Close Encounters of the Magical Kind Page 14

  “That was just one big misunderstanding,” Sarah assured the griffin. “We really didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “I know. Had the situation been reversed I don’t think I could have said that I would have been as reserved as you two had been.”

  Steve snorted, “Reserved? I’ve replayed that particular episode in my head quite a few times and never once did I think I had acted reserved. Quite the opposite. I think I had been too brash. I had just started getting a handle on my fire thrower jhorun and was eager to try it out. You griffins, I’m sorry to say, paid the price for my arrogance. So, from me to you, I’m sorry I hurt your son. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have any choice.”

  “You misunderstand, fire thrower,” Tesur clucked, chuckling to himself. “You put my son in his place. He was the one that was acting foolishly. Never once did he or his friends stop to consider that perhaps they had been fooled into attacking the wrong party. For that, you have my sincerest apologies.”

  Sarah leaned to the right and patted Tesur’s flank.

  “Don’t worry about it. It happened years ago, and there was no harm done. Well, no lingering harm was done.”

  “How is your son?” Steve asked, curious. “I’ve always wondered about griffin families. How many, uh, offspring do you typically have?”

  “Two. Always two cubs. One male and one female.”

  “Never two males, or two females?” Sarah asked.

  “There have been dual males or dual females,” Tesur admitted. “But it is rare.”

  “Do griffins mate for life?” Sarah asked.

  Tesur squawked once.

  “Do humans?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I’d like to say that most do, but unfortunately, a lot don’t.”

  “Does one gender have a shorter life span than the other?” Tesur asked, confused.

  “No, not really,” Sarah told the griffin.

  “Then why won’t human mates stay together?”

  “Uh, irreconcilable differences?” Steve suggested.

  “I’m not familiar with that phrase.”

  “It means the two humans couldn’t get along,” Sarah translated.

  “Ah.”

  “Do griffins ever have fights?” Steve asked.

  “With our mates? Never.”

  “Really?” Steve asked, amazed. “Not ever?”

  “Why would I want to fight with my mate?” Tesur asked, puzzled.

  “Don’t you ever have disagreements?” Sarah asked.

  “Sometimes, but not often. Humans have disagreements and the decision is made to dissolve the union? This makes no sense.”

  “There are times when I’d be right there with you, pal,” Steve said.

  “What types of disagreements could humans possibly have that would drive two mates away from each other?” Tesur wanted to know.

  “Cheating is one of the most common reasons to, well, dissolve a union,” Sarah offered after she had given the matter some thought.

  “Cheating? I do not understand.”

  “It means if the male were to, uh, spend time with another female,” Steve clarified. “That’d be grounds for trouble.”

  “There are numerous females in my flock,” Tesur recalled. “I am familiar with them all. By your definition, would that make me a cheater?”

  Sarah smiled as her husband gave her an imploring look.

  “Nuh uh,” she said, shaking her head. “You gave that lousy definition of ‘cheating’. Now you get to clarify. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” Steve sourly answered. He thought for a moment. “If you were to have intimate relations with another member of the opposite gender, then that would constitute the type of cheating we’re talking about.”

  “Why would I want to dally with another female?” Tesur asked, genuinely confused. “I already had a mate.”

  “You asked,” Steve told the griffin. “I’m just answering.”

  “Do humans practice this absurd behavior?”

  Sarah sighed, “Sadly, many do.”

  “Have you?” Tesur continued.

  Sarah frowned at the griffin.

  “Have I cheated? Never. Not once. That’d dishonor the vows I took to my husband, just like I know he’d never do that to me. When two humans truly love one another then the last thing either of them would consider is being unfaithful.”

  “Humans are complex creatures,” Tesur decided.

  “You got that right, pal,” her husband agreed. Sarah elbowed him in the gut. She squinted and pointed left, at the eastern horizon.

  “What’s that?”

  “Hmm?”

  Sarah felt her husband twist left. She had just happened to be looking east when she saw a small black cloud materialize above a section of the passing trees. It almost looked as though something had caught fire and was emitting dark smoke, only this smoke was behaving in a manner she hadn’t ever seen before. Smoke typically rose up into the air and then spread out, dissipating into the sky as it mixed with the air. This cloud, however, wasn’t dissipating. It retained its original shape and began to rise higher into the air.

  “Is something burning?” Steve asked.

  “You’re the fire thrower,” she reminded him. “You tell me.”

  Her husband fell silent as he undoubtedly sent his jhorun to investigate. After a few moments she heard him grunt with surprise.

  “What is it?” Sarah wanted to know.

  “I don’t know what it is,” Steve confessed, “but I can tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t smoke. I can’t sense any fire whatsoever.”

  “Well, that’s good, right?”

  “Could they be some type of animal?” Steve asked.

  “They’d have to be really small animals,” Sarah said as she watched the small dense cloud rise higher into the air. “Tesur, can you tell me what that black cloud is over there and maybe why it appears to be heading towards us?”

  Tesur squawked with alarm.

  “Emberlichs! We must rise higher!”

  “What’s an emberlich?” Sarah asked, growing concerned.

  “Carrion feeders! We mustn’t let any of them touch us!”

  “Birds, bugs, tiny dragons… what are they?” Steve asked from behind her.

  Tesur banked hard to the right in an effort to put as much distance as possible between them.

  “Insects. They’re small, no bigger than the talon on my claw. However, an emberlich horde can consist of many thousands of the creatures.”

  Sarah eyed the rising, pulsating cloud that continued to gain on them.

  “How many would you say are in that group?”

  “Many tens of thousands. I’m afraid our journey is going to end here. I lack the resources to evade an emberlich horde. I am sorry, my friends.”

  Sarah stared at the approaching swarm of creatures. She still couldn’t make out any individual creatures, so she had no idea what these tiny little carrion eaters were supposed to look like. The black swarm looked like the huge schools of fish she had seen on underwater documentaries, which were predominantly harmless. Thanks to Tesur, she knew this particular mass of creatures was anything but friendly. Their griffin friend had described them as virtual flying piranhas. She pointed at the cloud.

  “Honey, would you care to do the honors?”

  She felt her husband tense up and saw that his hands had ignited.

  “Be careful that you don’t light up anything that isn’t supposed to be incinerated, okay?”

  “Piece of cake,” Steve assured her.

  Sarah watched his left arm rise and then screamed with surprise as the three of them were wrenched to the right, as if they had been sideswiped by a passing locomotive. Tesur furiously beat his wings in an attempt to right himself after being knocked off course as though they had been swatted aside like any of them would have done with an irritating pest. The griffin turned to look at her with an incredulous look.

  “What happened? What was that?”

  Sarah groaned, “
That was my husband. I never realized how strong those blasts of his were. Now that his mass has been reduced to zero, they can be readily felt.”

  “Let’s not do that again, agreed?” the griffin implored.

  Steve pointed a flaming finger at the swarming horde.

  “You guys may not like it, but look! It worked! The horde scattered, as though I hit ‘em with a bowling ball.”

  “I’m not familiar with…”

  “Forget about it, Tesur,” Sarah hastily informed him. She looked back at her husband. “Any chance you could scale that back a bit? You practically knocked us out of the sky with that shot.”

  “But I did tone that down a bit,” her husband protested. “I was only trying to scare them off. It’s not like I was trying to do any major damage.”

  “Something you should know about emberlichs,” Tesur added, banking again and flapping like crazy to increase their velocity, “is that they are attracted to heat.”

  Steve groaned, “Great. Are they immune?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Brace yourself. They’re getting closer. I’m going to fire another shot.”

  Inspiration struck. Sarah smiled. She patted Tesur’s side to get his attention.

  “Point yourself directly away from the swarm. That way Steve will be forced to shoot at them from directly behind us.”

  “Pushing us in the direction we want to go,” Tesur deduced. “Excellent. One moment.”

  The griffin’s right wing dipped until the southern mountains were straight ahead. Tesur squawked his readiness. Sarah patted her husband’s leg.

  “You’re up. Let ‘em have it!”

  Sarah felt her husband twist around until he was practically facing the other direction. His left arm gripped her tightly as his right arm targeted the silent black mass edging ever closer. She glanced down at the arm holding her in place when a through struck her.

  “Honey! Wait!”

  It was too late. Steve blasted a powerful shot directly at the heart of the emberlich horde. The jet of fire had the positive effect of scattering the emberlichs in all directions. However, with only one arm doing the blasting, with nothing to counter the off-balance shot, the three of them suddenly found themselves spinning helplessly out of control through the air.

  Disoriented, and afraid he’d injure his wings, Tesur pulled them in as close to his body as he could.

  They were still spiraling, but now they were dropping like a rock. Sarah screamed and lurched forward, hugging Tesur’s back. Steve cursed loudly and fought a wave of nausea. If someone didn’t do something, and do it quickly, they were going to end up crashing into the trees.

  Steve leaned forward, spreading his arms wide. In the process, he hooked his legs under Tesur’s wings. He took a deep breath and blasted jets of fire from both hands.

  The plummeting stopped almost immediately. If Steve hadn’t have hooked his legs under Tesur’s wings then he would have been propelled right off the griffin’s back. Once they started to rise then he began shooting off quick bursts of flames in the opposite direction they were spiraling, which thankfully enough, managed to stop them from spinning around.

  “Ooooo, I want to get off,” Sarah moaned, still hugging Tesur’s back. She started to rise when she felt her husband push her back down.

  “No, stay there. Keep your eyes closed. We’re not out of this yet.”

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, trying to keep her mind from spinning.

  “I have good news and bad news. The good news is we’ve stopped dropping and spinning. The bad news is those damn emberlich things are much closer. I think they’re trying to surround us.”

  “What are we going to do?” Sarah cried.

  “Tesur, are you okay?” Steve hastily called out.

  “Aye. I have finally regained my senses. Now that I have, I wish that I hadn’t.”

  “Can you steer?”

  “Can I what?”

  “Listen, you steer and I’ll push.”

  “What are you…?”

  They were blasted forward as Steve repositioned slightly so that his legs remained hooked around Tesur’s wings and blasted jhorun through both hands. They managed to punch through the last remaining piece of the sky that hadn’t turned black. Something hard smacked into his shoulder. Without moving his hands, Steve quickly located the thing. It was an emberlich. It was momentarily stunned and was on its back.

  To Steve, it looked like a black grasshopper-sized beetle with a pair of elongated front pincers, much like he’d seen on stag beetles. The emberlich quickly righted itself and scuttled over to Tesur’s flank, preparing to take a bite of fresh griffin. Steve eyed his hands. He couldn’t risk moving either of them until they were well away from the voracious mass of bugs, so blasting it was out. His eyes narrowed.

  Just as the emberlich spread its front pincers, it stiffened with surprise and then was reduced to ash. Steve, who had watched the entire scene unfold, grunted with satisfaction and returned his attention to the rapidly passing scenery. Lucky for him, and Tesur for that matter, he had learned long ago how to make an object burn just by looking at it.

  Steve looked back. The emberlich swarm was growing rapidly smaller. Five minutes later it had disappeared completely, so he finally extinguished both hands. Tesur resumed beating his wings as they decelerated to a normal velocity.

  “How are you holding up?” Sarah asked.

  “Not too bad. I can feel the drain on my jhorun, but it’s not depleted. I think we’re good.”

  “Just remember we don’t have any mimets here with us,” Sarah reminded him. “We have no idea what we might be facing. The word of the day is conserve, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  They had been gliding on air currents for the past hour. Tesur hadn’t beat his wings once, but now that they had crossed into the Selekais, the currents dropped in strength. They began to descend, which prompted Tesur to begin flapping his wings in order to increase their altitude. A large peak was rapidly approaching and they needed to pass over it.

  Sarah detected another drop in temperature. The higher they flew the colder it became. Just then she felt her back’s temperature rise by a few degrees. Steve had apparently noticed the decrease in temp, too, and had compensated by increasing his jhorun. Sarah checked their griffin guide and was shocked to see flecks of ice and snow coating his already white wings.

  “Tesur! Are you okay? You have ice on your wings!”

  “It is getting quite cold,” Tesur admitted.

  “Are you sure we need to fly this high?”

  Tesur nodded, “I’m being pulled south. That mountain is sitting directly between us and where we have to go. I have no choice, miss. I cannot deviate our course.”

  Sarah turned to her husband, “Can you help? Can you keep Tesur warm?”

  Steve nodded, “I can try. I have to let go of you so I’ll need you to hold on to me this time.”

  Sarah nodded, “Got it.”

  She leaned back, hooked her arms around her husband’s legs, and leaned her full weight against him. Steve stretched out his arms and laid a hand on each of Tesur’s wings. Both of his hands turned red. Moments later the ice was gone and the griffin informed them that he was feeling much better. Invigorated, even.

  “You definitely come in handy,” Tesur observed, turning his head so that he could see the two of them. “My wings are no longer numb and I am no longer cold.”

  Steve grinned, “I’ve been told that before. I’m glad to help out.”

  “We’ve already passed several mountains,” Sarah observed as she watched the passing landscape beneath them. “Can you tell us what we’re looking for? Are we getting close?”

  “We are headed for the Arch,” the griffin promptly answered, as if he had been waiting for this particular question to be asked.

  “The Arch?” Sarah asked, confused. “Can you elaborate?”

  “You know,” Steve automatically answered. “An arch. Kinda
looks like this?” He drew a half circle in the air with his finger.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll push your butt right off of Tesur’s back.”

  Steve grinned, “You love me too much to commit murder!”

  “Murder? Hah. You’d simply float away. No one would know I had anything to do with it.”

  “Tesur would,” Steve said as he patted the griffin’s side. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

  “If you’re asking me to take sides,” Tesur slowly began, “then… Hmmm. That’s a tough decision.”

  “Who’s your friend?” Steve jovially asked. “Who made you all warm and tingly inside? Wait. That came out wrong.”

  “I’ll side with Miss Sarah,” the griffin decided.

  “What? That’s gratitude for you.”

  “Hah!” Sarah beamed her victorious smile back at her husband. “Admit it. He likes me better than you.”

  Steve started to let go of Sarah’s hips when a gust of air threatened to send him careening off the griffin’s back. Sarah frowned.

  “Let me guess. You wanted to fold your arms across your chest. Hmmph. Serves you right, mister.”

  Steve fidgeted in place. Sarah felt his hands clench into fists. Alarmed, she looked back at him.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Um, er, no.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I have to go.”

  “Go?”

  “You know. Go to the bathroom. We’ve been up here for hours now.”

  Sarah stifled a giggle.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you have to go before I do?”

  “You don’t have to go? At all?”

  “Well, it’s been a while, but I’m still good.”

  “Is all well?” Tesur inquired, turning his head to observe them.

  “We need to land,” Sarah instructed.

  “What for? Are you well, Miss Sarah?”

  “I am, but my husband isn’t.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “It all depends how you look at it,” Sarah smugly replied.

  “Thanks a lot,” Steve grumped.

  “He needs to go, uh, water a tree,” Sarah explained.