Prince of Attania, 2

Daniel had more stamina than Tommy or Charles. He and Attan made it back to Low City in a few hours. They had roared over Attania in a thunder of stormclouds, high enough above that all the inhabitants below felt was the driving rain of their passing. The sun which seemed to follow in their wake, pasting rainbows wherever they passed, was the only indication that maybe the rainstorms weren’t completely natural.

Daniel bypassed Low City proper in favor of going right to Greg’s farm. They touched down in a tight spiral, taking human form and dissipating the wind before it could damage any of the farm buildings. Greg’s father immediately came running, followed closely by Greg. His sisters peeked from behind the barn.

Daniel smiled, striding forward with his hand extended as if he hadn’t just fallen out of the sky. “Mr. Jadock? We’re here for your son.” His gaze flicked over Greg, but he winked at the sisters, making the older ones blush and the younger ones giggle.

Greg’s father stared in astonishment, but Attan couldn’t figure out if it was because of his grays or because Daniel’s shirt clearly had the stylized ‘S’ of the Sons of Men. Molly Jadock came out of the house to stand beside her husband, and the younger girls flocked to her side, still peeping curiously at Daniel. Attan, apparently, was old news, grays or no grays.

“Me?” Greg eyed Daniel suspiciously. Daniel might be wearing a Sons of Men uniform, but he was clearly Family.

Molly drew her brows together, frowning. “What’s this all about?”

“Your son was granted a trial period with the Sons of Men in New Parrion,” Daniel said with a slight bow of acknowledgment. “I’m here to take him and the young Prince there.”

Molly stared hard at Daniel. “You?”

Daniel smiled wryly. “Me.”

Attan felt obligated to explain. “Daniel works for Ben Reaves. Remember, Ben Reaves invited us.”

Molly’s eyes widened. “Daniel? Prince Daniel Estee? The former King’s son?”

Daniel inclined his head. “That’s me,” he said. “Though I no longer go by Estee.”

Renn Jadock, who recognized Daniel as soon as his wife did, blurted in shock, “Sir, it’s an honor to meet you!”

If Attan had been any other type of person, he might have been offended. After all, he was the royal heir, son of the current King. None of the Jadocks had ever deferred to him in such a manner. Greg’s sisters whispered to each other and cast appraising glances at Daniel. To Attan’s surprise, Daniel reciprocated, looking over the sisters, especially the twins, with interest. Attan thought Family weren’t attracted to non-family, though he knew it didn’t work the other way around. Usually Farra and Lacey were all over Attan. Today, they didn’t even look at him.

“Well?”

“Yes, of course, Prince Daniel. Right away.” Greg’s father practically pushed Greg towards the two Family. Greg stumbled, glaring at his father, but he walked over to Attan and whispered in his ear. “Is he for real? We’re going to Parrion? Now?”

Attan nodded.

Daniel bowed again to the ladies, making Greg’s sisters giggle. “I’m sorry we can’t stay, but we only have a limited amount of time.” He raised his arms, veiling himself, Attan and Greg in shadow.

“He can’t discorporate,” Attan whispered, alarmed as he realized Daniel’s intent.

“I know,” Daniel whispered back. “Trust me.”

It was all for show. The great column of shadow shielded the non-family eyes from what he really intended. He fashioned a cloud and shaped it like a flitter. Greg’s eyes grew round as he figured out the flitter was for him to ride, but before he had a chance to balk, Daniel picked him up bodily and deposited him in the ‘cockpit’ of the illusory flitter. “It’s solid,” he assured the non-family boy. “I designed it myself.”

Greg glanced at Attan for confirmation, so Attan nodded. He was pretty sure Daniel was telling the truth.

They headed straight for Parrion with Greg safely ensconced in their core, which meant Greg could not see or feel just how fast or how high they traveled. Daniel removed his shadow barrier as they approached New Parrion, letting Greg view the city from his vantage point in the shadow flitter.

The glass spires of New Parrion pierced the cloud cover, sparkling in the late day sun. Attan’s unspoken query drew a negative response from Daniel. No, they could not stay to see the city. Officially, Attan was never here, neither was Daniel. Attan was disappointed; he’d heard so much about the new city. Now, he was so close but he still could not visit it. He felt Daniel’s amusement through the ambient. That wasn’t why they were here.

Suddenly, Daniel plunged downward, mercifully wrapping Greg’s flitter once again in shadows. Greg screamed out in terror. There was an opening below, so slight it was virtually invisible and must have been incorporated right into the design of the gleaming new city, unbeknownst to its current inhabitants. Daniel, Attan and Greg plunged through the opening into a series of baffle-like tunnels, twisting and turning with lightning speed.

Attan had never been to either Parrion—the new city above or the hidden one below. He was excited to finally see it. Daniel dispelled his shadows, dumping Greg several feet onto a hard gray surface which might have been a road if they weren’t deep underground. Greg sprawled on the ground and glared up at Daniel. Greg’s face was white as Family’s, and as he got to his feet, his legs trembled slightly.

Daniel grinned. “Not bad for non-family,” he said. “You’ve hung around Attan enough, so I figured you’d be able to take it. Welcome to Parrion, home of the Sons of Men.”

Both Greg and Attan looked up. They were in a gigantic cave with buildings around a large open center and artificial lighting which made the space as bright as day. It was a town, a real, functioning town! People moved about the street—non-family people—going about their daily business. Women and children lived down here, too. Attan wondered if they ever got to see real sunlight. He asked Daniel.

“Of course. I’ll show you the one-rail. It goes from the underground city to the new New Parrion up above. Our people use it to go to the markets and shop for things we can’t get here.” Daniel’s eyes twinkled. He started off across the large open square, the two younger boys trailing in his wake. Greg craned his neck trying to see everything at once as Daniel led them through the main cavern into a smaller one. This one, too, had lights. Attan noticed the strings connecting them. So, electric then, not elemental.

Our people. Attan gazed at Daniel thoughtfully. “Where’s Ben?” he asked.

Daniel chuckled. “Still in a car halfway between here and Darcy. Don’t worry, he gave me specific instructions for you two.”

“Will I get to see my brother?” Greg asked.

Daniel’s eyes took on a crafty gleam. “Eventually,” he replied. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether he wants to see you or not.”

“So he’s really not a prisoner?”

“Oh, he’s a prisoner. He’s just not locked up.” Daniel was enjoying this too much. “Come on, I want to show you the one-rail. It actually goes up into the new New Parrion.” The shiny silver tube filled the entire tunnel and disappeared into the rock wall. It was much narrower than the subway trains both boys were used to. Daniel beamed as if he’d constructed the thing himself.

“Come on.” Daniel led them back to the main tunnel. “You two will be staying with Ben while you’re here. I’ve got a few things to do but I’ll come find you later.” He winked at Attan and disappeared in a flash of light.

Greg looked nervously over his shoulder. “Is he gone?” he whispered.

Attan had discorporated in front of Greg dozens of times, sometimes at Greg’s instigation, so it wasn’t the fact that Daniel disappeared. “What?” he asked. The sign on the outside door said “Ben Reaves.” This must be his apartment. Attan turned the knob, which opened easily.

“I didn’t believe Family could join the Sons of Men. But nobody here seems to mind that he’s Family. I just don’t get it.”

Attan was Family, too. Somehow Greg had overlooked that small fact. He pushed into Ben’s apartment, which consisted of an office on the first floor. Stairs led upwards, so Attan took them. There were two bedrooms across a narrow hall from each other. The first one looked lived-in, so Attan chose the second, which had two beds, two dressers, and a small desk in between. “This must be our room.” Attan took off his gray jacket. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself, apart from the inescapable fact that he was, like Daniel, Family. “I don’t really get it, either,” he said to Greg. “I suppose that’s what we’re here to find out.”

“So what do we do now? Don’t say wait for Prince Daniel. Who knows how long he’ll be gone?”

Three loud raps sounded on the door downstairs. Both Greg and Attan jumped, startled. They ran back down the stairs just as the knocks sounded again. Attan pulled the door open. Greg’s brother Tom grinned down at them. He wore coveralls emblazoned with the same stylized S that Daniel had on his jacket. “I heard you two were here,” Tom said. His eyes lingered on Attan. “I’m glad you came.”

“Why?” Attan said it before he had time to consider. Every time Tom was glad to see him meant another problem for Attan. He’d thought he wouldn’t have to deal with Tom again. “I won’t do any more jobs for you.” He peeked around Tom, but he was alone. No one was guarding him.

“You misunderstand, little Prince. There’s nothing special about you down here. I don’t need your help anymore. I was talking to my brother. Want to come with me, little brother? I can show you around the place.”

Greg glanced at Attan, uncertain of what he should do. “We’re supposed to wait here for Daniel.”

“Daniel? He can’t tell you what to do. He’s just a soldier like the rest of us. Besides, how do you think I found out you were here?”

Attan felt a shift in the air. Go, he mouthed to Greg, nodding slightly. Greg reluctantly went with his brother, who was already pointing out various landmarks in the underground city as if he’d been here for months instead of a few weeks.

“It’s true. I’m just a regular soldier,” Daniel said, materializing behind Attan. He seemed happy about it.

“Is Greg all right going off with Tom? Where is he taking him?”

“He’ll be fine.” Daniel dismissed Attan’s concerns. “I set it up so he would take the non-family kid away for a while. I wanted to show you our part of the underground.”

“Our part? As in Family?” Daniel had lots of different allegiances, it seemed.

“As in Elemental,” Daniel replied, transforming again. Attan was quick to follow suit. Daniel sped through the main cavern and into a side tunnel, a light wind that raised a small cloud of dust wherever it passed. Daniel hadn’t said “city,” so Attan was not surprised when Daniel bypassed the artificially constructed parts of the underground and flowed through an opening too small for any physical being except, maybe, a rat. This tunnel narrowed and widened at various points. Attan wondered where they were going.

At some point, the tunnel widened into an area large enough for both Elementals to take back their physical bodies. Daniel casually placed a hand on the wall nearest him, and it sprang to light, a striation of various colors which wrapped around the room and beyond, continuing not only into the narrower tunnel ahead, but also stretching back inside the tunnel they had just exited. This was an Elemental skill Attan had never heard of. He wondered if Daniel had invented it. He was certainly grinning as if he had.

“What are those lights?”

Daniel regarded Attan shrewdly. “You mean you don’t know?”

“No.” Attan touched the softly glowing walls, but they were neither warm nor cool. Streams of tiny elementals pulsed in and out of the wall. Were they creating the colorful glow?”

“The lights are a clue to our past,” Daniel told him. “Only we can see them, and they only occur in places we can access as Elementals. I’m mapping these tunnels for your father. The original Elementals somehow created this path of colored lights, according to what Aylard told Jet ten years ago, but then he disappeared before we could ask him what they meant.”

Aylard had released his physical body right around the time Attan had been born, choosing at the end to revert to a pure elemental state. He had left them all with many unanswered questions. ’How far do they go?” he asked.

“I’ve traced them almost to the Eastern Sea. But that wasn’t why I brought you here—or not the only reason. You wondered why Ben and I let Tom Jadock walk around freely and call himself one of us.”

Again with the us. Attan was getting confused with Daniel’s rapid shifts in perspective. “Sons of Men?”

“Yeah. As far as we can tell, Tom formed his own splinter group of the Sons of Men, and he is their leader. There is no other person giving the orders. But Tom had heard about the Sons of Men, and he knew they originated in Parrion—just like Family. It’s not as much a coincidence as you might think. Tom might act like he hates us—Family, I mean—but he doesn’t hate us. Just the opposite. Thomas Jadock was born after the great fire in Low City. His mother named him Thomas after the Enforcer.” Daniel chuckled gleefully. “Tom thinks he might even be the Enforcer’s son!”

“That’s not possible, is it?” Attan asked.

“Of course not,” Daniel scoffed. “It’s impossible. Even if his mother and Uncle T did get together back then—“

“I thought that could never happen!” Attan was vaguely horrified at the entire idea. “Family and non-family feel no attraction for each other.”

Now Daniel laughed out loud. “That doesn’t mean it never happens,” he said. “But nothing could ever come of it—ever. It’s an evening’s fun, nothing more. Still—as long as Tom believes it’s possible, we have a hold over him. He’s intrigued by the notion that I’m Family and one of the Sons of Men, too.”

But Attan was shaking his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Then, when the twins were looking at you and you were looking back like you were interested, you were interested?”

Daniel reached over and tousled Attan’s hair. “You’re missing the point,” he said, still chuckling. “I think maybe you’re too young to understand what I’m talking about. I’m saying we can control Tom now. We just string him along thinking maybe he could have some Family abilities, and in time he’ll trust us enough to tell us what he really has been doing all this time. Come on, let’s go back before they realize we’re gone.”

He led the way back through the winding tunnels, and Attan followed him, though it would have been easier to go in a straight line through the solid rock instead. Daniel didn’t know how to do that; none of the other Family Elementals, aside from Attan and Jet, had that ability. Attan had a lot to think about. He had non-family friends: Greg, Ben, Reg, to name a few. He liked them, but it wasn’t the same as Family. How could Daniel---maybe Attan was too young. He still didn’t get it.