First Call

 

Alithea picked up Erthen and turned to get Fallon. She would present Bebe as her assistant somehow. She still hadn’t figured out how to work Drindl and Alpen into her scheme. The queen stopped her, shaking her head. After some back and forth with gestures, she made it clear she needed Alithea to be a doctor for the rest of that day.

The two Fae warriors came into the clinic room. Alithea looked to the queen who motioned for her to go with the Fae. Carrying Erthen, she was led up a stairs, then to a portico on the second floor of the building. As Alithea approached the edge, she realized that it was tent room perched on the back of an elephant. The Fae warrior gestured for her to get in.

In the dark, stuffy interior, she felt for a bench and sat. Erthen wriggled in her arms, uncomfortable in the sticky heat. She opened a small door and let in the ocean breeze. In the light she saw the small chest. The room lurched back as the animal underneath took a step forward and she fell back on the bench with Erthen in her lap. She sang him the lullaby, hoping to quiet her own nerves as much as his fear.

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Periodically glancing out the window, Alithea tracked their journey south, then they turned away from the ocean. The sun streamed in the window and Erthen playfully reached into the fine particles that danced in the cascade of light. Reaching for his hand, Alithea inspected the fine points of light that clung to the tips of his fur. Dust? Mist from the ocean? Why hadn’t she noticed it before?

When she heard a muffled din of noise grow in volume, she looked out the opening and Erthen snuck in between her arms and held onto her hands. They were cresting a slight rise in the road that led down into a pit so wide and deep that Alithea’s mouth fell open in astonishment. One half of the great bowl lay in sunlight where she noticed the movement of small figures. In a small depression away from the road lay an elephant on its side. Sleeping? She had only seen the beasts walking. As they passed by, her attention was riveted on the soft trunk that emerged from the great head, but she could see no movement.

“Oh, Erthen, look at that,” she said in response to his babble. He pointed at the elephant and said that one phrase he had learned in the queen’s strange language, “I see you.” Did they have elephants at the school where he had gone the day before? He bounced on her lap with excitement as they disappeared into the shadows of the great pit.

People of the different tribes stepped aside on the shoulder of the road as the great elephant ambled along. They were Drindl’s age or younger; the gold dust on their fur accented their stooped stature and look of tiredness. She could not distinguish what tribe they belonged to but a cold resolute anger nestled deep inside her as she looked at the disheveled workers. She looked down at Erthen. “I promise you,” she said. He touched her lip, connecting the pattern of sounds to the movement of her lips and jaw.  “You are a smart boy, my love.” He would be safer right now with his father or at that mysterious school.