The Guided Journey (Book 6) Read online

  “How far is it to Cedar Gully?” Kestrel asked.

  “Half a day’s run to the east,” Whyte answered.

  “I’m going to go see them, and I’d like young Remy to come with me,” Kestrel suggested.

  “When would you like to go?” Whyte asked.

  “Right now. Immediately,” Kestrel replied. “Please go ask Remy to meet me in front of the mansion in a few minutes,” he directed, then left to get the water skins. He passed through the kitchen and had a sack of food prepared, then went to the front of the mansion and found an eager young Remy waiting for him.

  “You wished to see me?” the boy asked Kestrel. In truth he was only a few years younger than Kestrel, but the difference between them seemed much greater.

  “We’re going to go to Cedar Gully today to see if we can help the people there,” Kestrel explained. “Do you want to come along?”

  “Sure!” the boy exclaimed. “What do I have to do?”

  “Take these,” Kestrel handed him four of the water skins, “and we’ll leave right now.”

  The two of them started running, away from the mansion, through the streets of Oaktown, and then into the surrounding forest. Kestrel thought about the joy of running, of feeling his legs stretch out and pull him along the narrow arboreal road, under the dense green shade of the trees that were overhead and all around. He loved to run; it was a fundamental part of the elven heritage that he had been raised in, and that coursed through his veins.

  Perhaps it was also a reflection of who his father was, he decided. Kere’s shocking revelation that his father was Morph, the elven god of speed, had been something that had preoccupied a portion of his soul since he had learned the fact from the goddess. Maybe having a father who was devoted to and preoccupied with speed had made the feeling of running all the more enjoyable for Kestrel, even though he did not have the true speed afoot that pure elves enjoyed.

  “Is it true that you went and killed all the humans? All the ones that wanted to fight elves, I mean?” Remy spoke up from his position slight behind Kestrel’s right shoulder.

  “No, that’s not true,” Kestrel answered. He paused to consider his answer, the question Remy had asked, and the probable presumptions and gossip that would have precipitated such a question.

  “I fought many battles against humans, and elves, and even some imps. I never had to fight any gnomes, thank goodness. But mostly I fought against the Viathins, the terrible monster lizards. Have you heard of them?” he asked Remy.

  The boy nodded uncertainly.

  “I’m part human myself, you know,” Kestrel said. “I was around a lot of humans the past few years. There were a lot of good ones. I even went and fought to save the lives of humans. Do you know I saved the life of the new ruler of Hydrotaz, Princess Yulia?”

  “A human princess?” Remy asked in disbelief.

  “Yes, absolutely. And she will try to be a friend now to the elves of the Eastern Forest. Would you like to make peace with humans in other lands, who we won’t have to fight wars against?” Kestrel asked.

  Remy nodded again, a little more certainly now.

  “Me too,” Kestrel agreed. “I hope we don’t have to have any wars with anyone. I don’t want to do any more fighting. I don’t want to see any more of my friends get killed.

  “I had to kill elves in Center Trunk,” Kestrel said conversationally. “I didn’t like that, just like I didn’t like killing humans,” he randomly remembered killing Sleek, the Graylee nobleman who had abused Lucretia during her captivity. “Most humans, anyway,” he added.

  “We need for more elves in the Eastern Forest to meet more people from outside the Forest,” Kestrel said. “If more of us knew more about other people, we might not think that fighting them was the only way to face them.”

  He lapsed into silence as they ran, letting the boy digest his sermon. He had his own plans for introducing Remy to other races and people, as a first step in his own, personal campaign to make the people of Oaktown more open to other ideas and races of peoples.

  The two of them stopped after two hours and ate the food that the kitchen had packed for them. Kestrel spent five minutes scuffling around in the forest floor detritus until he found a cricket that he happily munched, a comfort food that he had missed during his time among the humans.

  They resumed traveling again, and Kestrel observed that the landscape around them changed, as short, steep hills arose, and the trees included more conifers. Steep, shallow gullies, like miniature canyons, gave the land a wild and untamable feel.

  “I didn’t know there was land like this around our area,” Kestrel told his companion. “It seems different from the rest of the Eastern Forest I’ve seen, except up around Firheng, maybe.”

  “These folks are at the end of the road,” Remy answered. “That’s what my dad says. No one has any reason to come down here – it’s not on the way to anywhere else. They aren’t far from the Swampy Morass.”

  They followed the narrow road that meandered between the hills, and were soon passing open fields that were cultivated in short rows across openings in the forest.

  “They grow crops here, like humans?” Kestrel asked.

  “I don’t know. What does that mean?” Remy asked. The concept of crops was something beyond his experience.

  “Never mind; we must be close enough to the village to ask them in person,” Kestrel surmised, and five minutes later they slowed to a walk as they came to the edge of a small, neat settlement.

  There were no people visible in the open spaces between the tidy stone and wooden buildings in the village. There were the sounds of people retching and coughing coming from several locations.

  “Give me one of your water skins,” Kestrel commanded Remy, as he led a cautious walk up to the partially ajar door of one of closest homes. As they reached the threshold, they heard a child coughing.

  “Hello?” Kestrel called, as he carefully pushed the door open. The Warden of the Marches stepped into an untidy front room, and heard more coughing coming from a back room. Kestrel led the way into the room, where a careworn mother was sitting on the floor stroking the fevered forehead of a young elf, who was tossing restlessly in a small bed.

  “Who are you?” the woman asked listlessly, remaining in her place on the floor.

  “We’ve come from Oaktown. We’re here to help people recover from the plague,” Kestrel answered. He knelt next to the woman, and unstopped the skin Remy had given him.

  “Here, take a drink of this,” he prodded the woman as he held the skin in front of her.

  “What is it?” she asked. “I’m not thirsty,” she added.

  “Take a drink,” Kestrel urged. “You’ll feel better.” He raised the nozzle to her lips gently, and she reflexively reached for the skin, then took a drink.

  “Here, let’s give some to your son,” Kestrel removed the skin, and dribbled a thin stream of drops into the mouth of the boy on the bed. Some of the drops passed through his parted lips, while others splashed on his cheek or his chin. He reached over to the boy and held his head steady as he kept dripping water into him, while he noted with alarm the boy’s high fever.

  “Is there anyone else in the house?” Kestrel asked.

  “No, no one else is left,” the woman said mournfully.

  Kestrel looked at Remy and motioned his head, sending the boy out of the room, as Kestrel rose to his feet and followed. “Let’s look around,” he told his young follower, and they inspected the other two rooms, but found no one else.

  They proceeded to go door-to-door throughout the village, and found numerous homes in which the residents were just as ill as the first two people they encountered. In the fifth house they entered they found a pair of people who had succumbed to the plague, and Remy had to hurry out of the room, horrified by the sight.

  After that find, Kestrel entered the homes by himself, leaving the boy to wait outside the door until Kestrel called him in. They treated men, women, children, and i
nfants, but found only three other fatalities before they ran out of healing spring water when they were two thirds of the way through the houses in the village. They found no one who was completely free of the disease.

  “What will we do?” Remy asked, glassy-eyed and pale – in shock from the horror of the situation.

  “Dewberry, Stillwater,” Kestrel called.

  “Why do you call us to this unhappy place, Kestrel-friend?” Dewberry asked as she appeared in the air, making Remy shriek.

  “The elves in this place are suffering. A plague is killing them,” Kestrel answered. “I’ve used all the water skins we filled at the healing spring yesterday, and I need more.

  “Would you bring more friends to help me? I need to send this boy back to the mansion I live in, and then I need to bring more water from the healing spring to this village,” he requested.

  “Certainly, friend Kestrel, we will help you, but we are doing it for you, not for the elves of this village. They have tried to hunt us and hurt us in the past, and they have tried to drain part of the wonderful Swampy Morass that is so close to them, instead of trying to harvest its riches,” Stillwater told him.

  There was a moment’s pause, then Odare appeared, called by an unheard request.

  “What are they going to do?” Remy asked nervously, as the imps gathered around him.

  “They are going to take you back home,” Kestrel told him. “You’ve done enough. Tell the folks at the manor that we should prepare to send some assistance here to help these folks get back on their feet – maybe some food and some nurses, and some elves with strong backs to do some work,” he explained, without telling the morbid truth that he feared graves might need to be dug. “Tell them to start on their way at sunrise tomorrow.”

  “Are you coming back too?” Remy asked.

  “I’m going to go get more water from the healing spring, and stay here tonight,” Kestrel answered. “The imps will take me after they take you home. Tell the folks who come that I’ll meet them here,” he said.

  The small blue bodies were impatiently closing in around Remy, and his face took on a startled appearance a split second before he disappeared.

  Kestrel stood patiently, waiting for the imps to return, as he pondered the disastrous disease that had descended on the village. He had a thought that was padding around in the back of his mind, an idea that threatened to burst forth into his full consciousness if he allowed. He didn’t want to do so however, because he knew that the idea, once acknowledged, would stick in the forefront of his mind and seek to seduce him into action.

  To distract himself he returned to the first house he had visited when he had arrived at the village. The mother and the ill son were there, their conditions and positions little changed.

  “How do you feel?” he asked as he knelt next to the mother, who was still slumped next to the bed of her son.

  “The same,” she lamented.

  Kestrel reached over and tested the forehead of the elf boy on the bed. The skin seemed distinctly less feverish than it had when Kestrel had first visited.

  “I think he’s a little better; his fever is going down,” he announced encouragingly.

  “Truly?” the mother asked, her eyes widening with interest.

  “I think so,” he asserted, as he stood up. “I’ll come back to check on you again tomorrow. Would you like for me to help you to your own bed?” he asked.

  “I’ll stay right here, next to my boy,” she spoke with determination.

  Kestrel backed away from her. “I’ll be back,” he promised softly, then went back out into the open space among the houses. The imps were not in sight, despite having had plenty of time to drop Remy off and return.

  “Dewberry?” he called wistfully, not expecting any trouble.

  “Where were you?” the sprite reproached him in an instant, responding to his call. “We returned and did not see you, so the others have left already.”

  “I went inside to check on an ill woman,” Kestrel said. “Call the others back, and we can return to the healing spring, but only for a short visit this time. I’ll have to owe you a future visit.”

  “How many future visits do you owe us already, Kestrel debtor-friend?” the small blue being asked as Stillwater and Odare appeared.

  “A lot,” he admitted with a smile. “When this illness is taken care of, why don’t we just plan to spend a week or so repaying all the debts of future visits? You can bring as many sprites and imps as you want to the spring and I’ll take care of everyone!”

  Dewberry did a midair summersault to celebrate Kestrel’s proposal, as the other two imps clapped their hands gleefully.

  “So let’s go fill up these skins as quickly as possible?” Kestrel suggested. “The sooner we can heal these elves the quicker I can uphold my promise.”

  He was swarmed by the small blue companions and instantly transported to the healing spring.

  “Should we try to work out a way to travel through time?” Dewberry asked. “That way we can come back from the future when you will make more promises, and we’ll let you fulfill them in advance.”

  “I would splash water on you,” Kestrel growled as he stood in the spring, filling skins with water. “But then you’d fall asleep and be glad of it.” He tried to hurry the process of filling the bags quickly, even dropping them two at a time into the spring.

  He hurried through the process, then stepped back up onto the shore and strung all the water skins back over his shoulders, as the imps – unhappy about being at the spring but not indulging in it – quickly surrounded him and then lifted him into the nothingness of their means of movement through space. Kestrel re-emerged in the village he had left only a few minutes before, once again loaded with fresh water from the spring.

  “Thank you again friends,” he told the imps where they released him. “I’ll call for your aid if I need it, but I pray that your work is done for now. Go home and enjoy your time, and don’t forget that we’ll have a long visit at the healing spring one day soon!”

  “Forget such a thing? Never!” Dewberry squawked, and then the imps disappeared.

  Alone as the only healthy person in the village, he went among the last few houses to offer doses of the spring water to all the elves he found. He came to the last house in the village, a large, stone house on the southern edge of the village, one that was regal, but also forlorn and abandoned looking.

  Kestrel searched the house but found no one inside, nor even any evidence that the house had been occupied in recent times. By the end of his perusal of the structure, the sun was set, and he decided to simply sleep in a front room of the empty home, rather than bother any of the ill elves he had found. He planned to go about re-dosing with the spring water in the morning, and to await the arrival of the assistance that he hoped Remy had organized for the village.

  He sipped some of the spring water as a precaution against the village’s infection, and ate lightly from the little bit of food that was left in his pack. He’d stood in the spring water while he’d been filling the water skins, so he knew the sip of the water was superfluous, but he took comfort from the taste and the feel of the water nonetheless; the house felt uncomfortable. It was physically solid, but there was an indescribable air of something that worried Kestrel, something that made him feel uneasy.

  He stayed in the front room, and close to the empty window, the idea of an easy escape giving him some comfort. There was nothing in the house to be frightened of, he told himself, so he refused to actually leave the house. He knew he had inspected the house, and found no evidence of anyone else in the house, but as he laid on the floor, his mind drowsy, he imagined he heard drifting snatches of conversations, but the words were in no language he could understand. And there seemed to be a hateful personality that occupied the structure, one that was searching for something or someone, driven by hate and hostility.

  He opened his eyes and sat up, then blinked, for sunrise was occurring. He had fallen asleep
somehow, despite his unease. There was no evidence that anyone had troubled him. There were no tracks in the dust except his own. The voices he had heard must have been a dream, he decided.

  And though he still felt exhausted and tired, as though he hadn’t slept, he decided to get up, to get out of the house where his sleep was so troubled.

  Kestrel gathered up his collection of water skins, and walked to the far end of the village, to the first house he had visited when he and Remy had entered.

  “Welcome, good lord, come in,” the mother greeted him at the door. “Come in, please come in. A visit from you is a blessing, I’d say.”

  “You seem much better,” Kestrel answered as he accepted the invitation to enter the home. “How is your son?”

  “He’s sitting up in bed this morning, and he says he wants breakfast! Who’d have thought that would be big news?” she practically laughed with happiness. “I’m going to fix a meal for him; would you like some?” she asked.

  “Yes, please,” Kestrel didn’t hesitate to answer, as he felt his stomach start to growl at the mention of breakfast. “I’ll go look at your son first, if you don’t mind,” he offered, then stepped into the other room as the mother went into the kitchen.

  “I’m the elf that made you feel better,” Kestrel introduced himself to the boy who was sitting in bed, playing with a piece of glass, reflecting rays of light in different colors into different corners of his ceiling.

  “You’re an elf?” the boy asked.

  “Mostly,” Kestrel said easily. “I’m part human too.” He dismissed the conversation as a boy’s curiosity, no longer a comment that troubled him the way it would have before he had been plucked from obscurity by Kai and sent out on his extraordinary adventures.

  “How do you feel?” he asked. The boy looked much better, but still pale, which was something that might be easily solved just by eating breakfast. Delightful aromas were beginning to circulate in the air, as the boy’s mother began to cook a meal.

  “I feel a lot better,” the boy answered as he stretched and yawned, putting his arms high over his head. “How did you get here so early? Where are you from? Where did you sleep last night?”