Lord of Monsters

by John Claude Bemis

  By afternoon, the Caldera Desert had given way to jagged, snowcapped mountains. This range, according to Lazuli, was inhabited by few creatures except clans of yetis, a race of giants composed of living snow. Pinocchio peered down from Wini as they passed over range after range. He spotted what at first seemed like a snow-crowned peak until black eyes blinked up at him from a massive frosty face.

  “He’s huge!” Pinocchio said. “Couldn’t we ask them to join our army?”

  “Yetis are incredibly slow,” Lazuli said. “They move at literally a glacial pace. Besides, if they came down off these mountains, they’d melt.”

  Pinocchio waved at the yeti. By the time it waved back, it was a mere speck on the distant mountain.

  The mountains rose higher and higher, almost like an enormous flight of spiky stairs. The group was shivering with the cold—all except Lazuli—as their kirins soared upward. Frost crackled across Wini’s scales.

  Soon the tops of the mountains seemed to have broken loose, scattered like dandelion pods and hovering in the sky. The ground below came to an end. What lay beneath the floating islands was a steep mass of fog, looming like a fortress and blocking from view whatever was underneath.

  “The Mist,” Lazuli called to the others. “We must keep above it. They say if you fly into the Mist, you’ll never fly out.”

  Pinocchio leaned forward against Wini as the kirin rose sharply. The Mist looked denser than any cloud he’d ever seen. It almost appeared solid, except for little whipping tendrils at the edges. Although the wind barely blew where they were flying, the interior of the Mist seemed to contain a ferocious storm, swirling like a massive leaden cyclone.

  “How far until we reach the Mist Cities?” Mezmer asked.

  “There!” Lazuli pointed.

  Beyond the barren airborne islands and above the Mist, tiny specks took shape in the crystal-blue sky. As they drew closer, the specks grew into a series of shimmering cities. There were a dozen or more in total, and each of the cities rested on floating slabs of rock. Pinocchio couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The cities were like perfect jewels with their lacy towers and onion domes of turquoise and quartz. And each was connected to the others by narrow, elaborately carved bridges.

  Kataton swiveled his eyes in wonder. Goliath gasped, “Sweet mother of mushrooms! They live up here?”

  The kirins banked side to side as they passed one city after another. Curious faces watched from windows, balconies, and along the many bustling avenues. Children playing, mothers carrying babies, elderly couples walking arm in arm, merchants and vendors, whether humbly dressed or in brocaded silk tunics, all stopped what they were doing to gaze at the trio of kirins passing by.

  “Which city are we going to?” Pinocchio asked.

  “The last one,” Lazuli replied. “My aunt’s Opaque Palace is there.”

  The Opaque Palace was not connected to the rest by any bridges. It was far more majestic than the others, the sides of the city crisscrossed with broad avenues leading up to a domed palace of the palest blue marble. Lady Sapphira was waiting for them in a sunlit courtyard at the foot of the palace, along with a great crowd of finely dressed sylphs.

  Wini, Pini, and Fini circled the palace dome before landing in the courtyard.

  Lady Sapphira curtsied as footmen helped them down from the kirins. “Your Majesties, welcome to the Mist Cities.”

  Lazuli looked for a moment like she might throw herself into her aunt’s arms, the relief so heavy on her face. But she composed herself and took her aunt by the hands, accepting a kiss on her cheek.

  Sapphira scanned the party with an amused smirk and turned to Mezmer. “I see the Celestial Brigade has gained recruits, General.”

  Mezmer stiffened. “And lost the finest among our numbers, my lady.”

  “Yes, Prester Lazuli told me. My condolences. But you’ll be pleased with what I have to show you.”

  Sapphira waved to the palace steps. The sylph nobles who had gathered in the courtyard to greet the presters parted. Pinocchio’s eyes widened. Row upon row of the uniformed sylphs stood at attention. They wore polished armor and each held a long bow of white wood. Quivers of perfect arrows hung at their belts.

  Lazuli had said her aunt had been preparing defenses, but Pinocchio had never imagined this.

  “These are real soldiers,” Mezmer said breathlessly.

  “I have dubbed them my Sky Hunters,” Sapphira said with a proud tilt of her head. “My people have long excelled at the sport of archery. I selected the best for you, Your Majesties. The bravest. The strongest. They will help defend the Moonlit Court.”

  Pinocchio thought with longing how these archers could also help to rescue Wiq and the others in Venice, if only Lady Sapphira and the nobles could be persuaded.

  Mezmer couldn’t stop herself from hurrying toward the Sky Hunters, eyeing each one up and down with unabashed admiration.

  “Lady Sapphira,” Pinocchio said. “We can’t thank you enough.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” she said. “But they are not the only reason I invited you to the Mist Cities.” Sapphira bundled Lazuli’s arm in hers and started up the palace steps.

  “What is it, Aunt?”

  “Come. We must first—”

  A shadow passed over them. Sapphira shielded her eyes to look up when one of the Sky Hunters cried out, pointing to the dome of the palace. “Wyvern!”

  Perched atop the peak was a long, sinuous dragonlike creature, glossy green-black like a beetle. The wyvern clung to the marble with two muscular hind legs. Its forearms were leathery bat wings, tipped with curling claws. The wyvern swung its barbed serpentine head side to side before locking eyes on Pinocchio and Lazuli. It emitted a piercing shriek.

  Mezmer and Sop launched themselves at once in front of the presters and Lady Sapphira, weapons out. The lieutenant of the Sky Hunters began barking commands, and the archers fired a volley of arrows. The wyvern kicked off from the dome, disappearing behind the palace, as the arrows clanked harmlessly against the marble.

  The courtyard erupted in screaming panic, the crowd of sylph nobles running in every direction. The aleya spun circles around the cowering kirins. Even Kataton and Goliath looked uncharacteristically anxious. Only Sapphira’s archers remained calm.

  “Where did it go?” Pinocchio asked, scanning the skies.

  All too abruptly, the answer came. The wyvern wasn’t alone.

  Rising up on flapping wings from every side of the floating island, hordes of monsters appeared. Some were wyverns, others Pinocchio recognized from his father’s book as drakes and nagas, but most were monsters he knew no name for—spirits of ash and flame, demonic flying nightmares, ghoulish riders mounted on enormous bats or skeletal birds. He searched the skies for Diamancer among them.

  All the air seemed sucked from Pinocchio’s lungs. The monster threat—when it had been the lone manticore rampaging in the gardens at the banquet or even a dozen attacking remote villages—might have been stopped with a decent troop of knights. But as he saw the multitude of monsters darkening the skies all around them, he realized the danger was beyond anything he’d feared, beyond what their inexperienced Celestial Brigade could handle.

  But what about Lady Sapphira’s Sky Hunters?

  “Defend the presters!” Mezmer shouted to her knights.

  The ragtag warriors pulled the shields from the sides of the kirins and formed a circle around Pinocchio, Lazuli, and Sapphira.

  The monstrous horde attacked. Dark forms streaked across the courtyard. Drakes sprayed fire, and wyverns smashed the heavy tips of their tails against the palace walls as if the aim was not just to kill them, but to destroy the entire city. The sylph archers spread out into strategic formations, firing arrows at the darting attackers.

  “Now’s the time, dewdrops!” Sop shouted at the kirins. “We need those horns.”

  The kirins looked from one another to the monsters. But then Wini narrowed her eyes and said, “For the presters!”r />
  The other two shook their manes and clopped their hooves. “For the presters!” They shot into the sky screaming, “SURRENDER, FOES, OR PREPARE TO BE IMPALED!”

  Pinocchio lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Who knew they had that kind of ferocity inside them? Certainly not Sop, who watched with a great grin speading across his face.

  Pinocchio and Lazuli locked shields with Mezmer, Sop, and Kataton until they formed a domed turtle shell against the monsters’ assault. Goliath poked his rock-hard head into a gap. Pinocchio’s first impulse was to get out and fight, but whenever he tried to rise, Sop pulled him back.

  “Stay down!” the cat hissed, taking a blow to his shield that buckled his knees.

  The quarters were so tight, Pinocchio couldn’t even draw his sword or reach the Sands of Sleep in his bag. From the shadows of the shield dome, he could hear masonry cracking on the palace walls, screaming voices from the panicked nobles, the whizz and thunk of the Sky Hunters’ arrows, and sinister peals of laughter from the monsters swooping overhead as if it were all a happy game.

  “Prester Pinocchio,” Sapphira screamed. “You have the Pearl. Protect us!”

  Pinocchio’s eyes met Lazuli’s. He saw the uncertainty and fear welling in them. “Not yet,” she whispered.

  “Then when?” he said.

  “Prester Pinocchio!” Sapphira cried.

  “No.” Lazuli’s eyes glowed. Then she shouted, “Mezmer, get us into the palace.”

  “All right, darlings. Hold formation. Shields together as we move up the stairs.”

  Pinocchio wrestled with what to do, terrified at using the Pearl and terrified at what might happen if he didn’t.

  “One step at a time, darlings,” Mezmer ordered. “No gaps. Keep those shields tight.”

  In an awkward cluster, they inched up the steps. Sapphira hunched beside Pinocchio, squeezing Lazuli’s hand and trying to peer through the cluster of shields covering them.

  One of the monsters gave a high-pitched shriek: “The presters! Stop the presters!”

  The shields were pounded with heavy thumps and the shrill scrapes of claws.

  “Keep going!” Mezmer barked.

  But then bright light blazed as a section of the shields was torn away. The formation fell apart. Mezmer rushed forward to jab her spear at a drake trying to slash Lazuli with its claws. Kataton, Goliath, and Sop fought back the monsters coming in low, while the kirins dove and jabbed and kicked at the ones in the air. The sylph archers unleashed arrow after arrow. Pinocchio slashed with his sword while Lazuli held her shield over her terrified aunt.

  An explosion sounded overhead. Pinocchio had an instant to look up as several wyverns battered full force against the palace walls. Crumbling marble rained down in blocks of heavy stone.

  “Watch out!” Pinocchio cried.

  Kataton, swinging his ax in the thick of battle, hadn’t seen the falling rocks. His lightning speed wouldn’t save them now. Neither would the kirins or any of the others. And Lazuli was caught in her frightened aunt’s clutches.

  Pinocchio threw down his shield and flung out his hands, knowing it would take more than mere wind to stop the weight of all that stone coming down.

  What he summoned was as if several elemental forces had fused together. It gushed from his fingertips like water and wind, and solidified in a protective dome like translucent lava. The falling rock met it explosively, pieces breaking and tumbling from the side, striking the palace doors.

  Pinocchio released the magical shield. Already he felt the wood creeping across his shoulders and up his chest. He grew dazed, his head filling with that awful, familiar fog.

  He’d saved Lazuli and Sapphira from being crushed, but now the doors to the palace were blocked by the boulders.

  The monsters that had seen what he’d done stared in amazement, but only momentarily. As their eyes fell on the presters, they gathered for a final assault.

  Lazuli tore herself from her aunt and leaped to Pinocchio’s side, drawing her sword from her belt. “We have to protect my aunt! We fight, but not with the Pearl. Do you understand?”

  He shook his head. There was no way they could fight off this many monsters without it.

  Lazuli’s lip quivered. “You promised me, Pinocchio.”

  “I know and I’m sorry,” he said. “But we both know what I have to do.”

  She was about to argue, but he said fiercely, “Listen! When I’m done…when I’m an automa again, take the Pearl from my chest. You can use it. You can save the others.”

  “No!” she cried. “I can’t—”

  But the monsters were already descending. Lazuli, as if to prove to him that they could fight off the horde, launched forward, swinging her sword at the swooping, shrieking beasts.

  She fought desperately, ferociously, and Pinocchio knew she was fighting for him as much as for Abaton. But it was not going to be enough. He couldn’t worry about broken promises or the pain his choice would cause. He had to act. He had to act now.

  Pinocchio raised his hands. White-hot fire plumed from them. The closest monsters were blasted aside and others coming down banked to escape the inferno.

  Pinocchio felt the wood growing, consuming his skin, encasing his chest, creeping up his neck and into his face. His thoughts were growing dimmer, like pools of shadow seeping in from the edges of his mind.

  He saw Mezmer mercilessly battling with her spear. And over there, Sop was back-to-cap with Goliath. Kataton’s arms moved with blurred speed, although his face remained absolutely placid. Wini and her sisters were screeching war cries and charging through the air at the darting monsters, horns lowered. Even the aleya was dashing about, popping up in the faces of bats and wyverns, trying to blind them.

  None of the knights were cowering in fear. In those final moments, he had to admire how bravely they were fighting—just as Mezmer had always hoped. But even with all the sylph archers volleying their arrows, the battle was hopeless. The monsters were too numerous.

  Pinocchio staggered back a step, the flames that had been pouring from his hands dissipating into smoke. He was no longer a boy. He was an automa. And any second now, the last of his thoughts would sift away like grains of sand in the wind.

  He collapsed, wood clattering against stone. He reached for his shirt and tore it effortlessly with his wooden hands. His fingers fumbled against the latch on his chest. Once he opened it, Lazuli would be able to take the Pearl. It would be hers to use.

  He hesitated, thoughts clinging desperately to the traces of his mind. He had wanted so many things that now he would never have. He wanted to swim in the glass-green lagoon and see the undines’ city below. He wished he had plucked a wild spiceberry out in the deepest heart of the jungle. He wished he could have had years and years and many happy years in the Moonlit Court with his father. With Wiq. With Lazuli.

  Lazuli…He rolled his head to one side, searching for her in the mayhem.

  How he hated leaving Lazuli. She had lost so much. Her mother and her father. Her friend Rion. Now she would lose him. And he would be lost to her.

  But the Pearl would be in better hands. That was all that mattered. If anyone could save Abaton, it would be Lazuli.

  He opened the latch on his chest, felt the smooth surface of the Ancientmost Pearl inside. Lazuli had to take it. Where was she?

  In the blur of his fading vision, he found Lazuli collapsed on the ground beside him, her eyes fluttering, then closing. A trickle of blood came down from her hair. Had she been struck? Injured by one of the monsters?

  Lady Sapphira knelt beside Lazuli, pulling her cape around protectively. Then she gazed at Pinocchio. Her eyes met his, glowing with surprise at what she saw.

  She threw her cape out and it expanded, the fabric swirling into Mist, encompassing Pinocchio. Everything went dark.

  Lady Sapphira materialized in the darkness of her chambers, deep below the palace. The enchanted cape settled back into form across her shoulders. Heavy curtains were drawn over t
he windows, but she could still hear the muffled sounds of battle above.

  She waved a shaking hand. A candelabrum illuminated with a flickering violet light. She took a deep breath, steadying her racing heart.

  Her niece lay unconscious on the floor. Sapphira stepped past her and circled around the wooden boy beside Lazuli. Wooden lids were closed over his eyes. She’d heard what he’d said to Lazuli, although she could hardly believe it, could hardly believe what she was now seeing.

  Prester Pinocchio was no human boy. He was an automa. An alchemy contraption. A vile mockery of gears and wood assembled into the shape of a boy.

  Sapphira narrowed her eyes. Lazuli must have known what he was—what it was. And yet, her niece had hidden this truth from her.

  The panel in the automa’s chest was empty, and for half a moment, Sapphira felt panic. Had one of the monsters—but no, she saw the wooden boy’s hand at his side. She saw what was still clutched in it. A globe of inky black.

  The Ancientmost Pearl.

  She pulled it from the stiff fingers. The wooden boy didn’t move.

  A tentative knock sounded at the door.

  With a sweep of her long cape, she marched over and opened it. The captain of her guard stood in the doorway.

  “I’ve come as you requested—” His eyes fell on the Ancientmost Pearl in her hands. “Your Ladyship, wh-what do you have?”

  “The Pearl,” she said. “It is safe. And see what we have saved it from.”

  She stepped aside to reveal the lifeless automa lying on the floor.

  “Is that…?” The captain’s eyes glowed. “That can’t be! He’s…”

  “Our prester is an automa,” Sapphira said. “Abaton has been deceived.”

  “But…but…” The captain turned from Pinocchio to Lazuli. “Your niece?”

  “I’m afraid she has been a part of this deception, Captain.”

  The captain frowned. “You feared something was amiss with the boy. But…this! We never imagined this!”

  Sapphira nodded. “No, we didn’t.”

  The captain knelt next to Lazuli. “What happened to her?”