Prince of Attania, 2

Jet sent Ben Reaves down to handle Attan’s problem. A human to take care of human issues. It was what he wanted to see happen in the long run. Attan had been worried that the Family would unduly target the non-family who had been involved, whether or not they were guilty. Jet agreed. If Family had handled the situation, they would take care of the matter to their own satisfaction. The well-being of non-family had never been a priority for them.

Communicators had come a long way in the past ten years, but they were no substitute for face-to-face conversation. Unfortunately, Jet wouldn’t be able to get away for a while yet. His sudden capitulation to Merrell’s wishes, and the wishes of most of the royals, was not as sudden as the newscasts made it seem. If not for Doll’s unwavering support, Jet probably wouldn’t have gone through with any of the marriages, Madelyne notwithstanding. He was attracted to Madelyne, pure and simple. He chose Lorra for expediency, and because she would never let it lie if he married another Family woman when everyone knew she thought of Jet as rightfully hers. Doll, he loved.

She curled against him in the big bed in the King’s suite at Darcy. Doll loved him as Jet, the reckless boy who listened to no one but himself and would much rather play than be King. She’d love him just as much if he wasn’t.

Lorra had been quite put out that Jet had no intention of consummating their impending marriage any time before the actual wedding, especially since she knew he had already been intimate with Madelyne from Wister. But that was different. That was just sex. A physical reaction, albeit one he greatly enjoyed.

He might have to take a few more wives in some of Attania’s larger cities in the future. Two were enough to placate the traditional Family who expected their King to breed for power and more power, so Family’s place in Attania would be assured in the future. They didn’t understand how being able to assume their Elemental state changed Family. Or at least it changed Jet, Doll and Attan. He didn’t know if he would ever age and die. Then again, he also had no intention of remaining King of Attania indefinitely, though he wouldn’t wish it on any of his heirs, either.

Sighing, he rolled over and squeezed Doll’s hand before laying a soft kiss on her temple. “I wish I could be there for Attan,” he murmured. “I know Ben will do a good job, but—“

“You said Attan could take care of himself,” Doll reminded him, twisting in his arms so she could kiss him back. “And so can I. Are you sure that’s all you’re worried about?”

“No,” Jet growled, reaching around Doll to pull her tightly to him. “I want to go home with you.” He didn’t give Doll an opportunity to respond until much later, after they had merged physically and as Elementals and were once more ensconced in their bodies. “Will you be all right?”

Doll burst out laughing. “You mean without you? I have Attan, and Macek Merrell has been very attentive. I fear I’ll be spending more time trying to avoid public attention in light of your, ahem, activities, than wasting away of loneliness.”

Jet pretended to frown. “Just how attentive has Macek been?”

Still laughing, Doll rolled away from him and got up from their bed, stretching languorously before pulling on her robe. She blew Jet one last kiss before going to wash. Jet flopped back on the bed and propped his hands behind his head. In truth, he was glad Macek was looking out for Doll and Attan.

As if thinking of Merells somehow summoned them, the senior Merrell, Thomas the Enforcer, popped his head inside Jet’s door. “Good. You’re awake. Get dressed. We have things to do.”

Another round of press conferences kept Jet busy until they had to leave the next morning. Merrell fielded most of the questions, and strongly hinted that further announcements would be forthcoming. Jet didn’t get to see Doll off. Their next stop would be the northern quadrant, with the cities of Ballind, Morres and Fenning high on the list. Each of these cities were bastions of Family presence. Each, with the exception of Ballind, had daughters of the royals currently in power. Each hoped their daughter would bear the next King of Attania.

If it weren’t for his other agenda, Jet didn’t think he could have gone through with this progression, even to placate the royals. He had power; he didn’t need to placate anyone. But Jet had an agenda which had nothing to do with marrying Family women in order to have more offspring—something he highly doubted would happen anyway. If it were possible, he and Doll would have had more children by now.

Jet had revealed the existence of elementals to Attania. Nobody was more surprised than Family to discover they had originally come from elementals. Through Jet’s example, some Family were able to access their own Elemental state, not only able to utilize the elements, but freeing themselves from their human bodies for short periods of time and actually becoming their elements. Aside from the royals, who were interbred for power and contained many different elements, most normal Family favored one element, at most two. Like Doll’s family, who were mostly fire. Some Family embraced these new concepts. Some, like Doll’s parents, were more comfortable in their current skins. And some, like Daniel, became Elementals who had full control over their physical bodies yet could also switch back and forth to their Elemental forms without any sign of trouble.

Still other Family embraced the knowledge that they were originally part of Attania’s elementals with a relieved fervor which hinted at how very unhappy they were with their current existence. They grasped at the idea that they could release their physical bodies for all time and yet still exist. They wouldn’t hear arguments that they would retain no knowledge of that existence. They didn’t care. Jet blamed Aylard for that. He had preached his message all across Attania, that Family were never meant to be physical beings, that returning to the elemental state was their destiny. Apparently, even though Aylard himself had finally released and returned to a pure elemental state, his followers continued to preach his message.

The problem was, Jet really couldn’t stop them. Oh, he could, as Merrell constantly reminded him. Deep down, he didn’t want to. Deep down, Jet believed Aylard might be right, and if it weren’t that he loved his physical life so much, Jet might very easily be one of those Family who gave in to the seduction of release. He worried about Attan succumbing to it because Attan was more elemental than Elemental already.

So Jet made his slow progression around Attania and met the Family of various cities and towns, hosting lavish receptions and pushing his progressive policies for change through cooperation with non-family for the good of Attania. He wanted to show Family how good this physical life could be. In every town or city he heard stories of the ones who had ‘released,’ and in some cases, like the one in Darcy before he began this progression, he actually witnessed a release ceremony. But occasionally, Family who had been wavering saw the King, either in person or on television, and decided to wait before taking that final step. Because it was a final step. There was no coming back from permanently releasing your physical body. You existed, you were, but that was all. Jet didn’t necessarily want to stop Family from taking that final step, but he wanted them to understand what they were doing, and he wanted them to live first, for their own good as well as for Attania.

He talked to Family whenever he could about working together with non-family, about using their innate talents with the elements without any fear of repercussions. He made sure he was seen using his elemental abilities, and then eating a satisfying meal. Even this taking of wives business played into his agenda for showing Family how to live happily as physical creatures as well as Elementals, because truly that was what Family was—both. Only time would tell how successful his efforts had been.

Jet had another agenda as well. Deep under the city of Parrion, under the hidden city that few knew about, were caves too narrow for physical beings to access. But Elementals like Jet could enter them. Along the walls of these hidden passages were bands of color, visible only in Elemental form, or maybe only visible to Family because they were at their core elementals. These hidden caves were where Aylard First had originated.

Until recently, Jet had believed Parrion to be the only place where those colored bands existed, but he found them again in the caves above Low City. If they were in two places, they might be in others as well. Hadn’t Aylard modeled the man-made caverns in the northern quadrant after the caves under Parrion? Jet had not seen any striations on the stone walls there, but then again, he had never gone any further than the man-made part where the Sons of Men had their headquarters. What if there were natural caves below the man-made ones, as there were in Parrion and in the mountains above Low City? Jet kept an eye out in every place they stopped.

X x X x X x X

Ben Reaves called Attan on his communicator and arranged to meet him at Low City’s harbor. Attan put the communicator back under his bed and closed his eyes. Reaves didn’t want to make his presence known in Low City, which was probably a good thing, considering he had no official presence in the King’s government. Ben Reaves was the head of the Sons of Men, an organization which was not exactly outlawed in Attania, but it had lost its teeth when Ben threw his support behind Jet. A lot of what Ben did these days was behind the scenes.

His counterpart in the northern quadrant, Reginald Archer, on the other hand, had become an integral part of the government in his area. Granted, the northern provinces of Attania were very underpopulated. Still, it was remarkable that a non-family governor ruled over both Family and non-family in his area with little trouble.

Attan’s eyes widened when he saw Ben standing on the pier with five other Sons of Men in basic coveralls and boots, with rifles slung over their shoulders. Over the coveralls they wore form-fitting jackets with a stylized S embroidered down the left side. The big box truck they’d used to travel from Parrion to Low City was parked a short distance away. Attan wondered what the local fishermen had thought when the Sons of Men jumped out the back.

“So tell me the situation,” Ben said, coming right to the point. He put an arm around the young Prince and walked with him back towards their truck, with the rest of his men falling into line behind them. “Tell me what you want us to do.”

“Uncle,” Attan replied in surprise. He had assumed Ben Reaves would take right over. If Ben were truly his uncle, he could just merge with him and give him all the details that way, but he was non-family, so Attan had to explain it to him the hard way. The entire story came pouring out, about Greg and the farm, and about Greg’s not-so-honest brother Tom, and even about Midver, although Attan kept the part about the spirits to himself. He just told Ben that, at Tom’s request, he had utilized the elementals in the area to stimulate crop growth. If his father the King had been here, Attan would have had no choice but to tell him the whole truth, but it had been Jet’s decision to send Ben Reaves instead of coming himself. Attan was glad he could postpone that revelation for another time. They had enough to worry about with Tom, his possible connection to the Sons of Men, and his nefarious activities.

“Not possible,” Ben said, when Attan brought up the guns and the communicator they’d found in the hidden caves behind the storage area. “I would have known if they were ours, and I definitely would not have condoned their methods.” He helped Attan into the cab of the box truck. “Let’s go visit this farm of yours.”

Attan directed them up the winding road out of Low City to the farm which sat in a lone valley bordered to the north by rising hills. Between Low City and Parrion, these hills and valleys repeated several times, culminating in the mountain range near Parrion where the Sons of Men had their base. Parrion itself was in a flat plain in the middle of low mountains, although at one time it hadn’t been so flat. Parrion had been razed to the ground by Attan’s grandfather, the former King Roy of Attania, when Jet was just a baby. When Jet first saw it, there was no city above-ground, only a barren desert. He had worked hard to give the land around Parrion its former vitality, and to rebuild fallen Parrion. Attan hoped to see it one day.

“Here.” He indicated the cut-off to Greg’s farm. The box truck laboriously turned the sharp corner and started up the dirt road. When it forked in two different directions, Attan told Ben to go right. The left-hand road, he explained, wound around the back of the farm and up into the hills beyond the cornfields to the secret entrance where they stored their crops, among other things.

“Do they know we’re coming?” Ben asked.

“Sort of. I told Greg. I’m sure he told his father.” Attan glanced at Ben apologetically. “I couldn’t let it go.”

Ben nodded. “He is your friend, I understand. But the other brother is not around any longer?”

“No. And Greg’s mother and sisters don’t know anything about this.”

“Don’t worry. We won’t harm them. But we will get to the bottom of the matter.” Having said that, Ben accelerated, throwing Attan against the seat. The soldiers in the back, used to Ben’s driving, hardly moved.

Ben slowed to a stop in front of the barn and the soldiers all exited the back of the truck and remained there, while Ben and Attan walked over to the barn. Greg’s father, having heard the vehicle coming up the drive, stood outside waiting, a mix of terror and resignation on his face. Greg was with him.

“Renn Jadock? My name is Benjamin Reaves. I’ve been asked by the King to investigate a few discrepancies in your handling of produce. May I see your storage facilities, please?”

Molly Jadock hurried out of the house, drying her hands on her skirt as she ran. “What’s this?” she shouted. “My husband has done nothing wrong!”

“Go back into the house, Molly,” Renn said tightly. “This isn’t about you.”

She stopped then, taken aback. Her eyes narrowed, and she spat out, “Tom.”

“It’s just routine, ma’am,” Ben said. His men fanned out in a semi-circle around him, contradicting what he had just said. At the sight of their uniforms, however, Greg’s father gasped and clutched Greg’s arm, drawing his son’s attention to the emblem on their jackets.

“It’s all right, Molly,” Renn said more confidently. “They’re friends.”

Ben exchanged a quick glance with Attan.

“In that case, come in for some pie when you’re done,” Molly said. “You can tell me all about it after your visit.” She turned on her heel and stomped back into the house, not completely appeased by her husband’s explanation.

Attan glimpsed at least two of Greg’s sisters spying on them from behind the barn. He thought it might be the twins. They disappeared quickly when Renn led the group in their direction. He wondered what they must think of him for bringing this trouble down on their Papa.

Inside the barn, Renn Jadock turned eagerly to face Ben. “Sons of Men,” he said softly. “I never woulda guessed he’d bring you. Or did Tom send you?”

Ben frowned. “Tom Jadock isn’t one of ours, and neither are you. Sons of Men don’t steal from our own people!”

“But you—why?” Greg’s father glanced down at the embroidered S on the other mens’ jacekts. “You’re not Sons of Men?” He stole a glance at Attan, aghast at the deception the young Prince had played upon him.

“We are. You’re not. The Sons of Men are loyal to King Jet.”

Attan noticed Ben emphasized his loyalty to Jet rather than to the Family in general, and realized what a tenuous thing their cooperation with the new government truly was.

“We don’t steal.” Greg spoke almost timidly, but his jaw was set and he wouldn’t meet Attan’s eyes.

“Why don’t you tell me what you did do, then?” Ben asked. “The whole thing.”

Greg looked at his father and finally at Attan. “Tom said it was for the Sons of Men. We all have to make sacrifices if we want to take back Attania.” He dropped his eyes. “My father and me tried to make sure it didn’t go too far, with . . . Midver . . .” He stopped, appalled at what he had just said.

“It’s all right,” Attan told Greg. “They know about Midver too.”

“Oh.” Greg’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, of course.”

“So you’ve been skimming from your own crops to supply this ‘Sons of Men’ outfit your older son runs,” Ben guessed. “And now from this other village too. Is that right?”

“No, not exactly,” Renn Jadock replied. “Midver is my home town. I wanted to help them.” He pulled himself up straighter. “I did help them! Every time Tom came in and cleaned them out, me and my boy here would find a way to give them back a little. It was all I could do for my old home.”

“It was Tom’s home too,” Attan said.

“You don’t understand. Tom is a visionary. He has plans to better all of us someday.”

Attan knew all about Tom’s plans. They included coercing the spirits of Midver, those oddly aware elementals, into changing Attania according to Tom’s wishes.

“He said,” Greg added, “that the corn the elementals made grow in Midver never really belonged to them in the first place, and that they wouldn’t miss what they never had. My dad and me were going to bring them some other food to make up for it!” Greg looked guiltily at Attan. He meant his share of the fish from school.

“Don’t bother, I already took care of it,” Attan said.

“I’d like to see this storage facility where you are keeping the stolen corn,” Ben said.

Greg’s head came up. “It’s not stolen,” he muttered stubbornly.

His father nodded in agreement, however. “It’s up that way.” He pointed. “We’ll have to drive.”

“Lead on,” Ben said grimly.