“Yes,” Reven said. “It is odd. I smell creatures everywhere, but never see or hear them.”
Aurelius shook his head. “Why?”
“I am clearing a path for us,” Gabrian replied.
“What? How?”
“It is a simple spell.”
“I see.”
It was another hour before they stopped walking again. Gabrian held up a hand for them to stop, and before Aurelius could ask why, he heard the old man’s voice echoing inside his head:
“Keep quiet, elder!”
Gabrian walked up past Reven and waved his staff at the curtain of vines and ferns blocking their way. The vegetation parted to reveal a rocky plateau leading out to a high cliff which gazed out upon the crystal waters of Rainbow Lake. Also gazing out upon the water was a lone figure standing with his back to them, his white hair and brown robes swirling in the wind. He leaned casually upon a gnarled brown staff with a clear green crystal set in the top.
Aurelius whispered, “Is that?”
“Yes! Quiet.”
A few dozen meters back from the cliff was another sheer face of rock, this one covered with climbing plants and hanging vines. At the base of that rock face were a series of dark caves. Aurelius thought he saw movement within one of the caves before a strident voice stole his attention.
“Well, it would appear you have finally caught up to me.”
Aurelius turned to look just in time to see the man standing at the edge of the cliff turn around. In the same instant Gabrian stepped out of the jungle and blocked Aurelius’s view, such that he couldn’t get a good look at their adversary. He heard Gabrian’s voice once more inside his head:
“Stay here.”
And with that, the undergrowth closed in a thick wall behind Gabrian. The greenery had the added effect of muffling the conversation which was continuing beyond. Aurelius stepped up to the wall of greenery and tried to part the ferns to see what was happening, but they stubbornly resisted his touch, as though they were made of duralloy and not cellulose. Aurelius could hear the shouts of incantations and spells but he couldn’t discern a single word.
Magic.
Reven turned to him with a knowing look. “The old one is hiding something.”
Aurelius’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”
“I told you. He smells strange.”
“Strange how?”
Reven’s expression became distant. “I don’t know. I’ve never smelled anyone like him before.”
Aurelius’s nose wrinkled. “Maybe he doesn’t bathe.”
Reven smirked and then turned to look behind them. “We must leave while we can. I can hear creatures returning to the jungle. They approach us with caution, but they approach nonetheless.”
“Then Wrinkles grew tired of scaring them off.”
“I suspect he no longer has the strength to spare. Or perhaps he no longer has any need of us.”
A distant roar sounded and Aurelius felt a sudden jolt of adrenaline sending sparks of electricity shooting to his fingertips.
“What was that?”
“It sounded like a gryphon.”
Gral sat once more inside the cargo bay, having recently returned so that the master wouldn’t suspect he had disobeyed the command to stay inside the ship. Lying still before him on the deck were three giant, pearly white eggs, each the size of one of his mighty fists. He reached out and promptly cracked one and then another into his gaping mouth, swallowing the eggs raw. He felt almost immediately full, so he decided to save the third egg for a snack later on. To that end he fetched his pack and snuggled the egg inside between some of his spare clothes and one of his nets. Then he picked up the broken shells and cast about for a place to hide them. He spied a square little hole covered by a flimsy grate at about eye level and walked up to it. The hole was gushing air into the room. Gral broke the metal grate with his elbow and stuffed the eggs shells inside.
Happy with his work, he grinned broadly and went to lie down for a nap. The deck wasn’t very comfy, but now that his hunger had been satisfied he soon fell into a deep sleep. Snoring contentedly, he dreamed of chasing fat furry creatures through the dark and brooding forests that were his home.
The loud roaring which erupted in his ears was barely enough to wake him, but nevertheless it did. His eyes flicked open and he sat up with a start. The roaring continued all around him, but distantly, drawing his gaze to the broken doors at the back of the cargo bay.
The gryphons had come looking for their eggs.
* * *
Aurelius and Reven reached the base of the mountain, gasping for air in the sticky heat. Their progress had been faster on the way down thanks to the trail that Reven had blazed, and thanks to the fact that they’d run the whole way down with the sound of gryphons roaring in their ears to add a constant supply of adrenaline. Aurelius thought the sound was familiar—like lions in a zoo, but louder and still more resonant. By now the roaring had grown so close that Aurelius had to constantly check over his shoulder to make sure that something wasn’t about to lunge for him. They ran on, ferns and branches slapping them in the face, vines clinging and entangling.
Suddenly the roaring was ahead of them as well as behind and Aurelius skidded to a stop in the loamy soil.
“We’re surrounded!” he hissed through a strangled gasp for air.
Reven bared his teeth in a snarl and the muscles stood out on his neck like cords. Suddenly, his ears and snout elongated and his makeshift robes swelled. His black beard grew thicker and his eyes turned a wilder shade of green. In a matter of seconds the man had been replaced by the wolf. He shook himself free of his robes and dropped down to all fours. Aurelius took that as his cue to draw his weapon. They stalked slowly forward with Reven taking point and Aurelius guarding their backs. They emerged from the jungle a minute later, and Aurelius gasped.
His ship lay upon the pearly lavender sand, gleaming blue and white in the sun, and surrounded by more than a dozen giant, four-legged monsters pacing up and down the beach. He’d been right to liken them to lions, but they were much, much larger, and when they turned their vicious heads to glare at him with fierce blue eyes, he had to blink to be sure he wasn’t dreaming. The monsters had beaks for snouts and flowing white manes that were a strange mixture of feathers and fur.
Reven snarled anew as the monsters began stalking toward them. Aurelius took aim at the nearest beast and was about to fire when it spread its enormous wings, flapped twice and launched into the air. Aurelius tracked the monster’s flight with his helmet’s targeting computer and HUD overlays. He aimed for the crosshair which was leading his target by a few meters and then fired. The red hot bolt of plasma hit the monster dead center in its chest. It gave a piercing shriek that sounded more like a bird than a lion, and it cart-wheeled out of the sky with its wings flopping uselessly. The monster hit the sand at Aurelius’s feet with a heavy
thump!
The other beasts paused, their paws—
talons?
Aurelius wondered, noting the shape of the claws—frozen in midstep as they eyed their fallen comrade with heads cocked in birdlike scrutiny. Then, almost as one, they seemed to come to a decision.
They charged.
Reven snarled and readied to pounce, the hackles standing up on his back. The gryphons were seconds from reaching them, and their giant yellow beaks were snapping loudly.
Aurelius took aim and fired at the nearest gryphon. It tripped over its own feet and tumbled end over end until it skidded to stop in a dusty cloud of sand. He fired once more with the same result, but there were a dozen more still coming, and when Aurelius pulled the trigger a third time his weapon sounded with a sullen click to warn him that it was overheated.
“Damn it!” Aurelius fumbled with the stun grenades on his belt. He withdrew one, armed it, and pitched it at the rushing horde of beasts. The grenade landed between them and the onrushing gryphons. He flinched away before it could explode and just barely remembered to warn Reven. “Look away!”
The dazzling flash of light temporarily blinded Aurelius even with his eyes shut. Micro particles of pearlescent neurogas hovered in a glittering cloud before the onrushing wave of monsters. Then were already stumbling into one another as they hurtled onward, blinded by the bright flash of light. In just a few seconds their eyes would recover, but then they hit the cloud of gas and their feet lost all coordination. They crashed into one another and tumbled through the sand in a furious tangle of limbs. A chorus of roaring rose from the confused mass of gryphons and Aurelius turned to Reven. The wolf appeared startled and confused by the turn of events, standing with one paw forward and one paw back, torn between leaping into the fray and running away.
“Hurry, get to the ship! But stay away from the gas!”
Without hesitating, Reven launched into a sprint for the
Halycon Courier
. He had to skirt a mountain of twitching gryphons, while Aurelius took a more direct path thanks to his suit’s filtration systems. Yet because of the wolf’s greater speed, they reached the boarding ramp in unison and raced up to the airlock. Aurelius blinked stupidly before the missing door and hesitated, expecting a gryphon to rush out at him. How had the door been ripped open?
Reven had no such concerns about the missing door and bounded inside the ship. Aurelius followed at a more wary pace, slapping the controls for the boarding ramp and the inner airlock door on his way. The inner airlock swished shut and Aurelius stalked through his ship to the cockpit with his pistol drawn and ready, waiting for a gryphon to come charging out from every shadowy corner and alcove between him and the cockpit. The gryphons were huge, but the corridors were just large enough for one of them to have snuck inside.
Despite his fears, Aurelius made it to the cockpit without incident. He found Reven back in human form (and regrettably naked again) already sitting in the passenger’s seat. Aurelius brushed by him, doing his best to keep his eyes averted.
He sat down and quietly went through his preflight checks. That was when he heard the banging and roaring. He toggled one of his multifunction displays and rotated through his external cameras until he saw a horde of Gryphons flying around his ship. As he watched, one of the monsters flew into the open airlock and there came a much louder
bang!
as it collided with the inner doors.
Aurelius grimaced and triggered the ship’s thrusters. They came to life with a sudden roar and the
Halcyon Courier
shot straight up. Hearing another ominous
bang!
ripple through the multifunction display, Aurelius knew he couldn’t afford to let the monster keep trying its luck. He flipped his ship up on its side and triggered maneuvering jets on the same side to keep from losing altitude. He was gratified to see a gryphon come tumbling out of the airlock in a flailing ball of feathers and fur.
“Time to go fetch Wrinkles,” Aurelius said, switching to rear thrusters and shooting forward with a sudden burst of acceleration. In a blur of treetops and dense green foliage they soared up along the gently rising mountain slopes.
Aurelius toggled his scanners and configured them to search for humanoid lifeforms. The readings were confused by the sheer masses of other lifeforms milling beneath the jungle canopy. He did his best to follow their earlier trail up the mountainside, but when he came to the rocky plateau where they’d emerged to find Malgore waiting for them, Aurelius saw no sign of either of the two old men. He frowned. Who had won the fight? Had either of them survived? He flew over the cliff and came back around to check the jagged rocks below for bodies. He hovered in low to the ground, his vertical thrusters violently tousling ferns and sending pebbles skittering for cover. Yet both his eyes and sensors told the same story.
There was no one there.
“Look!” Reven pointed.
There in the near distance was a gryphon, flapping its mighty wings as it flew out over the water. Just barely visible on its back was a tiny human figure in fluttering brown robes.
“Is that Gabrian or Malgore?”
Reven gave no reply, but Aurelius banked around and gave chase. It wasn’t hard to keep pace with the beast. He drew alongside and peered closely at the rider on the gryphon’s back. The rider waved at him with his staff, but Aurelius still couldn’t tell if it was Gabrian. He frowned deeply.
“Can you recognize him?”
“I rely on my sense of smell more than my eyes, human.”
Aurelius toggled a switch to apply magnification overlays, but the old man looked away in the same instant, and he couldn’t get a good look. “Damn it,” Aurelius muttered.
“Even if he is not our friend, we may have a chance to catch our enemy.”
“Well, in this case, the difference between friend and enemy is very slight.”
Reven let out a guttural laugh. “Good! You are listening. I had feared he had you under his spell.”
Aurelius privately wondered if he would even be able to tell whether Gabrian had him under his spell. . . .
They followed the gryphon over the crystal water of rainbow lake for hours on end. Aurelius drifted into a semi-comatose state from the sheer lack of action. He was almost unaware of the abrupt transition from water to dry brown plains lightly dusted with snow. The occasional tree dotted the plains, sparkling with the barest hint of ice and fresh green sprouts, as though the land were caught in an indeterminate period between winter and spring.
“Why is there so much less snow here than in the forest?” Aurelius asked over his shoulder. “We’re far enough from the lake that it can’t be that.”
Reven nodded to the horizon and Aurelius followed his gesture. It was then that he noticed the giant wall of clouds rising straight up from the line of the horizon to a height of several miles into the sky.
“What’s that?”
“The Misty Sea,” Reven said.
“I don’t see any water.”
“Beneath the mist, human.”
As they drew near to the puffy wall of clouds, Aurelius began to see a dark and brooding surface churning with waves. “Why is there so much damn mist?”
“The sea is warm. The air is cold.”
“Like Rainbow Lake?”
“Yes.”
Aurelius shook his head. “How can so much have changed in a few thousand years? I don’t recognize my world anymore. I don’t even know what continent this is!”
“This is Mrythdom.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me! Are we in the North or South Dominion? Or is this somewhere in the Old World?”
“I do not know what you mean, Human. Is it what it is. It is Mrythdom.”
“Okay, what’s across the sea, then?”
“No one yet lives who has crossed it.”
“Don’t you people build boats?”