The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (10 page)

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.

“So we can see roads?  I always just felt where the ground was compact,” Aja commented.

“And those are fields,” Alec waved to the side.  “Since it is spring, the farmers have not planted crops yet.  And there is a rabbit,” he directed her view to a bolting animal that fled into a pile of brush.

“What have you done today,” she paused to adjust her phrase, “Alec, since I saw you last night?”

“I have slept, and thought, and then healed many of the women in the village,” he said.

“Did you cure Annem’s toothache?” Aja asked.

“Right before lunch time.  She was so happy, she kissed me!” Alec told her.

“She’s a passionate woman,” Aja laughed.  “To kiss a man says volumes about how great her gratitude is.”

“How far are we going to go tonight?” the girl asked Alec.

“As far as I can walk,” he told her.  “After recovering from the demon wounds and doing all that healing, I don’t have much energy tonight.  I thought we’d walk as far as possible, then I’ll sleep, and you can keep watch.  Will that work?”

“What will I watch?” she asked innocently.

Alec looked at her, and realized the sincerity of the question.

“You will watch to make sure nothing dangerous gets close to us.  You’ll wake me up if you see anything you’re not sure about.  Can you stay awake until sunrise to do that?” he asked her.

“Sure!  So should I wake you up before I go back to being a tree?” Aja clarified.

“Yes,” he told her, and they walked on quietly for a few more minutes until Aja started asking more questions about the things she was seeing, questions that she peppered Alec with for several more hours until he finally took her into a copse of trees to rest.

Aja awoke him the next morning after not enough hours of sleep, as a red ribbon appeared on the eastern horizon.  They returned to the road and began to walk again, until the disk of the sun started to emerge from below the horizon.  “You look peaceful when you’r
e asleep.  Your face is gentle;
I’m sorry I don’t see you like that all the time.  Have a good day, Alec,” she told him, and then Alec watched with amazement as Aja stood in her canvas bag of soil, her
bare
feet planted
atop the dirt
, and transformed into a tree, through an almost instantaneous process in which her body rapidly thinned as her limbs assumed their new form, her head became branches and leaves sprouted across all.

Once she was packed on his back, he reached for his Warrior powers and began to run, carrying on a steady pace throu
gh the entire day.  Even when they
passed working farms and through small villages, or went by other travelers, he maintained his pace, neither slowing down nor diminishing his energy to become invisib
le
.  He was pleased with the progress he made, sure that he was gaining on his collective targets, both the ingenairii
group and Andi and Amane
.

Eventually evening fell, and the return of Aja the person came as he was still in Warrior mode, running with distance-eating strides.  Her weight instantly increased his load, and he heard her voice call to him.  “Are we in a wind storm?  What’s happening Alec?”

He stopped and released his powers as he knelt, then felt great weariness overcome him from the cumulative expenditure of energy during the day.

“I was running through the use of my abilities, and so we traveled quickly throughout the day,” he told his companion as he unstrapped her.

“Am I a hindrance by returning to this form?  I’m sorry if I slow you down,” she asked with anxiety evident on her mobile and expressive face.

No Aja, you’re not a hindrance.  I’m in need of rest, so it’s timely that you’ve arrived to remind me to reduce the stress on my body,” he replied.  “Your timing is perfect.”

Aja leaned over and kissed his cheek.  “Thank you.  How far have we come today?”

Alec computed.  “The land has been gentle and the road has been clear.  We’ve come perhaps fifty or sixty miles today.  It’s enough to make me pleased.  We can walk on a bit more, and chat until it’s time to settle in,” he told her
,
and they began to walk together.  Aja filled Alec in with her report on the little that she had seen the previous night, while Alec described the things he had passed during the day.

“That’s the thing that made me leave Erwin.  I could never stop asking about what the day had been like, and he grew so tired of answering my questions.   He just wanted me to do,” she hesitated before completing the sentence, “what he wanted,” she said, revealing a sadness Alec had not seen in her before.  “Well, that was one of the things,” she amended.

“What’s that?” she asked before Alec could try to frame a comforting comment, and he looked ahead at a small cluster of lights.

“It’s probably a village,” he told her.  “There are too many lights to be
just
a farmstead.”

They continued on, and in a few minutes entered the environs of the cluster of buildings, including a tavern that seemed to bustle with all the occupants in the region, judging from the amount of noise that it emitted.

“Oh, can we go in, please?” Aja asked Alec.  “I’d so love to see so many people together.”

Alec thought about the small clutch of coins that Kendra had given him as a departing gift to help with their travels.  It was little enough to stretch over many days, but he wanted to please the girl who was so excited by new experiences, and the hope of a warm meal also appealed to him.

“We’ll get a
bite to eat,” Alec agreed.  T
hey entered the door of the building, and stopped to look at interior, where the only two seats Alec could see available were jammed in a corner by a counter where a group of mostly men were drinking large tankards of beer.  The air was smoky and the room was noisy as Alec took a deep breath and plunged into the crowd, holding Aja’s hand tightly as he led her to the counter seats and placed her in the seat against the wall, while he took a seat next to a beefy man who he judged to be a farmer.

He noticed Aja rubbing her buttocks vigorously.  “Someone pinched me back there!” she told Alec.

He grinned and shook his head, then leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear as his hand gently released his Healing energy to take away the ache, “I’m sorry.  You’ll be safe back here in the corner, and I’ll give you better protection on the way out if the courtesy of the house doesn’t appear better.”

She gave him a grateful smile, as a serving man behind the counter tapped him from behind.

“We’ll have a bowl of stew and a mug of redberry,” Alec told the man.  “What do you want?” he asked Aja.

“Oh, nothing for me Alec.  I just like to see the people.  Maybe I’ll have a taste of your food,” she said, and the waiter left as soon as Alec fished out two copper pence to pay in advance.

“You’re either brave or stupid,” the farmer said to Alec a moment later.

“Why’s that?” Alec asked, turning to look at the man, hoping it was meant to be the start of a joke, and not a threat of some kind.

“You bring a girl that pretty into this place and you’re going to have to fight at least a half dozen men to be the one to leave with her,” the farmer warned.  “And I’m not sure you look big enough to work your way through that many fights.”