David and Inaros walked through the hills on what appeared to be a path. David had not recognized it as a path at first because fallen leaves, stones, sticks and overgrowth completely covered it. They startled a few partridges right away. The birds took to the sky in a flurry of wings. After that, they saw more than their fair share of birds and squirrels, and one white tailed deer that scramble off into the trees at their approach. David kept his eyes open for bees and spiders, and his ears open for larger predators, but the area around him seemed quiet and peaceful, even tranquil in a way.

“I can almost smell the sea from here, boy. Do you smell it?” Inaros took a great whiff of air and let it out slowly. He walked on his own and had since he stopped trying to animate his words. He paused to lean on his cane.

“Sir?” David felt that word was appropriate. Inaros pointed. They had been following a stream for some time and slowly worked their way down hill. David looked, but all he could see was blue on the horizon.

Inaros spoke. “The trouble is always where does the sky end and the sea begin? Sailors know”

David looked again and he thought he saw a distant line separating the two. “I think I see it.”

“You will, boy. Practice with that nose and you will smell it, the smell of clams and brine of the salty sea. And practice with those ears and you may even be able to hear it crashing against the rocks from this far away. I know I don’t hear like I did when I was young, but even I can imagine hearing it from here.” He appeared rested and they started walking again. “It is Swift’s Gulliver, eh? And I am one of the Little People.” He laughed and slapped David on the shoulder. David laughed as well but looked up at the elf who stood considerably taller than himself.

After a time, they came to a short cliff and had to climb down carefully to the woods below. These woods seemed less inclined to be overgrown with burrs and pines, though the pines were still present, the trees had begun to thin out even more as they approached the salty air coming up off the distant water. The stream tumbled off the short cliff and crashed into a pool with a minimum of spray and foam because the cliff proved not terribly high. The pool looked like it churned the same water since the beginning of time.

“Time to rest.” Inaros announced, and David did not argue. The old elf probably needed a mid-morning nap.

“I’ll take the first watch, Captain,” David said with a short salute. He was a good sport and willing to indulge the gentleman who smiled and patted his shoulder.

“’Ware the Jabberwock, my son,” Inaros said, as he stepped heavily over to rest against a tree. Hardly a moment later, David heard the snores.

David wandered to where the stream came out of the pool and decided that it might be a very small river, being waist deep where he checked with a long stick, and it seemed twice the distance across than he could jump, even with a running start. He wanted to see how deep the pool might be, so he took his stick and poked, but he could hardly reach the center of the pool.

David looked at Inaros who slept peacefully. It would be June soon enough, and it warmed up nicely as they headed toward noon. David decided to slip off his shoes and socks and change his fairy weave long pants of the morning into shorts for the afternoon. With that, he waded out into the pool for some distance. He poked with the stick and tried to find the deepest spot. His stick brushed against a fish, and he scrambled out of the pool as fast as he could just on the general principal that he would be better safe than sorry. The fish came to the surface and poked its’ head out of the water to stare up at him.

“Ouch,” the fish said, and David felt too astonished for words. “Want to eat me?” The fish asked.  It looked like a very big, and apparently, a very old fish.

“What?”

“Eat me,” the fish repeated. “All of the wisdom and knowledge in the world is in my flesh.”

“I’m sorry?” David said. “I’ve never talked to a fish before.”

“Salmon,” the fish said. “I was going up-stream to spawn and die when Alice, the lady of the castle, put in this cliff and waterfall. I’ve been stuck here, down below for thousands of years.”

“Eat you?”

“I’m tired,” the salmon said. “I want to go over to the other side, but I don’t know the way. Someone has to cook me and eat me, and I promise all the wisdom and knowledge of the ages.”

“Stop it.” David felt sure the fish was lying to him.

“I’ll prove it!” The fish said, indignantly. “Touch me and lick your finger, and you will be able to teach your seventh-grade teachers a thing or too when you get back to school in the fall, I guarantee it.”

“How did you know I am going into the seventh grade?” David responded, sharply.

“I know all about you, David,” the salmon answered. “I had to do something to occupy my time while swimming around this pool for thousands of years. You think I am kidding about knowing everything?”

“Stop.” A young man of some sort stepped up beside David. “We don’t talk to fish, least of all Salmon know-it-alls.”

“Yeah!” A second young man who stepped up on David’s other side, agreed.

“Little bugs.” The fish spat at them. “If you won’t eat me, perhaps I should eat you.” The fish began to grow, like a blowfish, and as it swelled it came more and more out of the water. All three young men shrieked before the two on each side of David pulled on David’s hands to get him out of there. But David responded slowly, as if the fish had hypnotized him. The salmon’s mouth opened, and there were plenty of sharp teeth inside. In fact, the salmon began to look less like a salmon and more like a great white shark; but still David could hardly move. His feet felt glued in place.

An arrow shot out from the bank of the pool, followed by two darts and another arrow. Something must have struck home, because the fish immediately began to deflate, and as it did, David became able to break eye contact with the beast. He let the two boys, and he thought they were boys, lead him up the bank of the river pool. When he looked more closely, he saw three young people dressed in hunter green, and Inaros up, with the darts in his hand. The three newcomers smiled, and the young woman with the bow and arrows bowed slightly and nudged the two boys to tell them to do the same.

“Lord Inaros,” the young woman spoke. “I am pleased to see that you have not fallen into the clutches of the beast in the castle.”

“Hardly,” Inaros said. He leaned on his cane and returned his remaining darts to his pouch. “It would take more than a sea devil to trap these old bones. Er, Floren, isn’t it?”

“Exactly so,” Floren said with another slight bow, and David made note of the pointed ears and understood that this was another elf. “I also see that these are strange times, indeed, that you should travel about with a mere human from the Midgard lands.”

“Earth.” Inaros corrected the name. “And this is David, son of the Kairos.”

“Oh.” Floren went to one knee, but the boys grinned.

“I’m Oren,” one said and stuck out his hand which David gladly shook.

“I’m Alden,” the other spoke. He looked a little older. They seemed to David to be about James’ age, but when he remembered that Inaros claimed to be fifteen hundred years old he held his tongue. They were probably older than he was.

“David,” he said, and he gladly shook both hands.

“Up, up.” Inaros insisted, and Floren did rise but with a look at David to make sure it would be all right. “David’s a fine boy, and he doesn’t bite,” Inaros said. “But tell me, how is it you are free in this neck of the woods.”

“We were hunting.” Oren spoke right up. “And we were trying to get lost.”

“Why would you want to get lost?” David wondered.

“Elves don’t get lost,” Inaros whispered, a bit too loud.

“Young Lord,” Floren explained. “I was to babysit my younger brother and his friend. They were trying to lose me.”

“And we would have, too,” Alden insisted and folded his arms across his chest.

Floren ignored the boy. “And for a week, nearly ten days, we have been hiding out here by the pool. We have a small camp on the other side of the river, and fresh fish cooking for lunch.”

“Not salmon.” David wanted to be sure. Floren shook her head but smiled at the thought.

“Come on,” Oren yelled, and he tugged on David’s sleeve. He turned and ran with such speed he raced across the water and hardly got his feet wet. Alden ran right behind.

“I can’t do that,” David protested while Inaros winked at Floren, and she smiled. The next thing David knew, Inaros bonked him on the head with his cane, and not softly, and Floren whipped his bare legs with her bow, which stung, and his feet started to move. He ran across the top of the water and hooted the entire way, while Inaros and Floren watched. When David stopped, turned around and shouted.

“That was great!”

Floren waved and raced to his side faster than David could blink. Inaros picked up his cane, put one hand on his alpine hat, and crossed the top of the water in four quick, very leggy strides.

“Refreshing,” he said on the other bank. “But I am always hungry after a nap and a good run.” David did not hear. He ran off to find Oren and Alden, and laughed at the speed, and Floren went right behind him, thinking that now she had three young men to watch.

When the fish got ready, the boys climbed down out of the trees, and David finally tired of running around with super speed, they sat and had a good, if a bit early lunch.

“We are headed for the sea,” Inaros explained. “We hope to find a way to the Palace under the sea, set your father free of his enchantment, and if possible, get the ladies out of the dungeon as well.”

“Eh?” David said in imitation of the old man. He looked up for an explanation having caught the part about their father.

Inaros leaned over. “Floren and Oren are the children of Stongheart and Lady Lisel,” he said, and then apologized. “I am sorry, but I do not recall Alden’s family.”

“Cause I’m a mountain elf, you know, a kobold, not strictly in the elf line,” Alden said and Inaros nodded. David nodded as if he understood as well, but he could hardly see much difference. Alden looked a half-foot shorter, but then James was small for his age group, so David thought nothing of it. He looked closely, then, and decided that Alden’s skin might have been a little darker and his ears not quite so pointed, but it did not mean much.

David tried the fish. He found he could eat it even if it was not his favorite. He preferred the bread, though, with plenty of butter, and he knew that at least his finicky self would not starve. Then he had a thought. “This fish isn’t salmon, is it?” He just had to ask again, to be triple sure.

“No,” Floren said, with a smile and a sweet, lilting laugh. “You asked that already.”

David returned her grin. “Because the salmon said he knew everything, but I’m not ready for that yet.” David always spoke in utter honesty about what he thought and felt, and because of it, he sometimes shared more than he should.

Floren smiled even more deeply at his words. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. The salmon was probably just bragging.”

“No,” Inaros said to everyone’s surprise. “Maybe it does know everything, but that is still no excuse for being rude.”