“But you’ll certainly take us,” an unfamiliar voice spoke from the door on the far side of the room.
Alec looked over and saw an unfamiliar trio, a man and a pair of women, whose appearance struck some chord in the distant recesses of his memory. “That’s the merchant who had to withdraw from the last caravan because of an illness, the Lady Grean,” Grile murmured, “and her two companions, Gwen and Alfred Graze.
“They’ve been our guests ever since. We’d be very happy to see them on their way,” he added.
“We haven’t formulated any plans for the journey yet,” Alec said flatly, hoping to cut off the merchant from pressing into the conversation. “After we make some decisions, we’ll let you know.”
The large woman stood in the doorway, glaring balefully at Alec, until Mrs. Graze gently tugged her sleeve, and they left the vicinity.
“Where were we?” Alec asked rhetorically, trying to come to regain his train of thought.
“We were talking about our trip to the Twenty Cities,” Hope said helpfully.
“Jasel and my trip to the Cities,” Alec corrected.
“You have to take us; you can’t abandon your wives!” Stacha protested.
And you promised the grandasteur you’d keep me with you, Hope added silently.
“You’ll need a pair of swords to help you,” Marva also chimed in.
“This is not a pleasure jaunt!” Alec said loudly. “You all know what we put up with just traveling from Black Crag to here. We’ll have worse blizzards and weather for a much longer journey on the way to Oolitan. Plus we’re going to face a battle against a dozen ingenairii if we aren’t careful. And then we’ll have to come back from wherever we are, if we’re still alive.”
“Count me in,” Bauer said after several seconds of silence.
The others at the table grinned at his response.
“Let’s take them with us,” Jasel said unexpectedly. “If it’s going to be such a tough trip, we’re going to need extra hands to help with the camps and the chores and the work to get there.”
“We’ll be able to travel much faster if we take just ourselves,” Alec answered.
“Husband, are you going to leave us here, stranded?” Stacha asked.
“I,” he paused, “don’t know exactly what to do with the two of you,” he told her.
“And I’m not your husband,” he added.
You’ll be able to communicate with Bauer and I whenever you need, from wherever you are, no matter who else is there, Hope commented. We will be valuable for you to take along.
“If you’re going to take so many with you to the Twenty Cities, you should take the merchant. You can use her wagon to help haul your supplies,” Grile attempted to sound nonchalant as he lobbied for Alec to take the abrasive personality of Lady Grean away from Ridgeclimb.
“Do you all realize what you’re suggesting?” Alec felt ganged up on. “The merchant and her two companions, Hope and Bauer, the widows, the Black Crag guards, Jasel and myself – that’s eleven people trying to travel the caravan road, in the winter, without a caravan leader. Our purpose is to try to catch up with a band of Warrior ingenairii and rescue a kidnapped girl. Those two things aren’t compatible.”
“With our swords and supplies and support, and your magic abilities, we should travel pretty fast – faster than the ingenairees,” Marva stumbled over the last word. “We can be disguised as just a small caravan until we need to take action, and our opponents will never know what happened to them.”
Alec looked around the table.
Take them, Alec, a voice whispered inside his head.
Alec looked at both Hope and Bauer; Did either of you just speak to me? He asked, not recognizing the spiritual tones he had heard.
Not me, each answered simultaneously.
Alec, this journey is for them too. Take them, the voice urged him.
Who are you? Alec asked, sending his voice out into the ether, seeking the unknown presence that had spoken to him.
I am John Mark. You must take these companions with you, the voice answered.
John Mark?! Prophet, how sweet your voice is to hear! Alec looked upward, focusing on nothing, ignorant of the silence in the room as everyone looked at him. Where have you been? Why must they come? Who has taken Kriste? Are they ingenairii?
More will be revealed to you in time, Alec. You remain a powerful tool of your Lord. Take these others with you on your journey, the prophet answered.
And then what? Alec asked. What will happen?
He waited for several seconds, but heard no more from the voice of the prophet.
Alec blinked his eyes, then shook his head, shaking off the astonishment of hearing the holy voice that had provided such guidance to him in past times of his life, yet had been absent for so many years.
“Alright, we’ll all travel together,” he said, making the people around the table grin and thump the table in celebration.
“We’ll plan to leave tomorrow morning. Grile, you go tell your merchant friend that she’s going, and she’s going on our terms. Go to Grable in the village and ask him to apply his carpentry skills to add lockers for storage around the merchant’s wagon,” Alec directed. “Stacha, you and Racha and I will go through all the goods on your mules and see what we can leave here and what we need to take.
“Mirren, you work with Hope and Bauer and Marva to pack supplies for eleven people to travel for five, no, make it six weeks,” he added as he stood. “We’ll use the mules and the wagons to reduce how much we have to carry on our backs. Let’s get going everyone,” he directed, and the room emptied as the preparations to leave Ridgeclimb began.
Chapter 14 – The Journey on the Caravan Road
Alec was the last to awaken the next morning. When Ingenia used her new fingers to poke him, instigated by Racha, Alec groggily opened his eyes, then sighed. He had dreamt all night of disasters and problems befalling the traveling group at any number of locations along the caravan road.
He couldn’t help but smile though, when he saw Ingenia’s broad grin, or when he remembered the hopeful tears in her mother’s eyes at the time he had finally begun the healing process to recreate hands for the girl. Trevia had cried when she had arrived to see her daughter and care for her, then learned of Alec’s late night arrival and promise, and she had cried when her daughter lay unconscious as Alec finished the trying task of regenerating the forearms, wrists, and hands that had restored the girl’s wholeness.
Trevia had gone home, crying again when she had learned that Alec was about to leave again, and then the mother had spent the night baking breads, rolls, and cakes for Alec and his companions to enjoy as they traveled.
“What’s the weather like?” Alec asked, looking out the high window in the stable, seeing the blue skies overhead.
“There’s a breeze, but it’s not too bad,” Racha answered. “We’ll have a good start for our journey.”
“Are you sure you can’t take me along too?” Ingenia asked. “I could learn to be a healer while we traveled.”
The girl was smitten with the idea of being a healer; she wanted to save lives and bring joy to the people she helped, motivated by the miraculous new limbs she had awoken with.
“The best way to learn to be a healer is to stay here at Ridgeclimb and study whatever Mirren tells you,” Alec insisted. He stood up to go speak to Grile, to make sure that the new leader of the clinic was comfortable with the duties he faced to strengthen the clinic community while Alec was on the road.
Marva was angry with him, he knew, but he hoped he’d have a chance to see the guard one more time before he left. He had assigned Marva with the task of accompanying Mirren to Black Crag so that they could order glass and numerous other supplies that were needed at Ridgclimb. The two women were going to take five of the widows’ mules with them to haul the supplies back to the clinic, while the other mules were going to join the westward-bound rescue expedition. In addition, Marva was to contract with B
lack Crag on Alec’s behalf to provide a dozen guards to station at the clinic for the remainder of the winter season and into the spring as well, for the sake of the residents’ peace of mind.
Marva would have been even angrier with her battlemate Andi if she had realized that Andi had originally been designated to go to Back Crag. But when Alec had told her, Andi had stridently and energetically lobbied him to switch their assignments, taking Andi with the caravan and sending Marva to Black Crag. Since the two guards were much alike in his eyes, he eventually agreed, and spoke to Marva and Mirren jointly to go over their planned journey.
Alec had decided to send the two women out on an expedition to acquire the goods after going through the contents that the mules had carried to Ridgeclimb on behalf of the deceased merchants. Each mule had carried packs loaded with lightweight, bulky packs of cloth, in the folds of which Alec discovered copious amounts of gemstones. Amos and Aethos had carried a fortune in gems with them on their planned trading expedition to the Twenty Cities. Alec knew that the large contingent of stones was worth much more than the two merchants could have ever honestly acquired, and he wondered briefly who or how they had robbed someone of so much wealth.
Valeriane was famous for the numerous gem mines that were spread widely among the mountains and streams in its vicinity, a source of wealth that made the city one of the richest in the empire. Amos and Aethos had perhaps been paid lucratively by the former duke and his cronies, or perhaps they had used their relationship with the duke’s faction to blackmail others in the city. Regardless of how the flashy wealth had been acquired, Alec had it now, and intended to use it productively. A portion of the stones were going to go to Black Crag to be exchanged for the goods needed by Ridgeclimb, while the majority of the stones were packed away for the trip to the Twenty Cities.
The unexpected windfall the gems provided struck Alec as a way to buy a good life for Stacha and Racha when they returned to their home. With the money the sapphires and emeralds and rubies could be exchanged for, Alec expected to provide a good fortune for the two girls in whatever situation he would eventually be able to arrange for them.
Out in the courtyard Alec found everyone involved in the departure milling around, strapping goods onto various carriers, making last moment adjustments, and full of energy. The clinic itself was full of people who felt better than they had two days ago; Alec’s return, his healing of the last wounded residents, and his promise to go rescue Kriste had all given the community a stronger sense of security, as had the knowledge that a dozen of the vaunted blades of Black Crag were going to be in residence soon.
“Marva, you know your assignment is important to me,” he said as soon as he was in the courtyard and caught the brown-haired guard.
“I understand,” she replied flatly. “Someone has to do it.”
“I hope you’ll join the squad that returns to Ridgeclimb,” he tried to make peace. “I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”
She took a deep breath. “Thank you, my lord. I’ll look forward to that as well. You made the trip here much more interesting than I expected!” She graced him with a smile, one that was warm and geniuine.
Minutes later Alec had just one last task to complete before departure. “Mrs. Grean,” he addressed the woman who sat on the bench of the wagon. “You understand that we will accompany you as safely and as securely as possible in the winter through the caravan road mountains, but we’re doing it on the terms I set. I’ll be in charge, and you’ll do what I say.”
“You’ve already taken over my wagon,” she gestured back at the awkward but secure boxes that had been added to the sides of the wagon, and the net full of fodder that had been slung beneath.
“I have, but it’ll still be yours when we get to the Twenty Cities and we go our separate ways,” Alec acknowledged. “and you’ll have our protection all the way there.” He stalked away from Mrs. Grean before he said anything further, anxious to avoid provoking further ill-will at the very outset of the journey. Alec had always respected merchants and traders – he thought of the Millershome and Locksfort families in the Dominion, both mighty trading families who had been friends, colleagues, and partners in many of his adventures there. It was only bad luck that he’d found less pleasant traders to travel with on this journey, he knew.
He strode up to the front of the group, stationed at the gateway of the stableyard, and said his last farewell to Grile and the other Ridgeclimb residents who were out to see them off. Then he accepted the walking staff Grile presented to him as a parting gift, and led the small, unusual caravan out onto the road, bound for the western lands he’d never visited before.
Chapter 15 – The Warm Pools
After two days of travel under bright skies and light breezes, Alec’s caravan had progressed at a steady pace, and begun to adopt a routine in its duties. Stacha and Racha had assumed the role of cooks, and done a good job, their initial success augmented by the bread and cakes provided by Trevia. Alec, Bauer, Jasel and Andi had taken on the guard shifts at night. Blankets were hung around the sides of the bottom of the wagon after they stopped in the evening, and provided a slightly sheltered common sleeping place for everyone except Merchant Grean and the Grazes, who slept inside the wagon.
Alec had not had to administer any warming touches of Healing power to anyone, and the mules behaved admirably. They had not yet traveled as far as Alec had traveled on his own in the past sojourns to clear out the western road, when he’d displaced the bandits who had wandered too close to Ridgeclimb for his liking. On the third day, Alec estimated they would finally pass beyond his previous journeys.
The inclusion of so many travelers on the journey chafed at Alec’s sense of urgency. Had he traveled with just Jasel, he was sure he would have covered half again more distance, and if he had traveled alone he would have gone twice as far. But he knew he had mysteriously received direction from John Mark, the first time the saint had spoken to him in decades, and so he accepted the situation as it was, and speculated on what purpose each of the others might add to the journey.
Stacha and Racha provided an opportunity for him to learn about the Twenty Cities, at least to a limited degree. On their journey to Valeriane they had left their home town of Stanless and passed through two other of the cities before reaching Oolitan, the city on the edge of the mountains, the city that was a vast and virtually lawless marketplace for the traders who traveled the mountain road. The two girls told him that their city, Stanless, was famous among the Twenty for its artists and poets. Their family tradition claimed that their own grandmother had been a famous actress in the theater, a great beauty who had been the toast of the town, and the source of their own good looks, they added modestly. The girls provided something of an attraction for Jasel as well, as the boy often traveled next to them, talking to Stacha in particular, as they walked along.
Alec learned that some of the Twenty Cities had armies, while other cities did not, and the bewildering array of treaties and alliances that entangled the metropolises of the region were beyond the girls’ knowledge. There was a man called the king of the Twenty Cities, they agreed, but he wasn’t much of a presence as far as they could tell. There were cities with reputations that made them famous for a variety of identifying traits, such as the city known for its gardens, or the one known for its fountains and canals, or the great tree city with houses built in huge ancient trees that grew throughout the city. There was a city that was mostly caves and tunnels, the one they liked to talk about the most, because the prospect of living underground frightened them so much.
Alec accepted their knowledge for what it was, mostly the rumors and mythology of two girls without much formal education, and he pondered how they would travel, where they would travel if they got to Oolitan without catching up to the ingenairii. The Twenty Cities were rumored to be great metropolises, covering a large portion of the world. Allegedly the kidnappers had mentioned lacertii, leading Alec to ponder the question of whether the
Twenty Cities could stretch all the way to the boundaries of the lacertii nation, presumably the boundary on the side away from the Pale Mountains and the Dominion. He idly speculated on the notion that these ingenairii might have come all the way from the Dominion, and traveled across the lacertii lands, then through the Twenty Cities, and finally across the vast mountain wilderness along the caravan road. He checked his imagination run wild – what could possibly cause them to come over such a long distance to randomly kidnap a teenage girl?
Why would anyone have come to kidnap Kriste for that matter, he asked himself. She was a pretty girl, but there were many, many pretty girls in the world – few of them as isolated as Kriste had been. Nothing made any sense to Alec about the whole strange adventure, but it was real, and his feet felt the chill of walking through the mountains in winter, testament to the reality of the mystery.
During their third day of the journey the weather changed, as they climbed in altitude among the high mountains. The wind blew more strongly, and the temperature dropped towards the profoundly cold regions that made everyone bundle up tighter. By mid-afternoon Alec was circulating among those who walked, giving each of them a brief stream of Healer energy that raised their body temperature and boosted their blood circulation to their extremities, helping to ward off frost bite. That evening they did without a cooking fire, and Alec set a number of stones beneath the wagon where everyone was to sleep, and used his Light energy to create a brilliant, intense beam of light that generated heat for the stones to adsorb quickly, and then dispense slowly, making the crowded shelter a more comfortable space to sleep.
Grean and the Grazes grew much less vocal after Alec’s use of his ingenaire energies. They had originally begun their journey before the onset of winter, and traveled without enough heavy coats and blankets to enjoy full protection from the frigid mountain weather. Their long hiatus spent at Ridgeclimb after Mrs. Grean’s illness had caused them to miss the last caravan that traveled west before the winter, and none had come through Ridgeclimb since, one of the longest periods without a caravan that Alec could recall on the road over the mountains.
The Caravan Road Page 18
