The Grammarian
Chapter 3: Ruler of the Literran Sky

Copyright© 2009 by Shuko

"No way!" she gasped, staring incredulously at the small chasm that her reading had opened in the wall, all as she absentmindedly slipped her shirt back on and fumbled with the buttons. "I can't believe it worked! Could that hole really be the door I asked for?"

"Are you again clothed?" Edward asked her anxiously. "Am I free to turn 'round?"

"Yes, it's fine now," she replied with an impatient, dismissive wave at him. "If what just happened is any indication, this is just a dream anyway, so it wouldn't matter if I was ready or not, right?"

They crept to the hole and tried to peer into the inky blackness, but they were unable to see anything. Cat pushed a timid forearm inside the hole, checking to see how far back it went. She was unable to feel anything blocking it up to her elbow, at any rate. They would just have to steel their nerves and go inside.

"I can feel a breeze," Edward exclaimed, waving his hand in front of the opening. "The air is warmer; surely this passage will lead us outside!"

"There's only one way to find out," Cat replied, making a fierce effort to set aside her overwhelming disbelief that this reading hocus pocus was actually the big deal everyone was trying to make it out to be. "There's nothing else for it but to go in there, I guess."

Edward held an arm out to bar her path. "I should go first," he said with a stern frown at her. "It is my duty to see to it that you are kept safe; the livelihood of this land is at stake."

Cat didn't particularly want to argue with that idea, so she obediently backed up a bit and let him take the lead. She watched apprehensively as he took a few cautious steps into the five-foot tall hole, feeling ahead of him with his arms as he went. She followed closely behind him, every sense alert and her imagination running rampant with images of subterranean monsters and pitfalls. She would have liked to grab hold of his grubby shirt to ensure that she wouldn't lose him in the darkness, but she didn't want him to know how nervous she was, so she stubbornly resisted the urge. Stepping into the dark passage found them in a soft, earth-lined tunnel, and fortunately for Cat, it did not branch, so they were unable to lose one another in it. It seemed as though the entire thing sloped upward gradually, but there was no way to know for certain, as they had no light with which to judge the grade of their progress. The air was remarkably fresh and clean, despite the close confines of the tunnel, and as they made their way deeper and deeper, it became warmer and fresher. All at once, the tunnel took a sharp turn to the left, and as they rounded the corner, they found that they could see daylight streaming in through a vertical hole at the end of a long, straight passage.

"That must be our exit," Cat cried with relief. "That's definitely daylight!"

"Hush!" Edward ordered, placing a finger to his lips. He began to whisper. "We must be cunning and stealthy," he warned her. "We do not yet know where this tunnel shall lead us, nor if there are Suelian guards at the other end. If such is our misfortune, we don't want to alert them to our presence."

"I should think they'd already be alerted to the sudden appearance of a nice, big hole in the ground if they were up there," Cat grumbled silently as she tiptoed behind him. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to be cautious, though." They crept along until they were only feet away from the hole, listening intently for any sounds to indicate that there were people waiting for them outside. When they heard nothing but the twitters of birds and the gentle whoosh of a very light breeze through tree boughs, Edward turned toward her and made a halting hand gesture at her. He pointed at himself and then at the hole, signifying that he was going to check it out. Cat nodded, trying hard to keep a cool head and a conscious bean on what was really happening. It was so hard to keep from imagining that they were acting out some kind of covert spy operation. She held her breath as Edward stepped out into the bright column of light and poked his head up out of the hole to look around, squinting in the starkly different brightness of the light.

As he stepped into the light, she saw him clearly for the first time, and she was surprised by how good-looking he was, despite his rugged and scruffy condition from being locked up for so long. He was definitely young — probably no older than she — but he had the look and movements of someone who was accustomed to a hardy lifestyle. The dark, shaggy mop of hair on his head was mussed and matted as though it hadn't seen either comb or wash in weeks, and his face was mottled with facial hair and dirty smudges. His eyes looked rather sunken and dark, whether from lack of sleep or something else, she didn't know. Nevertheless, he had a face that made her want to look at it again; it was interesting, and despite its current flaws, it was also decidedly handsome.

The clothes he wore were much less interesting, but by no means unworthy of observation. He wore a ragged and torn brown cloak, with the hood apparently ripped open. Underneath he wore a simple tan jerkin-like jacket over the top of a somewhat yellowed, loose-fitting white shirt. The ensemble was made complete with the addition of brown breeches and shin-length leather boots. He had nothing on him in the way of pouches, knives, or leathers, so she figured that if he'd had any, they must have been confiscated. He certainly didn't look as grand and fine as she thought a prince ought to look, but then again, nothing in the world had seemed to make sense yet anyway, and prince or not, she was glad to at least have one person looking out for her interests. She wondered again how long he had been incarcerated. She hoped he hadn't been treated too badly. She was beginning to kind of like him. At the very least, he was being a lot nicer to her than the rest of the people she'd met here had been.

"It appears we have arrived just outside the exterior walls of the palace," he explained in a hushed, decidedly pleased tone as he returned to the darkness of the tunnel. "There are usually sentries on the walls, but I can see none from this angle. We are at the edge of the Suelian woods; I think if we hurry, we can rush into the cover of the trees and escape. Once we make it through that wood, we will be out of Suelia and better able to return to my people. It won't take long for the guards to notice our absence, however, so we must hurry. Our enemies shall know whence we have gone as soon as they lay eyes upon your work."

"I think I have an idea!" she cried. "Hang on a second!"

She stepped out into the light with him and used her finger to poke some words into the cool, damp earth lining the tunnel wall. "I'll close us off to throw them off our trail," she explained. "When I finish reading, we'll want to get out of here and start running for the woods!"

"An excellent idea!" he exclaimed, laughing merrily as he forgot all about being stealthy in his delight. "If they come back to find an empty cell with no visible signs of our escape, they'll spend all their time searching the palace! Quickly! We may not have a moment to spare!"

"Finished!" she cried. "Here goes!" She backed up a bit so that she could be ready to climb out of the hole when she was finished. "The queen used this one, so I'll use it too!" Smirking triumphantly, she began to read. "Let that which has been read go unread! The world's latest reading goes unsaid!"

The effect was more immediate than they had anticipated. All at once, the tunnel began to shrink and close in around them, and the hole shrank with it. Like a wildcat, Edward leaped up and scrambled out of the hole. He immediately reached an arm back in to grab onto Cat's arm, hoisting her up. Their timing was nearly too late, as the hole closed in around her feet, trapping them in a hard conglomeration of soil, rocks, and matted roots.

"Ow!" she yelped aloud, as the weight of the compressed earth nearly crushed her feet. Edward clamped a hand over her mouth and held a finger to his lips before pointing at the parapet of the nearby palace battlement. Cat glanced up to see a guard lazily strolling past, still unaware of their presence. Her eyes widened and she froze, hardly daring to breathe as the armored man turned a corner and left their sight.

"We must be silent and fast," Edward whispered. "Help me dig out your feet."

They began clawing and scraping at the tough, grassy earth with their bare fingers, but almost immediately, Cat began to feel the familiar dizziness from before, only this time it was much stronger. She wobbled noticeably, planting her hands apart wide to steady herself. "I feel weird," she breathed faintly. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"What are... ? Lady Catherine!" he whispered fiercely, catching her as she lost her balance entirely and fell forward. "What is happening to you?"

"I ... I don't know!" she cried, trying to stave off the dizziness by closing her eyes. "All of the sudden the world just started twirling around on me. I don't know what's going on!"

"It may be the work of the queen!" Edward cried. He savagely flung away clods of dirt and grass from around her feet, and he yanked at her shins, dislodging first one foot and then after considerable difficulty, the second. She had lost one shoe in the process, but he didn't seem to care, and she was too woozy to realize it. "We must flee immediately! She may have detected our escape already!"

"I dunno," Cat groaned, clutching at her head as it began to ring and throb. "She would have done something to you too. Maybe it has something to do with that spell I read. What kind of effect does reading have on people here?"

"I ... I do not know," he replied hesitantly, helping her to her feet and shaking his head in dismay as she teetered unsteadily. He glanced up at the parapet and noticed that the guard was coming back. Without another word, he scooped her into his arms and took off at a full sprint toward the tree line less than a hundred feet away from them.

"Hey!" she shrieked at him, grabbing at his neck to steady herself. "What's the big idea? I'm not some rag doll here!"

"Forgive my impertinence, but time is of the essence," he panted, gripping her tightly around the shoulders and knees as he ran. "There will be time to test whether your legs shall carry you after we are safely hidden. Until then, I beg you suffer the indignity a while longer."

She didn't answer him, but she couldn't help thinking that as embarrassing as it was, it was also kind of exhilarating. She'd never been carried like this before, and it was the kind of romantic gesture she'd read plenty about, but had never really thought of experiencing firsthand. As her dizziness gradually left her and her headache subsided, she was again able to think more clearly. Being carried like this was much rougher and more jostling than she would have expected, and when they were at last some twenty or thirty feet into the woods, and he set her on her feet, she found herself relieved that the experience was over.

"Are you ... well?" he panted, resting his hands on his knees and breathing heavily from his exertions. She wasn't really overweight, but she wasn't exactly a pile of feathers either. She stared anxiously at him, taking note of the pallor of his face and the way his limbs were shaking. He didn't look like he was in any condition to be carrying anything any distance at all. It must've really drained him.

"I'm better now," she assured him. "Are you all right? You look like you've just run a marathon or something."

"It's nothing," he said quickly, straightening up and taking a few more deep breaths. "I'm a little tired; that's all. I would imagine that a week without food or a decent night's rest would do that to anyone."

"A week?" Cat exclaimed, widening her eyes and staring incredulously at him. "They kept you in that filthy, moldy cell for a whole week? Chained up? No food?" He nodded, and she covered her mouth with her hand, utterly mortified. "Geez ... I had no idea ... Shouldn't we find someplace safe and let you rest? At the very least we need to find something to eat! I'm not really hungry, but you look like you could keel over at any moment!"

"I've endured worse before," he chuckled, smiling at her in thanks for her concern. "Besides, there is no safe place for quite some distance. We have no choice but to move on for now. My strength has sufficiently returned. Can you run?"

"I suppose so, but don't you think we ought to take it easier than that? I don't think we should risk having you collapse from overexertion; I doubt I could carry you the way you did me."

"I'm afraid we have no choice," he replied with a frown and a shake of his head. "Do not be concerned, however; I have been conserving my strength for just such an opportunity. Come! We fly!" he grabbed her wrist and took off, nearly jerking her arm out of its socket as he jerked her along with him. The strength and speed with which he propelled them forward was amazing, to say the least, and it was all she could do to keep up with him. She tried yelling in protest, but her cries fell on deaf ears. He seemed determined to run as fast and as far as he could all in one go, and he wasn't going to even listen to an ounce of reason.

They sprinted through the forest like this for several minutes, and it wasn't at all as easy as she had thought running through a forest would be, even if she hadn't thought it particularly easy to begin with. He led her over brambles and around trees, stepping nimbly through the rough terrain as she stumbled and tripped repeatedly on tree roots, sticks, and rocks. It would have been bad enough without having to deal with only one shoe, but the foot without one quickly became scratched and bruised by all the sticks and rocks it encountered on the ground. Living the sedentary lifestyle she had before coming here did not lend much skill to her ability to run, either. Before long at all, she was thoroughly winded and sore, and to add insult to injury, he seemed to be no worse for wear than when they had started.

It was hardly any time at all before she was so out of breath that she couldn't even summon enough vocal power to beg him to stop. All those years of sitting idle in her chair, reading her books — it was all coming back to haunt her. She was weak and sorely out of shape, and it only took a short race with prince Edward to tell her just how severe it was. She would have tripped and fallen on her face many times, were it not for Edward's quickness to yank her upright again. He was running like a man possessed, panting and baring his teeth like a wolf, his eyes searching every direction for danger while he ran. It was as though he expected an enemy to pop out at them from behind every bush or tree trunk, and it was quickly getting on Cat's angry, frazzled nerves.

She couldn't take it anymore. She'd never run so hard in her life — not even for gym class in school, which she'd hated, of course. Her legs buckled beneath her and she fell hard, slamming both knees into a gnarled tree root and nearly yanking Edward over backward in the process. She would have let out a yell in response to the jarring pain, but she was too winded to do more than gasp for air. Edward whirled around and glared at her, as though she had done it on purpose.

"You are the most insufferable creature I've ever met!" he snapped at her, breathing hard. "Can't you even manage to run the meager distance of this forest without finding every blasted obstacle in this place with your clumsy feet? Those are legs you're sporting, aren't they? You're sure they aren't really stuffed with straw?"

She lifted her head and shot him a smoldering look, panting hard and digging her fingers into the ground as she tried to summon enough breath and wit to shoot him a snarky comeback. As it was, however, she was finding both breath and wit in short supply at the moment. She wanted to punch him. How dare he criticize her inability to negotiate terrain she'd never even seen before? She wasn't the one who had wanted to go sprinting through the wild in the first place, and by all rights, he should be the one gasping for air, not her. Where did he get off being so capable, when he'd just spent a starving, sleepless week holed up in that awful dungeon?

"It can't be helped; I'll just have to carry you again," he growled in frustration. "Come here." He moved forward to grab her arm, and she swatted his hand away, forcing herself to ignore her screaming legs and clamber to her feet.

"Keep your hands off of me," she wheezed furiously. "I don't need to be carried around like some toddler! I have legs and I'll use 'em; I just don't run enough to keep up that kind of pace for very long. What are you anyway, a deer? No one's supposed to have that kind of stamina! You big jerk!" She glared at him with a contemptuous, wheezing growl, and he glared back in equal measure.

"If we want to be out of the wood by sundown, we have to be quick about it. This place is not safe for us to tarry in for too long. The queen has spies everywhere, and the longer we take to put distance between ourselves and her, the more difficult it shall be to elude her!"

"Well, I can't keep running forever!" she snarled at him. "Just how long do we have to go? How big is this forest, anyway?"

"We're moving southward, and it is nearly twenty pages long in that direction," he shot back, glancing back the way they had come and then up at the sun, which was close to forty degrees above the horizon. "If we maintain the pace I've been trying to maintain, it will take us two or three hours to reach the other end. If we walk, it shall take us well beyond nightfall. We do not want to be in the woods at night."

"What the heck is a page?" she huffed. "On second thought, never mind. I'm sure it's longer than I care to know. I can't keep running like this anyway, and I won't let you carry me any more, either. We're just going to have to find a better way to get through this forest."

"Well! Such a thing should be a mere trifle, shouldn't it? After all, you're the all-powerful, magical reader!" he cried, kneeling before her in mock obsequience. "O great reader! I pray, devise some means of transport for us and deliver us from our exertions!"

Cat stamped her foot angrily. "Ooh!" she shrieked at him, baring her teeth and snatching a stick from the ground as she seriously entertained the tempting prospect of whacking him right between his condescending eyes. "Fine!" she snarled, flashing angry, defiant eyes at him and gripping the stick tightly. "You think you've seen reading today? Well, you haven't seen anything yet, buster! Just stand aside and shut up before I turn you into a toad or a mosquito or something!"

Snarling savagely as he cowered away from her, bowing and wringing his hands in mock terror, she began to pace back and forth, trying hard to think of what she could write to ensure that they would pass through the woods safely, but at the same time would not be tracked easily if the queen managed to get lucky and figure out how they had gotten out of the castle. She shot her annoying audience a smug glance as she felt certain that he hadn't thought of that. Their frenzied, clumsy rush had surely left a very visible trail, and if that prissy missy had any hunters in her employ, she'd easily be able to retrace their steps. Cat wondered if there was a way for them to travel through the trees, so as not to leave tracks on the ground. As she thought and pondered her dilemma, she gradually began to let go of her anger and frustration, and she pored more of her energy into solving this perplexing problem.

"The problem as I see it," she mused aloud, thoughtfully tapping her chin with one end of the stick, "is that if we remain on the ground, we'll leave a trail for them to follow. We closed up the tunnel, but that might not stall her as much as we'd hope. If she has some sort of spell for repeating my last reading, she'll figure it out well enough. Then they'll come after us, and it'll only be a matter of time, assuming they have anything better or faster than pursuing on foot."

Edward nodded in agreement. "Indeed. The thought had occurred to me as well," he replied, causing her to grit her teeth and send him an annoyed glare. "They shall be on horseback, no doubt. With the way you were flopping and stumbling about, it wouldn't take a very seasoned tracker to find our trail and follow it."

"Yeah, so we need to do something that doesn't involve running on the ground," she snapped at him. "That much is obvious. I wonder ... do you have dragons here in Literra?"

"Dragons?" he asked, staring blankly at her. "What is a dragon?"

"Never mind then," she sighed irritably. "What about birds? What are the largest birds you have in this land?"

"I have seen falcons and eagles with wings longer than my own arms," he replied. "They could conceivably carry a child or a small beast, but definitely not one of us."

"Well then," she replied, grinning as an idea came to her at last, "let's see how this reading thing is at changing the limits of nature." After brushing the dead leaves, pebbles, and sticks out of her way on a large section of the ground, she used her stick to scratch out a detailed description of what she had envisioned. After reading it to herself a few times to ensure that she was specific and left no room for ambiguity, she was satisfied enough to try it. "Here goes," she sighed. "I sure hope I don't get all light-headed again when I do this. This might be a little startling if it works," she added, glancing at him and furrowing her brow in warning. "But if this does what I want, we won't have to worry about leaving a trail any longer."

She took a few deep breaths and steadied her nerves. She hoped she wouldn't make an idiot of herself and dance for joy — or even worse, scream with fright — if she was actually able to pull this one off. "A great eagle of prodigious size and strength - strength enough to easily carry two full-grown people - is now the ruler of the sky of Literra. His name is Jules. I am his creator, and he does my bidding willingly and gladly. I now bid him to come to us and carry both Prince Edward and me safely to the Commas. Come forth, king of the sky! Your creator commands you!"

She was actually rather proud of the dramatic, creative way she had composed her spell. She was also eager to see if the act of reading in this world gave her the kind of power she would need to create such a magnificent life form out of nothingness. However, she was not to find out for some time, as once she finished reading, she immediately collapsed, crumpling to the ground with a rather unladylike grunt. Edward cried out in alarm, but his attention was immediately removed from her prone body upon hearing a piercing squall from above, and he looked up to see a large shadow descending upon them from above the treetops. A rain of sticks fell down on both of them as a huge, gray eagle dropped down through the thick foliage. It landed with a heavy "whump" sound mere feet away from Catherine, shaking the loose twigs and branches from his feathers before cocking his head to one side and eying first her, and then Edward in turn very critically with a large, bright eye.

Edward grabbed a heavy, club-like stick from the ground and leaped to Catherine's side, quickly putting himself between her and the ferocious-looking beast, his instincts telling him not to trust such a fearsome creature any more than he could lift it. "Away!" he barked, brandishing the stick and baring his teeth. "Away with you, foul monster!"

"Monster?!" the bird cried in a deep, rumbling voice, ruffling his plumage indignantly. "How dare you refer to the king of the sky in such an insolent manner? If my creator had not bidden me to carry you safely, I would be sorely tempted to fly you up, up, up and then drop you on the rocks like a turtle! Stop waving that silly stick at me and do try to compose yourself, fledgling!"

 
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