Lord of Monsters

by John Claude Bemis

  “But Lady Sapphira promised Khora and the others,” Pinocchio said, “that they’d never have to see the prison again.”

  She looked at him, realizing that if her aunt was the warden, then at the banquet and at the battle in the Mist Cities, Sapphira had simply been able to send the monsters back to the prison when they had wreaked enough havoc. But this time…

  “My aunt wasn’t promising them freedom. She intends to kill them. All of them. And she has the Pearl. With that…none of the monsters will escape.”

  Lazuli could see Pinocchio tremble as he gripped the ship’s railing. “Your aunt told our people you were dead,” he said. “That I killed you. If we could only reach the palace…we could show them you’re not!”

  Lazuli felt cold with fear. How could she face her aunt again? She loved her aunt dearly, this woman who had been her mother’s sister and the high noble to her mother’s people. She couldn’t bear to look into Sapphira’s eyes knowing she would now see a stranger or worse: she’d see her aunt as she really was, her betrayal and treachery unmasked.

  But if this was to end—if her people were to be saved—she would have to. Even if it broke Lazuli’s heart to pieces, Abaton needed her to be brave.

  She turned to Cinnabar. “Is there no way to get the ship down? The alchemical canisters? The—”

  “Gone.” The djinni waved a claw helplessly toward his beloved Lionslayer. “The ship can’t go anywhere, Your Majesty. I’m sorry.”

  Lazuli felt something butt against her arm. She turned to see Wini. “I can carry you, Your Majesties.”

  The kirin and her sisters had been injured in the battle with the monsters. Fini and Pini lay on the deck, licking their wounds.

  “But you’re hurt, Wini,” Lazuli said.

  Wini forced her pearly horn high. “A knight of the Celestial Brigade serves to the end. It would be my honor.”

  Mezmer clutched her chest with pride.

  But Geppetto shook his head ferociously. “This is madness. Even if Wini could carry you down, how would you get past those arrows?”

  Cinnabar reached over the side of the ship’s railing and gave a heavy tug that sounded of ripping fabric. He held something in his hands that looked like nothing more than open sky. “The chameleon cloth,” the djinni said. “It masked the ship. It can mask Wini.”

  Pinocchio gave him a grateful grin as he took one side of the cloth. “I’ll help you cover them,” he said to the djinni.

  “You’re coming with me,” Lazuli said.

  Pinocchio blinked his wooden eyelids. “What? But they know what I am.”

  “So we don’t have to fear that anymore,” Lazuli said. “We are the rightful presters, Pinocchio. It’s time we show our people who we are. It’s time we show them who my aunt is! When they see the truth, they can decide for themselves which prester they will follow.”

  Geppetto grabbed for Pinocchio’s hand, an argument already on his lips. But Lazuli said, “Master Geppetto, I know you’ve only just gotten Pinocchio back. You’re afraid for him. I’m afraid too. But we can’t let our fears hold us back any longer.”

  Pinocchio exchanged a worried glance with his father and then with Lazuli. “Are you sure?” he asked her.

  Lazuli climbed onto Wini’s back and held out a hand.

  Pinocchio gave the chameleon cloth back to Cinnabar and got on behind Lazuli.

  Lazuli unsheathed her sword and dropped it to the deck of the ship. This battle wouldn’t be won with swords. Pinocchio seemed to understand, and with a nod, he let his sword clatter beside hers.

  As Cinnabar began to drape the cloth over them, Wini glanced to her sisters. “Farewell,” she called. A hole tore as the cloth pulled over Wini’s horn, making a narrow opening for them to see out.

  Lazuli could feel poor Wini trembling beneath her. She gave the kirin a gentle stroke. “Whenever you’re ready,” she whispered.

  Wini shot from the deck, soaring into the sky and circling the Lionslayer. Geppetto and Cinnabar, Sop and Mezmer, all the knights and all the gnomes watched with somber stillness, their eyes searching but never quite spotting where Lazuli and Pinocchio were.

  Wini sped across the lagoon and toward the Moonlit Court. With the palace and the battle growing rapidly closer, Lazuli felt Pinocchio hold tighter to her waist with his hard wooden hands.

  Lazuli had barely had time to wonder at how inexplicable it was that Pinocchio was alive. Not just that he’d survived those monsters, but that he was an automa, and yet, he was himself.

  “Pinocchio!” she gasped. Her mind began racing with more thoughts than she could easily weave together. But a thread was forming, and it began with the realization that Pinocchio was not merely an automa again.

  “How did you bring the wyvern back to life?” she asked quickly.

  “I don’t know. It might have had something to do with the Mist. The prison…the Mist, it’s not what we thought. It’s alive. It’s the primordial of air.”

  “The Roc?” Lazuli gasped. Could that really be? She’d always imagined that the great bird of so many sylph legends lived somewhere high in the uppermost reaches of the sky. But of course, like Regolith at Grootslang Hole, the primordials each seemed to reside near their elemental people.

  “When I saved Azi, a feather appeared,” Pinocchio said. “That’s how Maestro discovered what the Mist really was. So maybe the Roc was showing me that it had saved Azi.”

  “But that can’t be,” Lazuli said. “A primordial couldn’t bring back the dead. Only the Pearl has that power.”

  Pinocchio’s voice pitched higher. “Except I don’t have the Pearl. Your aunt does!”

  When her aunt had held the Ancientmost Pearl, it had been dull and colorless, as if all the light had gone from it.

  “The magic must still be inside you,” she gasped. “It’s got to be. It’s why you’re this way, and not acting like a thoughtless automa. And—” The realization dawned on her with such clarity. She’d not believed it before, because she’d always thought only Pinocchio possessed the magic of the Pearl. He had been the one with the Pearl, after all.

  But now she could see that the powers didn’t belong exclusively to the Pearl. They belonged to the presters—the ones sworn to protect Abaton and its people.

  Lazuli had that power too. It was why the Sands of Sleep hadn’t affected her. It was why she’d been able to summon winds in the pyramid that no normal sylph could ever have managed.

  “What?” Pinocchio asked. “What were you going to say?”

  Before she could answer, Wini was weaving through the monsters and into the thick of the battle. Lazuli caught sight of the palace steps with her aunt defended by…Was that Rion?

  But just then, as Wini dodged around a screeching drake, something exploded next to them.

  The blast of the thunderseed-tipped arrow threw Wini from her course. The kirin spiraled and Lazuli, ears ringing from the explosion, thought for a moment she and Pinocchio would fall before Wini righted again. Lazuli hung dizzily against the kirin’s neck. The chameleon cloak had protected them from the worst of the blast. But it now lay in tattered ruins.

  The wide, surprised eyes of the Sky Hunters, as well as the icy glare of Sapphira, began locking on them.

  “The automa!” she cried.

  Lazuli realized the remaining pieces of the cloak were still draped over her and Wini. She couldn’t imagine what the archers thought Pinocchio was riding, but from all along the balconies, Sky Hunters took aim with their bows.

  “Pinocchio!” Lazuli shouted. “The powers are still inside you. And they’re inside me too. We have to use them…NOW!”

  All Pinocchio could think was that Wini was in danger. Truthfully all three of them were, but his heart felt lodged in his throat at the thought that the brave kirin was going to lose her life when that volley of explosive arrows was released. There was no time to question what Lazuli was saying, no time to wrestle with doubt.

  Wini couldn’t see where to go with t
he tatters of the chameleon cloth over her eyes. In her panic, she was speeding headlong into the archers’ range. Sky Hunters were drawing back their bows.

  Pinocchio held up a hand. When the marble walls of the Opaque Palace had been coming down, he had made a shield. Air and earth. That might do it.

  Cascades of arrows streaked toward them.

  Pinocchio couldn’t feel the sensation in his arms like before. Was Lazuli wrong about the powers? But then a faint tingling gathered and—

  A dome of blurry substance, almost like thick translucent glass, extended before Wini’s snout. The first of the arrows met it, exploding in bright flashes of noise.

  At first, the dome held against the blasts. But as more of the thunderseed-tipped arrows struck with their deafening booms, the dome began to crack.

  “It’s breaking!” Pinocchio cried.

  Lazuli fought to pull away the tattered cloth, freeing her hands so she could extend them. Another explosion. Another crack.

  With a shout, Lazuli unleashed not just a blast of wind, but more of the strange glass, more of the combined elemental magic, as he had done. The dome swelled. The cracks were gone. The Sky Hunters’ volleys of exploding arrows struck, but did nothing to penetrate the shield he and Lazuli had made.

  The archers, seeing their attack fail, lowered their bows.

  Lazuli smiled back at Pinocchio, her eyes luminous.

  “You did it!” he gasped.

  Lazuli patted the kirin and pulled loose the remaining cloth. “Take us down, Wini.”

  Wini tipped her horn and picked up speed, diving for the palace steps. Out the windows and from hiding places in the gardens, servants and palace officials and citizenry emerged—all eyes following them. Voices carried: “Is that Prester Lazuli?” “She’s alive!”

  Wini landed. Lord Smoldrin, Raya Piscus, and Dr. Nundrum poured out from the palace behind Sapphira, staring in openmouthed disbelief. Rion and his griffin, Quila, drew in front of Sapphira protectively.

  “What is this?” Lord Smoldrin asked, swinging his great horned head toward Sapphira. “I thought you said the automa killed your niece?”

  “Pinocchio has done nothing to harm me,” Lazuli said, climbing off the kirin. Pinocchio thought he saw her hesitate, trembling and trying not to look at her aunt. “This is a lie that…my aunt told you. One of many lies she has used to trick you into declaring her your prester.”

  Sapphira’s face was a mask of poise under the shocked and bewildered gazes of the nobles and servants. She shook her head slowly, almost remorsefully.

  “I’m afraid I have lied to you, my people,” Sapphira said. “I did not want you to know about my niece. About her treachery. How she plotted with the alchemist Geppetto to put this Venetian contraption on our throne. Yes, I told you she had been murdered by the automa. In truth, I imprisoned her in the Opaque Palace to spare you from having to learn that Prester John’s own daughter has been nothing but a traitor to Abaton.”

  “I’m not the traitor,” Lazuli said. “I—”

  “You refused to help me stop these monsters,” Sapphira said. “I begged you to join me, to stand with me as prester, but you refused. Do you deny it?”

  “I refused to help you kill them,” Lazuli admitted. “As prester, I am bound to protect the people of Abaton—all the people of Abaton. Not just the nobles or the gentle races, but also the wayward ones, the monsters, and even those who have left Abaton for the humanlands but long to return. A true prester would never do what you have done, Aunt.”

  “You are not the true prester,” Sapphira said coolly. “I am. I have the Ancientmost Pearl.” She held the dark orb aloft for all to see.

  Lazuli took a step forward. She shook ever so slightly—not from fear, Pinocchio thought, but from sadness that she was having to stand before her aunt in this way.

  “Use it, then,” Lazuli said.

  Dr. Nundrum and the nobles edged back from Sapphira. Silence had fallen over the battle. Monsters and archers alike were frozen, flapping in the air or watching from the balconies as this other battle was taking place between Lazuli and Sapphira.

  Sapphira held the Pearl before her with both hands cupped around it. Her eyes closed, a furrow creasing her brow. Pinocchio could see that she was genuinely trying. She believed she might somehow be able to command its powers. But he knew, at last, where that magic lay.

  Hadn’t his father discovered this back at Grootslang Hole from the books in the gnomes’ library? Prester John had written that the Pearl itself was not the source of his powers. It had merely been a vessel to contain the wild magic of Abaton when Prester John’s dreams and fears had come to life. When that vessel had been placed in Pinocchio, the wild magic had returned. But it still belonged to Abaton’s presters.

  Khora’s voice carried from the skies above. “She can’t command it. She cannot summon the Pearl’s powers!”

  The monsters around her began to smile terrible smiles, eyes flaming and growls rumbling from inside them.

  Khora dove toward Sapphira, and Pinocchio knew immediately what she intended to do. She had promised to put a spike in the heart of the warden. The manticore whipped around with her deadly tail.

  Pinocchio threw out a hand. A translucent shield rose up. The spikes shattered against it. “No, Khora!” he shouted. “That isn’t the way.”

  The manticore fumed, fangs grinding together as she flapped a circle over the palace steps. But then tendrils of mist began to envelop her.

  “You dare to attack me,” Sapphira hissed. She was pointing at the manticore.

  Khora seemed trapped momentarily, her hind legs consumed by the Mist that would drag her back into the prison, her forepaws clawing at the empty air, her fangs snarling and snapping.

  The nobles gasped, as if finally seeing that Sapphira did command some power from the Pearl.

  “Lady Sapphira,” Pinocchio said. “As prester, it’s time I strip you of your powers as the warden.”

  “You have no authority over me, you wooden puppet,” Sapphira said.

  But the Mist holding Khora vanished, releasing her.

  Lord Smoldrin and Raya Piscus looked at each other. Then the lady of the undines said, “Is this true? You’re the warden, Lady Sapphira?”

  Sapphira was breathing hard, her nostrils flared, the mask she worked so hard to present on the verge of shattering. “His Great Lordship Prester John entrusted me with the wardenship. He chose me for this responsibility.”

  She looked wild-eyed at all the faces staring at her. “I…I only…” She drew herself up tall, her eyes narrowing into shards of blue light. “Abaton deserves someone worthy of Prester John’s mantle. You said so yourself, Lord Smoldrin and Raya Piscus!” She pointed at them. “Do you not remember? Abaton should not be entrusted to children! It deserves a great ruler.”

  The djinni lord wrung his hands while Raya Piscus backed up a step in her sloshing shroud.

  “My aunt is quite right,” Lazuli said. “Abaton does deserve a great ruler. And I admit, I was doubtful Pinocchio and I could be. I feared, as you must have, that we wouldn’t rule with the sort of greatness my father possessed. We haven’t ruled as my father did. But we have tried to protect Abaton and its people the way we thought best.”

  She looked around at the frightened faces of her countrymen. “I ask you, my people, to forgive me for hiding the truth about Pinocchio. I admit I was wrong—wrong to doubt that the wise people of Abaton could see Pinocchio for who he really is, to accept him despite what he was.”

  “Was?” Sapphira said. “He is an automa. There’s no questioning it!”

  Lazuli turned to Pinocchio. “Are you?”

  Pinocchio tilted his head. Of course he was. But then something lit up inside him as he understood. He was only this way because Abaton’s magic had brought his fears to life.

  “No,” he whispered. And then he gathered his voice a little louder. “No. I’m not.”

  A tingling rose inside him. It started somewhere be
neath the dull wood, but quickly began coursing along his arms and legs until it reached the tips of his fingers and toes. The top of his head suddenly tickled as strands of hair separated and were tossed in the wind. And his skin…oh, he had skin again! The warmth of the sunlight and the wind and even the beads of sweat now forming were all so wonderful.

  The nobles gasped. Dr. Nundrum fumbled to push his glasses up his beak. Even Rion lowered his bow slightly, transfixed by what he had witnessed.

  “Can’t you see this is more of his trickery?” Sapphira pointed to Pinocchio. “Alchemy has made this wooden thing look as if it is more powerful than it is. Do not be fooled.”

  “This is no trick,” Lazui said. “You are seeing Pinocchio as he was and as he is. An automa who became a living human boy.”

  “But is he the rightful prester?” Raya Piscus bubbled. “That is what we still don’t know.”

  Lord Smoldrin murmured with agreement. The nobles and servants, the Sky Hunters and monsters, all watched uncertainly.

  “Good people of Abaton,” Lazuli said, looking around at them all. “The Ancientmost Pearl in my aunt’s hands is not the source of the prester’s powers. That magic comes from Abaton itself—given to the rightful ruler who protects Abaton’s people. All of Abaton’s people.”

  Khora’s gaze met Pinocchio’s, her jade eyes wide.

  “Pinocchio has shown that he only ever wanted to help our people,” Lazuli said. “Even those that my aunt was willing to kill. Pinocchio has been given the prester’s powers because he is the true prester.”

  “And you have them as well,” Pinocchio said.

  Lazuli nodded. “I do. It’s time we prove to you who your rightful presters are.” She turned to Pinocchio and said quietly, “Are you ready?”

  For what? he mouthed to her.

  “To summon it here.”

  “It who?” Pinocchio asked.

  “As prester, you command the primordials. The Roc recognized you as the prester. That’s why it revealed the feather after you saved Azi. Call upon the Roc now, to prove to your people once and for all.”