He skipped over steps, spinning downward so briskly that he hadn’t heard the soft footfalls of the servant with whom he collided.
“Master Black,” The royal attendant addressed him with perfect composure as they regained their footing at the base of the tower.
“My bad,” Black chirped.
“Good to see you awake already. Empress Xu has requested I wake you and send you to the kitchen for breakfast.”
“Oh, um, which way?”
The servant gave Black clear and precise directions. His informative nature also led him to explain that the royal family, for their children’s sake, liked to cook and eat together, casually in the kitchen as often as their busy schedules allowed.
“Thanks.”
Black followed the prescribed route, however tempted to deviate by a few rooms that he passed. He made his way to the kitchen, the smell of bacon or something similar enough kept him on track.
Rounding the last bend, he found the source. Working at what looked like a gas stove without any knobs, the emperor’s wife stood frying pan in hand. Long dark-red hair bounced like ribbons down her slender figure. Her olive skin had a sort of grainy wood-like appearance. Black clamped his eyelids together trying to force out whatever slumber might still enduring between them. There wasn’t any, especially after his tumble. The Empress had a dreamy ethereal quality to her. Optical sensors in check, Black thought that he was definitely looking at an alien.
“I’m half Oread. That’s a mountain and valley nymph, if that’s what you’re wondering. Don’t worry I know all about where you’re from. You’re not the first person from Terrene to pass through these walls you know.” Her demeanor was playful with a child-like tone, but her body language was grace incarnate. She was calming to listen to.
“Echo,” she sang. Hands precisely gestured her name. “And of course, Black,” emerald eyes angled downward at him, her trunk swaying ever so slightly in a welcoming gesture,
“Yeah, that’s me.” his lips sleepily rolled the word out as the rest of his senses were distracted by the sizzling on the nearest burner. “What smells so good?”
“Breakfast,” the Empress smiled. “Bacon, you have that in Terrene I hope. I can’t imagine a world without bacon?”
“Yeah of course we do but isn’t that like some sort of special magic flying pig bacon or something?”
“No,” she chuckled, “just regular bacon from a normal pig.”
“Well, it smells magical.”
“Thank you. Here, why don’t you help make sure these don’t burn while I check on the cactus rolls.”
Black poked and prodded the crackling meat haphazardly as he puzzled over the peculiar situation. Acclimated to awkward introductions, foster parents who stumbled through tours of their own homes, and non-siblings’ erratic behavior, Black awed over the Empress’ inviting calm.
“We have some visitors this morning,” she announced, “the recently widowed Cailleach and her son Collin.”
Black’s flat expression slowly declined as he realized the implication of this new development.
“I,” he held the note for a brief moment before delivering the rest of his short refrain, “lost my appetite.”
Echo was more reasonable than Black expected. She not only excused him from breakfast, she sent him on his way with a hearty helping.
“I want you to know,” she encouraged, “that if you need anything, just plainly ask, whatever it is.”
“Cailleach and Collin came to tell you that they don’t hold you responsible. Nor do they harbor any ill will toward you. Black,” she focused her attention solely on the teen. Black stood there frowning from behind his hoodie. “They forgive you. In fact they don’t feel like there’s anything to forgive, it wasn’t your fault.”
“If you’re not ready to meet them, just take some bacon. You know what they say about diving and drachmae. Oh,” She paused, allowing a piece of bacon to become unfairly crispier than the rest, “You don’t. The saying is: don’t dip in the Acheron without any oboli.”
Despite not registering a bit of the old Greek adage, he understood, by the tone of her voice and the glow in her green eyes, that she meant for him to do what felt right. Black had no desire for a meeting with the victims of recent events. Glad of her understanding, hunger subdued for the time being and content with the lush gardens, Black strolled across the grounds while the other half of his two man team took a freakishly long time to pack.
Black had virtually no luggage thanks to his magical box, but wanting it to remain beneath the servants’ attention he had to unpack many of his belongings and repack them into normal bags. During the broken conversation they carried between loads of provisions and second sweeps for anything left behind, Black caught wind of something called an ayotl. No one there explained to him what an ayotl was but Black and Evo were evidentially going to Atlantis in one.
First they would have to cross the canyon, bridge by bridge by way of horse drawn carriage toward the ayotl port. Apparantly it was some kind of land-harbor for creatures fit for mass transit to the other side of the continent. He made himself comfortable inside the kingly carriage and blankly examined the velvet cushions and gold leaf trimmings. The windows were covered by unrolled curtains and Black briefly despised them for robbing his view.
Evo who couldn’t fit, had to trot alongside. Emperor Xu had requested Black read the story of how Capriis was saved from drought through an appeal to several gods of various bodies of water.
Black had already read this passage but as he wanted to distance himself from conversation however he employed his nose with smelling the fresh pages.
The book rehearsed the tale of Poseidon and his rewarding of heroic deeds, desperate pleas and sacrifice with the fountain that now stood at the city’s center. ‘It continues to provide,’ the historian relayed, ‘a pure everlasting spring for all the inhabitants of Capriis.’
The trip to the land-port was short and anticlimactically uneventful. Black was nearly finished with the tale as their personal bellhops began unloading the coach. With that page still in his remembrance, Black’s mind wandered to Atlantis. Hadn’t he heard somewhere that Poseidon was connected with that place somehow?
His thoughts of course didn’t ponder the subject long before entreating the prospect of a meeting there. Notions soared instantly, like his brain had a magical map of its own, to Heythabyr and fixated on the girl with the blue eyes. It was even enough to push the impending task and warnings of danger from his mind.
No idea where he had left off reading Black pretended to finish just in time considering how it had been the perfect excuse not to have to help with any luggage, or listen to Evo yammer on about the significance of Echo’s proverb. Evo had even made sure to add current information about price hikes of Charon’s death toll and complain about how the river Styx is all the rage these days instead of the traditional Acheron. Had he been talking this whole time?
“The point is…” Evo explained to himself at the side of the coach, also trying not to move his fair share of the luggage, even if all of it was his. Black closed the book with a thump and pulled himself from the wagon. He easily tuned Evo out as he set out to discover just what an ayotl was.
It took a few moments for Black to be sure of what he was looking at. Dwarfing the hills around them was the colossal herd of tortoises like a small mountain range giving the landscape form. There were tortoises departing and arriving in a spacious field. Each had rows of tiny holes on its shell where people were going in or out of the hollow undershell.
Other animals skittered, screeched and scurried between, around and above them carrying out countless tasks. Some flew off carrying passengers and others trotted away alone. Creatures of all sorts bound for exotic destinations began their journeys while others greeted new arrivals. An incredible variety of mobile creatures were domesticated and employed for transportation on both massive and small scales. For further travel Black was informed passengers could connect to similarly colossal sea turtles, in addition to the conventional boat. It was like a living airport and Evo pointed directly to their particular flight.
As they approached the gargantuan reptile by the sign labeled “Brenda,” Black found his legs grow heavier. His pace slowed in a subconscious refusal toward the incredible. It felt like some movie from a distance but the closer he got to boarding a giant turtle the more real the experience felt. The tortoise resembled a major airlines’ largest passenger jet more than it did an animal, in fact, Black thought, it would probably eat jumbo jets given the chance. As he pondered, the possibilities of a terrifying beast this size carrying hundreds of passengers across great distances safely, boggled his mind. Then the question of what it ate popped in his head.
Black’s thought process was jammed. Several comments pushed their way to the surface each wanting to be said. Instead the passengers were all cramming into the doorway wanting to be seated and Black just stood and mumbled a little bit. Questions and exclamations fought a small battle aided by disbelief and wonder. Everything from ‘holy crap’ to ‘no way am I getting in that thing’ crossed his lips but in the end his newly sparked thirst for knowledge pushed out the victorious comment, a single word. “How?”
Teasing, Evo responded also with only one word. “Magic.”
Black’s jaw opened and shut again silently. He decided it might be best not to think and simply enjoy their first class cabin, fully furnished and partitioned off from the rest of the frequent flyer’s section.
Having a few relatively uneventful days did wonders for Black’s nerves. He grew more accustomed to the idea of living in a wonderland with the passing of each hour. The first few days on the journey were long and ordinary apart from magic practice and sword fighting lessons, all of which took place with a centaur, on the top of a giant tortoise’s shell. They tried knocking each other off to the distant ground below. The first successful attempt showed Black that Evo wasn’t joking. Black had lost his footing against an overly aggressive thrust and slipped on some moss that grew in a small surface crack.
Tumbling toward the deadly crunch of the four massive columns beneath the creature, Black began spinning as Evo toyed with his knowledge and skill in levitation. To Evo’s dismay Black was not afraid of heights, but rather liked the rollercoaster daredevil feel of being levitated above imminent doom and fear of being trampled to death. Evo cancelled the lesson defeatedly as Black seemed to have fallen off on purpose.
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