Prince of Attania, 2

Tom watched the two Family appear with avid eyes, but his voice feigned disinterest as he said, “Good. You’re back. I was wondering if you expected me to keep Greg all day.”

Greg looked up at his brother’s comment, grimaced, and looked away again. Attan almost felt sorry for him.

Tom’s followers, including a few Sons he’d picked up since he’d gotten here, lounged around in Ben’s downstairs office. Tom always managed to attract attention wherever he went. One of the Sons of Men nodded to Daniel, who nodded back.

“Well?”

Daniel grinned and clapped Tom on the back. “I’ll take over from here,” he said. Was Attan the only one who noticed the slight stiffening of Tom’s shoulders when Daniel touched him? “I know you have better things to do,” Daniel continued.

“That’s right,” Tom grumbled, but then he turned a dazzling smile on Attan and Greg. “I’ll see you two later.” With a final lazy salute, Tom strode off, his men behind him, including the newest followers. Attan raised an eyebrow questioningly, and Daniel winked. So Tom was being watched.

“I hope your tour was better than mine,” Greg said sourly. “Tom brought me around the center of the town and then we came back here and waited for you. I think he just came here to get a rise out of Attan. Where were you anyway?”

“Family stuff,” Attan muttered when Daniel didn’t answer. How else to explain what Daniel had shown him? Greg rolled his eyes.

“You may be right about Tom wanting to get a rise out of Attan.” Daniel pulled up a chair next to Greg. “I like you. You’re not intimidated by us, like most non-family. I think you’ll do well here. Your brother Tom has a lot of issues, including whether or not he really is one of us.”

Daniel was doing it again. Us. Which us, this time? Greg, however, didn’t seem to have a problem following along. “He’s always said he was part of the Sons of Men. I figured you thought so, too, since Ben brought him here.”

“He thinks he is,” Daniel replied. “We’ll see. You, on the other hand, have real potential.”

“What about me?” Attan asked.

Daniel eyed Attan speculatively. “Maybe,” he conceded. “That’s why you’re both here, to see how you’ll fit in. I’d like you to join us, but I think Uncle T might have different ideas.”

“Uncle T?” Greg asked.

“He means Thomas Merrell.” Attan sat on the bed opposite them, bemused to see Greg’s face drain of color at the mention of the Enforcer. So, Greg wasn’t afraid of Attan or Daniel, arguably two of the most powerful Family in Attania. But he was obviously terrified of the Enforcer. “He wants me to join his enforcers when we get back. I won’t be going to school with you after the summer.”

“Are you going to become an enforcer?” Greg whispered as if it were forbidden to speak of such things out loud. It was as if becoming an enforcer was ten times worse than for Family to join the Sons of Men. Maybe it was.

Attan shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on whether my father has any more children.”

Greg’s eyes widened. “Oh, right,” he said softly.

Daniel chuckled. “At one time I was going to be an enforcer—perhaps the Enforcer one day. I got over it. Attan can be whatever he chooses, so let’s not worry about it now. Let me give you both the tour Tom never finished.”

Daniel showed them not only the main square, which was as large as the city above, but also several offshoot tunnels, one of which housed the one-rail, and others which were clearly residential or industrial. Daniel told them the one-rail not only led up to the new New Parrion above, but also branched off far to the east in the newly fertile plains which bordered the Eastern Sea. “We grow our own food now,” he explained, which also explained why these Sons of Men weren’t as pale as Family from living underground.

“What do the Sons of Men do, then?” Greg wanted to know. Attan was curious, too. They no longer attacked Family—the legitimate branch, anyway—although from what Daniel said, Tom wasn’t attacking Family so much as trying to become Family. Which was impossible.

“I’ll show you,” Daniel said. He took them down a side tunnel to an industrial area bustling with people. They ducked inside the first building, where workers looked up from tables of wires and bits of metal. “You’ve heard of the communicators? We’ve been developing something along similar lines, but smaller and more efficient. Want to see?”

Greg nodded. The only communicator he’d seen was the older model Tom had up in the cave above his farm. The ones Attan’s father and the Enforcer used were a little more sophisticated, but nothing compared to these! Greg picked one up from the end of the table, weighing it in his hand. “It’s light!”

“And it has more functions than the old communicators. We plan to have one of these in every home in Attania within ten years. Of course, Sons of Men get them first.”

He showed them a few other factories further down the brightly lit street. It was hard to remember they were deep underground. “This one runs under the soil and shoots up water to keep crops moist even during dry spells,” Daniel explained, lifting up a thin, flexible cable. “That way, us Family don’t have to move rain to where it’s needed from somewhere else where it might also be needed. This thing can take the place of rain.”

“But where will the water come from?” Attan asked.

“We’re working on that—in some areas, Family will help to access deep wells, then hook up the artificial rain strips to the wells. It won’t work everywhere, but it will help in some places. We’re still refining the process.”

Besides growing their own crops outside of Parrion, the underground Sons of Men worked in several different factories developing and producing innovations to help the non-family in Attania. It had the added benefit of helping Family, too.

Daniel draped an arm across Greg’s shoulders. “I want to talk to you some more about your brother later,” he said. “You have different mothers, right? But the same father?”

Greg eyed him suspiciously. “Yeah. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.” Daniel passed it off lightly. He wasn’t about to share that bit of information with the non-family boy.

“So besides making new inventions, what else do the Sons of Men do if not . . .” Greg trailed off.

“If not trying to eradicate Family from the face of Attania?” Daniel grinned. “They got over that years ago, for the most part. Or so we all thought.” He gave Greg a sharp look. “There are Sons of Men in every major city, plus this one, which we kept under wraps. Every organization needs a secret base, right?” He winked. “This is ours. That’s why I was surprised your brother even knew about it.”

Attan was surprised, too. Tom had seemed to recognize the name when Ben said he’d be taking him to Parrion. But where had he heard it before, if not from some disgruntled Sons of Men? Attan believed that easier than he believed Tom thought himself a son of the Enforcer.

Daniel showed them a few more areas around the underground city, then brought them back to the center where there was a communal dining room. They would be given tasks tomorrow; for the rest of the day, they were free to explore and get to know their summer home.

Attan picked at his food. So did Greg, neither one of them being in the mood for a big meal. Daniel ate quickly and left, telling them he would check with them later. Shortly afterward, Tom and his men slid into the seats alongside Greg and Attan. “Well well well,” Tom said. “Here we all are, together again.” He frowned at Attan. “You bring any of your little friends along with you?”

There were free elementals all around them, though not the semi-sentient ones Attan had found in Midver. Attan doubted even Daniel was aware of them. He shook his head, busying himself with a mouthful of food he didn’t really want. Anything was better than talking with Tom, who had a tendency to twist his words against him.

“What good are you, then?” Tom asked, smirking to his friends. “I could have used a little spiritual assistance. Does your uncle know how to contact them too?”

Again, Attan shook his head. Daniel was unable to interact with free elementals. Only Jet and Attan, of all the Family, had that ability—and even Jet didn’t believe Midver’s free elementals were any different from the others.

“Shame,” Tom murmured. He seemed to lose interest in the two boys rather quickly after that, conversing with his own men and a few other Sons as they came and went from the large dining hall.

At loose ends, Attan and Greg wandered around the main complex until the overhead lights dimmed and went out, leaving only sparse utility lights for illumination. It was the underground Parrion’s version of night. The boys made their way to the room they had been assigned.

Greg fell asleep almost immediately, but Attan was restless. He wanted to shed his traitorous body which gurgled and sloshed from all the food he’d been made to eat lately. So he did.

A darker shadow against the artificial night, Attan flowed through rock walls seeking the caverns his uncle had shown him earlier in the day. Streams of free elementals flanked him, flowing in and around him. Attan reveled in the sensation of just being one of them.

He followed one of the paths Daniel had shown him, triggering the colored stripes along its narrow walls with his passage. In elemental form he was never tired or hungry; those were physical sensations. So he spent the night exploring the different pathways, which led east towards the sea. Attan broke away reluctantly when he realized it must be close to morning. He hadn’t discovered any more than his uncle Daniel had by traversing the strangely colored paths, but then again, that had not been his intent.

Feeling at peace, Attan flowed into his human shape in his bed and sat up. Outside, dim lights simulated the dawn of a new day. Physical once more, he yawned. It was still early. Attan closed his eyes.

“Wake up!” Greg shook him. “We’re supposed to be downstairs in five minutes. Ben’s here.”

Had he slept? He must have. The lights outside their bedroom window shone full-force. “Ben’s back? Where’s Daniel?” Attan shook off his blankets and stood, still dressed from the night before.

“Already downstairs. Hurry up.”

Attan didn’t see why Greg was so eager, but he shuffled down the stairs after Greg. Ben sat at his big desk going over some paperwork with Daniel. There were two or three other Sons of Men in the room, too. Ben’s eyes had dark circles under them, as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep. He must have been driving all night.

Ben turned bleary eyes on Attan. “Your father wants you to stay with me until your uncle Merrell comes for you. And he means stay. No going off on your own in your other form until further notice.” He looked at Greg. “That goes for you, too.”

“Why? What happened?”

Daniel’s expression was grim. “After we left, there was a mass release in Darcy where the King and his new Queen still celebrated their marriage. Hundreds of Family chose to release their physical selves permanently right outside the royal residence.” Daniel lowered his voice. “Some of them were royals who had come to the wedding.”

“It happened at the same time all over Attania.” Ben took up the story. “In Palmer, Ballind. In Low City. They all just—let go. Left behind houses and families and jobs. We don’t know why. Why now, why all at once?”

Attan stared at the two of them. “I don’t understand.” He didn’t. Not what the big deal was, nor why they both cared so much. “Why does my father want me to stay away?” Attan’s eyes widened. “Does he think I’m going to release too? But I told him I wouldn’t do that yet.”

Now the two older men stared in shock at Attan. “No, that wasn’t his concern,” Ben said, still clearly shaken by Attan’s ‘yet.’ “He’s pretty sure someone is behind these mass releases, and he’s pretty sure that someone is Family—or something like Family. That’s why he doesn’t want you to take elemental form for a while, either. We don’t know what form this someone can take, and we don’t want him influencing you while you’re in elemental form.”

It sounded like they were describing Aylard First, one of the original Elementals, the Neverborn, as he called himself. But Aylard First had released long ago and become one with the free elements of Attania. “Are you telling me you think Aylard First came back?” Attan asked incredulously.

Neither Ben nor Daniel denied it.