In a large sanctuary, the floor trembled as they entered, but Kendel held Flora’s hand and walked to an isolated icon of the goddess, where he prayed.
“We ask you to forgive us and know that we respect you, my goddess,” Kendel said aloud. “We made mistakes last night, and we ask you to please forgive us. We’ll do our best to make you proud and to do our duty. Please forgive us and watch over us, my goddess,” he prayed, then fell silent.
There was no answer. After several long, worried moments, he got to his feet and led Flora out of the sanctuary.
“That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it for now. Hopefully she’ll forgive us and come around,” Kendel replied
They returned to their inn, found directions to where they would be able to meet the coach that would be bound for the capital city of Chacer, and they began walking.
“I’m so glad I can see again,” Kendel said as the pair walked side by side. “It makes me appreciate everything so much more. The colors, the people.”
“Including that pretty girl you just passed?” Flora asked impertinently.
“Oh, was there?” Kendel grinned.
When they found the inn where the coach stopped, they learned that there would be three coaches leaving that day, and seats were sold at the time of departure, depending on availability.
“Should we wait for the next coach? What if we have to wait for two or three to get seats?” Flora asked.
“Do you want to walk all the way to Chacer? And beyond?” Flora asked cynically.
“I’m a cross-country runner,” Kendel pointed out. “I ran across Shoreline.”
“Oh Kendel,” she moaned. “I would die trying to run all that way. Besides, you didn’t have to carry all this loot,” Flora pointed out.
“Fair enough,” Kendel answered. “We’ll wait today, and start walking tomorrow if we have to.”
They did not get seats on the first coach of the day, but sat in a tavern across the street and waited, then secured seats on the second coach, which left in midafternoon.
There were ten passengers all together. Six sat inside, initially including Flora, while two sat on the roof and two stood on the back of the carriage and held on.
Flora and Kendel took the seats on the top of the coach, which they found preferable after smelling the interior of the carriage.
“This will be nice until it rains,” Flora commented.
At first they enjoyed the scenery as the coach worked its way slowly through the crowded city streets, and when it left the city and picked up speed, they enjoyed the sensation of the blowing breeze and the sight of the landscape passing by. Soon enough though, the scenery blurred together, and the pair of travelers leaned back against the uncomfortable pile of luggage and trunks strapped to the top of the coach along with them.
Kendel worked on his courage. He wanted to talk to Flora, to find out what her feelings were for him. Although the ghosts of Impiraght had sworn that she did not love him, her words and actions had at times seemed to indicate a real attraction between the two of them, and with his sight restored, Kendel found that she seemed more beautiful than she had seemed in their own world, in spite of – or perhaps because of – the lack of cosmetics that their present world provided.
“Flora,” he finally found the courage to ask after several minutes of silent consideration.
“Yes, dear?” she asked in a drowsy voice.
“When we were in the cemetery on the way here,” he began. “The ghosts.”
“Ssshh,” Flora cut him off. “I remember. I’ve thought of that many times, turning it over in my mind. The ghosts said that we loved each other. But we never actually said that to each other. I remember I tried to do the right thing, to let you chase Liza; maybe it was that ‘if you love a thing set it free, and if it returns’ philosophy, or maybe I’m a masochist, or maybe something else.”
“There have been times recently when you seemed so tender,” Kendel was speaking as boldly as he had intended. When he’d practiced the conversation in his head, he’d expected he would be able to say that she seemed to be in love with him once more, but it sounded too self-confident to say as he found his voice to speak.
“Kendel,” Flora spoke again before he could complete the sentence. “You have done extraordinary, amazing things. You’re an amazing person – you’ve saved my life two or three times in just the past few days. That kind of thing produces momentary strong emotions, and gratitude, and maybe some hormones. But those moments pass.
“It’s a little like being drunk, with my judgement overcome by the emotion of being saved from Erdonn, or from Shaiss, because you have put yourself in danger to save me. I know it’s probably confusing and unsatisfying that those feelings don’t last, but I can’t help it,” the girl spoke earnestly. She reached over and placed a hand on his arm.
“Do you remember when you gave me the speech last time we were here – the ‘let’s just be friends’ speech?” she asked.
“You were so gallant and sweet, and that may have been when I really was starting to find you attractive,” Flora continued.
“Let’s just be friends for now,” she suggested. “True friends, real friends, honest friends. Maybe someday I can save your life to even the balance a little,” she offered.
“What if you meet someone else and fall in love before we get back to Impiraght?” Kendel asked.
“Pphh,” she made a sound like a motorcycle with her lips. “I’m not going to fall in love. We’re passing through every place we go, never even getting to know anyone. We’ll just stay the way we are and see how this story ends. Which of course we know it ends with you being the hero and saving the world!” she smiled.
Kendel nodded his head silently, and said no more, disappointed but not surprised. He had let his hopes outrun his sense. He sat up straight and watched the countryside pass by, then felt Flora’s hand rub his back.
“You will work this out and make us lovers someday, I’m sure,” she told him. “Unless you happen to find some other woman who appeals to you more – maybe some junior wizard girl at Cru Jolais, or will it be one of those ladies of the court from Sunob?” she tried to tease him into cheerfulness.
“Not so likely,” he tried to smile it off.
“You know, I think I can run at least as fast as this carriage for a while. I think I’ll hop down and stretch my legs for a couple of miles. You’ll tell them to stop for me if I get a cramp or fall down, won’t you?” he asked as he began to slide down the side of the coach.
Before the surprised girl could respond, Kendel’s feet were on the dusty surface of the road and he found a pace that let him match the carriage, as the standing men on the back of the coach shouted in surprise.
Kendel released his hold on the carriage and waved at the men in the back, then waved up at Flora, then he adjusted his speed and pulled out in front of the horses to get out of the cloud of dust the vehicle produced. He set his pace to stay in the lead, and he tried to run away from the heartfelt pain that Flora’s confession had produced.
Chapter 35
After an hour of running, Kendel slowed his pace to run alongside the coach, then grabbed hold and climbed on board the roof once again. Flora looked on in silent sympathy at the muddy streaks on his face, where the tears he had wiped away had mingled with the layer of dust the coach had thrown into the air.
“That must have felt good,” she commented in a friendly voice, but they said no more.
The coach entered a small city a half hour later and stopped at an inn to exchange horses and allow the riders to relieve themselves. A new passenger joined the coach, a rough-looking young man who climbed up onto the roof and settled in next to Flora.
“Two days of this and my bruises will have bruises,” the new passenger said to Flora when the coach rolled over a pothole.
“We were just talking about that,” Flora said truthfully; she had Kendel had discussed the painful condition of their ride atop a vehi
cle without springs or other devices to protect the passengers from the terrible condition of the road.
“How long have you been riding?” the man asked.
“We got on in Delotte, and we’ve been riding ever since,” Flora answered., “We’re going at least to Chacer, and probably further east than that.”
“I’m going to Chacer too,” the man said. “I’ve got a job waiting for me in the stables at the palace. I’m going to be a groomsman. My dad runs the stables at the palace and has offered me the job. It’ll be something to work at the palace with all the nobles and the great people; I’ll do my best to stay out of their way and just tend to the horses,” he said with great certainty.
“My name is Ingman. What’s yours?” he asked.
“I’m Flora, and this is my companion Kendel,” Flora answered.
Ingman sat silently for a moment.
“He’s your companion?” the man asked with an emphatic pronunciation of ‘companion’.
“Yes,” Flora confirmed.
“He’s not your brother?” Ingman asked.
“No,” Flora laughed, “definitely not my brother.”
“And he’s not your husband?” the new arrival asked as the carriage dipped into a pothole that made them all groan in discomfort.
“And not your fiancé?” Ingman continued to play his game, grinning.
“I think our relationship speaks for itself,” Kendel was tired of listening to the questions. “We’re companions; we’ve come a long way together and we’re going a long way farther together.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Ingman agreed politely.
The coach rolled on, and Kendel felt constrained from speaking by the presence of the additional traveler on the roof.
“I’m going to run again for a while,” he said.
“What did he say?” Ingman asked in confusion, as Kendel shifted his posture, then began to climb down.
“He’s going to run, to stretch his legs,” Flora explained.
“Why on earth would he do that?” Kendel heard the question as he climbed down.
Moments later Kendel was on the road in front of the coach as it drove through a countryside stretch in the dimming green light of the setting suns. The sunset was behind him and off to his left, as the road followed a northeasterly path towards Chacer. The green light subtly affected him; it had felt good all day, and Kendel wished he had thought to take his shirt off to receive more of the warmth of the green rays. On the spur of the moment he pulled his shirt up over his head and off his torso while he ran, exposing his back to the energetic light.
The countryside was gentle hills, rolling slightly but not to the degree of the hills in his home region. He was glad for some hills, and he was glad it wasn’t too flat – the gentle change in topography helped make the run more enjoyable.
He wondered how fast he could go – what pace he could sustain. He’d built up considerable stamina during his days of running across Shoreline, but then gone nearly a month since without any running at all, especially not during his period of blindness.
He was increasing his pace as he thought about the question, he realized as he found that his legs were taking longer strides and eating up the countryside as he comfortably cruised further and further ahead of the carriage. Minutes later, when he realized he could no longer even hear the carriage, he looked over his shoulder and saw that the coach was far behind, and was standing still, surrounded by a number of figures on horses and on foot.
Puzzled, he stopped and turned, his hands on his knees as he breathed heavily and caught his breath. He was curious, so he closed his eyes and let his consciousness float back to the coach, where he immediately sensed feelings of fear, arrogance, and confidence.
The coach was being robbed, he realized, caught unaware in the dimming light of the sunset, and beset by a large group of robbers.
Kendel turned and started back toward the coach, determined to help Flora and the others. He was tired from his previous run, but the adrenaline flowing through his system erased that exhaustion, letting him fly back to the coach.
Right up to the moment that an arrow struck him in the shoulder, when he was twenty-five yards away from the carriage. The surprise and the impact of the painful attack made him spin backwards and land on the dusty road.
He thought he heard a woman’s scream as he fell face down on the ground. The fall pressed the arrow further into his joint, making him cry in pain further. He grabbed the shoulder and rolled onto his back, then heard the woman’s scream again.
He saw a struggle atop the coach, as he witnessed in profile a bandit holding a knife to Flora’s throat, while Ingman was thrown down by a second bandit to lie flat on the roof.
Despite the pain in his shoulder, Kendel felt rage and fear in his soul at the sight of the threat to Flora. He raised his hand on his good arm and pointed it at the coach, then released the blue energy to protect, followed by his own personal energy to lead to the targets, then a stream of green energy that flowed out of each finger, and forked instantly, so that ten streams of deadly power simultaneously struck ten of the attackers, including both of those on top of the carriage, striking them all unconscious and writhing in pain.
And the inefficient method of deliver that was Kendel’s only way of launching such an attack meant that there was a rebound of the pain he delivered that struck him in such a powerful wave than he was struck unconscious before any of the pain beyond his shoulder could even register.
Chapter 36
Kendel awoke three days later, to find himself in a bright. small bedroom, with Flora sitting next to him in a comfortable-looking chair, her eyes closed as she quietly hummed a tune.
“It’s good to see you,” he spoke quietly.
Her eyes opened, and a smile creased her face while she continued her tune for just a moment more.
“It’d good to see you, sunshine,” she said. “I was wondering how long it would be before you awoke.”
“Where are we? How are you? How long have we been here?” the questions rolled from his mouth.
“We are in an inn in Cooper,” Flora answered. “It was the first town the coach came to after we recovered from the bandits on the road.
“And I am fine, thank you. Between Ingman and you, I was saved just when I thought my life was over,” she added. “We’ve been here three nights and almost three days now.”
“Tell me what happened,” Kendel asked. “I just know my part of it.”
“You had gone sprinting off running, getting so far ahead of us that I thought maybe you were running away,” Flora answered. “And I was trying to explain to Ingman that you thought running felt good, was fun – he didn’t agree, by the way.
“There was a shout, and a pair of men on horses came out of the forest to grab the leads on our coach horses to stop the coach, then several more came out of the trees and overwhelmed the coach. A pair of them climbed straight up to the top and grabbed me. I think they were going to cut my throat – and everyone else’s too – when Ingman pulled the attacker off of me. And a moment later you shot a bunch of them with energy to scare them away from the coach.”
Kendel frowned at her report. “You say Ingman pulled the attacker away from you?”
“That’s what he told me; It all happened behind me, just at practically the same time you attacked all the other thieves.”
“I thought I hit that thief who had his knife against your throat,” Kendel explained.
“Well, you may have intended to before Ingman got there, or who knows. With that arrow in your shoulder, you probably were distracted and in a lot of pain already,” she surmised.
“My shoulder,” the conversation called his wound to his attention. It was a dull throbbing pain, he realized.
“The first morning here, a doctor came and saw you. He cut it out. It’s a good thing you were unconscious, if you ask me,” Flora opined. “That had to hurt.”
“It does,” he confirmed. “What do we d
o now? Get back on the coach?”
“When you’re ready,” Flora said. “The coach driver was both impressed and frightened by the way you saved them from the ambush. The coach is paying for our room and expenses at the inn, and we’ll have seats inside the coach when we’re ready to go.
“And when we get to Chacer, Ingman will arrange for us to stay at the palace! How’s that?” Flora stated proudly.
Kendel bit his tongue before answering. While he found the idea of staying at a palace to be appealing, he was wary of anything set up by Ingman. The personable native of the land seemed to have quickly developed a strong friendship with Flora, one that didn’t strike Kendel as a positive development.
“Do we really even want to stop in Chacer, or should we keep going east?” he suggested.
“We’re trying to find Agata and Parker, right?” Flora asked rhetorically. “I bet that as a princess, she might be attracted to a palace like the one at Chacer, or on the other hand, the palace might be interested in knowing about a princess crossing their lands, if they hear. It seems like a logical place for us to spend a little time looking for information.”
Her answer made sense, and Kendel couldn’t argue with it, despite his wishes.
“Okay,” he nodded slightly. “Maybe we can try to catch a coach tomorrow?”
“Let’s see how you feel tomorrow,” Flora said sagely. She reached over and gently rubbed his forearm fondly. “The people here are in awe of you – the man who attacked an entire gang of thieves at once, using magical powers. Maybe a little frightened too.
“Are you hungry?” she thought to ask.
“Some,” he admitted. Just as she had called his attention to the pain in his shoulder, now her words called his attention to his appetite.
“Let me go get something from the tavern across the way. Is there anything else you want?” she asked.
“A chamber pot?” he asked with a blush.
Flora grinned at him. They had learned the etiquette of chamber pots through their experiences in the magical lands.
“It’s under the bed. I’ll get it for you,” Flora knelt and then placed the necessary implement on the mattress. “I’ll be back,” she promised, and she left to find his food.
The Blinded Journey Page 26
