Free The Promised One by David Alric Page A

and never turn back, then one day they arrive once more in the place whence they came. Do you think the Sagacious Ones will believe what I have told you?’
    Lucy was in a quandary. Should she herself embark upon an explanation of the dolphin’s ‘mystery’ or should she pretend to consult her grandparents? The latter course seemed like a bit of a cop-out and she thought that it might be easier to do things first hand – it would in any case enhance the profile of the Promised One in the eyes of the animals for her to know the answer to such mysteries even when not yet grown to full womanhood. She went to the side of the pool where there was a netted pen containing rings and other inflatable playthings that Catherine used when the public came to see the dolphins performing. There was a large ball in the pen and Lucy brought this over to Jonathan.
    ‘The mystery of which you speak is known to us Tailless Ones,’ she said, ‘and in the houses we build to sail on the Great Salt and the steel thunderquills that roar in the air we have found all that you have heard to be true. I can tell you why it is so, but I know not if you will understand.’ She then successfully explained the spherical nature of the earth using the ball, but Jonathan was unable to understand why the Great Salt didn’t fall off the bottom, despite his effortless use of gravity in his aquabatic and aerobatic feats. Finally he spoke:
    ‘It is said that the Tailless Ones know of many things that we can never know and I see that this is true – that, indeed, is why we need one of you to help us in our task. It is sufficient for me to know that the mysterious thing that Great Ones and their kin have told me is true, and I can now tell them that this has been said by the Promised One.’
    Lucy then answered several more questions that he had obviously been saving up to ask her.
    The time had passed so quickly while they were talking that Lucy was astonished when Grandma and Grandpa appeared to take her to lunch.
    ‘I’d no idea it was lunchtime already,’ she said. ‘We’ve talked about so many things – I can’t wait to tell you about them!’
    They went to a pizza parlour on the seafront that Lucy had had her eye on for a couple of days and she wasn’t disappointed. Between mouthfuls of her favourite pizza combination, ham and pineapple, she told her grandparents about her morning and, as they listened to their granddaughter talking earnestly about the difficulty of explaining that the world wasn’t flat to a dolphin, theyhad to keep reminding themselves that they weren’t in some bizarre dream. After lunch Grandma left to take the old lady next door to a hospital appointment, and Grandpa and Lucy went for a walk along the seafront.

5
Some Lessons in History and Geography
    ‘I ’ve so much to tell you about today,’ started Lucy, ‘but first I must ask you about something Jonathan said a couple of days ago which I forgot during our chat yesterday.’
    ‘Go on,’ said Grandpa, his interest already aroused. He was finding these discussions with his granddaughter fascinating.
    ‘Well, when I asked him about the Promised One, he said something very strange. He said that there had been four others before me that the animals had thought to be The One. From what he said they were all men, but one of them, the most recent one, said that the real Promised One would be a woman – a woman , by the way, not a girl.’
    ‘Did he give you any details?’ Grandpa was beside himself with interest.
    ‘Yes, but I didn’t understand them. The first man lived what Jonathan called “long, long ago” and at a time when dolphins from the “Middle Salt” could swim across mountains rising from the sand. What on earth does that all mean?’
    ‘The Middle Salt must be the Mediterranean Sea,’ saidGrandpa excitedly. ‘The dolphins would have known even before man that it is almost completely enclosed by land – in the middle of the land – and the