The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (45 page)

Alec considered the offer.
 
“That is generous, Roslyn.
 
Thank you,” he told her.
 
“But once I am healed, I will not be leaving the desert on foot; I’ll use my Traveler energies.
 
I couldn’t carry a mule out!” he grinned.
 
“And I don’t want to just abandon one there.”
             

“I could be your two-footed mule,” Roslyn replied.
 
“I’m not begging you, but I can use the plants to find and provide water in a desert, much more readily than you would ever find it.
 
The plants that live there know where the water is, and how to find it.”

Alec gratefully agreed to her proposal.
 
Ten days later, they reached the city of Bondell.
 
While Roslyn spent a day in the market selling her goods, Alec visited some of the places he remembered.
 
He was not able to enter the prince’s palace, which he remembered had once been so careless in security, now
tightly patrolled and
occupied by the rulers appointed by Michian’s ingenairii and sorcerers.
 
The cathedral was empty, abandoned by the command of the new order, and Alec sadly sat and reflected outside the crumbling shell that had been Brother Chaer’s workshop.

Roslyn sold her goods within a day to the buyers in the marketplace, who bought her plants for reselling throughout the Dominion.
 
She paid a stable to care for her mules for a week, then she and Alec left the city and began to walk towards the far-off mountain where Alec remembered miraculous occurrences at an ancient holy site.

They tra
veled for four days, through rural villages that seemed unchanged from the days when Alec had traveled the same route.  On the fifth day they reached a reminder that marked the changed circumstances of the Dominion –
an ancient monastery that had fallen into an abandoned ruin.  Alec remembered the psalms and prayers he had shared in the monastery, and shook his head at the change that turned the structure into a collection of cobweb strewn empty rooms.  He and Roslyn spent a silent night there, and filled their water bags at the forlorn well in the yard the next morning, then started to cross the last stretch of the journey, the true desert that isolated the mountain of John Mark’s Pool from the rest of Bondell.

For two more days Alec led Roslyn across the empty landscape, in which the secluded peak rose on the horizon and grew larger as they trudged.  They emptied their skins of water the first day.  The second day they traveled more slowly, stopping in the shallow, empty water courses, where Roslyn used her powers to make plants swell with moisture, so that the two travelers could chew and suck on the leaves and stems to quench their thirst.

When they reached the foot of the mountain at nightfall, Alec built a small fire, and they sat eating their travel food, as Roslyn asked Alec what would happen tomorrow.

“I will climb up to the top of a small hill around the side of the mountain.  I will go inside, and I hope I will be back soon,” he told her.  “It feels like something I have to do on my own.  Please wait here for no more than a day or two, and if I don’t return by then, don’t wait for me,” he told her.  “I know you can take care of yourself if the situation demands, but I hope it won’t be necessary.”

“You say you’ve been here before; how long did you stay last time?” Roslyn asked.

Alec looked down at the ground, then looked at her face.  “Three months,” he answered.

Her expression went blank, then she rolled her eyes and tossed a twig at his face.  “You didn’t think to tell me that before now?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” Alec admitted.  “It didn’t occur to me.  I don’t think it will be like that this time though.  And if it is, don’t wait for me.

“Would you like to take the first shift of the watch?” he asked.

“A watch?  Out here in the middle of nowhere?” she asked, then saw the sly grin on his face.

“I’ll wait for you as long as I want to, and then I’ll go back to my mules, and I may decide they’re better companions than you!” Roslyn told Alec with mock ferociousness, then wrapped herself in her blankets and lay down on the ground.

Alec sat and stared at the fire for a while longer.  He didn’t sense that he was supposed to stay at the Pool for a long time; he had a feeling of urgency, a feeling that he needed to get on with his efforts to set Andi free after the weeks that her body had been occupied, while he had slowly traveled across the land, and the feeling told him he needed to defeat Hellmann again.  And to defeat him more permanently this time – somehow.

When Alec awoke in the morning Roslyn was already gather
ing
plants swollen with moisture.  He ate a few mouthfuls of breakfast, then said a somber goodbye and began hiking around the foot of the mountain, looking for the smaller, cone-shaped hill that he remembered entering before, memories that were vague in parts after centuries.  He recollected little of the approach to the underground pool, while the events that had taken place inside the cave remained vivid.

The sun was not far above the horizon, and the day was not yet warm, when he saw the peak that he was confident was his destination.  He began climbing with determination straight up the steep, rocky side of the hill, grabbing at rocks and bushes to help him keep advancing, wishing that there was something like a game trail he could follow, but finding nothing of the kind as he ascended higher.

After an hour he was at the top, and found the sinkhole at the center of the crown of the hill.  There was no storm this time, no flash flood that washed him inside and downward – only the red sunrise, the gentle breezes, and the silence of the empty space were with him as he climbed down to the cavern entrance and began to descend through the tortuous turns and drops of the cave.

The air grew moister as he dropped further within the cavern, and then he dropped down a short distance in the dismal darkness, and sensed the openness of the space in front of him.  It was pitch black in all directions.  Alec knelt and felt around on the ground until his hand came upon a large pebble.  He flicked it out in front of him and listened with satisfaction to the
plopping
sound as the stone hit the surface of the water in the pool.

Alec felt no sense of holiness in the dark space.  There was none of the awe-inspiring atmosphere, the pervasive presence that the cave in the Pale Mountains provided.  Yet he had experience in this cave to know that it was the place where he had been healed in the past.

He decided to strike out through the darkness, and approach the far side of cave where he hoped something would happen.  The far side of the cave, as far as he knew, could only be reached by swimming across the water of the pool, the cold water, he thought with a shudder.  He pulled off his boots and his sword and his shirt in preparation for the swim.

After just a moment’s hesitation, the thought became deed, and he dove into the water and began flailing in the chill for a moment before he asserted himself and began stroking briskly through the cold, cold depths that lay inside the hill.  He needed only a couple of minutes to progress far enough to reach his unseen goal, as he bashed his head against the dark wall on the far side of the pool.  Rubbing his head with one hand, he reached up with his other hand to feel for a handhold on the lip of the stony shelf that he knew existed there, the spot where he had been visited by the spirits of his father and Noranda and John Mark.

He slowly worked his way to his left, and then right, trying to find a place he could climb up and out of the water.  His legs grew tired from treading water as his search dragged on and on, and he moved along hundreds of yards of the stony face of the pool’s edge.  He at last came to a place where his fingers found a wide flat surface above him.   He held on to the rocks and rested for several minutes, letting his leaden legs regain some strength in the chilly water, while his body began to shiver.  At last he thrust himself upward and landed his torso on the top of the ledge, then wriggled and squirmed his way completely on top and stood up, out of the water for the first time since he had entered, and waited for his miraculous healing to occur.

“I’m here John Mark, will you heal me?” he called out after several minutes of dark silence.

“What would you have me do?” John Mark’s voice suddenly sounded on his right side.  Alec whirled in the pitch blackness to stare in that direction.

“Please, restore my powers, as you called me here to do.  I need them to set Andi free, to battle Hellmann again,” Alec pleaded.

“But your powers are restored – they ha
ve been restored since you dove
into the pool,” John Mark replied.

Alec stood in stunned silence, then called upon his Light energy to create a ball of light that illuminated the location where he stood.  He suddenly had sight of the water in the pool, which stretched off into the darkness, reflecting his light upward to the stony roof above.  The shelf he stood upon was a few yards wide, a few yards deep.  And John Mark stood beside him.

“I’ve been healed all this time?  Why didn’t you tell me sooner?  There wasn’t any flash of light or sound or anything that announced it,” Alec protested.

“God doesn’t usually advertise his good works, Alec,” John Mark replied.  “The world runs on millions of miracles everyday that take place without notice.”

“But I didn’t know,” Alec said petulantly.  “I’ve been swimming in here for hours when I didn’t need to.”

“Come, come Alec, you’re a grown man,” John Mark told him.  “Get over this, and prepare for your future.  You face a battle that will be beyond your ability to win alone Alec.  I am going to leave you now, and I will pray for you.  Know that you remain a man who gives joy to the Lord through your faith and your good deeds.  But remember Alec, when the battle is at its climax, you will not win this battle alone.”  Saying that, John Mark disappeared from his sight.

Alec stood alone once again.  The water remained dark and still, and the cave remained silent and dark.  He had his powers back, ready to be used in the great battle that sat in his future.

John Mark had told him that he could not win the battle against Hellmann one-on-one.

It was a frightening prophecy.  He could not imagine any ally who was available to help him in a battle against Hellmann and the ingenairii. 

But he had his powers restored, and that was good news.  He extinguished the glowing ball of light and used his Traveler energies to return to the small canyon where he had left Roslyn.

“My word!” she spoke, jumping in startlement as Alec appeared out of thin air.  “You’re healed – your powers are restored, aren’t they?” she asked.

“They are,” Alec agreed.

“You don’t look overjoyed about it,” she told him, seeing the worried distraction on his face.

“I have my powers, but I was told that I will not be able to win this battle alone,” he told her.  “And I don’t know who I can turn to as an ally against Hellmann.  The challenge is beyond any person’s ability, including my own.”

Roslyn switched languages, returning to the language of her youth, the language spoken by the Twenty Cities and the Avonellene Empire.  “Couldn’t you use some of those mighty warriors who you fought with before, the ones you told me about in the eastern lands?”

“The Ajacii?” Alec asked in the eastern tongue she used.  “I could!” he exclaimed.  “I could go tell them of the challenge, and ask some of them to come to this land with me!” he switched back to the western language of the Dominion.

“It would take time to carry many people such a distance.  It would take days, but I could do it,” he said, his face brightening at the thought.  “Roslyn, you’re a treasure!”

“Of course.  You’ve known that since you met me,” she demurely agreed with a twinkle in her eye.

“Roslyn, how attached are you to your mules?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she looked at him with a perplexed expression.

“If we were to leave right now to start the journey to Exbury, would you mind leaving them behind at the stable in Bondell?” he asked.

“Going to Exbury?  From here? You would take me to Exbury? Now?” she was flustered by the concept.  “No, I’m sure they’ll find new homes when the stableyard decides I’m not coming back.

“We could really go to Exbury, like the restorers go?” she sought confirmation.

“Pick up everything you want to take with you,” Alec suggested.  “This will be such a long journey we’ll need to travel through four or five spots on the way to land and rest before we move on.”

“How long will it take?” Roslyn asked, gathering up her materials and stuffing them in her bag.  “And are you going to wear anything besides wet pants?”

Alec laughed as he realized he had left his clothes dry beside the pool.  “I’ll be back,” he promised, and transported himself inside the cave, gathered up his attire, then transported back to rejoin Roslyn.  He redressed, grinning at Roslyn as he hopped and pulled his boots on.

“Well, this will take us less than an hour to travel to Exbury,” Alec told Roslyn, wrapping his arms around her in a hug as they prepared to depart.  “Say farewell to the Dominion.”