by Steven Novak
So achingly beautiful a world this was …so very dangerous as well.
Though Nestor expected there to be quite a few ships, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine the Ochans could have constructed so many in such a short amount of time. They had been working feverishly. This implied either that they were closer than ever to finding the Rongstag, or they were simply growing desperate. Never in his life did he remember desperation sounding so very enticing.
From behind the turtle man came the undeniable voice of Krystoph. “Where is this ship of yours, Tycarian?”
Turning to face the massive Ochan, Nestor glanced over the creature’s muscled shoulder and across the blue sea. “I am unsure. We were late arriving. He should have been here by now.”
Gritting his teeth, Krystoph cursed under his breath. “Hurm. Never should have come to you for help. Foolish mistake. Growing foolish with age.”
With every passing hour, Krystoph was beginning more and more to question his choice to approach the Fillagrou female in the first place. After walking among the corpses at Prince Valkea’s castle, he began to wonder if possibly the stories were true, if in fact the Fillagrou elder’s prophecy—bizarre and nonsensical as it might have seemed—was somehow coming to pass. Since meeting the children rumored to have “incredible powers” though, he had seen no evidence of such things. Were it not for his last minute intervention on two occasions already, the useless pink-skinned creatures would be dead. The children were proving themselves worthless, the Tycarians were only slowing him down, and Kragamel was no doubt getting closer to the Rongstag with every hour. His patience was rapidly reaching its limit. Though unaware of it, Krystoph’s fingers began tapping gently on the sturdy leather handle of the sword dangling at his side. Killing them and continuing without them would have made sense on many levels. The time may have arrived to do just that.
Cutting through the relative silence came the girlish voice of Staci Alexander. “Hey! What’s that?”
All at once, the heads of Krystoph and the Tycarians looked in her direction. Less than ten feet away, Staci stood shivering, her finger outstretched and pointing across the beach and over the ocean. Next to her, the youngest Jarvis brother jumped excitedly, pointing as well. Following her finger, Krystoph gazed across the water, at last spotting a ship in the distance.
“Is that yours?” He asked Nestor sternly, choosing not to turn and face the turtle man.
Pulling a pair of binoculars from his belt, Nestor scanned the ship’s hull. Constructed of a worn and aged timber, deep brownish-red in color, the ship looked old and in desperate need of repair. Carved into its bow was a skeleton quite similar proportionately to an Ochan. Though beaten and chipped in various spots, he could just barely make out two words cut into its side: “Briar Patch.”
Pulling the binoculars from his face, Nestor grinned just enough to annoy the former Ochan general he was rapidly growing weary of. “Indeed, it is.”
Never one for smugness, even he had to admit that on this occasion the satisfaction of being right was quite enjoyable.
*
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CHAPTER 40
A NEW PROBLEM
*
“Oh crap.”
With every stride, the movement of the creature underneath Donald briefly sent the boy airborne before depositing him stiffly again onto its heavily muscled back. Using both hands, Donald gripped thick clumps of grayish fur belonging to one of Tahnja’s friends sitting directly in front of him. Seeing as the boy had never ridden atop a Pegasus, she believed it was in his best interest to travel with a more experienced rider. Moving at mind-bogglingly incredible speeds through the forest, the Pegasus darted between trees both big and small with astounding precision. The unicorn-like creature was moving so fast, in fact, that from a distance it resembled barely more than a blur. Less than ten minutes into the trip, Donald instantly regretted gorging himself at the New Tipoloo feast two days prior. The odd looking, yet wonderfully juicy meat that tasted an awful lot like chicken had been slowly making its way from his stomach toward his mouth and threatening a second appearance. To top it all off, he had a pounding headache, was beginning to feel dizzy, and desperately needed to relieve himself. The revolting odor of the dusty, gray haired thing with a body like a bear and a snout like a pug dog seated in front of him wasn’t helping matters any.
“Oh crap, oh crap, I’m gonna puke,” Donald mumbled, his face mashed into the creatures stinky fur, his eyes rolling back in his head. “We need to stop. I’m gonna puke. I’m seriously gonna puke, we need to stop.”
Feeling the boy’s face pressed against his spine, the massive gray bear glanced over his shoulder. “Did you say something, kid?”
The sounds of heavy Pegasus hooves crushing leaves and plants alike, coupled with the roaring wind resistance created by its incredible speed, made hearing and understanding anything less than a scream an awfully difficult task.
Donald’s stomach lurched, the bizarre alien food not yet digested in his belly again threatening to explode like a volcano of hot bile from between his lips.
“I said I’m gonna puke. I’m gonna–puke–if we don’t stop,” Donald gurgled, putting one hand over his mouth, his head rolling loosely atop his neck.
Above him, the trees were a blur, stretchy reds and grays starkly contrasted against the darkening sky. As the revolting baked potato rolled in street tar smell of the creature in front of him again snaked its way up his nose, he began to wish he had decided to remain with the Jarvis brothers and Staci, instead of following that little red jerk Roustaf. Wherever they were and whatever they were doing, it couldn’t be as bad as this; it just couldn’t.
“Please, stop, you damn gray haired Yogi! Please stop,” Donald belted with a half scream, and half mumble.
“Yogi? What’s a Yogi? You can call me Teek, kid! We can’t stop though, big guy, not if we want to make it to Ocha by nightfall!”
Dropping his head into Teek’s matted fur, Donald groaned deep and long.
“Listen, kid, if you’ve got some business to do, just do it over the side! Trust me, it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s lost their lunch while riding on the back of a Pegasus!”
The forest passing by at well over a hundred miles per hour, a heavy sheen of sweat pouring down his face and slimy lumps of disgusting mystery meat hammering at his insides like they were a punching bag, Donald found it impossible to hold back any longer. Removing his face from Teek’s dry matted fur, he leaned his wobbly, pale white head over the side of the huge unicorn and let the sticky, lumpy glop inside his belly fly.
What resulted was quite messy to say the least, even by messy standards. Needless to say, for young Donald Rondage, the next few hours were mostly a blur.
When the boy next became aware of his surroundings, he noticed that the spinning, bouncing blurry world had finally come to a stop. With his stomach-churning having lessened, he lifted his head and wiped a slimy sheen of stingy sweat from his eyes. “Wh-where ar–”
Teek’s gruff, old sounding voice interrupted his train of thought. “Shhhh. Quiet down, pally.”
Breathing deeply, Donald steadied his head. Leaning to the left, he glanced around the massive mountain of fur blocking his view. About twenty feet ahead of the group, Tahnja and Brutus had dismounted from their Pegasi and were now huddled close together behind a rather bushy patch of red foliage. Hovering just over the pink woman’s right shoulder was little Roustaf. Off in the distance, too far for Donald to see in any real detail, the forest opened up to an expansive grassy field. Near the center of the field was an enormous, frighteningly black hole dug into the earth. Extending for miles in every direction it eventually disappeared, transforming into something blurry and vague before folding into the horizon. One after another, massive beasts resembling long-necked dinosaurs larger than even the tallest of Fillagrou trees appeared from the blackness of the pit. One by one, the gargantuan creatures lifted themselves onto land with legs as thick as buildings
and toe nails the size of trucks. So massive were the monsters that thirty or forty Ochan soldiers were able to stand easily on their gargantuan backs, with room still for twenty more. Now standing upright, the massive head attached to the end of a neck longer than three football fields, one of the monsters eclipsed one of the three Fillagrou’s suns. Shaking its enormous dome from side-to-side, the great beast let out a roar that shook the ground underneath Donald and his Pegasus, nearly tossing the boy to the soil. The train of monsters emerging from the pit seemed endless. Donald watched as five emerged from the abyss, with still more on the way.
Eyes wide, the boy muttered through tight lips, “What the hell is going on?”
“They’re Girafadons,” Teek answered back, his gruff voice now just a whisper as he stared angrily at the grand spectacle before him with an ever-growing sense of fear. Unfortunately for Teek, this was not the first time he’d laid eyes on such a sight.
Cautiously, Tahnja, Brutus and Roustaf made their way back to the group, staying low enough to keep themselves from being spotted. Roustaf’s tiny face wore an expression of complete and utter defeat, of hopelessness and loss. Reaching up, the little man pressed his fingers against his eyes with a significant amount of pressure, praying it might relieve the bit of the tension built up behind.
“Well, looks like we’re gonna have to wait awhile before we get anywhere near the doorway,” he added with a heavy sigh before coming to a hovering stop near the center of the group.
“Wait a minute,” Donald peeked up from behind Teek, “are you telling me that hole all those dinosaurs are coming out of, that’s the doorway to Ocha?”
“Yep, that’s exactly what it is, slick.”
“How the hell are we supposed to get into it with the cast of Jurassic Park coming out?”
Roustaf’s head drooped, his shoulders slumping. His mind wandered momentarily to Walcott and Pleebo, suddenly doubting if they were even alive. He’d failed his friends. How foolish it was of him to think he could rescue them in the first place: how very, very foolish.
Absentmindedly playing with the straps of his overalls, Roustaf glanced at Donald with a pair of somber, defeated eyes. “We aren’t.”
Donald’s body froze. His rear end was sore and his stomach had tied itself into a hundred achy knots. He was dirty and grimy and hungry and smelled like the rear end of a billy goat with a bad case of diarrhea. As if all this wasn’t enough, according to Roustaf, he, along with the rest of his group of would be rescuers, were apparently out of options.
Letting his suspenders flop against his chest with a heavy thwack, Roustaf looked at the boy again. “That’s not even the worst of it, kid.”
Slowly his tiny eyes moved from one member of the group to the next, each among them replicating his downtrodden expression on their own faces.
“What?” Donald asked, a bit annoyed that everyone but him seemed to know what the little man with the transparent wings was implying. “What? What is it?”
“Girafadons are diggers, kid, and there are an awful lot of them coming outta that hole from Ocha,” Roustaf continued. “Those damn lizards would only get this many diggers together for one reason. They’ve located another doorway.”
Donald’s heart dropped from his chest and into his suddenly weak knees. Rolling from the leg of his pants, it tumbled to the ground.
“As far as we know, there was only one doorway they hadn’t yet found, kiddo: yours.”
*
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CHAPTER 41
SINS OF THE FATHER
*
Walking beside each other the entire time, their clothes drying significantly slower than either would have liked, Chris and Owen followed close behind Zanell and across the red forest. Eventually the threesome dropped into a camouflaged hatch in the ground and proceeded through a series of dark tunnels, at last arriving at the stone doorway leading into New Tipoloo. Chris spent the majority of the journey attempting to wrangle information from the strange, bony white creature leading the way. Her answers, however, were often vague and contradictory, leaving him more confused than he was prior to asking them.
Owen Little spent the trek staring at his feet, shaking his head and mumbling to himself, “I never should have come. I shouldn’t be here. Never should have come, shouldn’t be here, so stupid. Dad’s going to kill me.”
At one point, Chris awkwardly reached over and patted the boy on the shoulder. The gesture did very little to quell Owen’s rapidly expanding disappointment in himself and his choices.
From the moment they entered the dimly lit underground city of New Tipoloo, Owen and Chris were greeted by a mass of jubilant creatures in every size, shape and color. For at least the fifteenth time since climbing from the puddle and into this bizarre world, Chris pinched the skin on his arm, half believing that he was dreaming. Once again, the pinch did nothing; he did not wake up. If, in fact, this was a dream, he was stuck in it.
Like a living, breathing sea of multi-colored flesh, the enormous group of creatures surrounded Owen lifted the boy into the air and began cheering so loudly that the noise of the many quickly drowned out the voices of the few. Simultaneously, a second group surrounded Chris, attempting to hoist him into the air as well.
“No! Wait a second! No!” Chris yelled above the roar of the crowd, his body suddenly airborne while gesturing with his arms that he would have preferred to remain with his feet firmly planted in the dirt.
“Leave this one for a moment! He and I have much to discuss!” Zanell bellowed above the excited voices while stepping between Chris and the city’s citizens, convincing them to lower him.
His heart racing, Chris found himself unable to focus on just one thing. Dancing around him were creatures so bizarre they should have existed only in storybooks, movies, or the overactive imaginations of teenagers who play entirely too many video games. This simply couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. It was impossible.
A seven-foot tall creature covered in orange and black feathers with a beak the shape of a football bumped stiffly into his side. Quickly, the massive bird-man snatched Chris’ right hand with a pair of bony fingers stretching out from underneath one of its wings. “Welcome, my friend, welcome! The name is Alouicious, and I would just like to say what an absolute honor it is to meet the father of two of the five! Undoubtedly, this ranks as one of the highlights of my life, good sir! An honor, an absolute honor!” Its breath smelled like garbage, like an apple pie topped with cottage cheese and pickles. The sour odor causing his eyes to water, Chris recoiled a smidge and covered his nose with his hand.
Quickly replacing the winged hand of Alouicious with her own, Zanell began pulling Chris through the crowd and further down the street.
“An honor, I say! An honor like no other! I’d love to invite you to dinner, sir! We’ll speak later and hash out the details!” The bird-man yelled from behind while waving his feathered wing happily.
Carefully maneuvering their way through cracks between the tightly packed bodies, the pair eventually ducked into the awkwardly shaped doorway of Zanell’s dwelling. The light was dimmer here than in the street, and Chris’ eyes required a moment to adjust. In the corner of the room, sitting on top of a sturdy looking, yet delicately crafted table looted from Prince Valkea’s castle, was a candle with a single, hauntingly beautiful bluish colored flame.
Unable to avert his eyes from its unusual flicker, Chris muttered in a monotone voice, “It’s blue. Why? How it is blue?”
It was a stupid question. Of all the questions he had concerning everything that had happened and everything he’d seen, it was the most obvious and simple he could possibly ask. With his brain going in so many directions, he was having trouble focusing, and unfortunately it was the first thought that popped from his mouth.
On the opposite end of the extremely tiny room, Zanell smiled, chuckling softly under her breath.
“It’s blue because it’s not a flame, Christopher; it’s magic,” She answered politely.
Lifting a second candle from a nearby dresser, Zanell ran her long, bony fingers over the wick at a medium pace. Instantly, another blue flame appeared from thin air.
Wearing a grin as wide as the entirety of her long face, Zanell looked again in Chris’ direction. “Pretty amazing, no? It took me an annoyingly long time to figure out how to do that. You see, the powers I have weren’t always mine. Not too long ago, they belonged to my grandfather, the same as they did to his grandfather before him. You know what is so frustratingly strange about knowing everything there is to know, something that no one else seems to understand? Knowing everything isn’t the same as understanding everything. In fact, it’s not even close. They’re like night and day, like the ocean and the land, like this world and the universe in which it resides.”
There she went again with the mysterious, confusing statements. Chris was getting tired of mysterious and confusing. Reaching up, he applied some pressure to his temples. His head was hurting, his breathing irregular, and everything around him was getting wobbly, teetering on dizziness. He needed to sit down.
“Feel free to sit anywhere you desire, Christopher,” Zanell offered softly, pointing toward an elaborately decorated chair also taken from Valkea’s castle a few feet to the man’s left as an option.
After dropping into the cushioned seat with a heavy plop, Chris’ shoulders drooped as he inhaled deeply, trying to wrangle control of a breathing pattern as confused as his brain.
Taking a seat on the bed opposite him, Zanell’s smile slowly faded, changing into something more closely resembling concern. In her head, she had seen Chris Jarvis a hundred times, maybe a thousand. She’d observed him during his highest of highs and, of course, his lowest of lows. She’d seen him do awful things, things even he barely remembered and things he no doubt wished he could forget. Looking at him now though, watching him struggling to gain control over his emotions from only a few feet away, the experience was proving remarkably more palpable and real and frightening than she imagined it would be.