by Caleb Monroe
I put a hand on Tayus’ shoulder telling him, “I’m sorry, Tayus. I would have never thought your father would have gone that far.”
Tayus watches as his people begin to get comfortable in their new home. “The only positive outcome from last night came when one family of royals provided refuge for me and a few children who had been separated from their families as we ran for our lives.”
“That means there is some support in that ring.” I say with surprise in my voice.
“Don’t get too excited, Jacob. There are still not enough people to turn that ring against my father, but once we got through to the third ring, we could disperse, and with the aid of the guilds in each of the lower rings, we were able to get away from our pursuers.”
Tayus, Shadow, and I finally leave the edge of the forest and make our way to the field where his people have begun to spread out and mingle with the griffins.
“This is a perfect representation of what Cecilia will bring to this world,” I say.
As we look out into the open field at the base of this imposing mountain, we see a multitude of things that make us smile. Near the middle of the field, I can see most of the soldiers and their families starting to set up makeshift camps, and the griffins around them are very curious about what is going on in their home. They are walking around smelling the people and everything they brought along with them.
I hear a little girl scream, and I instantly reach for the handle of my blade. But then I see that she is only playing with a younger griffin. As I look out around the edges of the field, I see many kids and even adults playing with the griffins.
“This is beautiful,” I say out loud. “Shadow, why don’t you go play? I know you want to.” Shadow hops up and down before flying over to a group of small children who are timidly staring at a group of griffins sleeping in the field. Shadow approaches them, causing them to back up at first, but when he sees this, he rolls onto his back tossing his legs into the air.
The children slowly make their way to Shadow, but they stop when they get a few feet away. No one will make the first move, but finally one little boy bravely steps out from the group. He closes his eyes as he begins to pet Shadow with one hand.
When he realizes that Shadow is not going to do anything, he opens his eyes, and with the biggest smile, he tries to wrap his arms around Shadow as he falls on top of his belly.
The rest of the kids feed off his bravery, and before Shadow knows it, the whole group is piling on top of him. I laugh as Shadow tries to gently get out from underneath the avalanche of little children, and with the help of his wings, he is able to get to his feet again without hurting anyone.
“I want you to meet someone, Tayus.” I lead Tayus through the crowd of people and griffins to the other side of the field and take him to the edge of the forest. “Stay here for just a minute.”
“Alright,” Tayus tells me.
It takes a while, but I return with a friend in tow. “Tayus, I would like to introduce you to Captain. He is the one I leave in charge whenever Shadow and I have to go on a mission. I’m hoping that you two can learn to work together so that when I have to leave, I can leave you, Tayus, in charge of the people while Captain can oversee the griffins.”
“You must really like to play in the dirt, Captain.” Tayus say as he pets Captain’s dirt covered head.
“Yea, he can get a little messy sometimes.” Captain and Shadow look at me. “But he is great with the other griffins, and more importantly they listen to him. The two of you will make a great team.”
“Well, Captain, I look forward to beginning our new partnership.” Captain makes his way back to the forest. “I guess he wants to keep playing in the dirt,” Tayus remarks.
“Something like that.” I see Shadow looking at me, so I shake my head to let him know I am not going to tell him about the tunnel. The fewer people who know about it, the better. I cannot be sure that everyone here is on our side. We get back to the field and the sight of griffins and people coexisting prompts me to say, “Under different circumstances, I might wish we could just live here and ignore the problems affecting the kingdom.”
“If my father was not planning on marching his army here and killing everyone, I might be inclined to agree.”
“What?! He knows where we are?”
Tayus puts both hands up to calm me down. “No, but after I left, he will stop at nothing to find this place and destroy us. I would say we have a week at most until they discover our location. It would be sooner if he were not dividing his army up into smaller units who are trying to find the griffins’ home world. He is spread too thin to be a serious threat to us at the moment.”
Those last few words cause Shadow to panic, and he fidgets with his wings as he drives his talons into the ground. “Your dad is really going through with his plan to find the griffins’ home world?”
Tayus crosses his arms as he says, “Yes. He started sending out small parties using those horrible Gatekeepers he shackles those maimed griffins to.”
Shadow releases a roar that causes every griffin around us to look our way. “It’s okay, guys. Just go back to playing.” I turn to Shadow, petting his mane. “You have to calm down. I promise we are going to get them out of there.” Shadow sits down, but his talons are still driving deep into the ground below.
“My father will stop at nothing to make sure that he is the only one with the power to travel between universes, and the only way to ensure that in his mind is to find the griffins’ home and conquer it.”
“Then we have to find it first.” Shadow jumps to his feet. “If we can find your world, we can warn the rest of the griffins, and we can get them to hide or go to another world until things here are taken care of and Pontis is no longer a threat.” Shadow and I lock eyes. “But what about the Mortem Mangoners? We saw what kind of damage they can do. We can’t possibly leave this place unguarded.”
“And you won’t.” I turn to see Tayus has drawn his sword. “My men and I will stay behind to make sure this world is safe from the crystal army and my father.”
“The Mortem Mangoners will be here soon. I have no doubt about that. Give us two days to find it, and if we can’t find it by then, we will come back and deal with Pontis.”
“Two days? I think I can handle that. Especially with Captain’s help.”
I reach out and shake Tayus’ hand. “Thank you. Two days and we will be back. Then we will focus on getting Cecilia back in charge and dealing with the Mortem Mangoners.”
“Good luck, both of you.”
“We’ll need it. We are going to try and find one universe, with one specific world out of who knows how many. This is a long shot, but we have to try.” Shadow roars, and I know that I have his full support.
I take a few minutes explaining to Captain what is going on and that he needs to make sure the tunnel stays on schedule. Next, I quickly gather some food and wrap it in a sleeping bag before jumping onto Shadow’s back. We take off into the sky, and I wave to Tayus and the rest of his people as they cheer us on.
Shadow opens a portal, and we enter it not knowing what we are going to find, or if we have any hope of ever finding the griffins’ home world. If Pontis has men actively searching the multiverse for it, then we have no choice but to find it first. If he gains access to all the griffins, then there will be nothing we can do to stop him.
Chapter 10
“I was wrong, Shadow, very wrong. We need to land, now.” I pull myself down flat onto Shadow’s back as he mercilessly chirps at my despair. “This isn’t funny. Get us down, or up. Just get us to the ground.”
Shadow descends, or ascends, to the ground above. He loves the fact that I am disoriented, and he eggs it on by doing a few loops and spins as he prepares to land.
“I will throw up on you, and I will not help clean you up!” I close my eyes hoping that it will ease my torment, but my equilibrium is too confused at this point for even that to help.
“Are we there yet?” I o
pen my eyes for a quick second to find that Shadow is just skimming the ground but not landing. “No more games, jerk! Put us down!”
Shadow relentlessly chirps at me as if he has just pulled off the greatest prank of all time. He finally concedes to my begging and puts an end to my torment by landing. I slide off his back, letting my pack of supplies provide a softer landing than this brown, rocky soil below.
“I hate you, Shadow.” Shadow comes over and licks my face, but I push him away saying, “No. It’s too late for apologies. I won’t forgive you.” I cross my arms over my face and turn my back to him, but Shadow is not so easily deterred. He takes one of his clawed, front feet and uses it to pry my left arm away from my face.
“No fair. You are way stronger than I am.” I am trying not to laugh as we play, but it is no use. I decide to turn this on him by flipping over quickly and taking him out at his back legs.
Shadow willingly falls to the ground while I try my best to pin him down. He overpowers me with his wings, sending me flying a few feet away. I try to stand up, but then my inverted surroundings hit me again. “I can’t believe that everything is upside down in this universe.”
As I stand with my feet firmly planted on the ground, my equilibrium tells me that this is all wrong. I feel as if I am standing on my head. I look around, and everything seems completely fine, but my brain tells me everything is upside down from what I am used to.
“I don’t know how you flew so well with everything backward. I can barely stand up.” Upon saying that, I decide to sit down, hoping that this discombobulating sensation will subside.
I gaze out over the normal looking landscape realizing that other than being upside down, everything else seems very similar to Earth. The trees, the mountains, and even the soil remind me of home.
“Come rest for a bit. You must be tired after traveling through thirty-five different universes so far today. I’m pretty sure that’s a new record.” Shadow comes over to me, and he brings the bag of supplies with him.
“Let’s eat some dinner before we explore this world.” I open my bag and take out some fruit and dried meat that we brought along for this two-day trip. “Here is your cut, and here is mine.” I split the meal evenly between the two of us to make sure that we both have enough energy to finish this wild goose chase. While passing Shadow his food, I accidentally drop a piece of meat, but I reach up trying to grab the meat instead of reaching down. “This is all wrong, buddy. I still don’t know how you do it so easily.”
I have noticed as we have traversed the multiverse that Shadow never seems to struggle with adjusting to new laws of physics that the various universes we visit prescribe to. I, on the other hand, have had a few run-ins, like today, where my body simply cannot adjust.
“Do your thing so we can get out of here already. I can’t take this place much longer.” Shadow finishes his food before standing up to begin his search process. We know that if he gives out a call, any griffins around will always answer. I do not know if they are compelled to do it, but it has a one hundred percent success rate. We have already found ten more griffins on this trip, which means that even if we do not find the griffins’ home world, we will have at least bolstered our ranks again for the battle that will ensue when we return.
Shadow releases a giant roar that rattles my chest. He then sits very still, and I try not to make any noise at all. I watch as Shadow’s ears twitch and turn, but after a minute he looks at me and growls.
“Nothing? Well, why don’t you try it a few other places, and if you don’t find anything, you can come back, and we can move onto one more world before we call it quits for the day.”
Shadow crouches a little before taking off into the clear, green sky above us. He is only gone for a little while, and just like most of the other thirty-five times we have tried this, he returns alone. “No luck again? Oh well, maybe the next world will be it.” I already packed up the supplies, so with Shadow’s help, I hop onto his back and he opens another portal. “Lucky number thirty-seven?” Shadow chirps at me as we walk through the portal.
The instant Shadow places his foot onto the surface of the next world, my senses are corrected and everything falls back into place. “Thank goodness.” Shadow, on the other hand, only gets two feet into this world before he loses his footing, and we go crashing to the ground.
“Are you drunk?” I start to get up, but the moment my hands touch the ground I understand why he fell. My hands slide a little as I push myself up off the cold, metal ground. “Check this world out. The whole thing is metal, at least I’m pretty sure this is metal.” I kick at the ground producing a gong-like sound.
I hear a thud and turn to find that Shadow is still struggling to regain his balance. The metal surface is a little slippery and his feet are having trouble getting a firm grip.
“Ah, the enemy you could never conquer, Shadow. A frictionless surface.” Shadow chirps vigorously at me as his four feet slide in all directions, sending him crashing down to the ground. “This is payback for what you did to me on the last world.” Shadow finally gets on all fours, and when he finds a little bit of balance, he capitalizes on it by taking his talons and stabbing them into the metal ground to anchor himself.
“Good call,” I say as I turn around to check this place out. “Everywhere you look, all you can see is metal.” I start to walk away from Shadow who has decided that flying in this world will be the better option. “Is that a person?” I point to what looks like a humanoid being waving at us off in the distance. “Let’s see if they can help us out.”
I start to jog towards the person who is standing next to a rectangular building. As we get closer, I shout, “Excuse me, can you help us?” I get no response, so I ask, “Can you even understand me?” The person just stands there with his hand held up high.
I slow down as we finally get close to make sure that this person does not think I am a threat. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but I was wondering if you have seen other creatures like my friend here.” I point to Shadow, but as I turn around to face the person again, I stop myself. “What is this?”
I slide to a stop right next to the person waving at me, and that is when the reality of who I was yelling at starts to come into focus. “You are just a statue. That sure was misleading.” Shadow cautiously lands next to me, and right when his front legs are about to slide out from under him, he uses his talons to hold him steady. Shadow leans his head toward the statue and starts to chirp. “What? It’s just a statue.” Shadow begins to growl, telling me something is not right.
I get up closer to the statue, touching its face. “Why would someone carve a statue with so much fear on its face? This man looks terrified.” The expression this statue is forced to wear for all eternity is hard to look at. It is as if the artist wanted to capture someone who was facing their worst fear imaginable.
Shadow starts chirping again as he presses his head against the statue’s chest. “What are you doing?” I reluctantly place my ear against the statue’s chest to see what has him so upset.
“I’m not sure why you are so interested in this statue, but…”
Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.
“No! This can’t be.” I back away from the statue and slip, falling to my backside. “There’s a person in there! And he is still alive!” I get to my feet again and run up to the statue, but this time the horror frozen on his face hits me much harder, and I feel my stomach begin to turn.
“Get us in the sky.” Shadow and I fly high into the red-tinted sky, and he takes us in the direction of the setting red sun. We fly for a few minutes until I see something that demands my attention. “Down there,” I say, pointing to what looks like a town made of metal.
Shadow soars just above the ground, taking me all around the metal encased town where hundreds of people stuck in a permanent state of horror appear to be frozen in metal.
“Who could do this to these people? Someone turned this whole world to me
tal. Nothing and no one was spared. I don’t think we should stay here any longer, Shadow.”
Shadow takes my advice and opens a portal a few yards in front of us that will take us away from this world that has been forever changed.
We fly through it, and it only takes one glance at the giant clouds to see that Shadow has brought us to one of his favorite worlds. “You always bring us here to sleep.” Shadow chirps at me as he flies around what I had started to call the Cloud World.
This whole planet is nothing but clouds that constantly float around and never seem to dissipate. We found this once on a recruitment trip, and Shadow loves to come here when he is ready for bed. He lowers us down to the nearest cloud where I subsequently hop off, only to be sent bouncing back into the air.
“This place is so much fun.” I bound around for a few minutes while Shadow freely soars around in the ever-darkening sky. We both play for a little while, but eventually the sun goes down completely, forcing Shadow and me to stick to one cloud. “These clouds make the best beds,” I say while covering up with a blanket from our supply bag. Shadow lies down next to me, and I pet his side. “Well, I told Tayus we would only take two days to find your home world, and after thirty-seven tries, we are still no closer.” Shadow growls at me in frustration. “I know. Tomorrow we will get up early and try again.”
Shadow and I finally get to sleep, and when morning comes, Shadow is quick to wake me. “Is it already time? Fine. I’m getting up.” I repack my things and use the springiness of the cloud to bound onto Shadow’s back. “I’m ready if you are.” Shadow opens another portal, and we begin our seemingly impossible search again.
We start the day off on a bad note searching through ten more worlds, and none of them prove to be of any help to us. We did find a few locals who said they have seen others riding griffins, but they had no other information that could help us on our search.
We fly through our next portal, and that is when everything goes wrong, again. I should be used to this by now, but every time the laws of nature and physics change, my body feels like I am being born again as I try to decipher what is going on around me.
