Atlantis Rising by T.A. Barron Read Free Book Online Page B

him. She opened her eyes to their widest, never blinking.
    Promi sighed. “Oh, all right. Just this once.”
    Pinching a small piece of crust that oozed with smackberry syrup, he tossed it to the kitten. She pounced on it eagerly. Then, seeing the looks of great longing on the faces of the anteater and the squirrel, he threw each of them a scrap.
    The butterfly landed on his wrist, wings trembling with anticipation. Promi shook his head, knowing he was beaten. Gently, he smeared a bit of sweet juice on a mustard flower. Instantly the butterfly glided over and began to dine.
    Just about to get back to his own eating, he thought of something else. For the sake of fairness, he broke off one more chunk of pie crust and tossed it straight up into the cedar’s branches. Though he heard a scurrying sound, he didn’t see any more flashes of blue up there. But the crust didn’t fall back to the ground.
    Taking another bite for himself, he glanced again at the City’s outer wall. As he chewed, he heard the distant chiming of a bell—not the big one in the bell tower that he himself had rung that morning, but one somewhere else in the temple complex. He also heard some muffled shouting from the market square, the ring of a blacksmith’s hammer, and the gentle bleating of goats. The only other sounds he could hear came from his new neighbors, who were loudly chomping and licking their paws, as well as some more scurrying in the branches above his head.
    “Welcome to my dining room,” he announced. “The finest eating place in all of Ellegandia.” With a chuckle, he added, “And it’s certainly a lot nicer than the Divine Monk’s dining room right now.”
    He waved his arms, gesturing to the assembled creatures, but they ignored him. They were too engrossed in devouring their treats. Only the butterfly gave any indication of having heard him, pausing briefly to flutter its wings before continuing to eat.
    Promi thought back to his successful theft of the pie and chuckled again, spurting some purple syrup onto his leggings. The hardest part of the whole operation had turned out to be something he hadn’t expected—trying not to fall over laughing when the incense shaker exploded, the Divine Monk crashed into the table, and the whole place erupted in chaos.
    Best of all,
he thought with satisfaction,
was that look of utter shock on Grukarr’s face. A look I’m starting to enjoy.
    He licked his purple-stained fingers.
And Araggna’s face was a good match. Why, she looked even angrier than usual, which is hard to imagine.
    Hearing something stir in the branches overhead, he glanced up. But he saw nothing through the mesh of blue needles . . . except a hint of rust color. Part of the hi-marnia bird? But no, they were supposedly all blue. So another kind of bird, then?
    Only one piece of pie remained. Turning his attention to that, he lifted it and took a huge bite. The animals around him whimpered with disappointment, while the butterfly’s antennae drooped.
    “Oh, well,” he said with a shrug. Then he broke off a lump of crust and divided it among them. Immediately they went back to the happy task of eating.
    As he watched them, Promi couldn’t help but think about the diversity of this land’s creatures. He’d seen only a small sampling of them, of course—the ones people had captured and brought to market, or the rare ones brave enough to approach him as these had done. But that small sampling had been amazingly varied . . . and sometimes quite beautiful.
    There really could be some truth to the old stories about this land’s wondrously varied creatures. And that wasn’t even counting the immortal beings who, it was said, had actually chosen to live in Ellegandia’s deep woods rather than in the spirit realm on high.
    That can’t be true,
thought Promi skeptically.
Why would any immortals choose to live on Earth rather than up in the sky with the rest of their kind? Ellegandia may be special . . . but