The Iron-Jawed Boy and the Hand of the Moon (Book 2, Sky Guardian Chronicles) (10 page)

Ion spun on his heel—again and again and again—until one spin had turned into sixty, and he was suspended within the heart of his own twister. Against the force of the winds, Ion locked his arms over his chest, and the twister barreled forward, colliding into Adalantis’s.

The whirlwinds clashed, the air screaming and the sands flying as it formed one furious tornado, Ion and Adalantis battling in the eye of it. The Illyrian threw a fist made of sand, but Ion ducked and it missed. He threw a punch to the left—Ion swerved to the right. Then another punch, and another after that. But the sand was pelting Ion’s eyes, and when finally he was forced to close them, he felt a sandy fist strike his chest. He hissed at the pain, but drew his fist back, and felt the familiar tingle in his fingers. With a roar, he struck Adalantis in the stomach, and a bolt of lightning surged out of his fist, launching the god out of the twister and into the building Thoman had been thrown into.

The winds immediately died, and Ion fell to his hands and knees, coughing on the gritty sand in his mouth. Wiping his eyes and mouth of the sand, he turned to the Tower. And at the sight of Lillian already climbing up one of its iron legs. To the right of her, his blades of heat piercing the metal of the Tower, was Vasheer.

But the ground shook once, then twice, and suddenly Eos and Ezra, who were five times their original size, were lumbering toward the Tower, sights set on Vasheer. The massive shadow of Eos and Ezra shifted suddenly, shattering into a million pieces—pieces that flew toward Ion like a swarm of Solara’s locusts, attacking his own shadow until it’d been completely consumed.

A warning from Onyxia if he’d ever seen on
. A warning that Vasheer
must
win.

Ion spread his feet apart, feeling the skin of his arms and back cool. Clouds seeped out of his pores—from his face, from his arms, from his hands, even his legs—rolling through the air and congregating into a small cloud system behind him, just as he’d imagined it. He balled his hands into fists and bared his teeth. He threw his arms forward and twenty screaming lightning bolts shot out of the clouds behind him, exploding against Eos and Ezra and launching them into the rubble yards away.

While Vasheer continued his climb unhindered, Esereez rushed by and leapt onto the Tower. He grabbed hold of the iron sides with his hulking hands and climbed, his twenty arms sending him up the structure faster than any of the others. Ion lunged onto the Tower with a breath of wind, the metal so rusted it bit into his palms, daggers at his skin with each grasp. Before he could get even a third of the way up the Tower, however, there came a whistling noise, and sure enough, there was Thoman standing atop a small building across the Runway, crimson light accumulating at the end of his stacked lenses. The whistling finally came to a crescendo, but as the beam left Thoman’s eye, Theo crashed into the windows beneath the Illyrian and Thoman was knocked to the ground. The beam missed the Tower and struck the crumbling building beside it, the structure decimated in an explosion of heat, stone, and steel. Ion held on tight to the Tower, the blast nearly shaking him from its side.

Through the chaos and the now collapsing building only yards away, Ion focused on Esereez, who by now was almost half way to the Moon Bow. Ion drew back his arm, a sphere of lightning screaming into existence in his palm, and loosed it upward. The ball screeched as it flew past Esereez.
A miss
. Ion shot one sphere after the other: miss...miss...miss. Esereez was moving too fast.

There came a gentle roaring and Oceanus rose at Ion’s side, hoisted up to the waist by a massive geyser.

“Keep climbing!” she shouted at Ion. “I’ll take care of Esereez.”

Water from the geyser swept over her arms, crystallized before they reached her knuckles, and shot from her fingers as sharpened icicles, pummeling Esereez on the back. He stopped in his place, roaring under the pain of the barrage, while Ion seized the moment to climb higher and higher.

And then it came again—the whistling.

Thoman stood on the same building below, light collecting at the end of his lenses.

“Oceanus!” Ion screamed down at his sister, pointing at the Overseer. “Take him down!”

She reared forward and the column of water collapsed, flooded outward and rose as a colossal wall of water, Oceanus riding atop it. The whistling swelled, and the wave rushed forward, eclipsing Thoman and his lenses. But it was too late. The searing beam pierced the wall of water before Oceanus could call it down upon Thoman, and the beam sliced through the metal of the Tower, from one end to the next. The horrible scream of buckling metal ripped through the air, and Ion felt the Tower lean backward. But even with the metal spire seconds away from falling on top of them, the Future Hands continued their climb.

Vasheer and Lillian had passed Esereez, Ion only a few yards away. But while Ion continued his climb, sure he’d have to do something to take down Lillian, he heard Vasheer scream her name. When he looked up, bright white light was streaming out of the Illyrian’s mouth, bowling over Lillian. If she refused to shield herself, she’d be blind in seconds. And so with no other option, she clamped both her hands to her eyes and fell from the Tower.

“Lillian!” Ion screamed, watching as she tumbled past him. Ion tried grasping the winds to slow her fall—something, anything, but she was falling too fast, and before he knew it, she’d sunk beneath the clouds of dust and ash that covered the ground below.

Ion looked up. And there was Vasheer, smirking.

Ion’s skin warmed until it felt as though he’d been lit on fire, his jaw blistering hot against his flesh. Green lightning coursed off the ends of his eyes, crackling, hissing, connecting with the metal of the Tower in front of him.

A familiar voice spoke to him then. Quiet, but clear, like the whisper of a wind.
Vasheer. Mustn’t. Win.

Ion faced the heavens, gritted his teeth, and with a furious thought, pounded the metal before him. A thick bolt of lightning shot down from the clouds and with a concussive blast of thunder, struck the Tower beside Vasheer. Launching both him and Esereez from the side and into the clouds of dust and ash below.

The Tower gave one last groan then, and Ion turned in a panic, watching as the layer of clouds below grew closer and closer. He was no longer climbing now, but hanging. With only a second to spare before Ion was flattened beneath the Tower, the clouds of dust parted below and there was Lillian, her feet spread apart, both of her hands held stiff in the air. She roared louder than he thought an elf even could, and with a heave of her arms, the Tower swung just slightly back the other way and crashed to the earth with a force that could rival any earthquake.

Ion let go of the metal bar he held and met the sandy floor below. He touched his face, chest, and arms—incredulous to be in one piece. “I’m alive!”

Lillian appeared through the clouds of dust. “You’re also lucky,” she said flatly. “For a second I didn’t think that was going to work.”

Ion hugged her tight, much to her dismay, and said softly, “Thank you, Lillian.”

“No problem,” she said, pulling away uncomfortably. “Just...don’t hug me again.”

“That’s fine,” he said with a smile. “I can do that.”

After the dusty air finally began to settle, and the wreckage of the crumbled Tower could be properly made out, a cry that could only come from a man pierced the air. Ion and Lillian both looked to the left, where Esereez sat among the rubble, head in his hands. For there, standing on the crumbled iron that was once the peak of the Tower, was Thoman the Overseer—his hand wrapped around the interlocking antlers of the Moon Bow.

WHAT A GOD MUST DO

The Isle of Illyria was crowded with fog when the Future Hands and their Watchers had returned from the Retrieval. They walked down the road of the Silken Vale, the sound of the cheering citizens louder than it’d ever been. Thoman walked at the front of the procession with Eos and Ezra at his side, his long arm high in the air, brandishing the Moon Bow for all to see. Flowers showered his feet as he proceeded, while Vasheer, who walked behind Thoman, burned each flower to ash with just his passing.

But Ion was certain Queen Onyxia was going to do more than burn a few flowers.

After the contenders had left the shade of the silk trees, they stopped at the foot of the Obsidian Steps, where the other Illyrians waited. The crowd gathered all around, quickly quieted by the rise of Lady Borea’s hand.

She smiled down upon the competitors, taking a bit more time on Thoman. “What a
show
,” she said. “Don’t you agree, my fellow Illyrians?”

They nodded, all except Onyxia, who was too busy drinking from her goblet of mead and staring down at Ion with eyes as pointed as swords.

“Thoman, you fought with such vigor this time around,” said Lady Borea. “How clever of you, to bring the Bow down to
you
instead of climbing to
it
.”

“It is an honor to even behold my dear sister’s Bow,” said Thoman, gazing down at the weapon, “let alone hold it in my hands. She was a beautiful woman, both inside and out, and to know that this victory has gotten me one step closer to sitting upon her Throne warms my heart.”

“Yes, well, you haven’t won yet,” said Lady Borea with a wink. “One event remains, my competing Future Hands—one more opportunity for you to claim the Throne you think to be rightfully yours. Tomorrow morning, we shall gather one last time, here on the Obsidian Steps, for the final event. As for now, you are dismissed.”

As the crowd dispersed, Ion saw Queen Onyxia walking down the Obsidian Steps, her vicious glare set on him. She nearly tripped on the last stair, where, luckily, an elf was there to catch her hand. But she snapped her hand away, tossed him a look of disdain, and continued toward Ion.

“G-grandmother,” Ion said with a bow, gripping the emerald of his necklace as though it would provide him some sort of safety.

She paused, studying him critically. “How
dare
you!” she hissed.

“G-grandmother, I—”

“Don’t you dare call me that! You’ve tested my wrath now, calling down that lightning to foul Vasheer’s chances.” She leaned in close so that Ion could get a good view of those perfectly manicured, arching eyebrows, and the layer of white powder on her face. “I hope you know how to make the Queen’s bed, my child, because cleaning up my messes is the
only
future that awaits you now.”

An arm suddenly hooked around Ion’s—one so cold he was sure it was made of ice. There, standing beside him, was Lady Borea, her other hand gripping her staff.

“
You
,” Onyxia dead-panned.

Lady Borea recoiled. “Oh, my dear girl, could your breath smell any stronger of mead? Why don’t you go fix yourself up, while the Sky Guardian and I take a bit of a stroll?”

The Queen clasped a hand to her mouth in embarrassment, and Ion felt the tug of Lady Borea’s arm as she pulled him to the right. In the wake of the retreating crowd, she drew Ion up the Obsidian Steps, and started down the foggy streets of Illyria. Her skin was so cold, frost began to glaze over Ion’s arm.

“I’m sorry about her, my child,” said Lady Borea, her staff preceding each step. “So many years and Onyxia still hasn’t learned how a goddess is to act in public. I swear it’s that Egyptian blood. It’s a pity really—I always thought out of all my children, Othum deserved a real, true love. That poor boy’s still head over heels for her, though, which is even more of a pity.”

“Yes,” Ion replied uncertainly. “But I was wondering, Lady Borea, if you don’t mind me asking and all...where are we going? And...uh, why?”

She continued walking, thin lips pursed. “Nosy for a Sky Guardian, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ion shrugged. “Never met any of the others.”

Lady Borea cackled and turned them down another street of turquoise, this one so thick with fog Ion couldn’t see two feet in front of him. “Yes, well, you weren’t missing much. Pompous creatures, all of them, walking around with their chests puffed out like angry penguins.”

“Angry?”

“Oh yes, so very angry.” Lady Borea quivered at the thought.

Ion wasn’t sure how to react to the comment, and most especially the quivering. Othum had said Thornikus was out of control and angry, but...all of them? Ion recalled Helia’s words about there being more than two past lives.
I wonder
...

“And how many does
all of them
mean?” Ion asked.

Lady Borea looked at him quizzically. “Just the two, my child—Thornikus and Atticus.”

Ion chewed on his lip, watching the turquoise tiles sail by beneath him. She was lying. Right to his face.

Through the fog, Ion saw them pass a lumbering tower at least two hundred feet tall, its walls made of sandstone like all the buildings here. Except at the top of it turned a number of massive lenses like the ones around Thoman’s head.

Lady Borea must have caught Ion staring because she tugged at him a bit and said, “That’s Thoman’s Watch—it’s from that tower that Thoman uses his many lenses to oversee the conflicts of Earth. It’s his job as the Illyrian of war to see that the Balance is upheld in each battle that is waged, tipping the scales either in favor of good, or evil, whichever will keep the Balance equal.”

“So...he helps evil?”

“Why, yes, of course,” said Lady Borea, face heavy with concern. “Has Othum taught you nothing at that forsaken school? The world runs on the two most powerful opposing forces: good and evil. So long as one exists, so too shall the other. But good and evil are greedy forces, you see, and so when the Balance shifts too much in favor of another, wars, battles, and conflicts must be divinely intervened.”

“And which one are we?” Ion dared asked. “I mean, a-are we good? Or are we evil?”

Lady Borea threw her head back and her cackle echoed off the surrounding walls of stone. “We, my child, are neutral,” she said, turning them down a narrow street.

Memories of the chained cyclops, the slain Sea Witch, and the poisoned Lost City rolled over Ion. “F-forgive me, Lady Borea, but from the looks of the Lost City...we don’t seem too neutral.”

He swallowed, waiting for the goddess to freeze him in his place.

Instead, she smiled at him and patted his hand. “You’re rebellious. I like that.”

Lady Borea stopped them at a pair of black doors—probably the only doors on all of Illyria not made of gold.

Lady Borea stepped forward and tapped the gates with her staff five times. Ion watched as they moaned and pulled themselves open. The air pouring out of the chambers brought with it a rancid sort of smell. Like dead flowers, or dead rabbits...or dead anything, really.

Ion held his nose, and Lady Borea replied, “You’ll get used to it,” before taking his arm in hers once more.

They proceeded through the gates, and Ion drew his eyes nervously over the inside. A narrow hall stretched before him, damp and dark, with only a few torches floating along the black stone walls and a small opened skylight overhead. Lady Borea drew Ion down the hall, past several rooms on either side, which were closed off by way of jagged, iron bars like prison cells. The first room had a platform in the center of it, above which hovered a great hammer, bolts of white electricity dancing off it. The second cell held a spear with a blade that glowed a bright green.

They passed a third row of cells, with the one on the right holding nothing within.

“Why’s that one empty?” Ion asked.

“That chamber once held the Scepter of the First Light, before those dreadful humans stole it,” Lady Borea said, continuing down the hall.

“So this place is—”

“The Weapons Vault of Illyria. It is a proud place for us Illyrians, for it’s within these chambers that we store all our most precious weapons. Within each cell resides a mighty destructive force, each from a time long past, from a pantheon long dead—whether they be Norse, Egyptian, even Chinese. Though, I must admit, we’ve unleashed nary a few of these forces, and could only do so with the agreement of all the Illyrians.”

Lady Borea stopped at the biggest cell at the end of the chamber—light only penetrating the first few feet within.

The ground shook with the step of what lay beyond the bars, and a monster moved into the dim light. Its body was horribly disfigured, its flesh pale and covered in clumps of eyes that popped up all over its arms, head, and stomach like an uncontrollable case of acne. Bulbous tumors grew out from under its chin, the back of its head, and the sides of its legs. It opened its mouth, which was wider than any mouth Ion had seen, and licked its jagged, crooked teeth with its black serpent’s tongue.

Ion took an immediate step back and clamped his fingers over his nose. This was where the smell was coming from.

“This, my Guardian, is one of the Five Plagues,” said Lady Borea. “The Disease, we call him. Or it could be a
her
, who’s to know, really?”

“The
Disease
?”

“Yes,” she replied. “This was one of the Plagues we unleashed in the War of 2100, to remind the Outerworld humans of who they were fighting. Nothing like millions of disease-stricken humans to ward off another attack, wouldn’t you say?”

By the smile on Lady Borea’s face, Ion knew she got some sick sort of pleasure out of gazing upon this monster, out of recalling the destruction it’d caused.

“You gave the humans...diseases?”

“It was an idea of Illindria’s, who now resides in that relic of yours,” said Lady Borea, “dare we mention her name.”

Ion stared into the cell, imagining men, women, and children suffering at the hands of the gods. At the hands of
his
gods.

“I certainly hope that squirrely little mind of yours isn’t judging your pantheon for their actions?” said Lady Borea. “After all, let’s not forget the damage
your
past lives have caused to the Outerworld and its humans. Why, I’ve never seen a more brutal weather god. The way you fought, the storms you conjured—the Guardian of
Destruction
is more like it.”

“B-but, I’m not like that now.”

“You aren’t
now
, this is true. But I suppose only time will tell if your fate lies behind the bars of one of these cells. Like the Disease, here.”

“
Me
? Behind these bars?”

“Yes,
you
,” she said. “And most especially with that jaw of yours.”

“And what does
that
mean?”

“Guardian, what have you been told about your Connection Seal?” she asked.

“That I’m a descendent of the Triplet Omnus,” he said. “That—”

“
Ahh
, yes—Omnus,” said Lady Borea, her voice thoughtful. “How unfortunate it is for you that the god your Seal comes from is the
one
god our pantheon recalls nothing about. There isn’t a single statue, temple, or writing left of him. All we know is that he was a Triplet, and that he had no children to speak of, which of course means he had no one to pass down his Seal of the three-eyed triangle. How interesting it is, then, that whoever managed to manufacture a Seal of his, chose to place it upon one of the most dysfunctional creations of the gods.

“But,” she continued, “the mystery of it all is besides the point. Tell me, what do you think your jaw does for you?”

“It helps control my powers.”

“When it’s joined with your staff,” said Lady Borea.

“So you’re the Illyrian Othum said he told?”

“Of course,” she said. “I
am
his mother, after all. But alas, Guardian, gifting you with control over your powers isn’t all your Connection Seal does.”

“I don’t even know if I want to know what else it does.”

Lady Borea smiled slyly. “Your Seal is actually quite different than the Illyrians’. You see, the blood in yours comes from an ancient time—a time before the Illyrians, when the Gods of Old ruled this world. What Othum told you was correct—your Seal
does
provide you with control. But the primary purpose of a Connection Seal of Old was to provide its bearer with even more power.”

“
More
?” he nearly screamed.

“I’m afraid so.” She was reveling in this, Ion could tell in the slight smile upon her lips. “Sadly, I’m not aware of who would have had access to Omnus’s blood to construct that jaw and staff, but they clearly had a
dastardly
plan. For what’s done is done...and it seems you’re even more dangerous than we thought.”

Ion recalled the conversation with Othum halfway through the school year, about how Ion already had more power coursing through his veins than was natural, than was bearable. And now...
more
power? It felt like his insides were writhing around beneath his skin.