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Chapter Sixty-Five: Ruins
Ilyria finally let go of Miasma’s hand. They stood in the middle of smoking black ruins beneath a cobalt sky in which the brother full moon and sister waxing moon were clearly visible. The Twin Moons were nearly reunited. From the streets around them came noise of fighting and still that infernal procession with its drums and cymbals, though they were moving farther away. Somehow they were back in Idixat. Ilyria’s heart thudded with joy and relief. Solid ground and a disrupted burning city were still preferable to that strange watery place that was Thassa’s home, and Zlo. Thassa lay at their feet, groaning. Ilyria dropped Miasma’s hand and fell to her knees. She lifted Thassa’s head. His eyes—thankfully, mercifully—fluttered open.
“Ilyria,” he whispered. Then he saw Miasma and his eyes widened. “You…” he said.
Ilyria turned to Miasma and only then understood what he was seeing.
Miasma silver-gold hair fluttered around her as static sparked and crackled up and
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Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Sixty-Six: Aeon Clocks
Thassa found the third piece and Miasma the fourth and final. They laid the pieces together. The sky had lightened which only made the ruins among which they knelt look worse. Ilyria tried not to think of the life that had seemed so much like a home for her here. She tried to believe it was just a place that she had temporarily stayed. But it was not. The three of them stared down at the epoch clock. “Ilyria …” said Miasma softly, “Maybe …” “It will work,” said Ilyria, not meeting her eyes. “It will.” It had to. She knew the aeon clock in her father’s study as well as she knew and loved his face. The nooks and crannies of his face still lived under her fingertips, the smell of his crisp tunics still lingered as a scent-memory in some deep part of her brain. Yet she had difficulty recalling the exact colour of his eyes or what his feet had looked like. Memory was a strange creature. So it was with the aeon clock. Each one was unique in a way kn
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Sixty-Seven: Ceremony
Miasma looked at Thassa who lifted his shoulders in a tired shrug. "The last time we saw Fierce was after Thassa gave her the collar and she went to find you,” she said to Ilyria. “She wasn’t there with you I think.” Ilyria shook her head. “No, she took off when I left the guardhouse at the gate.” “Ilyria,” said Miasma, she put a hand on Ilyria’s shoulder and Ilyria had a brief half-memory of happy smells, of home and rest and kindness. She sighed and allowed herself to be comforted by Miasma. “Fierce will be okay. She is … Fierce,” Miasma smiled and Ilyria felt a little less anxious in spite of herself, “But now we really must go.” The three hurried along the dark streets, the sounds ahead of them becoming louder and more disturbing. Ilyria had though the procession was never ending with its clanging cymbals and drums and the odd trumpet. But as they progressed along the streets and the sun’s rays illuminated their path, she saw signs that the proces
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Sixty-Eight: There Will Be Freedom
For a while as they walked, Ilyria wondered if the sounds they were hearing were just some sort of auditory hallucination. The streets around them were empty. The houses with their shattered windows and burst open doors showed traces of the violence that had been there, but they too were empty. The sounds they heard were always just ahead. Peta would not leave Miasma’s side which Ilyria thought was understandable. He shadowed Miasma's every step. And in turn, Ilyria shadowed him, uncertain when he might turn again into a channel for the thing that may yet be powerful even than Zlo. It had said of the ceremony that “it is ours”. Now Ilyria puzzled over what that meant. “Mia,” said Ilyria, keeping an eye on Peta but hurrying to Miasma’s other side. “You said that I’m …” she glanced at the boy not wanting to say the word, “… of Izben and you of Menos.” “Magos?” said Miasma with a smile. Ilyria need not have worried. Peta continued treading dully, apparen
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Palace
A woman at the back of the procession gave a long guttural howl. Every hair on Ilyria’s body stood on end. “Use the glamour,” said Miasma, “Help me, use the glamour.” “And do what?" said Ilyria, "Where do we even go?” Aerie? No then they would be too far away. They had to be in the Palace. Palace? What part of the Palace? The Princess’s chambers? The Princess’s garden? She felt for the token in her pocket already knowing it wasn’t there and that she wouldn’t use it even if she had it. The Princess, she decided, could not be trusted. Vatra? Yakip?No. They had to be here. “Make a run for it,” said Thassa, readying himself as if to do just that. The procession moved with purpose now, bearing down on them. Their fac
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Seventy: Early
Ilyria, Miasma and Thassa paused at the iron and gold gates. The Gates of Perception they were called. Ilyria had never been this close to them. As a child she had been told they were enchanted. Any person wishing to see the Mogul had to pass the test of the Gates of Perception. Those who did not come with noble intentions would be incinerated as they passed through. Perhaps that was why the three hesitated. The heavy iron had been wrought with gold into the history of the Moguls of Idixat. There was the first with his high, noble brow, hands aloft, providing benediction for the new city. There was his successor, the same noble brow, bending to drink the water from the underground river on which the city relied. There was his successor’s successor, digging the first spadeful of dirt for the city’s ramparts. And so on. Each Mogul’s face was rendered in gold, his body in iron. The arid land in iron, the city he drew from its earth in gold. It was a study of how a man was made
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Seventy-One: An Old Friend
Ilyria kept her eyes on Astrapi even as she felt Zlo feeding off her pain. Her limbs grew numb and heavy as Zlo drew all that heartache from her. Ilyria willed Astrapi to open his eyes. Just show me you are alive, she thought, If I know you are alive, then I can do anything, I can … A soft hand on her arm and she groped blindly for Miasma. Miasma took her hand and stood on her one side and as she did so, Thassa took her hand on the other. She was not alone. Somehow, miraculously, she was not alone. She felt the blood return to her limbs and they tingled almost painfully with the returning pain. She would claim it back from Zlo. It was not his to steal. A rumble and the marble walls and floor shook. The three stood firm. “Look,” whispered Miasma, “They are all here.” Ilyria tore her eyes from Astrapi and looked around them. On the walls were each of her friends. Captured in attitudes of struggle, their faces bore the signs of their to
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Astrapi fell, Bonbon fell. Sidian, Flame and Loulou, they all fell. But it was not with the bone-rending shatter that Ilyria, Miasma and Thassa anticipated. Thassa, with his arms outstretched was surprised to find them filled with soft, warm, living, breathing Bonbon. Ilyria cried out as Astrapi landed with the thud and slap of flesh hitting floor. Likewise, the other companions, released from their marble prisons, fell to the rumbling, caving floor with cries of surprise and pain. Except for Bonbon whose tears were of joy to be in her lover’s arms. Ilyria had no time to feel bad about her inaction for the white roof and shattered walls of the reception chamber fell away as easily as if the marble had no more substance than eggshell. The smell of the garden filled the space but instead of the intoxicating perfume of earlier, it smelled as over-sweet and rotten, like over-ripe fruit. She held her hand up to her nose. The marble floor beneath their feet dissolved into the dark
Ilyria and the Lightning Bird Chapter Seventy-Three: Moon Dust
Ilyria could not have said exactly when she had understood the truth of the relics. Had it begun when she realized that the map to the Lost Cities was really the knowledge of one man, Nicos? Or when Astrapi’s breath activated the perfect chord on the gold harmonicus. Could it even have been Zlo who pulled the scant threads of ideas together for her when he pointed to Fierce as a Nemachi device. Ilyria knew Fierce was a living, breathing creature. Had Zlo missed something? Having forfeited so much of his humanity for power, he no longer understood the value of that humanity. Now, as she watched Thassa’s slow, reluctant appraoch, felt his sorrow as he dug in his pocket and brought out the necklace to place it on the altar, saw his dejection as he walked past her back to where Bonbon waited, she wanted to yell out her understanding. She wanted to scream at Thassa that the necklace did not matter. Only his memory of it was worth anything. The things that bind us to
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