“Since you’re such a pretty lady, and since you asked in a relatively calm manner, I’ll give you an answer,” the voice next to Kendel replied.
“You know of Shaiss, of course. Some of you may know her works better than others,” Dwad said with a chuckle.
“Shaiss called upon my father, Zephyr, the god of the mountains, and my father asked me since I’m relatively nearby to your location,” Dwad replied. “And my twin sister is not far either, so she can finish the assignment when my part is done.”
“Your father is a god?” Vivienne asked in astonishment.
“There aren’t any mountains in Four Borders,” Elline said at the same time.
“My lord, is everything alright?” Weber’s voice asked from a little distance.
“It’s fine for the moment,” Elline answered.
“My father is a god, and so in my mother,” Dwad answered. Afone, the river goddess. You’d think that with two gods as parents, I’d be one too, wouldn’t you?” Dwad asked conversationally. “But I’m merely a dwarf – made of stone, given a long, long, long lifespan compared to humans, and happy to live my life in hills and gullies of the Four Borders wilderness. Four Borders as it’s known now, that is. Once this was Impiraght, a land of great culture and beauty and abundance. But then the Dons unleashed their war, and all was lost and destroyed.”
“Kendel, what do you think?” Elline asked.
“I’ll ask Shaiss,” the boy replied.
Yes, he’s a guide. End of discussion, Shaiss snapped before Kendel could even ask.
“He’s our guide,” Kendel reported.
“Is the sun up yet?” Sophie asked.
“No, that’s why we’re leaving now. People in cities that are smothered in ignorance don’t react well to seeing a dwarf walking their streets,” Dwad replied. “So, we’re going to get out of the city before sunrise and avoid all the delays and explanations and complications. Do you mind?” he asked sarcastically.
“Kendel, will you get your people moving?” Dwad asked after moments of silence.
“Sir Elline, will you go ask the others to prepare to depart?” Kendel asked, not sure what else he could say or do.
“And all you pretty girls should put your clothes on and get dressed, shouldn’t they Kendel?” Dwad asked.
“We all need to get ready to go,” Kendel agreed.
“I’ll go start the others,” Elline said, and Kendel heard his footsteps walk away.
“Mister Dwad, would you wait in the hall while we get dressed?” Grace asked.
“Such prudes,” the dwarf replied. Kendel felt the bed shift, and then the sound of a heavy load hitting the floor. “I’ll take Kendel with me,” the dwarf said.
“He can stay,” Grace said quickly. “Because of his affliction, he cannot see us.”
“That’s his loss. Hurry up and get out here,” Dwad answered, and then Kendel heard the door shut.
There was an instantaneous eruption of voices as the three girls all spoke at once.
“Did you ever see anything like him?” they all asked at the same time.
“Have you ever heard of dwarves before?” Kendel asked them in return. He wondered what the creature looked like, and he looked forward to asking for a description.
“Well, sure,” Vivienne said. “We hear about dwarves.”
“Like we hear about witches,” Sophie added.
“And sorcerers and wizards,” Grace lengthened the list. “But they’re always somewhere far away. I wasn’t sure any of them were more than just tales for children.”
“Are you all getting dressed?” Dwad’s voice sounded through the door. “Do I need to come in there and check on you?”
“Just five more minutes,” Sophie called out.
“Don’t look, Kendel,” Vivienne giggled.
“That’s mean!” Grace said. “Poor Kendel,” he felt her stroke his head for a moment. Then he heard an extended amount of rustling of clothing.
“Kendel, go tell the dwarf we’ll be ready in two minutes. Here’s your staff,” Grace told him two minutes later, as he felt his staff pressed into his hand and then Grace was pulling him off the bed and to the door. “We’ll be right out,” she said, and he found himself outside the room.
What happened? Did they find out you’ve been only pretending to be blind, and they caught you watching them get dressed?” the dwarf asked.
“No, and that’s a strange question,” Kendel answered sharply.
“Just asking. Humans are hard for me to figure out,” Dwad shrugged off Kendel’s answer. “And you seem particularly hard to figure out. There’s something different about you. But you’re the one I’m supposed to lead, so we’re stuck together for the next few hours.”
Kendel stood and pondered the meaning of the dwarf’s observation that Kendel was ‘different’ for just a minute, until doors in the hallway started opening and closing, and sounds indicated that the others in the party were readying for the early departure.
“Oh, he’s an ugly one, isn’t he?” Sheenda spoke as she came down the hall.
“But you look pretty good to me,” Dwad retorted. “Would you like to come and try living the life of a dwarf?” he asked.
Sheenda harrumphed, and the door for the girls’ room opened, the last to release its members, allowing the party to be on its way.
They passed through the empty lobby and out the door, then along the virtually empty streets and through the gate in the city wall, where the guards insisted they leave and not bring the dwarf back ever again.
Kendel thought of the previous time he had left the city, bound up with Agata and Genniae inside a carriage. They’d been captives on their way to be redeemed for a large reward. But Prince Lumen’s timely intercession had prevented that from happening.
“What does Dwad look like?” Kendel asked Rachel when he happened to be walking next to the nurse, his hand on the frame of the rickshaw bearing the king, to give him guidance along the country road they traveled.
“He is short, but not small,” she said. “Broad-shouldered, and gray in color.”
Kendel wanted to ask if the dwarf looked like Gimli in The Lord of the Rings but knew the reference would make no sense to the nurse. And Gimli hadn’t been gray anyway, Kendel reminded himself.
The group passed through a village shortly after dawn, and just as Dwad had expected, his appearance on the street raised cries and shouts of fear. Kendel’s group was led by Sir Elline and Dwad; as they passed through the hostile environment, they drew closer together. Elline, Weber, and Waxen all drew their swords in a show of force, and there was no physical attack launched to match the verbal abuse hurled at them in the village.
But shortly after they left the village and entered a forested vale, an attack did occur.
Men from the village had circled around and gotten ahead of the group, then blocked the road at a narrow spot on the uphill slope after the road crossed a stream, and they brandished weapons as they moved into position just yards ahead of their quarry.
“What shall we do, my lord?” Waxen asked.
“Bring Kendel up to the front,” Elline suggested.
“There are men blocking the road, holding axes and picks and clubs,” Grace advised Kendel as Waxen arrived to pull the boy forward.
“Let us pass in peace and none of you will be harmed,” Elline shouted at the men in the blockade.
“We don’t intend to be harmed. We intend to make sure your monster never passes through our home again,” the leader of the mob shouted back.
“Kendel,” Elline spoke in a low voice. “Can you create a wall like you did at the gate in Sunob?”
Kendel paused a moment before answering. “I can, but I don’t know if it will be in the right place; I can’t see where these people are.
“But,” he paused further, as the other waited for him to consider his options. “Maybe I could locate them in a different way, and wall them off.”
The mob made a grumbling noise at that moment,
as they grew restless with the inactive situation.
“Let me try this,” Kendel spoke up as he heard the sound. He planted the staff in front of him and grasped it with both hands, then called upon the blue energy to exit from within his consciousness and to inhabit the staff. He found the center of his own awareness, a skill he had developed by spending so much time either analyzing the alien energies within him, or through his shared inhabitance of Parker’s body, and he once more let a portion of his soul depart from his body, as he sent it in the direction of the mob sounds.
Within seconds he encountered the anger and fear of the mob and knew its location. Certain that he could place a barrier in the approximate location, he called upon the green energy and used it to once again conjure a wall that would be impregnable.
The green power flowed easily, making Kendel wonder for a moment how visible the green sun was in the sky, but then he refocused his attention on the energy he was releasing, and reinforced the command that it create a tall, strong wall.
There were shouts and a scream from the mob, and murmurs of surprise from his own companions.
“Do not make our sorcerer angry with your foolishness,” Elline shouted. “Or you will suffer dire consequences. Pick up your friend and go home immediately, before he acts again.”
“Did I hurt someone?” Kendel asked. “I didn’t mean to hurt any of them.”
“Look, they’re leaving!” Sheenda sounded close to Kendel.
“You didn’t hurt anyone too badly. It’s just that when your wall popped up, one man happened to be standing right where it rose, and it lifted him up several feet before he lost his balance and fell back to the ground,” the cook told him. “He’ll be okay; probably just got the wind knocked out of him.”
“Did you do that, or did you ask Shaiss to do that for you?” Dwad’s voice was suddenly nearby.
“I try not to ask Shaiss for too many things,” Kendel answered. “I did this on my own.”
“There’s more to you than I reckoned. I thought maybe you were just a pretty plaything for her,” the dwarf laughed, followed immediately by a rumble of thunder in the clear sky.
It was good to hear Shaiss express her anger towards someone else, Kendel thought to himself.
“Kendel, you can take the wall down in just another minute or two; they all seem to be gone,” Waxen advised him a moment afterwards.
Kendel nodded, then paused and sent his awareness out once more to check the area and release the use of the blue and green powers. As he did, he sensed a dull presence of anger nearby, several yards off to the right.
“Are there any of the attackers to our right?” he asked aloud.
“We can’t see through the brush and the trees; none are visible,” Elline answered.
Kendel sent his conscious out once more, and then directed the green energy to move the barrier off in the direction of the anger Kendel sensed. He heard a crashing sound begin as the wall began to move into the forest, knocking aside brush and trees as it began to slowly move. Then a series of shouts erupted from the unseen antagonists, as the wall moved up against their location.
“I think we should start moving along,” Elline suggested, “and just leave these people to go back to their homes.”
“If you want to do them some harm for their prejudice and pigheadedness, I don’t object,” Dwad replied, but the group did start walking again, as Kendel went out one last time and released the energies that had performed so well.
“And you’re just a mortal?” Dwad asked Kendel minutes later as they walked along.
“I am just a mortal,” Kendel agreed. “But I have tangled with people with powers, and they left their mark on me,” he tried to explain.
“People with powers?” Dwad questioned. “What an odd description. Who are people with powers?”
“Well, there was a second sun witch,” Kendel answered.
Dwad gripped Kendel’s arm with an iron grip and pulled him to a stop.
“A second sun witch? You mean a tanithae?” the dwarf asked. “You faced a tanithae?
“How are you alive?” he asked.
“I had help, a savior, really,” Kendel answered.
“Well,” Dwad spoke after a silence of several steps. “Are you going to tell me who?”
“It was a priestess named Genniae, but I think that really the priestess was Miriam, in disguise, traveling with me to help me and my friend,” Kendel confessed.
Dwad was quiet for several seconds.
“You are telling me that a goddess posed as a human to protect you and fought a tanithae for you?” the dwarf repeated. “What did they do to you?”
“The witch attacked me with her powers, and Genniae fought the witch’s powers with her own powers. They’re still inside me – the powers, that is. That’s what I just used,” he made the obvious connection.
The dwarf was silent for several more seconds.
“You’re not human,” he said flatly. “I’ve never heard of a human that can handle those kinds of powers. You’re something else. Are your parents deities, or demi-gods?” Dwad asked.
Kendel laughed. “No, they’re good people, but not that special,” he answered.
“Did you drink from a sacred spring, or travel through another realm?” Dwad continued to probe.
Kendel took seconds to consider his answer.
“I don’t come from this land,” he decided to admit.
“What?” he heard the exclamation in the dwarf’s voice.
“Miriam and Shaiss brought me here from my world,” he added more information.
“Miriam brought you to this world, and then fought a tanithae for you?” Dwad asked. “You must be the new Defender against the Dons or something,” the dwarf muttered.
“Hey up there,” he bellowed, “turn to the left at the next crossroads,” he directed.
“Were you a hero in your world too?” Dwad asked.
“No,” Kendel shook his head, then paused as Dwad pulled him to the left, making the turn in the road.
“Did you say you’re not from this world?” Gayl asked as she walked in front of the conversational pair. “What does that mean?”
“I lived in a land with different ways of doing things,” Kendel answered carefully. “We didn’t have magic, and we didn’t have the same gods as you have here. I didn’t know Shaiss or Miriam or Huem until I came to this land.
“But I’ve learned a lot, and I like the way life is here. I like Miriam and how good she is. I want to help,” he declared.
“That’s astonishing, that you came from a foreign world,” the woman gushed.
“Did you know that about Kendel? He came here from a different world,” Gayl exclaimed ahead to the three ladies of the court.
“Shoreline?” Sophie asked.
“Or was it right here in Four Borders?” Vivienne chimed in.
“I think it’s some place further afield, like the northern Grasslands. Is it Kendel?” Grace asked.
“It was none of the nations that you know,” Kendel was suddenly alert to the potential for the conversation to spiral out of hand.
“He said that his world doesn’t even have the same gods we do,” Gayl explained.
“Where would that be?” Vivienne asked.
Kendel wondered if they were all staring at him as they walked. He didn’t want to explain how different he was, how different his world was. He especially didn’t want to reveal that he had been cast into Parker’s body. That revelation would be likely to make everyone look at him with suspicion, distaste, and fear.
“I’m not sure how exactly I came to this world. Maybe Miriam brought me originally, or maybe she just found me when I came. I traveled with her and when she disappeared while fighting Hecate, I lost the ability to remain here. But when I was back home, Shaiss found me and brought me back again,” he tried to boil the long story down.
“I came back and I want to go help bring Miriam back, but I heard about all of you being in trouble in
Sunob, so I went there first to save you, since I knew my way around Sunob and I knew you didn’t deserve to die,” he told them. “and so here we are.”
“It’s amazing that you would be brought here by the goddesses,” Elline said. “But speaking personally, I’m glad they brought you here and I’m glad you made it your mission to save us.
“How will we find Miriam and what are we going to do exactly?” the knight asked.
“I don’t know exactly, yet,” Kendel answered. “I trust Shaiss,” he truly meant it as he said it, “to lead me to where I need to be to help all of you, and the King, and Miriam, and myself, my sight.”
“The dwarf said that his twin sister will be your guide after we get to this haven of safety you promised us. Will she take you to where Miriam is, so that you can use your powers?” Elline suggested.
“Maybe,” Kendel shrugged. He disliked having to be so fatalistic, but he had no choice. He wanted to be in control of his situation – to have his sight, to have the Sunob refugees delivered to safety and given a welcome as courteous as he hoped it would be, and he wanted to find a way to reach Flora, to bring her back to this magical world so that she could help him to find and restore Miriam.
“There’s the entry just up ahead,” Dwad’s voice announced. “We’ve arrived.”
Chapter 18
Kendel felt a sense of relief to hear the announcement of the arrival at Prince Lumen’s estate. It was the advancement of one chapter of his journey he thought, then corrected himself; it could be the end of the chapter, if everything went right.
“Is there a gatehouse?” Kendel asked, recollecting the fierce battle that had taken place at the gates. He and Flora had escaped in the midst of the battle with monsters in the dead of night. What had started out as an escape from Lumen’s palace under relatively routine circumstances had turned into a matter that was much more life-or-death when a number of the Mormo monsters had appeared and tried to kill Flora, Genniae, and Kendel. Only Genniae’s magical powers had prevented the monsters from succeeding in their quest, letting Flora and Kendel escape.
“What does it look like?” he asked without even waiting for an answer to the first question. “Are there signs of battle or fire around the gate?”
The Blinded Journey Page 12
