The Guided Journey (Book 6) (3 page)

He watched the birds in the trees and the clouds overhead, until he decided it was time to arouse the imps from their dreams in the water.  He lifted them all from the water, then patiently waited as they awoke on their own and got dressed.  Afterwards, they all sat on the grass, and Kestrel told the imps the story of what had happened on his adventure after Canyon’s friends had taken him home.

“You and the gnomes were bonded together in the Garrant Spark?  Does that make you a gnome?” Dewberry asked.

“Only if you find gnomes desirable,” Kestrel replied, setting off gales of laughter among the imps, who could not imagine anyone finding gnomes to be desirable.

“And has your king given you great honors for your achievements?” Jonson asked.

“My king does not know yet,” Kestrel sheepishly admitted.  “I have not sent him a report.  I plan to send one any day now.”

“Would you not go to the king in person to make such a report?” Killcen asked.

“And visit the pretty lady doctor elf?” Odare asked.

“I just am not ready to go there yet,” Kestrel admitted.  “I like the peace and quiet and relaxation I’ve enjoyed these past few days in Oaktown.”

“You owe your king the courtesy of a report on all that has happened in the world, just as he owes you gratitude and thanks for your great works,” Jonson said solemnly.

“I will write my report today,” Kestrel promised.

“Then let’s take you back to your home, so that you can get started,” Jonson said, as he stood up.  The other imps followed, and Kestrel picked up his collection of water skins.  Seconds later, they were transported back to the patio outside his study in Oaktown.

“Thank you for a wonderful morning with friends,” Kestrel told the imps as they released him.  “I hope we’ll see each other soon.”

“We will, Kestrel-friend,” Dewberry replied, “but first, let us go out and do some traveling to all the places we haven’t been able to visit for several months.  Then we’ll be back and be visitors once again.”

Kestrel entered his room, and startled a maid who was making the bed.

“My lord,” she curtsied and apologized, “I swear I looked out on the patio to make sure I would not disturb you before I started straightening.”

Kestrel laughed.  “I’m sure you did; I just got back, and I’m going to my study now.”  He spontaneously decided to slip one of the skins of spring water over his head and held it out to her.  “Here, take this.  If you don’t feel well, or if you know anyone who doesn’t feel well, use this water.  Soak in it, pour in over a w
ound, take a drink, or dip a cloth in it and sponge it on the wound, and it will help cure the problem quickly,” he explained, then left the confused girl and strolled to his study.

With a pen and paper sitting on his desk in front of him, Kestrel stared at the far wall and tried to decide how to start his report.  There was so much to tell that he couldn’t settle on the order to put his news items in.  First and foremost was the end of the Viathin threat, he was sure.  That would be a story all by itself.  But the discovery of southern elves was news that would be critically interesting to the people of the palace at Center Trunk.  He could tell the story of his return to ordinariness – he had lost the powers and energy the goddess had given him, there was no longer a protective tattoo across his chest, and his magical dagger Lucretia had exploded in the flesh of Ashcrayss, the  dragon-god of the Viathins.  He still had the skills that he had learned at Firheng – the use of the sword and the staff, as well as the language of the humans – but he no longer possessed the incredible tools that had made it possible to accomplish so much, though Kere had hinted that the potential to hold the powers might be his again.

And so he began to write about the death of the Viathins and the transformation of the waters of the Inner Seas into a protective inoculation that had ended the threat from the ravenous, terrible monsters.  From there he went on to talk about the potential for peace with the human nations of the Inner Seas, if the elves of the Eastern Forest would make the effort to reach out to the humans; he cited the northern elves as an example of an elven culture that traded and spoke with humans.  He next wrote about the southern elves, and their need for help, as well as the gnomes in the south, and he lauded the imps in extravagant terms for all the help they had delivered to him throughout his long, perilous adventure.  And then finally, he summed up by thanking the king for the opportunity to serve, but hinted that he felt he had earned the right to retire to his new home in Oaktown and live with the people who looked up to him within the boundaries of his estate.

The sun had set, and Kestrel had missed two meals by the time his epistle was finished.  He wandered into the kitchen where the cook was already gone, and a boy from the household staff was emptying buckets of water into the reservoir built next to the chimney.

“Where is everyone, Remy?” Kestrel asked.

“They’ve gone home my lord,” the boy answered respectfully.  “But they left that carton of food for you,” he pointed at a
small wooden crate that sat on the counter nearby.

“They didn’t want to disturb you; what with those imps you have coming to serve you and all, the maids were scared to go into your room,” the boy explained.  “There are so many stories about the things the imps do to people, you know.

“You must be the most powerful elf in the world to be able to control the imps the way you do,” the boy said.

“Not at all,” Kestrel laughed, as he removed the lid from the crate and stared down at the soup and bread and slices of meat that sat on a plate in the bottom of the crate.  “I’m not powerful, and I don’t control the imps.  I’m their friend.  They are helpful for me, and I am helpful for them,” he explained to the dubious boy.

“Tell the people of the mansion that there is no reason to fear my friends the imps.  Always greet them and invite them in,” he said as he lifted his plate of food.

“Have you had dinner?” he asked the boy as he looked at the heap of food in his hands.

“Not much,” Remy answered, as he lifted a bucket up over his head and emptied it into the reservoir.

“Here, have this,” Kestrel tore the loaf of bread in half, then laid several slices of meat on the counter next to the bread.  He walked back to his study with his food, leaving th
e astonished, and grateful, boy joyful as he stuffed food into his mouth.

Chapter 3 – Cedar Gully

Writing the report proved to be cathartic for Kestrel.  He slept much better that night, without the dreams or nightmares that had troubled him before.  He woke alert and in time to see the sun rise above the trees on the horizon.  He ate breakfast in the dining room, then returned to his bedroom and saw the pile of water skins he had brought back from the healing spring.

“Whyte, is there anyone who is ill or injured around the mansion?” he asked his steward after he strolled through the mansion and found the man.

“A few, my lord,” the steward answered.  “We’re lucky we’re not suffering the way the folks over at Cedar Gully are – they’ve got a terrible outbreak of some disease there, I’m told.”

“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 infants, 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!”