The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (9 page)

BOOK: The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities
7.9Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“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 aimless
ly
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 ev
eryone 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 i
f 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 turn
ed her head gently to see the other woman in the room, who waved at her.

“These are the colors,” he sa
id and he ada
pted 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 g
o 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 hi
s 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 hostage
s 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.

BOOK: The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities
7.9Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The 5th Witch by Graham Masterton
Gold Fire by Ambrose, Starr
Fronteras del infinito by Lois McMaster Bujold
Faith on Trial by Pamela Binnings Ewen
His Beautiful Wench by Dae, Nathalie
Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert
Lakota Surrender by Karen Kay
It Happened One Night by Marsden, Scarlet