Jonathan: Prince of Dreams

by A Corrin

  Even before Peter had finished speaking, people were wandering off, trying to do so unnoticed. Some shouted that they would travel to the capital themselves, though I didn’t put much faith in their promises. The picture Peter had painted was not a nice one. I had half a mind to walk off myself.

  Family and friends? Did that mean that mine were in danger?

  Eventually, only the carpenter still stood with us.

  Mariah’s brows raised, impressed, over her mango. Kayle and the marine sergeant were laughing in half disbelief, half admiration.

  The carpenter seemed smug as he proclaimed, “I stand by what I said before. I wish to help. I’ve nothing to lose.”

  Peter shook his grizzled head sadly. “You’d be surprised at how much you do have to lose whenever the end comes. But I was serious about what I said before: you can’t come with us.” The carpenter looked crestfallen. Watching him studiously with his silver eyes, Peter relented. “But the White Griffin may find some use for you at the capital.”

  The carpenter brightened, the sun shining warmly on his flushed face. “This is wonderful news! I can use my craftsmanship to make weapons, and I have a few ideas that could revolutionize our armor and fortresses!”

  Peter strode forward and sat back on his haunches, raising one long claw to tap each of the carpenter’s shoulders. “Then go forth, and may you be blessed for your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. What is your name?”

  “J-Joshua, sir,” the carpenter stammered.

  In what seemed like some sort of an initiation or welcoming, everyone repeated, “Joshua.” I hurriedly added my voice, excited for the friendly man.

  Peter whistled toward the gap in the bog fence, and the trilling pitch echoed into the marsh. He was calling for a mysterious creature known as the eso-grohd. We all heard its hoof beats before we saw it, a fact none too surprising as the eso-grohd could only be seen by those whom it allowed to see. From straight ahead in the gloom approached a tall, thin creature. When it came into the light, Joshua made a small mewling sound of bewilderment.

  Eso-grohds came in many colors. This one was a pale violet with a white mane and fringe at the end of its long tail. Its stilt-like legs ended in deer hooves, but its body and face resembled a greyhound’s with a tapered muzzle and wide, erect ears. Instead of canines, the creature had flat, horsey molars used to grind up the vegetation native to its habitat.

  Once it reached us, the eso-grohd bucked its neck to flick away its silky forelock and pranced sideways playfully. Peter bowed to the creature, who returned the gesture in kind, and said, “This animal will take you safely to your destination. You can trust him with your life—once you ride him, he will become your faithful friend and steed until your bond is broken by death. But forgive me; I must make sure he is still on our side.”

  Peter sniffed the air; his head protruded forward toward the tolerant eso-grohd. An eso-grohd normally didn’t have a bad bone in its body. It was wholly pure, just like its cousin the unicorn. But once an eso-grohd had been tainted by evil or black magic, it would do the dark bidding of whatever possessed it. One of the four ways to check if one was good or not was to see if it smelled like fresh rain recently fallen on blooming flowers. If it did, it was good to go. But if it reeked of carrion or other such nastiness, had eyes like a crocodile, solid hooves instead of cloven, and unsightly patches instead of speckles in its fur, you’d better turn and beat feet.

  “All clear,” Peter said. “Collect whatever wares you need from your shop and the eso-grohd will do the rest.”

  I bowed to the creature and gestured up at its back with a talon. “Hop on.”

  I gave Joshua a boost up on his new mount. He slowly, anxiously reached down toward me, and I stretched up my wing so that my longest pinion touched his fingers.

  “I hope…we meet again, Prince,” the carpenter murmured.

  “Count on it.” I smiled. Joshua kicked gently at the eso-grohd’s flanks and was off galloping down the street toward his carpentry.

  After that, we grouped together, cast one more glance around us at the Melancholy Bog’s only town, and trekked solemnly out between the tree-trunk fence posts, now guarded by a cheery villager.

  Peter turned our path around the fence, following its border until it cornered sharply north at a ninety-degree angle. Still griffins, our talons were once more eventually coated in slime and mud, but we were too happy that we were leaving to care.

  Soon we found a path of hard-packed earth and gladly followed its narrow trail. The warriors were in their uniforms, having cast away their disguises. Smiles were on every face. To our right was a marsh of acid-hot bubbling ooze. To our left, a continuation of the rocky cliff side, now close enough to the ocean waters that we could hear the crashing breakers that I had learned to fly above.

  Mariah had just returned from flying herself. On the wing, she was graceful and acrobatic in the way she rode the air currents and flitted into arcing turns. She was so fast—like a starling—that my gaze had still been fixed on where she had been before I found out where she had banked to.

  One of the Amazons tentatively brought up our new clues, the disk and the lei, asking me for my thoughts as to what they meant. I was surprised that she wanted my opinion—and the others near her were giving me their rapt attention as well, as if expecting something wise to fall out of my mouth.

  “Well, the flowers appear tropical,” I mused, thinking of the dark, fragile blooms. “Wherever we end up, I think it’ll at least be warm.” A few of the warriors chuckled at that, and I asked Peter, who was walking ahead of me, what he thought the clues meant, but he said that we’d discuss that evening around the fire.

  After that, the only sounds became our thudding steps and breathing. In the relative silence, my mind wandered. I had helped those people. They had needed me. It was like the feeling I’d gotten on the mountain after I’d saved Carl—that sense that I was capable of...more. The pride trying to blossom in my chest and fill me with warmth warred with my desire to return home as soon as I could, forget about all of these people, and help my loved ones. What if I was here for a reason?

  What if I could make a difference?

  I looked at the stumpy trees and their pale, flaky bark, and gazed up into the sky and its infinite realm, naked of clouds, letting my senses flood me with the pleasantness of the afternoon. I deserved a bit of a reprieve. This was a moment to just bask in victory.

  A breeze seemed to whisper past my ear until I realized that it had not touched me, not riffled my fur or feathers. It came again as soon as my attention focused on that understanding, and this time I found out that, in fact, I was picking up conversation.

  Automatically, my pointed ears swiveled back over my shoulders, and words became transparently clear from Kayle and Mariah, who were following near behind me.

  “He’s bold, I’ll give him that,” Kayle was musing grumpily. “Jonathan talks too much, and he’s a smart-ass, but he’s got spirit. Still, he has a long way to go before he’s anything near King Brody’s caliber.”

  “Jonathan did well today,” Mariah chirped matter-of-factly. “He truly has the heart of a griffin—but he’s impulsive, brash. My father would say he is an imbécile... But a nice imbécile.”

  “Hey!” I cried, whirling to face them; the squadron stopped marching, bemused. Mariah and Kayle were both surprised.

  “Oh, don’t act all innocent!” I snapped. “I heard you talking!”

  “What are you talking about?” Kayle growled shortly. Mariah was frowning in a wounded way at me, shifting her weight from one talon to the other.

  “I know you have your reasons for loathing my very existence, but that doesn’t give you or Mariah the right to mock me! I was trying my best back there, and sure, I may not be as beasty commando as you guys, but I found the clue, didn’t I? Twice! The second time after almost getting skewered
by that gargoyle Ranker!” Everything tumbled out in short breaths. My sides heaved, my hackles a raised ridge on my spine.

  Mariah sounded pitifully close to tears when she stammered, “We d-didn’t…say anything, Jonathan…”

  I was about to get even angrier until I saw that some of the soldiers behind them were nodding in agreement.

  Peter shouldered me and said with concern, “They didn’t speak, Jonathan.”

  I looked from one face to the next, wondering why they were lying, when Mariah gasped loudly and squealed, “Jonathan! You’ve found your power! You can read minds!”

  Murmurs of awe burbled through the gathered. I was stunned into silence. Was it true? I suddenly remembered back to when I had been battling the Ranker, how I had known his every move before he had put it into action. How, right before he had died, I had heard two things at the same time, one of them being a fearful question: Can he understand me? And now that I thought of it, his mouth had not moved to form words as I had heard them.

  “Here, what am I thinking?” Mariah asked excitedly. She laid her head on her talons with her rump in the air, like a puppy inviting someone to play, and screwed up her face. I listened, just as I would have in a verbal conversation, but...deeper, focusing on her only and shutting away everything else except her and my mind, striving to touch hers.

  Snapping into focus, I heard her think, “Can you hear me?” I jumped a bit.

  “You thought, ‘can you hear me,’ right?”

  Mariah beamed. “Yeah!”

  Kayle asked impishly, “What about me?”

  I listened, hesitant, and then glared at him and repeated, “You said I can fight about as well as your grandmother’s goldfish.” Snorts of badly disguised snickers came from the soldiers shaking with mirth.

  “Ooooh,” Kayle said with indifference, faking being impressed. “Spot on.”

  Peter gave me a mini-noogie with the joint of his cream-colored wing, scrubbing loose a few of my head feathers. He laughed and teased, “Great, we’ll never hear the end of it!” That provoked everyone into a fit of laughter, and I stood there fuming with irritation, wishing they could hear my thoughts…

  That evening, just as the setting sun was throwing vivid colors into the sky from where it was sinking into the ocean, we left the Reekwood Swamp. Our dirt path slanted up-hill and became a sinuous carpet of pine needles and dried resin. More than one of us whooped, exultant at the change in scenery.

  Peter stopped us when it became too dark for the squadron to see and pulled us aside into the trees. One of the sailors started a fire while Mariah rummaged in a bag for vittles, using some of her power to grow a basketful of squash and exotic fruits. It was to be a celebratory feast. Peter was confident that Garrett didn’t yet know that one of his own was dead and assured us that the Rankers wouldn’t be able to pick up our trail for a long while.

  As the food was being cooked, and gentle laughter and content conversation sprinkled the air, I slipped away to watch the sunset from the cliffside.

  Stars, so numerous that they looked like specks of sugar poured onto a black silken blanket, formed constellations known and unknown. Violet, indigo, scarlet, orange, and pale-pink clouds ringed the sun, seeming to set with it and leaving the sky above me open and cool.

  I breathed in the smell of salt water and herbal pine needles, and tipped headfirst over the cliff. I opened my wings and felt the wind collect under them, boosting me up.

  Despite the near-death experience and my confrontation with the gargoyle-Ranker of my mom’s killer, today had been a wonderful day. I’d learned how to transform, how to use my power, defeated said-Ranker, and helped save a town from destruction. It felt good. It felt humbling.

  The wind was rougher closer to the water. It sounded like a screaming crowd. The winds sent up from the tireless waves were warm as they mixed with the night’s atmosphere. I abandoned all care and dove to just a few feet above the swells, dragging one talon through the surf.

  From the depths right below me, a gray-yellow back emerged as sudden as lightning. Startled, I pulled up, flaring my tail fan, backpedaling my wings. I threatened to sink down, but with a few agitated flaps, I had reached a safe height.

  Assuming the worst, I opened my mind, searching for the creature’s thoughts. When I connected, I didn’t hear words of malice or lust or evil; in fact, I didn’t hear any words at all. Instead, I gathered…emotions. Simple, blunt feelings. There was joy for the water, love for the few other beings it swam with, and a curiosity and playfulness toward the big creature above it.

  The animal and its friends circled back, and my sharp ears picked up clicks and tinny whistles. Locking on to their sleek backs below me, I finally discovered what they were, feeling embarrassed that I’d panicked: dolphins. Simple bottlenose dolphins.

  One raised its head from the water, chattering with its cone-like, tooth-filled muzzle, and I heard it inviting me with its uncomplicated mind. Come frisk with us, lion-bird, it seemed to say, sending me mental images of the wild, beautiful, unpredictability of its ocean home: Water flat as glass beneath a hot sun, and tumultuous and steely like a living monster, churning under forks of lightning. The amazing creatures it had seen below and above the surface of its ocean home. Hidden ruins of ancient metropolises, the bones of ancient dreams, tucked away in undersea caverns. Ride the swells and see what it means to be a dolphin.

  Excited, I shrieked piercingly and dove, soaring just above them, watching their stream-lined forms glitter in the setting sun. One shot from the water, spraying me with droplets, and then arced back beneath the ocean. They flew themselves, it seemed, through the water.

  We frolicked together until the moon, on its way to thinning into a crescent, rose into the sky and turned the ocean black. Someone called my name from atop the cliff some ways behind me, and I shrieked a farewell to the dolphins, peeling back and up into the sky. They chirped their own goodbyes and disappeared into the depths of their land.

  Peter was waiting for me on the ledge. I swung my body forward and landed, muscles weak from not touching earth. I breathlessly recanted what had taken place, licking the salt from my beak and straightening a few feathers on my wings so I could close them without discomfort. Peter wore a lofty half-smile, and when I’d finished, said, “It’s experiences like those that make being here worthwhile. Come, food’s ready.”

  As soon as everybody had dished up, all of us taking huge helpings, Peter turned the conversation toward the clues I had obtained.

  We were all in human form, since it was easier and less uncouth to eat our bread and salted meat with teeth and fingers. And, Peter informed me, griffins ate more, so we’d be less of a strain on resources if we dined as humans. I reached into my sweatshirt pocket, mouth full, and held up the lei and ninja star on one finger. Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I leaned across Marcus and handed Peter the items.

  He set aside his plate and observed the lei’s flowers first. He smelled them, nodding appreciatively. He fingered the soft indigo petals that had not yet turned dead and limp, and counted the long red stamen sprouting from the blooms’ black centers. Peter’s hands moved to the metal disk, reflecting the firelight almost painfully in its shiny surface.

  I watched him for a while, then, impatient, I asked, “What’s it mean? Where are we going next?”

  Passing the clues around, Peter gave his conclusion. “These things came from the Tahtltiki’s beach.”

  We all released our bated breath, glad that we weren’t to be heading to another swamp. The Tahtltiki territory extended from the coast up into a lush jungle—I remembered from my reading that almost every plant native to the area had some good or bad purpose. Because of the various springs and rivers threading from the melting mountain snows to the ocean, everything flourished. It would be a lovely contrast to the bog.

  “The razor disk was made by the Tahtltiki warriors from the
minerals they mine in their caves. They are used to bring down the ferocious jungle dogs that dwell in their territory. The women make the leis and send them to all major cities of the land, which, in return, send food and building materials. Depending on what sort of flower is used for the lei, the lei has a different purpose or meaning. These dark blooms are a symbol of death. Someone of importance must have passed.”

  Mariah spoke up, eyes misty with thought. “They love to sing and have dances.”

  “They’re very festive in custom, apparel, and manner of living.” Peter nodded. “The rest we’ll find out when we get there.”

  “Why would the Rankers want to go there? It’s not a place of nightmares?” Kayle mused aloud.

  “To hurt us,” I said. Everyone looked at me, as surprised as I was by the confidence in my tone. “To hurt me. It’s two birds with one stone: they get their reinforcements and, on the way, take out some of my allies and supporters.”

  “That’s what would have happened,” Peter said. “But not now that we have the clues.”

  “That’s right,” one of the marines said.

  “Garrett’s going to be pissed when he finds out what we did,” I said to Peter. Even though I meant it seriously, a grin pulled up one corner of my mouth. We had dealt Garrett a crippling blow. I would relish that for weeks. A few of the soldiers, even Kayle, chuckled.

  “He won’t find out for a while. The only one who pieced together what had happened was the gargoyle Ranker, and only after the werewolf summoned him to the swamp. Now that you’ve defeated the gargoyle and healed the swamp, it’s unlikely that Garrett will even know that we have his clues until it’s too late.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. Something else was eating at me, something that the Ranker had said, but I couldn’t remember it at the moment. I forced myself to relax and, for the moment at least, enjoy our hard-won victory.