Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (33 page)

“Turn lemons into lemonade,” Rex added.

Everyone turned and looked at him oddly, something he had grown accustomed to here.

“What are lem—” EeNox started.

“Never mind. So where’s the boat?”

“Down at the dock. I say we get going before it gets much later. The fish are always more active in the morning.”

The four of them made their way down through the market to the waterfront. Fishermen were busy securing lines as they continued to unload baskets of smoked and salted meats, vegetables, wheat, and fresh seafood. Rex immediately caught wind of fish caught only hours ago. It was an intoxicating scent, and one that he had remembered loving back on Earth the few times he had been lucky enough to go to the fish market in San Francisco.

They walked down the dock, which was made of large roots growing out of the shallows, to a wooden boat about six meters long and four meters wide.

“This is it?” Rex asked, eyeing it uncertainly.

“You were expecting something else?” EeNox replied.

“Well, yeah,” he said, eyeing the larger fishing boats that were anchored in the harbor.

“Yeah, right! As if anyone would just turn over an entire fishing vessel to a kid!”

“Do you really expect to catch anything in this glorified raft?” asked LyCora in her usual condescending tone.

“Of course. I catch dozens of fish with far less than this all the time. I thought it would be fun to go cruising downtown for the day while we do it.”

“You keep saying downtown,” said Rex, looking back the way they had walked. “But isn’t that behind us?

“What? Oh you think…” EeNox began to laugh.

“Something funny?” Rex asked with a glare.

“EeNox, be nice,” DiNiya scolded before turning to Rex. “KaNar is located at the very top of the Black Ridge Mountains of the Northern Continent. The forest that surrounds it beneath marks the boundary line.”

“Oh, so then even the places within it without homes are still part of the town?”

“You didn’t think everyone lived right here on the edges, did you?” EeNox asked. “Think about it. If that were the case, this whole area we’re in right now would be so crowded there’d be no room to even stand. This is really more of a place where people come to do business and hang out.”

“I see. Learn something new every day, I suppose.”

“So is everyone ready?”

Everyone climbed aboard the tiny vessel, looking for the best place to sit. Rex was busy trying to decide if it was safer to sit between DiNiya and LyCora to keep them apart or as far away from them as he could when EeNox handed him an oar.

“What’s this?” he asked looking at the long wooden paddle in EeNox’s outstretched hand.

“This boat isn’t powered by a plant, so we’ll have to row ourselves. I figured a strong-looking fellow like yourself would be happy to help.”

Rex furrowed his brow and gave him a look saying he was not stupid. EeNox then leaned in close and whispered, “I figured you probably wouldn’t be too fond of being caught in the middle of that little blood feud back there.” He motioned with his head over to DiNiya and LyCora, who sat with unhappy expressions as they did their best to not look at one another.

“Fair enough,” Rex said, taking the oar from him.

They pushed off from the dock and slowly made their way downstream with the gentle current.

The first twenty minutes or so went by rather quietly, with the girls still refusing to acknowledge each other and EeNox whistling a song that Rex, oddly enough, thought he recognized.

“Hey, what is that?” he asked.

“What’s what?” replied EeNox, glancing over at him.

“That song. What’s it called?”

“You mean this?” he asked, whistling a few more bars.

“Yeah.”

“Its name is ‘The Sea Beyond the Clouds.’ It’s supposed to be the first song ever written by the first SaVarians of EeNara. Everyone learns it when they’re babies. It’s a tradition, I guess. Why?”

Rex shook his head. “No reason, I suppose. Just thought it sounded…familiar.”

EeNox shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t surprise me. If you really were born here, you would have heard it as a baby.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t remember a song from when I was that young.”

“Why not?” DiNiya asked from behind.

Rex turned around and saw her sitting with her head slightly cocked to one side and with a look of curiosity. “Well…I would have been less than a year old. No one has memories from that far back.”

“I do,” LyCora said, crossing her legs.

“Me too,” added DiNiya.

“Likewise,” EeNox echoed.

“Hold on,” Rex said with a look of utter confusion. “You’re telling me you can all remember being newborns?”

“Sure. Can’t everyone?”

“No! The earliest I think you’re supposed to be able to think back to is two or something, and even then that’s pushing it!”

“Two? That’s got to make it hard to keep any sort of lasting relationship early in life, when you can’t remember whom you talked to the day before for your first two years.”

“You make it sound like we’re walking and talking when we’re first born,” Rex joked as he allowed himself to laugh a little over the absurdness of the idea, a laugh that quickly turned to an uncomfortable look as soon as he noticed the three staring at him with the same curious look DiNiya had initially. “You cannot be serious…”

“I’ll admit I was little behind,” said EeNox. “I was already like, what, three lunar cycles old or something before I started talking? But DiNiya started at one and a half.”

Rex’s jaw dropped.

“Not bad,” said LyCora—a compliment that everyone could tell was devoid of sincerity and designed solely to elicit the obvious question.

“So, how young were you, LyCora?” EeNox asked.

“Less than one cycle!” she boasted with what to her was a look of pride, but it just came across as smug to everyone else.

“Holy shit,” Rex exclaimed, dumbfounded.
I’ve felt stupid before but damn, this is a bit much even for me.

“Are you saying it took you longer, Rex?” asked DiNiya with such honest sincerity that he was unable to take any offense.

“Yes. It was two or more years, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Are the people of Earth slow?” LyCora asked, giving Rex a funny look.

“Apparently.”

“It might have had something to do with the fact that your flame wasn’t active for that whole time,” EeNox offered. “That’s just a theory, though.”

“Well, regardless of when you started, you seemed to have more than made up for it,” DiNiya said, giving him a smile before she saw EeNox giving her a sly look that immediately made her stop and look off to the shoreline.

Rex, however, was more confused than ever.
Why can’t I remember being a tiny baby lying in my crib
? he wondered.
If I was born here, I should.
He had not been lying when he told them his earliest memory had been at age two. He could remember it like it had only just happened. He was sitting on the sidewalk outside of his apartment watching a parade go down the street. He could remember desperately wanting to run after it but not being able to because he was strapped down in his stroller. There was someone else there with him, too, but for some reason their image was hazy, or rather out of focus.
Had it always been this way? Everything else about the memory is crystal clear
. He could even recall all the smells and sounds of that moment; crisp autumn air filled with the scent of dried leaves, the beating of snare drums and the ringing of horned instruments as they moved away. The voice, however, of that figure was like its image: distant and unclear.

Everyone had gone back to keeping to themselves when Rex heard EeNox once again whistling that strangely familiar tune.
Could it be true? Did I really hear it when I was a baby here? I wonder who sang it to me.

           
All around them avian DyVorians joined in until it seemed like the entire forest around them was enveloped in this one melody, which seemed to cast a spell over everyone. Rex closed his eyes, letting the rhythm of the song gently glide over him as they continued to lazily flow down the river.

Half an hour later, they veered off into one of the smaller tributaries, where they no longer had the current to carry them. Rex glanced all around at the beautiful forest that looked like something out of a fantasy story. Small CyTorians flew through the canopy while the sounds of distant roars and calls could be heard far off. The trees were thick and tall, almost like natural skyscrapers growing out of EeNara, and the leaves on most of them varied in color like deep reds and golds, and seemed to glow in the morning light.

What looked like an ankylosaurus said hello from the water’s edge as he emerged from the forest to take a drink. The people of EeNara had a system of measuring the passage of time that differed from the one he had been used to on Earth, but he surmised that he had been here around seven to eight months. Yet, despite that, the novelty of saying hello to creatures that had inhabited his dreams since he was little still had not worn off and he doubted it ever would.

LyCora watched Rex with what looked like casual curiosity but was in fact an intense degree of scrutiny. She scanned him from top to bottom, taking note of his abnormally large claws and teeth, along with his physique, which looked normal for a boy his age but seemed different somehow, too. She could not quite put her finger on it, but there was just something in the way he moved and carried himself, like he was bigger than he actually appeared to be. She could not explain it but felt it nonetheless.

DiNiya, who had been listening to the sounds of the forest, had noticed the intensity lurking behind LyCora’s eyes when she fixed them on Rex. Their personal differences aside, DiNiya had always been leery of her because her motives for anything and everything had always been hazy at best, ever since the day of their falling out. Just looking at her now made her wonder what thoughts were swimming in her head, especially now that she had taken some sort of interest in her new friend.
What are you up to, LyCora?

“Okay, this is a good spot,” EeNox said as he pulled up his oar and laid it down.

Rex looked around. “Right here?”

“Yup. This place will do nicely,” he replied, taking off his shirt. “Hurry up and get undressed.”

Rex frowned as he realized that EeNox was not stopping at his shirt and shoes. “Hey, wait, you’re not going to—”

EeNox stripped the last of his clothes off and threw them to the side before quietly slipping into the water. “Don’t jump in,” he said. “The splash will scare away the fish. You coming?”

Rex looked at him then over at the girls. He was well aware that nudity here did not have the same social taboo that it had back on Earth, but being that he grew up with it as such, it was still hard for him to get used to. Especially when it meant doing so in front of members of the opposite sex. To his relief, DiNiya and LyCora had not even so much as raised an eyebrow when EeNox shed his clothes, so at least he knew the embarrassment rested solely with him.
This is stupid. Why do I even care
?

He pulled his shoes off, then his shirt, followed by his pants. All that was left was his underwear.

“Would you hurry up?” EeNox called from the water. “I’d like to get back in time to make our catch for dinner tonight.”

“Don’t rush me,” Rex growled, turning bright red as he glanced back over his shoulder at the girls. LyCora was picking at something caught in her fur while DiNiya was chewing one of her claws and staring up at a couple of CyTorians who were circling lazily overhead.

“Today,” the other boy called from the water.

Rex felt incredibly irritated but also incredibly nervous. He glanced back once more and saw that DiNiya had begun to look at him.
Damn it
, he thought, gritting his teeth.
Now she’s probably wondering why I’m just standing here like an idiot in my underwear. I should have taken them off and jumped in when she wasn’t paying attention
.

“Are you all right, Rex?” she asked.

“FINE!” he replied more forcefully than he had intended in a crackly voice. “I mean…yes, I’m good. Doing…super good over here.”

“You sure?”

“YES!…I mean…why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you’ve been standing there in your underwear like an idiot for the past three minutes,” LyCora replied.

Damn it
, he screamed in his head.
SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHITTY SHIIIIT
.
That’s it. I’ve got no choice. I just have to go for it
. He looked down.
But wait! What if I’m like…below average? How big was EeNox’s? Wait, I didn’t look! Damn it, but how am I supposed to know then? WAIT! I’m only fifteen, what the hell is supposed to be average for me? Ah, fuck it.

He quickly dropped his underwear to his ankles and dove in headfirst before the sun so much as had a chance to shine off his backside. Seconds later, his broke the surface next to EeNox, who furrowed his brow.

“What are you doing?” he asked angrily. “I told you not to jump in or you’d scare the fish off!”

“Hey, I was just really anxious to get started,” Rex fired back.

“What?”

“Huh? Never mind…What now?”

“Well, assuming there’s still anything swimming down there, we go fishing.” He turned his attention to the two girls, who were lost in their own respective worlds, and called up, “You two have that net open and ready. When Rex and I toss them up, it’ll be your job to throw them in.”

“You act like I’ve never done this before,” DiNiya replied, grabbing the net.

“Okay, okay. Just making sure you’re ready. You understand how this works, LyCora?”

The other girl was lying on her back with her hood over her eyes. “You boys play in the water for an hour and then I dine on fresh fish tonight.”

EeNox sighed. “Yeah…you got it. Anyway, Rex you ready?”

“Just how exactly are we supposed to catch fish this way?” he asked.

“Follow me and I’ll show you.”

EeNox disappeared below the surface before Rex had a chance to ask him anything else. Rex took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air, and submerged his head. The water was murky from all the sediment. Rex looked on all sides and below for any sign of EeNox but saw none. Then he noticed a green glow off to his left. Looking over, he saw it was coming from the other boy, who swam closer and motioned for him to follow. With a green pulse, he shot down like a rocket, vanishing in the murky gloom.