The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities Page 6

  “She will not slow you down,” Kendra told him.

  “That is not an enlightening answer, and you didn’t say whether she was pleasant,” he noted.

  “She is pleasant, but,” Kendra paused.

  “Kendra, what are you doing here? What are you trying to do to my goal?” Alec asked bluntly.

  “She is blind, which is not a problem, but,” Kendra grasped for words. “She is like an Old One, but she is not from one of the Five Cities. She is much like you in that regard,” Kendra spoke with sudden realization.

  Alec looked at her in the dim interior of the hut, waiting for a further explanation.

  “She is a changeling. During the night she is a woman, but during the day, she is a tree,” Kendra told him, looking away, and not seeing his mouth gaping in astonishment.

  “A tree?” was all Alec could say.

  “She says she comes from a race of people in a small village in the mountains west of here. They all have the same condition; human form after sunset, but trees for the most part during the daylight,” Kendra told him.

  “Shouldn’t she be happy here, in this village, surrounded by a forest?” Alec asked.

  “She is not. She enjoys people greatly. She would wish to be human all the time if she could. She left her village and fell in love with a man of the mortal race, but he was not good to her, and when he tired of playing with her, he left her,” Kendra explained.

  “I can’t carry a tree across the countryside with me,” Alec said. “I can cure her blindness, but I can’t imagine that I would make good time if I had to sit beside a tree from sunrise to sunset waiting for her to become mobile.”

  “What do you mean about curing blindness?” Kendra asked him sharply.

  “I am a Healer. Before I had any other powers and abilities, I was a Healer. I will probably be able to restore her vision,” he answered, “just as I have healed my own injuries from the battle with the demon.”

  “Could you cure any illness?” Kendra asked. “Could you treat others in our home?”

  “I could,” Alec said slowly, “but I am seeking to travel quickly. If I try to heal everyone here, I will spend another day or two when I should be pursuing Kriste, and Andi.

  “I have a mission. I am going to help those girls who need my help, including Andi now,” he returned to his fundamental goal. “Will you help me or not?”

  “My lord, let me introduce you to the girl I mentioned, Aja. If you do not agree to take her after meeting her, we will not force you to make her your companion. And if your heart tells you that it is more important to go after the girls on the road than to spend a few more hours here with us, we will not force you to stay,” Kendra told him.

  “That’s putting all the guilt on me! It’s not fair!” Alec said in exasperation, knowing that he would now spend the day healing and helping out of a sense of obligation.

  “Shall we go meet Aja? Are you able to stand?” Kendra asked Alec, rising and wrapping her blanket around herself.

  “If you are able to heal, why are your wounds here not healed?” she asked Alec, touching some of the scars he had suffered from the attack by the demon.

  “Those wounds, the wounds delivered by a demon, are beyond my ability to fully heal,” Alec asked as he stood. “There is such power in the evil that inflicted them that the scars remain.”

  “And how is it that you brought that demon to your village?” he asked, suddenly suspicious of the women around him once again as he remembered the ordeal of fighting the demon.

  “We opened the gate to the afterlife to any of those who had died and held a relationship with you. We did not know that you had caused such a horrific creature to die. The demon’s death at your hands enabled it to take advantage of the opening,” Kendra answered. “We are shaken, and in sorrow, and in awe of the thought that you could fight and slay such a monster.

  “It was a horror for us, and it was a horror to the spirits on the other side that we call upon. It has hurt us all. Come this way,” she directed.

  Alec followed Kendra from their hut, and when they got outside he used his Light powers to gather together the shreds and threads of starlight that fell through the tree leaves overhead, and fashioned them into a dim ball of light that floated in front of Kendra.

  “What things you are able to do,” the woman commented, and led him between numerous huts on a meandering path. As they moved across the village Alec heard the faint sound of someone gently singing a ballad; he remembered having heard the voice before.

  “That’s her voice,” Kendra spoke softly to Alec.

  “Her voice is lovely,” Alec replied. He felt moved by the melancholy tune she crooned. “Is she as sad as her music?” he asked.

  They were almost to the hut that was the source of the music even as he spoke, and Kendra stopped to knock at a doorway. The singing stopped, and a woman’s voice invited them to come in.

  “Visitors? So late? What have I done wrong now?” the girl asked in a whimsical tone as Kendra and Alec entered his home.

  She was a lovely girl, Alec could tell even in the dim light that his illuminating globe barely projected. Her hair was cut very short, barely covering her ears, but that only served to allow her other features to draw the attention of anyone who looked at her. She had a small, dainty nose and a wide mouth that smiled generously. Only her eyes detracted from her striking appearance, as they wandered aimlessly about, unfocused on any object.

  “Aja, it’s Kendra. I’ve brought you a visitor, the man who came to our village and caused such a stir these past few days,” Alec’s guide explained.

  “Is he twelve feet tall? Does he have nine fingers and three eyes? He doesn’t smell as bad as everyone here says most men smell,” the girl laughingly asked.

  “Actually, I have three fingers and nine eyes; you were close,” Alec agreed with her.

  “Well, he’s got a pleasant voice; and he’s a man who has a sense of humor. You’re the funniest man I’ve ever seen,” she told Alec. “Quoth the blind girl,” she emphasized her own humor.

  “Enough, enough child,” Kendra shushed her. “We are here with a proposition.”

  “I waited for one of those once, and all I got was a broken heart,” the girl replied.

  “Is she always like this?” Alec asked. “I’m afraid of how I might react if I have to listen to this on a daily basis while we’re traveling together.”

  The girl’s head, which had swung randomly around on her neck, grew suddenly still.

  “Did you just stab my heart for fun? I thought I was the one who knew how to joke, but now I’m afraid you’re joking with me,” she said.

  “I’m going to leave this village soon, and Kendra suggested that I take you with me. I’ve agreed that if you can tell me what color my eyes are, I’ll take you with me,” Alec replied. He motioned to Kendra to remain silent as she began to rise to object to his comments.

  The girl placed her hands on her chair and the wall beside it to keep her balance as she stood. “That’s mean! You’re an awful man!” Aja said loudly.

  Alec walked over to her, and placed his hands on either temple, holding her head still. “Aja,” he whispered, “I have a feeling we are going to spend a long time traveling together.” He unleashed his Healing energy into her head, treating the flawed optical nerve he detected, preparing her brain to begin to receive and process visual signals for the first time, then ceased the release of his Healer energy, increased the brightness of the light he created, and waited for her reaction.

  “Aaaah,” her voice started out in a low moan that rose in pitch and in volume, until Alec brought his fingers down along her cheekbone and across to her lips, gently shushing the noise.

  “My eyes are green,” he told her, as her eyes stared in astonishment.

  “This is Kendra,” his hands turned her head gently to see the other woman in the room, who waved at her.

  “These are the colors,” he said and he adapted his Light power to create
a miniature rainbow across the ceiling of the hut. “This is purple, and here is red, then comes orange,” his fingers took her hand and slowly led it across the spectrum.

  “And this,” he waved, reaching for his Air energies, and fashioning a silvery disk of air and light, a highly polished, mirrored surface that he brought to float directly in front of the two of them, “is one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. This is what you look like,” he told her, and stepped away from her as she stood silent, her eyes darting all around, examining every detail of her reflection, her fingers rising up to touch her lips and her hair and her neck.

  Alec backed away from her to stand next to Kendra. The woman looked at him with teary eyes that were wide with astonishment. “Your powers are without limit, my lord. With all that you can do, why are you even here among us? Why did you let us live when you first confronted our village?”

  “Kendra, we are all seeking the same goal, a world of justice and peace,” Alec replied, not sure how to answer. “Do you think she’ll be a good traveling companion?” he asked, looking at Aja, who was crying as she continued to wordlessly look at her reflection.

  “That girl will be wrapped around your finger for a long time,” Kendra answered. “Not forever, mind you, but a long time.”

  “Aja,” Alec called gently. “I need to get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow I am going to heal some of the women in the village, and then we are going to leave.”

  “We are going someplace, my lord? You will take me with you?” her eyes looked intently at Alec in the reflective disk.

  “I am on a mission, and you are going on the same road with me, at least part of the way, it seems,” he answered.

  “I will plan to leave during the day tomorrow, so make your farewells while you can,” he directed her. “I understand that you do not sing or make jokes during the day time, and I look forward to traveling with you under such circumstances.”

  She turned away from the mirror and stepped over to Alec, then fell to her knees. “My lord, I am yours to command.”

  “Good,” Alec said simply. “You keep that in mind. Now get up off your knees, and tell me how big are you in the day time? How heavy will you be?”

  “I am but a sapling, young and tender. I am no great burden,” the girl cried.

  “Take one last look for tonight at the mirror,” he gestured, and a few seconds later, as she looked again in wonder, he let the concocted device dissolve into the air. “Kendra, will you lead me back to my pallet?” Alec asked, and with a gentle shake of hands, Alec left the overwhelmed girl behind as he returned to his own hut and settled back down to rest.

  He did not sleep immediately. The discomfort of his new demon wounds combined with the churning thoughts of his brain to keep him awake, and thinking of his next journey. Andi and Amane were traveling together, with only each other, and he expected that Amane’s persistence in his infatuation with the Black Crag guard would have remained consistent, and probably grown stronger when the two were isolated together, as long as they didn’t actually catch up with the ingenairii who they were tracking.

  By the time Alec caught up with them, certain to be several days in the future, Andi might have gotten over her lost relationship with Alec, and he would be able to do whatever task he would need to do to prevent her death, as the spirit in the fire had prophesized. He would have to track them though, and the trail could prove difficult to find. He only knew that he would go to Moriadoc as rapidly as it was possible to go with a tree as a companion. He shook his head over the concept of traveling with a tree, then sighed as he thought about how enchanted Aja’s beautiful features left him.

  Given the record of loquaciousness displayed by the Warriors that were his ultimate quarry, Alec expected that there would be information in Moriadoc about where they were to go next. If not, there was that cryptic message one of the freed hostages had relayed, the report that Andi had conveyed from his forgotten experiences, that the Warriors would travel through the land of the snake people. It could seemingly only mean the lacertii, an astonishing thought for Alec to consider.

  If he reached the land of the lacertii, he would know the way back to the Dominion. He could wistfully imagine finding a home for Aja, saving Andi, then setting Kriste free, and returning her and the other kidnapped girls to their rightful homes. That would take several months, he knew, but in a year’s time, he could be free of obligations, and know the way to return to the Dominion.

  Would he want to go back to the Dominion? There would be a gap of centuries since his last lifetime there. Dynasties would have changed, some cities would have grown and others would have shrunk. But there would be Ingenaire Hill – a place he could live, and a society in Oyster Bay that knew, expected, and accepted ingenairii to freely participate in civic life. He would be able to serve in the cities he chose to provide service in, if he wanted to travel to see the places of his youth. He felt a yearning, a strong desire to return home, as he realized he still considered the land of his birth. He fell asleep to dreams of laughter on Ingenaire Hill, and didn’t awaken until late in the following morning.

  Chapter 7 – Traveling with a Tree

  Before the arrival of sundown, Alec was finished with his work of healing the women of the village. It has been rewarding, for several of the women had needed attention; he had healed with his powers, and he had given many directions for cures to be administered and relied upon to alleviate future maladies. The village’s complete and utter detestation of men had suffered from his good works, and he hoped that some positive benefit would come from his service to the women.

  He had seen Aja as a tree, and was less concerned about her traveling peculiarity than he had been before – she was a sapling in truth, a very slender trunk, and just a few feet tall. Her leaves were an attractive pale yellowish green; overall Alec considered her as graceful in appearance as a tree as she was as a woman. Her roots were wrapped in a small canvas ball, and she was light in weight, strapped to Alec’s back, next to his supply bag.

  He no longer had a horse; the Rangers had ridden theirs back to Exbury, while Andi and Amane had ridden theirs and taken extras along with them as fresh mounts for their traveling needs. They would travel at as fast a pace as they could, and sorely challenge Alec to keep up, especially in the early days of the journey, while he tried to rebuild his strength after fighting the demon. And the journey would be unusual, at least in its early phase, as he and Aja worked out the dynamics of their companionship.

  Kendra had presented his with two small containers, now securely stowed within a pouch that he had tied tightly to his belt. Each container had a smear of salve. On a moonlit night, Alec would have to place the salve from the darker container on his lips, and place the salve from the lighter container on Andi’s lips. The two would have to kiss in the light of a full moon; only that way would Alec’s memories be restored and Andi’s life preserved from whatever deadly alternative path was prophesized for her.

  “Isn’t that a bit trite?” Alec had asked Kendra. “A moonlight kiss?”

  “If you, with all your abilities, haven’t been able to restore your memories, then why should you be entitled to criticize our ways?” she had asked earnestly, and Alec had offered no answer.

  Alec was led to the road by a pair of women he did not know, and thanked them when he came to the dim empty lane that cut through the center of the forest, miles from the women’s village. With a brief word of thanks, Alec began walking along the road. He felt too spent from his Healing activities to engage his Warrior powers for the journey during the remainder of the day, and so walked steadily, heading in a southwesterly direction, with the setting sun behind the trees in front of him. He reached the end of the forest just as the sun completed its drop below the horizon, and the load he carried suddenly grew much heavier.

  “You can stop and put me down if you like, or you can keep carrying me, whichever you prefer,” Aja announced her re-emergence as a person. “But if you’re going to
keep carrying me, I’d like to get a more comfortable position, so could you stop anyway?”

  Alec grinned at her saucy banter, and came to a stop, then crouched as he unbuckled the strap that held her and his sack on his bag, setting her free. He turned and stood to watch as she stretched extravagantly, raising her arms high above her head, fingers widespread and back arched.

  “So are you a person now, or a tree? I can’t tell,” Alec greeted her.

  Aja smiled lazily with her eyes shut, then opened them and returned to regular posture.

  “If you can’t tell the difference between a tree and a woman, you and I will soon part ways, my lord,” she answered. She looked around in the sunset glimmering. “Why is that so colorful?” she asked, pointing towards the sunset palette of colors along the horizon.

  “Come, let’s start walking while we talk,” Alec told her, picking up her lightened canvas root bag.

  “That is what the sky looks like after the sun goes down,” Alec said, then reflected as he began to say more that by her nature, this girl would perhaps never actually see the sun. The sky was clear overhead, and he pointed upward.

  “See that white spot? That’s a star. Soon there will be lots of them up above us, as the sun goes away and the sky grows darker,” he explained, then reached out quickly and grabbed her arm as she stumbled while trying to walk and stargaze at the same time.

  His grasp on her arm was only meant to be helpful, but her skin had a soft and subtle texture that felt intimately warm, and he was immediately self-conscious of the contact. Sure that she was stable, he released his grip. She looked at him with eyes that seemed exotic in their almond-shaped beauty. “Thank you, my lord,” she said.

  “Aja, please call me Alec,” he told her.

  “Yes, my lord Alec,” she told him with a smile.

  “What are we seeing here?” she waved her arm all around them as they walked.

  “This is the road,” Alec gestured downward and forward.