallantry is about, nymph,” Loroc said. “I told you before that I do not fall by your hand.”

  “And Arius told me that you had a family that once loved you,” Eva replied. “Don’t you realize the pain you’ve caused them?”

  “Their pain is gone. My path is chosen. It is a path of no remorse. It is my destiny, my fate.”

  Eva could feel anxiety worming within her as Loroc’s grip tightened.

  He continued speaking. “You are working against fate. A fate that holds your eventual demise.”

  “My end will come in time,” Eva said, “as will yours.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I shall live forever. Immortal.”

  “You are lying.” Eva struggled against his grip, but this only caused him to constrict her body more tightly. She glanced at Antiquus’s body, unmoving on the floor near the cells. She tore her eyes from the sight and pushed away the tears that tried to come. Now I have to be strong. I have to focus. She thought about how Antiquus had upset Loroc with just words.

  “Lie? Oh, I don’t lie,” Loroc replied in his many voices. “The truth is far more powerful. And the truth is, you are about to join your friend Zin.” He raised Eva up over his open mouth.

  Eva’s gaze swept across the room, looking at the scared faces of the imprisoned leaders. Scanning each cell, her eyes finally met with a familiar pair of indigo eyes. On backward-bending legs, Rovender Kitt stood in his cell. He pounded on the walls and shouted loudly, but the thick glass of the cell muffled his protests. Eva smiled at Rovender and turned back to Loroc.

  Before Loroc could drop Eva into his maw, the entire flock of tiny treowes fluttered around his face, dousing him in their fine glimmering dust. While he blinked the dust away from his many eyes, the treowes zoomed in through the cloud and alighted on his tongue. “What is this?” he mumbled through a mouthful of birds.