The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (12 page)

“It can be frightening,” she answered.  “It used to be frightening to not know where I’d be or who would be waiting for me or what they’d want to do.

“But I don’t feel that way when I’m with you,” she told him.  “I know you’ll never let anyone hurt me,” she reached out and took his hand shyly.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We’re in Moriadoc, on the west side of the city,” Alec answered.

He felt her body tremble.  “I lived in this city with Erwin,” she answered.  “But I never saw it, of course; I only listened to it, and smelled it, and walked through it at night.”

“Will we go to a tavern again this evening?” she collected her thoughts, and seemed determined to regain the usually sunny disposition she displayed.

“We certainly will,” Alec answered, eager to talk with Aja about what he had discovered in his afternoon interview.

“We’ve come a long way very fast,” Aja told Alec when they were seated at a private table in a nice tavern near the spot where she had metamorphosed back to human form.  Alec had selected an establishment whose clientele appeared to be shopkeepers and craftsmen, a group that he expected would not be hostile, but would be receptive if Aja felt compelled to perform once again, which he anticipated would happen.  He ate a meal of food that was fresher and more wholesome than most taverns served, another sign that the clientele were the prosperous merchants of the area.

“We left Birnam Forest just three days ago, didn’t we?” she asked, and received a nod of Alec’s head in confirmation.  “It took me over a month to wander the other way on my own last summer when I sought refuge there.”

“What was that like?” Alec asked, remembering Aja’s comments about how unsettling it could be to revive in a strange place.

“I tried to be as careful as possible.  When I sensed sunrise coming each morning, I’d always try to find other trees nearby, and take
root close to them.  Then I’d
just wait to find out if anyone w
as nearby when the evening came;
I’d go back on the road, and keep walking – night after night,” she told him.

“Today I talked to the police in the city here, and they said that Andi only left three days ago, and the kidnappers left five days ago,” Alec decided to report on what he had learned.  “They’re going towards a town called Boundary Lake.”

“Alec!  That’s the region my village is in!  I came from a place near Boundary Lake,” Aja told him.

“Do you want to go back there?” Alec asked, suddenly remembering that he had no real solution for what to do with Aja; his only goal had been to help her leave Birnam Forest, and already they were in Moriadoc.  She didn’t seem ready to be left alone by him, and he
wasn’t ready
to part company with the charming girl.

“I don’t want to go
back to Dryden, my village, and
I don’t want to stop traveling with you!” she cried.  “You won’t make me leave you, will you?”

“I was just thinking that I would not want to see you leave yet,” Alec confessed, bringing a warm smile to Aja’s face.  “I will soon reach a time when I will be in battle, and you will not be safe to stay with me though, Aja.  I don’t know what to do with you.”

“I had no plan when we left the women’s village,” she replied, her hand reaching out to touch his on the table.   “I still don’t; but whatever could happen, these three days with you have been blissful.  I’ve had sight and vision!  I’ve had the safety of the protection of the greatest hero ever known!  And I’ve had a good friend,” she told him, and squeezed his hand affectionately.

“May I sing now?” she asked.  “I feel happy and ready to sing.”

Alec looked around the room.  The corner by the fireplace appeared to be a spot from which others had entertained the patrons of the establishment, judging by the stools set against the wall there.

He left a copper pence tip for their waiter, then escorted Aja over to the stools, and took one for himself in a location from which he could lean against the wall and watch the crowd.  Aja stood a little in front of him and to his left.  The waiter from their table picked up the tip off the wooden surface, then looked up at Alec with a puzzled expression, for just a moment, before Aja began to sing.

Her first song on this evening was not the boisterous drinking song she’d begun with the night before.  Tonight she seemed to judge correctly the quality of her audience, and she began with a song about a daughter telling her father thank you, just before her wedding ceremony beginning.  It was a sentimental tune, one which appealed to the men of the crowd, who both remembered their own weddings and saw the pending arrivals of weddings for daughters; they were appreciative in their applause when her tune ended.

The cook came out to look inquisitively at the songstress in the dining room, but only shrugged his shoulders when his eyes met Alec’s, and he went back to the kitchen.

Aja launched into a second song, a more boisterous song about a ne’er-do-well apprentice whose master was coping with increasingly greater potential disaster
s
in ever new verse
, to
great comical effect.  The
occupants of the room laughed and stomped their feet and applauded at the end, but only for a second before Aja began her next song.  And so she held the audience in the palm of her hand for nearly two hours of music, as the room grew full, then crowded, then stuffed to overflowing, as more and more people entered, while few left the room.

She took a break to drink water, and stood next to Alec.  “It gives me such energy to sing to an appreciative crowd!” she said.  “I know we’ve been here a long time; would you like to leave now?” she asked him.

“Sing a couple more songs to tell them good bye,” Alec encouraged her, “then we’ll get going.”  He felt badly about pulling her away from an audience tha
t clearly enjoyed her voice;
he
enjoyed the pl
easure she brought to life, and
contemplated the prospect of retaining her with him throughout the upcoming adventures, and then on the trip back to Ridgeclimb to return Kriste to her home when the long chase was over.  They’d have time then to travel slowly, and to spend nights at inns where the girl could sing to her heart’s content.

Aja smiled and turned, then began her next song, while Alec slipped away to visit the restroom; there was no harm in him leaving her alone among such an adoring crowd, he knew.

When he came back down the hallway, the song was over, and the crowd was beginning to mumble and buzz with all the convers
ation that had been repressed while
listen
ing
to the music.  Alec came around the corner, and saw that Aja was not in the corner by the fireplace.  He pressed through the crowd and made his way to
the front, looking for his friend
.  “Did you see where the singer went?” Alec asked a group of men sitting at a front table.

“Some ordinary–looking fellow came to talk to her after the last song, and she followed him out the side door,” one of the men said, and pointed off to his right.

Alec thanked them for the information, then went through the identified door, which led to the kitchen.

“Did the singer come through here?” he asked the cook, who was still hard at work over his griddle.

“She did, with a dandy, about two minutes ago.  Went out that door,” the cook pointed with a knife, and Alec walked rapidly out the door.  The door way faced a stable building across the alley from the back of the tavern, and Aja was not in sight down either direction in the alley.  He felt very uneasy about the situation; he was deeply aware of the genuine rapport he and Aja felt, and he didn’t believe she would simply walk away from him, especially when they had just spoken about traveling together.

He extended his Spiritual energies, and tried to find any hint of Aja.

Above him
in the rooms of the tavern was
a medley of people
expressing
many
strong
emotions, and he tried to filter those out.  To his left he detected no great emotional state, while to his right were two people tremendously excited about something.  Alec began to jog down the alley to his right, and as he reached the intersection with a street he paused and extended his senses again.

The two people he followed were nearby, to his right again.  He walked down the street, his hand prepared to reach for his sword, as his eyes examined every possible location where Aja might be hidden.  As he passed a doorway to a building, he discovered that the entryway was deeper than he expected, hiding a stairwell and landing of dark, shadowed corners, and within one of those corners his two sought souls were together, engaged in an embrace.

“Aja?” Alec stood at the street level and called up into the darkness that was four steps above him.

There was no answer forthcoming.  Aja was there, Alec knew.  Yet she was not answering his call; in fact, she was locked in a passionate kiss with a man, hidden away in the darkness, oblivious to Alec’s presence, and Alec wasn’t sure what to do.

“Aja,” he called again, quite loudly this time. 

The voice that answered wasn’t Aja’s.
 
“Go away bud, and leave us in peace,” a man replied, apparently taking his lips away from Aja’s long enough to answer.

“I want to talk to Aja,” Alec replied just as loudly as before, his voice spreading widely across the empty city street.  Alec sent his senses towards the man, seeking to learn what type of person he was, but all Alec could detect was shallow self-concern in the man, no sense of concern for the rest of the world, or for the woman he held.  And there was something else about the man; not a part of his spirit, but connected to it in some manner.

Alec placed a foot on the stone tread of the first step, decreasing the distance between himself and the couple.  “Aja, it’s Alec.  I need to talk to you.”

“Oh, Alec!  Hello!” the girl seemed to come out of some revere she had been in.  “Look!  It’s Erwin!  He still loves me!”

“Aja, I need to talk to you,” Alec told her.  “Can you come down here?”

“Sure, Alec,” she replied.  A moment later she spoke in a low voice.  “Let go Erwin, please.”

“You stay up here with me if you want to talk to him,” Erwin answered her.  “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Of course, Erwin,” Aja answered.  She was strangely willing to accept anything the man told her, it seemed to Alec.

“I’ll come up there with you,” Alec said in a cheerful voice, and took another step upward.

“Stop!  We don’t need you up here.  Tell the girl whatever you have to say, then leave us be,” Erwin interrupted the conversation.

Alec ignored him and took another step upward, only to hear the sound of a sword being drawn from a scabbard.  “One more step and you’ll pay the price.”

“I wouldn’t try to start a fight,” Alec warned him.  “I’m only here to talk to Aja.”

“You can talk from there,” Erwin said.

“Aja, you don’t mind if I come up there and talk to you, do you?” Alec asked.

“No Alec, but Erwin says not to, so we better not,” she answered.

Disturbed, and curious, Alec adjusted his use of powers, then c
reated a ball of light, letting it float
above the three of them who stood on the steps, providing illumination that allowed him to clearly see the other couple.

Erwin was a much older man than Aja, probably in his forties or fifties, he appeared to Alec.  He was by no means a handsome man.  Aja had known and loved the man previously when she was blind, of course, so his physical appearance wouldn’t have been an element in her initial attraction to him, and it certainly wasn’t now.

“What in the blazes is that?” Erwin asked, looked upward.

“It’s Alec!  He does every amazing thing you can imagine!” Aja said affectionately.

The man examined Alec closely, at first with an expression of panic on his face, and then a look of cunning, as he seemed to search Alec for something in particular.  “So you’ve got something too!  I thought I was the only one who had anything from Boundary Lake, but maybe you do too,” he said aloud, referencing nothing that made any sense to Alec.

Alec took another step up the stairwell and Erwin drew his sword.  With a dismissive glance, Alec called upon his Air energy to wrap bands of air around Erwin, pinning his arms to his sides, then floating him up and away from Aja.

“What are you doing to me?” the man screamed in panic.  “Let me down!”

“You stay there,” Alec told him facetiously.  He stepped up next to Aja, then, prompted by a premonition, he placed his hand on hers, to talk to her through the silent, spirit-to-spirit means of communication.

Aja, I’m glad to see you.  I was worried when I couldn’t find you at the tavern,
he tried to tell her.

Except he couldn’t make contact with her spirit, even while holding her hand.  There was some type of barrier that prevented his communication.

“What are you doing to her?” Alec looked up at Erwin.  “What have you done to her soul?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said.  “She just happens to be in love with me.”  As he spoke, his hand crept unknowingly to the center of his chest and rested there, grasping something beneath his shirt.