Sky Swimmer

Bridge of Denial, Part 13

Floe, Eric and Dan are escorted by Soilers through another majestic tunnel. It is obvious the Soilers are true masters of earthly diggings. The tunnel is more of a hallway, ornate with Soiler carvings that seem to slightly change and shift their patterns solely for decorative purposes.

"We have been delivered to the belly of the Beast itself," mutters Dan.

Eric whispers out of earshot of their captors to Floe, "What do we do now?"

 "If this is the Deep Keep, then maybe my parents are here."

"I think we are about to find out," says Eric.

The ornate hall seems to have come to a dead end, but as the marching party nears the far wall the stone itself starts to ripple, warp and crumble. A large entryway appears, beyond it an expansive chamber and an immense throne.

---

Agent Torres eats Oreos by the limo. He never takes his eyes off Fuegar and Livia who warmly embrace two Firemen at the Manhattan Beach Fire Station. The two young men appear to be genuinely pleased to reunite with the strange kids. Smiles soon fade as Fuegar informs his friends of the dire situation.

Torres hopes he is doing the right thing. He has allowed the pair of teens to talk him into rounding up Fuegar's comrades in arms, the children of the late Aireon Palace Guards. This was their first stop. Firemen? And so young?

These guys looked to be no older than eighteen. Agent Torres split the Oreo and scraped the white frosting from the inside with his bottom teeth.

He agreed to this whole scenario only because Fuegar showed him that he could fly or as Livia called it, sky swim. That was the only reason Torres believed that the two kids might be able to help out with their so called Harm Arts. Seemed like a new fangled name for killing if you asked him.

But actually, that wasn't the only reason that he believed these kids, Torres reminded himself, there were other reasons, reasons that started back on his honeymoon in Hawaii while he and Julia were looking down the mouth of Mauna Loa Volcano.

Torres had seen something move down there, and it wasn't a landslide.

Some of the rocks had stood up and run a few yards and had dived back into the ash. Yeah, he had seen that! It took years to convince the department he was not nuts and they had finally given into his strange requests.

And now, he told himself, now after seeing what came up out of the ground at LAX, Torres had a feeling they would be needing a lot of help. They would need all the sky swimming friends they could find. He was sure of that.

---

UnderLord Hamada sits upon his gem-encrusted throne.

The Throne Room itself is a breathless design, giant gothic windows or, rather, large sand-made monitors in the shape of windows showing real-time coverage of different city ports; Los Angeles LAX, New York Harbor, Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport, Istanbul Ataturk Airport and other international airports are visible.

U.L. Hamada rises and steps toward Floe, "Princess Floeresia Windborn, it is with great ... ."

"I want to see my parents!" Floe interrupts Hamada and her voice carries such venom that he halts in his tracks, his face changing from one of shock to fear to hate and back to calm all within a split second.

Bollingsworth quickly intervenes, he steps forward and looking straight into Floe's eyes says, "You should speak only when spoken to. It is the custom in these parts for prisoners to sublimate themselves before their captors. This is UnderLord Hamada, ruler of all of Soildom."