Prince of Attania, 2

Attan went back to Greg’s farm after school only to find out that Greg’s older brother was no longer there. “Is it because of me?” Attan asked, settling down behind the barn where they were hiding from Greg’s sisters.

Greg gave him a withering look from beneath his shaggy bangs. “No. He was finished here anyway,” he replied.

What about the metal lined room? Attan wondered. What about what he and Jet had discovered on the other side of the hill? Did Greg even know about it? Greg’s father certainly did. “You said you would tell me everything.”

“Fine.” Greg sighed and rose to his feet. “Greg is my half-brother. His mother comes from a small town south of Low City.”

“The one you brought the fishes to?” Attan asked.

“Shh!” Greg clapped a hand over Attan’s mouth. “Yes,” he whispered. “Midver. No one is supposed to know about that.”

“Why not?”

Greg rolled his eyes. “They’re just not, okay? Anyway, Tom’s mother is from Midver, and the people there hate Family. Tom grew up there although he doesn’t live there anymore. Tom is trying to help the people of Midver. He’s working on a plan to show Midver and other places like it that Family can help them make their lives better.”

That didn’t sound right. Tom had no intention of working together with Family. If he had, he would have joined one of King Jet’s programs for the improvement of Attania, where Family and non-family worked together. Oh, or maybe that’s why Greg was sent to the new school in Low City. Attan gave his head a mental shake. He’d forgotten about the secret room which Greg didn’t seem to know about. And the one he did. “How?” he asked skeptically. “By locking us up?”

Greg paled. “What? No that’s for storage,” he said quickly. “Tom was playing games. He shouldn’t have done that. Look, I can’t explain it any better without showing you what I mean. My father and I are making a run to Midver tomorrow after school. Why don’t you come with us and you can see for yourself?”

Greg’s brother was gone, and so were the men who worked for him, leaving Greg and his father the work of finishing up the harvest. Attan helped the two of them until it was too dark to see, dragging sacks filled to bursting with ears of corn to the large barn near the house. It was all very normal, and if Attan hadn’t seen what he had seen with his father, he would have believed he had let his imagination run away with him.

Jet left Low City the next day. As King, he needed to have an official presence in the kingdom as opposed to the more clandestine meetings he’d had with the Enforcer in Darcy. He and Merrell had decided another Progression was in order. This time, he would travel without his Queen in deference to Family who still hoped he would take another wife—or wives—to secure his succession. He’d warned Merrell that wouldn’t happen, and Merrell hadn’t pushed except to ask him not to take Doll this time. Perception was everything, and as long as the rest of the Family thought Jet was at least looking, they would be more amenable to the King’s overall agenda.

“Look after your mother,” Jet told Attan at breakfast. Not that he worried overly much; few people knew the King and his family lived in a modest non-family neighborhood rather than in the ostentatious mansion on the other side of the Mattick River. “Don’t do anything foolish.” That was in reference to his non-family friend Greg and Greg’s older brother. “Just watch—and wait.” He handed Attan a communicator. “Keep this in your room. If you need to get hold of me or Uncle Merrell, use it.” Jet thought having a communicator might discourage Attan from turning incorporeal and roaming all over Attania on his own to find one of them.

“Or I could just send free elementals to you,” Attan replied, and Jet, frowning, pretended to grab the communicator back. “Never mind—I think I’ll keep this,” Attan said, hastily shoving the communicator in his pocket.

“Use the free elementals if you have to,” Jet said seriously. “I’m hoping you don’t have to use either one.”

“I won’t,” Attan reassured him. Quicker than he could explain, Attan merged with his father and let him read his thoughts.

“Just stay away from the metal room,” Jet cautioned. He wasn’t worried about Attan being trapped. But he didn’t want those people to find out exactly what Attan was capable of, either.

After school the next day, Greg and Attan met Greg’s father downtown. The battered old truck still held several sacks of corn, although Greg’s father had sold most of them at market that morning. Attan hopped in after Greg as the truck sputtered down the access road by the docks. They drove along the river on a route that had become familiar to Attan from the times he’d followed the father and son down this exact route to and from a certain village.

“Why do you bring food to Midver, and why don’t you want anyone to know about it?” Attan asked, going for the direct approach. He didn’t miss the quick exchange of glances between Greg and his father.

“You’ll see,” Greg’s father promised. He drove steadily although the truck jounced all over the road. “And it’s not a secret—“ He glanced again at Greg. “Except from my wife. She would have something to say about it. So we just don’t tell her.” He grinned, exposing a gap in his teeth which made Attan shudder.

Attan liked Greg’s mother. She was big and always smiling, pushing food on Attan every time he visited. He couldn’t imagine her being angry. But then he’d seen Greg and his father replace the fish Greg should have brought home from school with ones they had caught themselves in the Mattick River after they had given away Greg’s allotment to this very village. “Why?” he asked.

“Molly’s a formidable woman,” Greg’s father said. “And my Tom—did you know my Tom was named after the Enforcer? Molly is not his mother. Tom’s mother was fascinated by the Family, no offense, young Prince. She had seen the Enforcer once in Low City right before the fires that destroyed half the city. Back then, I wasn’t the fine upstanding farmer I am now.” He winked at the boys. “She was afraid I would be taken and killed, so she made a deal with the spirits that if I were spared, she would name her firstborn after Thomas Merrell, the Enforcer.”

Spirits? Did he mean elementals? “What spirits?”

Greg’s father harrumphed. “She had some strange ideas, that one. She and her people believed in spirits you can’t see or hear but are all around us.”

So—elementals. “What happened to her?”

“She’s still alive, if that’s what you mean,” Greg’s father said, wrenching the truck to a halt in the center of the village. “Still crazy. She left me years ago when Tom was still a tot, went back home. That’s when I met Molly and we bought the farm north of Low City. Best decision I ever made. But I’ve always felt a little guilty, so I brought her and the boy food and supplies whenever I could. This is a poor village, as you’ll see in a minute. Tom came to live with me when he got older, but by then the village depended on me and my supplies. Molly wouldn’t understand, so I just don’t tell her.” He climbed out as a few villagers began to gather near his truck. “Oh, and Emma might be fascinated by Family, but the rest of her village isn’t. Don’t do anything too weird in front of them, all right?”

Attan stared at Greg’s father. “Why not? I thought they liked spirits and stuff like that.”

“You sure ask a lot of questions,” Greg muttered, climbing out after his father. “Not your kind of spirit. And definitely not Family. Nobody here likes Family, except her.”

The her in question shambled over to the truck, hands outstretched. She was slender, where Greg’s mother was stout, with curly brown hair which was streaked with gray, and both her eyes were filmed over. She was blind! “You’ve brought him—my Thomas!” she said with a delighted smile. “I knew you would! My son.”

“What is wrong with her?” Attan whispered to Greg, edging back behind him. The woman was coming right towards him. A swarm of free elementals surrounded her, wreathing in and on and through her body, though she took no more notice of them than any other non-family.

“She’s crazy,” Greg whispered back. “If you mean her eyes, it’s from the fire. She was burned rather badly. She recovered, but she’s been blind ever since. Claims it helps her to sense the spirits.”

Now that Attan really looked, he could see her arms were scarred and corded with bands of skin which had healed unevenly. Family had done that? He was horrified at what his people were capable of. Men from the village approached the truck, stepping around the woman to unload the sacks of corn. They did not appear to be as happy to see Attan as Emma was.

“It’s not Tom, Emma,” Greg’s father said. “It’s me, Renn. I’ve brought you corn from my fields.” He handed a sack to one of the village men.

“Not Tom?” Emma’s face crumpled, and she covered it with her hands. “Where is Tom? Where’s my Thomas?” she wailed. The village men walked past her with their sacks of corn as if nothing unusual was going on.

“Tom wants nothing to do with her,” Greg whispered. “He hates his mother.”

“That’s not true,” Greg’s father said in a low voice. “He blames Family for what happened to her. Not just her eyes, but her mind. It’s hard for him to be around her.”

“What did you bring him for?” One of the men looked hard at Attan.

“He’s here to help,” Greg’s father said, while a free elemental broke away from the sobbing woman and streaked through the head of the man who had spoken, startling Attan who involuntarily flickered in and out of view for just a second, but it was enough.

“He’s one of them Elementals. We don’t need help from their kind.” The man spoke viciously. “If the corn’s from him, you can take it back.”

“I told you it’s from me,” Greg’s father said. “The boy’s a friend of my son, that’s all.”

“My son!” Emma pounced on the phrase, stumbling forward until she could touch Attan. She danced her hands across his face, and in that moment the elementals surrounding her surged joyfully into Attan and out again in welcome.

“He’s not your son. He’s Family. Like the Enforcer,” Emma’s former husband said harshly. He pulled back on Attan’s shoulders. “Go with Greg, boy. I’ll talk to her.”

Attan was more than happy to obey. He caught up with Greg and took the other end of the last sack of corn. They both followed the townsmen to what looked like a market where men were already dumping out corn into bins. Attan glanced behind him. Greg’s father Renn had his arm around Emma and was leading her away. The cloud of elementals still surrounded her.

“I still don’t get it.” Attan tore his eyes away from the strange woman. People had begun filtering into the small market, which was rather bare except for the corn Greg and his father had brought. “Why don’t these people want Family help?” They were obviously poor. They didn’t grow their own crops, but that could change with Family assistance as it had in other parts of Attania. It wouldn’t take much—a little weather-working, a little burst of nutrients for the rocky soil. There were enough free elementals here that it would only take a little nudge from Family to set things in motion. Attan could probably do it himself!

“They won’t,” Greg said. “This town was always suspicious of Family. They always went their own way. Even my father used to think like that, before he moved away.”

“Your father! Your father is from Midver too?”

Greg reddened. “Yeah. He doesn’t talk about it much. Midver is a strange town. If it weren’t for Tom—and his crazy mother who still lives here—I think he would never come back. Come on, I want to show you the chapel.”

Chapel? Attan followed Greg across the town center, acutely aware of the stares that followed him. He was careful to keep his physical shape, to the disappointment of the free elementals who trailed behind him, urging him to play. He was glad of their company in this place, where he felt alone among these people whose shape he held.

Free elementals thronged the small chapel, a wooden structure which stood alone in the very center of the town. As they approached, a small group of women and children emerged, glancing warily at Attan as he walked beside Greg. One of the women, with frizzy reddish hair, looked somewhat familiar. She saw Attan looking at her and quickly averted her gaze, pulling the little girl beside her down the path away from the town center. With a start, Attan recognized Elea, the child he’d found on top of a cliff overlooking the distant ocean. What were they doing in Midver?

“Elea!” he called out, half-raising his hand in greeting. Both the woman and the child ignored him. If anything, their small group quickened their steps and soon were lost to Attan’s view.

“This way.” Greg gestured impatiently towards the small chapel.

“But—I think I know that girl.”

“That’s impossible,” Greg replied. “That group is from another town closer to the coast. They come up here on market day to trade goods with Midver. They believe in spirits too and want to have nothing to do with Family. You probably scared them.” Greg smiled crookedly. “They don’t know you like I do.”

Meaning Attan was inept at being an Elemental. But Greg’s explanation made Attan certain that the woman with the reddish hair and the little girl he had seen were the same ones he had seen on the cliffs.

“You wanted to find out the whole story,” Greg said, holding open the heavy wooden door. The interior of the chapel was dimly lit. “Here is where the people of Midver worship the spirits.”

The room seemed bigger on the inside. Attan could see a few people sitting on rough benches along both sides of the room, leaving the center open and empty to the naked eye. To Attan’s eyes, however, it was filled with free elementals, more than would normally have congregated in such a confined space. Light and shadow, air and even water swirled around in a tangled mass, so insubstantial that even the water was just a hint of moisture hanging in the air.

“Why do they stay here?” he murmured, more to himself than to his friend, who had moved to take a seat on one of the benches. Attan walked to the middle of the room and let the free elementals merge through him. They wanted to be here, they liked being here!

“So you can see them.” Greg’s brother Tom strode up from a stairwell at the far end of the little chapel. “I thought that might be the case.”

Attan glanced wildly back at Greg, who shrugged in insincere apology. “He’s my brother, what did you expect? You wanted to know. Now you know.”