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Down the Rabbit Hole
SERA
Iscreamed at the top of my lungs as loudly as I could, determined to make my voice heard. “Can’t we talk about this?” I begged, then took a breath to calm myself. He just held me tighter against himself with a single paw under my chin and one across my stomach and hips.
The manticore let out another deafening bellow, a blast of scorching wind that threatened to tear my clothes from my body and blow them away into the skies. My stomach lurched with each flap of the beast’s giant wings, and I was grateful my stomach was relatively empty.
“Where are you taking me?” I screamed. The beast let out another ear-shattering roar and then was silent, as if contemplating my question. I tried again. “I assume that means you don’t understand me? Do you even speak English?”
There was no answer, but then again, I hadn’t really expected one. I tried to summon fire in my hand like I normally would. It sparked and flashed, but nothing more. Lady Alia had said magic drew the beast. Was it also preventing mine from functioning normally, or was I unable to perform because of my fears?
“What the hell is wrong with my magic?” I demanded of the beast. Again there was no answer, but then again, I hadn’t really expected one. Then again, what would I do with a fireball right about now? Convince the creature I was too much trouble, causing it to drop me? No, I needed to take another tactic. “Please put me down! Just put me down and we can forget this whole thing ever happened!”
The beast turned its massive head toward me and sniffed at me like an animal scenting its prey. Intelligent eyes weighed me, and I suspected it understood my pleas. Then he opened his enormous maw and opened his cavernous mouth wide enough to show me that his rows of teeth filled most of the space within his mouth. His tongue was long and thin like a serpent’s, shifting back and forth as he watched me struggle against him. Then he snapped his jaws shut mere inches from my face while growling low in his throat.
“Fine, fine! Sorry I asked.” I supposed I should be grateful my magic fizzled. The last thing I needed was for the beast to drop me from this dizzying height. “I wish you could at least tell me where you’re taking me,” I said to the beast, hoping to get a response. “Are we going to your lair? Your nest? Your home? Your hive? Whatever it is you call it!”
There was no answer, but then again, despite my need to try pleading with it I hadn’t really expected one. I looked down at the ground, which was now a fair distance below us. I looked up at the sky, hoping for some divine intervention. No lightning bolt came crashing down on my captor.
I’d never been afraid of heights before, but as the ground swept beneath my feet, I had to admit this was a novel experience for me. I managed reaching into my pockets and dug around, grasping Taneisha’s map. I pulled it out and tried to orient it to the landmarks below, only to have it whisked away by a sudden updraft.
“Well, that’s an auspicious sign,” I muttered under my breath.
With no other option available, I stopped fighting against the creature’s grasp. The beast turned his head toward me and sniffed again at my face with his wide open mouth. Then he snapped his jaws shut close enough to blow my hair back from my face and ruffle it around like he was blowing it dry with hot air from his nostrils.
“That’s not funny!” I yelled at him while struggling against his grasp again, but it was no use. I was on this carnival ride of a beast until it decided otherwise.
When the beast slowed and began circling over a river, I wondered whether I should be more afraid of what might come next. He landed gracefully on a wide, pebbled bank. There wasn’t anyone or any other creatures in sight, unless I counted a mass of small, glowing orbs floating above the water’s surface. Perhaps they were the equivalent of faery mosquitos? At least they seemed harmless enough.
I recalled the river on Taneisha’s map; it was the only one she’d drawn on there. Could this be the same one?
The beast gently set me down on my feet, and I immediately pulled away from him. He circled around me, sniffing me, his long, serpentine tongue flicking over his lips. I took a step backwards and then another. The manticore continued circling. Was he going to eat me? Kill me? Keep me captive?
“Could you stop that?” I asked him. “I wish you could talk.”
He stopped and sat on his haunches, watching me with his intelligent eyes.
“Thank you,” I said with a sigh of relief.
“I wish you could at least tell me your name,” I said. The monster growled and then let out another ear-shattering roar. “Okay! Okay! Nevermind!” I said to him as I held up my hands in surrender. He hadn’t hurt me so far, but I was under no illusions that he could turn deadly with those teeth and razor-sharp claws, just as he’d done to the fae guard. The threat was implicit, but I supposed if someone had sent him to kill me, he’d had plenty of opportunities already. “I get it! You’ve got me here, wherever here is, what’s next?”
The beast nodded and then turned away from me, facing the river that ran before us. His massive head dipped into the water for a moment before he lifted it back up, shaking off the droplets of water from his mane like a dog after a bath. Tiny orb creatures swarmed around him, as if drawn to him for a moment, then losing interest in him the next.
What was the story with this beast? He’d attacked Lady Alia and the guards to capture me yet for all his apparent strength and long claws, the beast hadn’t hurt me. In fact, he’d taken pains to be gentle, his roar being the one notable exception.
“So, what now?” I murmured half to myself, half to the beast. In reply he growled, stood and shook his head again, then took a few steps along the river bank upstream. He paused and glanced back my way, huffing impatiently. So I was supposed to just follow him?
The thought gave me pause. Could this be a part of Taneisha’s plan? If so, was she using the manticore to aid my journey to the fountain? That didn’t fit her pattern from the quests with my mates, but then again, nothing the fae did was predictable.
What was Taneisha up to, really? And if not her, then what was behind this manticore’s motivations?
The manticore huffed again, this time letting out a low, rumbling growl that reverberated in my bones. “Yeah, yeah. I’m right behind you, big guy,” I replied.
The manticore continued up the river, and I kept pace with him. He didn’t even seem to pay any attention to where he went or where he was going. He just walked.
Every so often, he’d stop and wait for me to catch up. For a predator, the beast was being pretty patient with me. Then I realized predators must excel at tiring prey out, so perhaps that alone shouldn’t encourage me.
My legs burned as I walked up the shoreline. It was like running on sand, not pebbles, and my muscles were not used to the repetitive motion. Unlike the manticore, walking on the loose pebbles along the rocky shore was tiring me quickly. I stopped at a nearby tree stump to stretch my calves. The muscles loosened a bit, and I sat on the stump to catch my breath.
