Lord of Monsters

by John Claude Bemis

  “The warden promised us tasty things to eat,” the ghoul said. “Fancy castles to ruin. A few moments of freedom, if only we killed the prester.” Pinocchio couldn’t tell if it was grinning or if that was just how skeletal-faced ghouls always looked.

  “You won’t be killing anybody!” Pinocchio growled.

  He plowed his shoulder into the ghoul, knocking the jangling sack of bones to the ground. He snatched the ghoul’s sword from its grasp.

  As Pinocchio whirled around brandishing the weapon, he was met with rumbles of laughter. “We at least have something to kill,” the toad monstrosity slobbered.

  A wyvern charged, flapping its wings to gather speed. For an instant, Pinocchio felt like he was back in Al Mi’raj’s theater, when he’d battled other automa to entertain the people of Siena. His warrior instincts sprang to life. Lightning quick, he dodged the wyvern’s jaws, rolling across the spongy mist-ground and coming back on his feet.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Pinocchio warned.

  But the monsters didn’t seem concerned. From all sides they launched themselves at Pinocchio. Maestro sprang from his head in escape.

  His sword met one scaly or leathery hide after another as he leaped and spun. The surface of the Mist beneath his feet was squishy and uneven. Pinocchio had trouble finding his balance as he rounded from one attacker to the next.

  A drake sprayed fire, which he barely managed to dodge, although his singed backside was left smoking. Claws raked his wooden arms. Teeth cracked against his wooden shoulder. He was grateful for his automa armor, but the assault came too fast, too relentlessly. There were far too many opponents for him to keep up.

  Something thudded against Pinocchio’s chest, followed rapidly by several other thuds. Pinocchio staggered back. Foot-long spines were lodged in his wood. Pinocchio looked up at the monster that fired them.

  A midnight-blue face smiled down at him with jagged fangs. It had a black lion’s body, with bat wings, and a tail tipped with a cluster of spines.

  It was her! The manticore who had attacked during the banquet, the same one he’d faced in the tunnel. She slashed out with her heavy claws, catching his sword and knocking it from his grasp.

  Pinocchio crouched, searching for the fallen sword. But as he turned, head bent, the monstrous toad sprang, its huge mouth enveloping him to his waist. Pinocchio kicked as the thing tried to chew on his wooden legs before slurping him down in a slimy gulp.

  He’d been swallowed! The surprise of this appalling turn of events was matched only by the shock of how dark and constricting the squishy interior was. He couldn’t move. He was only glad he didn’t have to breathe, because he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to.

  This had gone from bad to worse. Utterly, horrifyingly worse.

  He tried to twist, but only slid deeper into the tight, slimy cavity. Was this it? Was this his end? Dissolving in a monster’s stomach and never seeing his father or Lazuli or any of his friends again? And Wiq! Poor Wiq—who must think after so long that Pinocchio was never going to fulfill his promise to rescue him—would remain a slave to the Venetian Empire. Pinocchio had let them all down, and there was nothing he could do anymore to change that. He stopped squirming as all hope was squeezed out of him….

  But then he remembered Maestro. He was still out there. Tiny as he was, there was only so long the cricket could flutter around before one of those nasty monsters would spot him and snap him up as a pathetic snack.

  NO—he couldn’t let that happen! Pinocchio had to get out.

  He wiggled side to side, trying to worm his way back up the gut. He banged elbows and knees. He dug his fingers savagely into the mushy interior. He bit something unthinkably disgusting.

  “Lut me ut of ere!”

  Spasms shook the walls of the gut surrounding him. With a slosh of liquid and a series of retching noises, he found himself spewed from the monster’s mouth. He landed with a splat in a pile of sour slime.

  The toad monstrosity backed away from him, still heaving, as the monsters laughed.

  “Maestro!” Pinocchio cried, climbing to his feet.

  As he did, his foot kicked at something solid down in the murk. The ghoul’s sword.

  “Pinocchio!” Maestro’s tiny voice piped.

  Pinocchio saw the cricket streaking toward him from out of the fog. But closing in fast on Maestro was the wyvern, wings wide and jaws open.

  Pinocchio snatched up the sword and made a bound off the toad monstrosity’s head. With one hand, he caught Maestro. With the other, he slashed with the sword. The wyvern tried to veer, but the blade drew a bloody gash across its side. The wyvern shrieked and crashed down into the gloom.

  As Pinocchio landed, a howl of wind rose up, stirring the gray stillness into a storm. The Mist whipped ferociously, spinning round and round.

  The monsters crouched in fear, muttering to one another and taking cover against the gale that was plastering down their wings and fur. The sound of the storm swelled louder and louder, drowning out the howls of the monsters.

  Pinocchio huddled, cupping Maestro close. “What’s happening?” he asked. The cricket only trembled against his wooden chest.

  With a great upward whoosh of wind, the storm expended itself. For the briefest few seconds, the Mist overhead parted. A clear night sky was visible. Bright stars blinked against the black. The moon—only a half-moon but glowing a brilliant bone white—threw down a lance of light from over the high walls of mist.

  The light flooded against the upturned faces of each and every monster, from the manticore to the wyvern, whose side was weeping blood where Pinocchio had slashed it. They all stared transfixed, mouths agape with wonder at the moonlight.

  Pinocchio lost himself momentarily in the sight. The expressions of the monsters were almost tender—terrifying and horrible, yes, but clearly touched by the lovely vision of the night sky. As if they hadn’t seen stars such as these in so long.

  Then the mists folded back in, blocking out the moon and starlight, and drifting back down in thick grayness once more.

  The monsters were silent. But their eyes fell on Pinocchio again.

  The manticore strode toward him, her wings unfurling and her spiny tail slashing side to side. Pinocchio held up his sword, and Maestro scrambled onto his shoulder.

  The manticore stopped a few paces from them, her feline eyes glowing jade green. The other monsters gathered, but didn’t seem ready to attack again—at least not yet.

  The manticore growled. “What did you do to the prison?”

  Pinocchio cocked his head to one side in confusion. “The prison?”

  “The Mist!” she said. “It never parted that way before. How did you do it?”

  “I didn’t do it,” Pinocchio said. “I don’t know how it…Wait! This is the prison?”

  He glanced around at the gray gloom, at the monsters surrounding him with the diamond brand of Diamancer on their foreheads.

  “You’re still in the prison?” Pinocchio struggled to understand. “But I thought you escaped?”

  The manticore stared at him, jade eyes narrowing.

  “You’ve been attacking around Abaton,” Pinocchio said. “Tonight, even—I saw you attack the Opaque Palace. Why are you now back in the prison?”

  The manticore snarled, showing a mouthful of sinister fangs. “The warden can release us from the prison when we’re needed. And the warden can send us back.”

  Pinocchio thought how the manticore had disappeared into a strange cloud of mist at the banquet and in the pyramid.

  “We were asleep for so long,” the manticore continued with a hiss, “but the warden woke us and promised us the chance to do what we love best.”

  “To devour,” the monstrous toad croaked.

  “To attack.” A ghoul laughed.

  “To destroy,” the manticore finished.

  “Yes, I gathered that you like all that,” Pinocchio said.

  But he had not forgotten the look on their faces when th
ey saw the open sky. He wondered if they liked that too.

  “But why?” Pinocchio asked. “Why would the warden do this? Didn’t Prester John give the warden the responsibility of watching over you?”

  “At first, the warden wanted to know if you really possessed Prester John’s Pearl,” the manticore spat. “I was released to attend your lovely banquet, to test your powers, which you proved, although not especially impressively. Now the warden has bigger plans for us.”

  “What plans?” Pinocchio asked.

  “What do we monsters care?” The manticore sneered. “We simply do what the warden bids, until the day we win our freedom.”

  Pinocchio scanned the dismal surroundings, ready in case any of the monsters attacked. “And the warden’s going to free you and Diamancer?” he asked.

  The manticore gave a low chuckle. “No,” she replied. “The warden is smart enough to know better than to awaken something like Diamancer. Our general sleeps still, not far away, with the others. The warden only awoke one hundred of the Sleeping Thousand.”

  The monstrous toad croaked, “You ought to see the others. Our sleeping brethren are much worse than us.” It chuckled.

  If these terrors weren’t the worst, Pinocchio had no wish to meet the other nine hundred. His mind raced with thoughts. Diamancer wasn’t awake, so that couldn’t have been who he’d seen in the tunnel in the pyramid. Whoever had been shrouded beneath that cloak must have been the warden.

  The monsters began getting restless. They edged in, snarling and clacking their teeth. But Pinocchio saw how they eyed his sword. The wyvern he’d slashed hadn’t risen from where it lay in the Mist.

  Pinocchio backed a step, keeping the sword steady. “Who is the warden, then?” he asked. “Is it Dr. Nundrum?”

  The manticore lashed her spiny tail. “Can you part the Mist? Can you release us from the prison?”

  “I told you. I don’t know how,” Pinocchio said. Although if he did, he certainly wouldn’t set these monsters free.

  “But he’s the prester, en’t he?” a cobralike monster asked, swiveling its hooded head toward the manticore.

  Maestro was creeping down into the back of Pinocchio’s shirt. “Let’s go!” he peeped.

  The manticore was watching Pinocchio expectantly, waiting for his answer. Pinocchio wasn’t even sure. Was he the prester? He didn’t have the Pearl, and now he’d become an automa again….

  The manticore smiled. “If he was the prester, he’d have escaped already. No, he’s just a wooden boy.” She surveyed the blood on Pinocchio’s sword. “A deadly wooden boy. A deadly wooden monster, even.”

  Pinocchio winced. He hadn’t meant to harm the wyvern so badly. He’d been scared for Maestro and only trying to protect him.

  The manticore turned, folding her wings against her back. “He’s one of us now. Let the newest prisoner and his tasty cricket friend settle in. There will be more time to play with them later.”

  One by one, the monsters began to depart, disappearing into the gloom. Several cast longing eyes at Maestro, but they seemed willing to do as the manticore had said—for the time being.

  “Can we get away from them, please?” Maestro asked.

  “And go where?” Pinocchio whispered.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  Pinocchio slipped away into the Mist.

  Moonlight spilled through the lone barred window.

  Lazuli lay on the stone floor of the cell, the tears still wet on her face. She had wept with shame at how she’d failed as prester. She’d wept with frustration that she was locked in this dungeon. But mostly, her tears had been for Pinocchio.

  His death was her fault. Her aunt had been the one who’d taken the Pearl from him and done what with his wooden body? Destroyed him? But Lazuli felt it never would have happened if she’d only explained about Pinocchio earlier, trusted her aunt with the truth.

  Now he was gone, no matter how badly she wished she could go back and do things over again. She’d not just failed Abaton as prester—she’d failed Pinocchio as his friend.

  A small chime interrupted her thoughts. Lazuli looked up, first at the door and then around her cell. The chime sounded once more. From the window. A bubble was glowing against the moonlit sky. The aleya!

  Lazuli sprang to her feet and ran to the window, grasping the bars. “What are you doing here?” she gasped. “How did you escape?”

  The aleya pressed against the bars, squeezing until she looked like she might pop, and then came through into Lazuli’s cell. She made a proud tinkle.

  “But General Mezmer…the others, where are they?” Lazuli realized she wouldn’t be able to understand the aleya, so she tried a different question, something the aleya might be able to answer for her. “Are they safe?”

  The aleya bobbed up and down.

  “Good! Have they also escaped?”

  The aleya swiveled back and forth.

  “They’re locked in another cell?”

  She bobbed swiftly.

  Lazuli sank back to the floor. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m trapped in here. I probably deserve to be…” she murmured. But Mezmer didn’t. Nor did her other knights who had fought so bravely.

  The aleya made a sharp noise and streaked toward the window. She made several motions like she wanted Lazuli to follow her out.

  Lazuli sighed. “I want to help the others escape, but how?”

  The aleya flew to Lazuli’s hands and then made a rush at the door. She repeated it a few times until it dawned on Lazuli what she was suggesting.

  “I already tried summoning the strongest wind I could against the door, but…well, this is a sylph prison.” She got back to her feet and wrung her hands together. “If I could only get the keys…” She looked at the aleya. “But no, you don’t have a way to pick them up.”

  The aleya made urgent bobs up and down.

  “You can?”

  Of course! She remembered when the aleya had delivered the spiceberry to Pinocchio when their ship had been stranded over the jungle.

  “Then you can get the keys from the guard!”

  The aleya flew over to the door. There was no keyhole on the inside.

  “Oh,” Lazuli said. “We need another way. If there was something that could knock the door down…” She spun around to face the aleya. “Wait! Let me think.” An idea struck her.

  She was in the Mist Cities. She’d been visiting here since she was a child. She’d roamed all their neighborhoods. But there had been one place she’d been warned not to go. To the orchards where…

  She was getting ahead of herself. The plan wouldn’t work if she didn’t have a way to handle the guards.

  “All right,” she said, taking a steadying breath. “I know what you can get. Two things, actually.”

  The aleya bobbed eagerly.

  “It might be dangerous,” Lazuli said. “Are you afraid?”

  The aleya hesitated momentarily and then swished back and forth.

  Lazuli smiled. “Good. They might be tricky to locate, but listen…”

  While the aleya was gone, Lazuli began to gather stones. The cell had been carved out of the solid rock of the city’s foundation, but a few spots around the door frame and window had begun to chip. It would have taken years to break away enough to escape that way. However, with a bit of prying, Lazuli managed to collect enough small pieces of rock for her purposes. She only hoped they would be big enough.

  When the aleya returned, she hovered outside the bars, her chimes sounding closer to grunts than Lazuli had previously heard.

  “You found it!” Lazuli said.

  The aleya made an exhausted droop, the strap of the heavy bag hanging from her slightly misshapen body.

  “Well, come on then. Bring it in.”

  The aleya pressed to the bar and then bounced back, giving a grumble of a chime.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize,” Lazuli said. She reached through the bars and took Pinocchio’s satchel, working it through the narrow op
ening.

  Once she had it, she said, “Did anyone see you take it?”

  The aleya, now back to her normal round shape, swiveled back and forth.

  “Great, now go to the orchard on the far side of the city beyond the Opaque Palace. Do you remember which tree I said? The ones with the purple leaves. The thunderseed fruits will be growing out over the edge of the city, for obvious reasons.”

  The aleya gave a bob of understanding before rocketing off.

  Lazuli ran to the window, calling in a strained whisper, “And please, please, be careful with it!”

  She hoped the aleya heard her. Settling back to the floor, Lazuli dug into the satchel and pulled out the sack with the Sands of Sleep that Pinocchio had gathered from Regolith.

  Pinocchio. The thought of him brought a sharp pain to her heart. She blinked hard, forcing back the tears. She had to stay focused.

  Untying the sack, she looked at the shimmering white sand inside. She’d have to be careful not to touch it. But then she remembered she had touched it before. When they’d found Regolith. The Sands hadn’t affected her then. Why?

  She’d not had time to ponder the reasons before, but now she wondered if she and Pinocchio had been able to touch the Sands of Sleep at Regolith because they were the presters. Why else would she have been immune to their effects?

  But she was no longer the prester. Her aunt was.

  Wasn’t she?

  Slowly, Lazuli pressed a finger into the Sands. A faint tingling rose inside her. For half a moment, she thought the Sands were going to put her to sleep. But she didn’t remove her finger, and the Sands didn’t make her sleepy.

  She furrowed her brow curiously. She cupped a handful of the Sands experimentally. Except for that faint tingling, nothing was happening.

  Some magic was at work here. Lazuli couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t too late for her to atone for her failures as prester.

  The aleya made a chime outside the window. She was trembling slightly.

  “I know, I know,” Lazuli said, reaching out. “This was so brave of you.”

  The aleya deposited a small purple fruit in the palm of her hand. Lazuli brought it through the bars. It was about the size of a lemon and roughly the same shape.