Prince of Attania, 2

Angrily, Stenson released his physical body and joined with Attan, his temper making him momentarily forget why he didn’t want Attan to see all that he knew.

Attan didn’t give him a chance to change his mind. He delved deep into Stenson’s consciousness, stripping away layer after layer of subterfuge, some so ingrained that Attan wondered who Stenson had been trying to fool—himself?

Stenson, in his incarnation as Aylard First, had created the Sons of Men, and then later, as Stenson, had deified his previous self by forming the Sons of the First. He’d recruited Tom Jadock, among others, preying on Tom’s jealousy of Family. Tom never knew who Stenson really was. But it was Stenson who had planted the seed in Tom’s mind about harnessing Family, specifically Elemental Family, in order to do his bidding. Tom had taken it a step further, realizing that Family Elementals came from the same source as the spirits his mother’s town worshipped.

Attan went deeper, touching Stenson’s deepest secret. He knew! He knew what was out there beyond Attania’s seas. Attan pounced upon that knowledge, then reeled back in shock. He sat down hard, barely aware that Stenson had taken shape beside him. “Why did you come here?” Attan asked, meaning Attania. Because Stenson, at his core, was not of this world.

“We shouldn’t discuss this out in the open,” Stenson replied, turning to wind. Attan followed, unsurprised when Stenson returned to their hotel room and sat heavily on the bed. “Back then,” he continued the conversation, “there was nothing here. No land, no sea, no people. Only spirit.”

“You mean elementals,” Attan said, trying to understand.

“No, I mean spirit.” Stenson sighed. “Nothing of air or water, or wind. There wasn’t anything like that in the beginning.”

“Then how did it—we—get here?” Attan asked.

“Desire,” Stenson replied. “It created a bubble, and the bubble became Attania.”

“What? That’s it? Where did non-family come from? Where did the elementals come in?”

“That happened much later,” Stenson told him. “Spirit became manifest, and the world was born. All of it. Elementals are, I guess you might say, those manifest spirits, the raw material which makes up Attania. The rest—well, as you know, physicality breeds more physicality, and so the world came to exist in its little bubble. That’s why I said there’s nothing else out there—and if those people continue to breach the barrier and send elementals across into the void, they take the chance that the bubble might just burst.”

“And that would be the end of us?”

“That would be the end of us.”

Attan didn’t say anything as he processed what Stenson had just told him. That meant that, except for Attania, nothing else existed. He wasn’t sure he believed it. Desire—want. Some elementals wanted to be a part of this world, and some didn’t. Attan wasn’t sure which one he was. “You remember being pure spirit?” he asked Stenson. “Before you were wind?”

Stenson shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “It’s like being pure elemental—the first real sense of self I had was after I took physical form.”

“Then I don’t understand. There must be something out there—beyond Attania—even if it has no physical form or desire except to exist.” Honestly, Attan didn’t see a problem with that; in fact, it sounded rather—freeing.

Fear clouded Stenson’s eyes before he looked away. When he looked back, his expression was hard. “Would you condemn all you know here to disappear forever?”

Attan thought of his father, his young siblings, even Greg. He thought of Meetoo, who took such pleasure in the smallest physical sensation, and of Elea. He couldn’t imagine her gone forever. “No,” he murmured, “Of course not.”

Stenson started gathering up their meager belongings. “We might as well leave. You’ve made a mess of things here. I know you thought you were helping those Family, but all you did was make them doubt the truth.”

“The truth!” Attan was aghast. Was Stenson really that arrogant? He did nothing but lie to these people.

“The truth,” Stenson insisted. He threw their stuff into the back of the truck and waited with raised eyebrows for Attan to get in. They rumbled down the road until the town was a speck of dust behind them.

The next town was further west along the southern coast, in an area Attan had never visited before. Stenson’s truck pulled up in front of a small shop early the next morning, and he left Attan in the cab while he went inside. When he came out, his face was tight. He said nothing as he started up the truck and drove a little way past the town to a dilapidated motel with few other vehicles parked outside it.

Attan followed him inside once he got his key from the office out front. Stenson still wasn’t saying much, but anger radiated off him. Attan was tempted to go into him just to find out what had happened, but he refrained. Stenson would tell him when he was ready.

“See what you’ve done?” Stenson said after a long silence. “These Sons of the First won’t even set up a meeting with me!”

“Do they know who you are?” Attan asked, but Stenson snorted derisively. Of course not. Stenson always told these groups that the First had sent him, not that he himself was the First. He had other key members who facilitated releases in different parts of Attania, so Stenson was one of many, as far as any of the Sons of the First knew.

“They heard about what happened in the last town,” Stenson said. “Now they’re starting to question everything.”

Someone knocked on the motel door. “Stenson?”

Stenson yanked the door open. A non-family man peered in warily. “May I—uh—may I come in?” Stenson motioned him in. The man’s eyes fixed on Attan, widened in surprise, then flicked away. Attan recognized him, too. He was one of the farm hands who used to work with Tom Jadock up at his father’s farm.

“Some of the—ah, us—“ the man stuttered, “wondered if you’d meet with us, ah, you know, separately. Down in the caves? We were hoping Tom sent you.” His eyes flicked to Attan again.

Stenson narrowed his own eyes. “Tom? Yes, sure, fine.” He pointed to the door. “We’ll meet you there.”

“Where?” Attan asked, when the man had gone. His mind was still spinning with the implications. He had thought all Tom’s accomplices had joined him in New Parrion with the real Sons of Men, where Ben had been careful to separate them from Tom so that for all intents and purposes, they were part of Ben’s group now. Apparently he was wrong about that. Either they’d missed a few, or some of the ones who had joined Ben’s group in New Parrion were plants. Attan needed to talk to Ben—soon.

“You’ll see,” Stenson replied mysteriously. He transformed, and Attan transformed along with him, twining his essence with Stenson’s as they wound their way towards the nearby coast, and into a crevice in some rocks. The cave opened up to a sandy beach which was not readily visible except from the sea. Attan could tell that at certain times of day, the cave would flood, though it was dry enough now. They transformed inside, and Stenson waited with arms folded for Attan’s inevitable questions. The man who’d asked them to meet here had not yet arrived.

“Do the caves extend back?” Attan asked, wondering if, perhaps, they were like the caves near Parrion’s sea. He wondered if there were colored bands further in, too, signifying the unique elementals who seemed to inhabit Attania’s extensive network of caves.

Stenson nodded, distracted. “I didn’t know Tom’s network was still functioning,” he muttered to himself. “This may prove tricky.” He looked at Attan. “Don’t make things worse,” he snapped. “Keep your mouth shut, and listen. You said you wanted to learn about my plans, so learn.”

Attan blinked. What had brought that on? But there was not much he could do about it now anyway, so he nodded. By then, he sensed movement outside the cave, and moments later, the man who’d met them at their motel entered, along with three other non-family men. Attan didn’t recognize any of the other three.

“This isn’t about what happened yesterday? Stenson asked, getting right to the point.

“Not entirely.” One of the other non-family men replied. “We heard about it from our sources, of course, but that’s not why we set up this meeting with you. Where’s Tom? It’s been weeks, and we haven’t heard from him.”

“Last I saw him he was heading this way with a couple ground transporters,” Stenson lied smoothly, to Attan’s surprise. “Maybe he got caught by enforcers.”

Everyone’s eyes jumped to Attan.

“What’s he doing here?” The man whom Attan had recognized spoke up. “He’s the King’s son. Tom. . .” He trailed off, then tilted his head in puzzlement. “Did Tom convince him to work with us, then?”

Stenson inclined his head and smiled briefly. “Attan is with me,” he said. “He won’t give us any trouble.”

“So you haven’t seen Tom since we broke him out of Parrion? What happened to the transporters? We have people who are depending on those goods.”

“I’m doing what I can,” Stenson said. “I don’t know what happened either. In the meantime, I’ve been running up and down the southern coast with my truck. I’m not just facilitating releases. I’ve been delivering supplies to the known towns, and those who accepted them were supposed to get in touch with the rest of you.”

“But we can’t get to some of the places without the ground transporters!” One of the men said desperately.

Stenson shrugged. “I’ll keep my eyes open,” he promised. “Now, can you convince the Sons group here to meet with me? I need to straighten out yesterday’s mix up before it gets any worse.”

Mix up? Attan kept his mouth shut as agreed, but with some difficulty. The Sons of the First and this group of Sons of Men were obviously working together. They saw Stenson as a leader of sorts, but had no idea he was the leader of both organizations. Stenson saw no reason to enlighten them. In the end, the men agreed to talk to the leader of the Sons of the First in town, and get him to agree to a meeting, and Stenson promised he would make sure their outlying posts got their deliveries.

After the men left, Stenson moved further into the recesses of the cave, as far as his human shape would allow. “I need you to get supplies up to their mountain retreat,” he said. “A promise is a promise. I’ll show you where it is.”

And would he provide the food? Attan wondered if he was expected to conjure up food from nowhere for this mysterious Sons retreat. He asked as much, and Stenson replied wryly, “It shouldn’t be a problem for you, should it? You do it all the time in Midver.”

That was different. But Attan gritted his teeth and agreed. Stenson went into him and shared the location of the Sons of—Men?—hideout. Once he “saw,” he realized why nothing less than one of those giant transporter vehicles would make it up the steep, overgrown incline. He wondered why they would bother living somewhere so remote, when Stenson answered his unspoken question.

“We needed a place safe from Family,” Stenson said. “You wanted to know what we do. Go and see for yourself.”

But first, Stenson took him to a series of caves not far from where they’d met with the Sons. It seemed that Attania was riddled with them, and Stenson knew them all. He could see the colored bands which ran along their walls and knew them for elementals, though he could not interact with them the way Attan could. When Attan questioned him on it, Stenson admitted he couldn’t remember if he had ever been able to. It made a certain kind of sense. Over time, the entity that was currently James Stenson had adopted human traits, unwittingly or no, and it had changed him. Just as it had changed every other family in Attania. Attan wisely didn’t say anything.

“These hold our memory,” Stenson said softly as he ran his hand down a wide yellow band. Time changes us, but these elementals endure. That’s why I was so upset when I saw that woman had trapped them in her little stone carvings.”

That woman. Emma. One of Elea’s people who saw more than most Family did. “But they’re not trapped. They chose it,” Attan answered.

“I understand that now. I wonder—“ Stenson looked up as a thought occurred to him. “I wonder if that’s why these particular humans can sense us.”

Attan didn’t think so. He thought Elea’s people could sense the elementals within the stone and that’s why they carved them. But maybe Stenson was right. He shrugged.

He asked a question that had been bothering him for some time. “If we’re all from the same source, why can’t I sense non-family once they have died? Are they truly gone?”

“Why is a rock a rock? What we have created here,” Stenson threw his arms around loosely, “has evolved beyond our original desires. You thought I was lying to the Sons of the First when I said they could become what Family is? I wasn’t lying. Everything changes, given enough time. Even them. Even us.” He smiled wryly. “Even me.”

So he knew it, then. Attan felt relief. “Why do you try so hard then?” he asked.

“I may not agree with all the changes time has made,” Stenson replied, more candidly than he ever had before, “but I know what the alternative is, and I don’t want that.”

“What is the alternative?”

“Nothing.”

Attan wasn’t sure he really believed that, either, but he left it alone for now. Stenson led him back through the series of caves to their motel room, where they waited for the Sons of the First to contact them. It didn’t take long—the other Sons were true to their word. But, despite an impassioned meeting, none of this town’s Family elected to release. They eyed Attan with suspicion as he sat in the front row, Stenson’s plant, having heard from the previous town that this particular Family had released and come back from it.

Later, Attan prepared to keep Stenson’s end of the bargain by going to his remote Sons of Men outpost to deliver food. Before that, however, he needed to catch his father up on all that had happened. Stenson would be furious, but Attan knew his priorities.