More like plummeting, Zai thought to himself.
“Love it,” Ben said, baring his bright white teeth in a beatific grin.
“I was born to fly.”
“Hmm,” was all the female said to that.
“Come. I will take you to our King. There is no guarantee, however, that he will grant you audience.”
“But why?” Ben asked, picking up on something heavy in the female’s tone just as Zai had.
“What’s wrong?”
“Our King is…lost,” she answered after a long pause.
“You will soon see for yourself.”
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
Sol was at once exactly as Ben expected and a total stranger.
The female eagle took them through a cavernous maze until they arrived at a small, hidden alcove carved into the side of the mountain. The flat boulder that jutted out of the mountainside like a balcony was large enough for giant raptors to land on and to congregate in a small flock, like a landing pad. But it would be impossible for others to approach, especially in these ancient times, millennia before the invention of manmade flying vehicles.
At its edge a lone man stood, his back facing the cavern entrance.
The female indicated that Sin and Zai should stay back, where the other two raptors stood guard, but she nodded to Ben to proceed. Thus, he walked toward the tall, imposing figure with flaming red hair and impossibly broad shoulders.
The man stood with his long, muscular legs braced slightly apart, hands clasped behind his waist, as if he was standing at attention in a military ceremony. His shock of wavy hair danced like living flames with the breeze that sifted through it. Somehow, it always maintained a certain shape, wild but not messy.
He wore a form-fitting leather tunic with very little embellishment, knee-high boots and beaded arm bands. Ben could see enough of his profile as he approached to take note of a straight, long nose, proportional to his face, high, sharp cheekbones and a granite, beardless jaw.
If not for the color of his hair and the lack of beard, Ben would have thought he was Sorin in the flesh.
The build was almost exactly the same, though the Eagle King was leaner. He could see in his mind’s eye how the two men’s forms could be superimposed onto one another. It would be an almost perfect match.
But there the similarities ended.
When Ben stood at the edge of the plateau with the Eagle King, a little beside and a little behind him, just a few feet separating them, he saw that though Sol shared some of Sorin’s features, something about him was completely…off.
“Say your piece, human. Then, be gone,” the elusive King of Raptors commanded in a low, smoky voice.
Sorin’s voice was deeper, huskier, more resonant. But again, Ben noticed similarities as well, in how he spoke the words, his accent and enunciation.
“You are the Eagle King, Sol,” Ben said, just because he couldn’t quite believe he was finally seeing the male face to face.
“I am,” Sol acknowledged.
“And who might you be?”
’Til now, he still hadn’t turned to look at Ben, his stare focused on something on the distant horizon.
Ben wondered what he saw. What he was thinking.
“My name is Ben. I come…well, if you can suspend belief and hear me out, I come from the future, from a different realm.”
The Eagle King still didn’t look at him. He didn’t react at all to the otherwise shocking revelation.
“I fear you have traveled far for nothing, Ben,” Sol murmured, almost as if he was talking to himself.