The Lord Son's Travels (59 page)

“This
thing can fly,” she said to him.
 
His eyebrows furled tighter.
 
“It can go up in the air,” she tried again.
 
He still didn’t comprehend.
 
She pursed her lips in confusion.
 
Then she understood.
 
She shook her head in disbelief as she thought back over her journeys
and made a sudden realization.

“Nothing
flies here!” she crowed in triumph as she finally made the connection.
 
She smacked the back of her head in
wonder.
 
“No birds, no butterflies,
even the bees walk.” She got her confirmation from the continued bewilderment of
her husband, who was still trying to understand her strange speech.
 
“You must have been exiled or something
for flying,” she said to Rufa, who was just as confused.
 
“No shit, it would have totally freaked
out your buddies to see you go winging up into the air.”

“Bad
Rufa,” it agreed.

“Rufa
not bad,” she replied firmly.
 
“Rufa just chose unique evolutionary path.”
 
She turned to Adrien, smiled slightly, blew out a breath and
dived in.
 
“This is going to be a
little weird for you,” she started gently.
 
She took his hand and led him a few steps away from the
beast.
 
He listened intently,
hoping she would say something sensible soon.
 
“This creature can do something no one else does in your
world.
 
Trust me though, what he
does is very common in my world, and there is nothing magical about it.
 
Trust me?”

“Is
it from your world?” he asked.
 

She
shook her head.
 
"No, I admit
we suffer a sad lack of flying horses, but lots of other animals do this
instead.
 
Okay, check this out,”
she turned to Rufa.
 
“Rufa!
 
Go up!” she pointed to the sky.
 
Rufa looked doubtful.
 
“Rufa good!
 
Elenna friend!”
 
It nodded finally and unfurled its wings.
 
Its wingspan stretched farther than Elenna had guessed.
 
Adrien winced at the sight and tried to
pull her back for safety.
 
She
slipped from his grasp.
 
“Rufa go!”
Elenna urged, waving her arms towards the heavens.
 
It nodded and leaped into the air.
 
Adrien gasped audibly as the creature beat its wings and
rose above the tips of the trees.
 
He flung his head back to watch as it flew a few laps around their
clearing, rising and diving without effort, and with apparent joy at their
acceptance of his unique skills.
 
Elenna beamed in triumph and relief, leaning back against a walnut tree
trunk to watch the show above.
   

“Tis
not right!” Adrien breathed in her ear.
 
“Tis unnatural!”
 
Somehow
the creature was running on the air.
 
All of his previous concerns emptied out of his head.
 
All he could focus on was the
impossible creature circling effortlessly above them.
 
His tutors had unanimously assured him that items could only
rise into the sky with great force and could not remain there long.
 
But this horse traveled easily without
falling; even climbing higher to race along the tops of the trees.
 
He believed what all of the finest
minds in Allé-dôn took for fact; the blue of day and black of night were
unbreakable boundaries on their world, just as the mountains that surrounded
the Eastlands.
 
The exact distance
of the end of their world above was debated, but no one with a clear mind
didn’t accept the sky was off-limits to the living world.
 
Today proved a significant faction
wrong; apparently life could continue a few feet above the tops of the trees.
 
Perhaps the world continued for at
least several yards, he thought hopefully.
 
Now he understood Elenna’s enthusiasm at their
discovery.
 
He turned to observe
his wife smiling up at the sight.
 
If this, he thought grimly, was what living in a new world was like, his
respect for her deepened even farther.
 
If not for her easy acceptance of the monster, he would personally have
slaughtered the creature already as an abomination.

“How?”
he muttered.
 
She noted his
expression and abandoned her study of their discover to approach him with
concern.

“This
isn’t magic,” she soothed, cupping his shoulders in her hands to soothe
him.
 
He was pale in bewilderment,
eyes wide as he fixated on her in a search for comfort.
 
She felt sorry for his evident distress
but this was too good an opportunity for them to pass by.
 
She touched his face and smiled
brightly.
 
“I could explain how he
does it but it will get complicated.
 
Many animals in my home fly like this.
 
I’ve flown myself several times.”

His
eyes widened in horror.
 
“Not with
my arms!” she had to laugh when she immediately guessed the image this had
brought to his mind.
 
“We have
flying machines people can ride inside.”
 
Her words were senseless, but her easy manner calmed him.
 
He nodded slightly as he regained his
usual stoic composure.
 

Elenna
added, eyes sparkling,
 
“If I can
deal with disappearing swords and magic potions and foot-long walking bees, you
can deal with the flying horse!
 
Rufa!” she called up to the sky.
 
He immediately returned to the ground, landing gently a few feet away on
his extra-wide hooves.
 

“Elenna
friend?” it checked anxiously.
 

“Elenna
friend,” she confirmed.
 
She
touched his neck.
 
“Help Elenna?”

“Help
friend,” it agreed immediately.
 
“Elenna friend.
 
Help
Elenna.”

“Elenna
friend.
 
Adrien friend.
 
Friends ride?” she asked. She enacted a
complicated mime routine of climbing on its back. It considered this new notion
with surprise.

“Friends
ride?” it thought for a long moment.
 
Then it nodded.
 
“Friends
ride.”

“Cool!”
she exclaimed with relief.
 
Adrien
picked up their bags and took a deep breath.
 
He could see the advantages in her plan; they would reach
their destination within days instead of weeks.
 
Perhaps they could be in time…
 
he refused to think about rising about the tips of the
trees.
 
If he could be in
time…
 
he climbed up on Rufa’s
back, forcing himself to think of it as just another horse.
 
He helped Elenna up to her seat before
him.
 
She patted Rufa on the neck,
a sensation Rufa seemed to enjoy.
 

“Where
go friends?” it asked.

“West,”
she answered cautiously.
 
It
considered this.
 
Rufa’s home had
been on the far side of the Forgotten Lands.
 
He remembered little before his companion monsters had
forced him to abandon his home, but he could find his way to his birthplace again.
 
He would take his new friends
there.
 
He thought maybe his old
friends would like his new friends.
 

"West.
 
Friends go west,” he announced his
final decision.
 
And before they
had completely settled into their seats he took off.
 

Chapter 56

As
they flew up from the ground Adrien grumbled, digging his fingers into Elenna’s
ribs in his nervousness.
 
“We’re
safe,” she reiterated again.
 
“Just
like any regular horseride.”

“You’ve
done this before?” he confirmed.
 

“I’ll
admit, I’ve never flown Horse Air before,” she said, as she craned her neck to
admire the view.
 
“But I must say,
this flight’s a heck of a lot smoother then my last trip on American
Airways.”
 

Rufa
kept to an altitude ranging only between ten to fifteen feet over the tips of
the trees on a direct western heading.
 
The humans had to clench their eyes shut for protection as the final
rays of daylight blasted directly at them.
 
They had risen high enough to lose all of the sounds of the
forest; in addition to their lack of vision their environment was now nearly
silent.
 
In their isolation the
gentle rhythms of Rufa's wing strokes was lulling; both had to jerk themselves
awake several times during the peaceful journey.
  
Sometimes Elenna would speak to their mount, trying to
get more information about his background that could be useful.
 
Rufa would answer in short cryptic
phrases that try as she could Elenna could not get him to elaborate
further.
 
Adrien stayed silent,
only allowing himself to think about his plans for the future, not his current
predicament.
 

After
a while, both felt the disappearance of the heat of the sun from their cheeks
and risked taking a peek.
 
Adrien
shook involuntarily at the dark mass of tree branches passing rapidly below the
horse's improbably airborne hooves.
  
Elenna murmured words of sympathy and tried to calm him again.
 
She leaned back into his arms and
talked about all of the creatures in her world that could fly, and stories of
past travels in airplanes and airports.

“Tis
a truly bizarre world you come from,” he muttered in a mix of fear and
disdain.
 
Full night had fallen,
and Rufa had not shown any signs of difficulty flying in the dark.
 
She guessed he could navigate by the
stars just as well as the sun, and there was certainly no other air traffic to
worry about.
 
She closed her eyes,
reveling in the rhythmic beating of his wings carrying them towards their
destination.

“How
far have men in your world flown?” Adrien asked.
 
“To the end of the world?”

“Beyond,”
Elenna laughed suddenly, and pointed to the moon.
 
“To there.”

“That
is a falsity, Elenna!
 
I'll not
believe such a tale!” Adrien exclaimed.
 
His animation frightened their mount, who turned to regard them with
concern.
  
Elenna stroked his
mane absent-mindedly as her husband argued,
 
“The moon is only a light in the sky! No one can go there!”

“Beg
to differ,” she retorted with a grin.
 
He shook his head vigorously, unwilling to let another truth be stolen
away from him that day.
 
She
understood and changed the subject.
 
She leaned back in his arms and pointed to the stars. She asked him what
he thought they were.
 

He
responded with the answer his mother had given him when he had asked her this
question as a young child.
 
Each
star was the soul of one of his ancestors or their bravest companions, was her
reply as they would lay on the lawn of the Citadel on a warm summer night.
 
Alma Lady Queen loved to take her
youngest son for walks at night in the starlight.
 
Her husband and older boy were too impatient; they wanted to
talk gossip or run and play.
 
Adrien would lay quietly at her side and listen to her stories.
 
Night after night he would point to a
star, and she would describe the man or woman it represented and their
accomplishments.
 
Tonight Adrien
pointed to his favorite stars, and told Elenna their associated legends.
 
She listened quietly to his tales.
 
Rufa flew on smoothly, his wings adding
a steady percussion to her husband’s soothing voice.
 

“So
how are you related to Adarrien?” she asked dreamily when he had finished a
tale.

He
absently brushed at her hair while speaking.
 
“He is my third father.
 
My father’s father’s father.
 
I know the tales of all the Lord Kings since my twentieth
father,” he declared proudly. “They are your family now too,” he added. “You
must learn their stories so you may teach them to our children one day.”

This
gave Elenna pause.
 
She changed the
subject by leaning forward and asking Rufa if he was tired and wanted a
break.
 
He had never flown for so
long a stretch before, so he assented gratefully and began a slow and steady
descent back under the canopy of trees.
 
The humans prepared a quick meal while Rufa foraged through the
vegetation surrounding their campsite.
 
By the time their meal was finished, the eastern horizon already had
begun to lighten.
 
There were no
guards necessary in these empty woods so all three slept deeply under the
scattered rays of light penetrating the thick foliage.
 
When they awoke and had nibbled at
breakfast, they took to the skies again.
 

What
would have taken several weeks on foot lasted only two days before they reached
the far edge of the forest.
 
To
Elenna’s eyes, the forest rapidly underwent a few salient changes.
 
In the span of a few miles the number
of older taller trees dropped dramatically, but the amount of greenery was
about the same.
 
The underbrush
grew much thicker.
 
Adrien tensed
as they approached the subtle border, and whispered in her ear that they were
now entering the Forgotten Lands.
 
He related to her as they flew overhead the legend of a time when the Forgotten
Lands was a peaceful, pleasant place to live for several kingdoms and their
citizens.
 
He pointed to the West,
where a line of mountains lay waiting in silence for their future arrival.
 
One horrible day long ago, he told her,
without warning rivers of fire had been released from one of the highest peaks,
while thick blankets of dust had fallen like rain to blanket what not had
already been destroyed.
 
All of the
residents of the Eastlands had avoided the blasted areas since; very few people
alive had ever visited the land passing beneath them.
 
He wasn’t surprised by her lack of surprise at the methods
of destruction in his story.
 
Instead she nodded with interest.

“One
of those mountains,” she pointed, “is something we call a volcano. Dangerous,
but not magical. It’s a shame, there probably is some very good farmland down
there now after the ash settled and mixed with the dirt.
 
That must have been a heck of an
explosion to send lava down this far.
 
I wonder if the volcano is still active."

He
had traveled enough with Elenna to readily accept the idea of a mountain full
of fire.
 
As they flew on they
strategized the next stage of their journey.
 
Somewhere within the range was the home of the Lord of the
West, their final destination.
 
And
also within was the home of potentially thousands of monsters, which they hoped
dearly to avoid if possible.
 
Rufa
would hopefully be able to take them to one place while skirting around the
other.