The Caravan Road

by Jeffrey Quyle

  The deep chill continued for the next two days, and even after they crested the high pass the road cut through, a place where Alec’s Air energies help blow away over a foot of powdery snow on the road, the deep wintery temperatures remained with them. Alec began to use his energies on a consistent basis throughout each day and night, protecting the members of the group from the chill that permeated everything around them.

  Only Hope was able to see the beauty of the mountains around them, despite the cold she suffered. Having lived all her life in Warm Springs, the girl had never experienced the full impact of winter, living among the thermal warmth of the community surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The day-after-day exposure to the high altitude temperatures wore down her body, but not her ability to perceive the stark loveliness of the high peaks. This is so clean and bright, she spoke in silent wonder to Alec at least once each day, it seemed, causing Alec to smile, and to take a moment to observe the pristine surroundings they were in.

  A week after they left Ridgeclimb, Alec judged that they had probably traveled faster than he had expected for the beginning of their journey, but he fretted that they had done little to gain ground on the group of ingenairii they were pursuing, unless a blizzard or other calamity had bogged their unsuspecting quarry down. The one thing working in their favor was that the kidnappers would surely not expect pursuit, and would not travel at a pace to run away from anyone; he remembered the arrogance of the Warrior ingenairii on the Hill in Oyster Bay, all but Rubicon’s group, who had grown so prideful and arrogant they had killed the king and unleashed chaos in the Dominion because they thought they could do better.

  On the eighth day of their journey, Alec discovered that he had invited disaster by thinking about the success the group had enjoyed up to that point. As the small caravan rolled down a long, long slope away from a pass, a wall of snow hit them in the face when they rounded a northward curve in the road, and proceeded to blast away at them all the rest of the day. Their progress slowed to a crawl that day and the next, as Alec continually spent his time sweeping away the snow that piled up on the road in front of them, then paused to work his way back through the group, warming them all and himself. On the third day of the blizzard Alec realized that he was draining far too much of his energy to continue to move forward.

  “Jasel, you and Hope go down that valley,” Alec said at midday, “and see if there’s a sheltered spot we can pull into and rest in until the storm passes by.” He prayed that they would find some convenient grove of trees that blocked the snow and wind, or even find a cave. Hope, you stay in contact with me and let me know if you get into trouble, he added silently.

  He called on Hope every few minutes to confirm that they were making progress. Finally, she responded in a curt tone after his fifth interrogatory.

  It’s cold, Alec, she answered acerbically. It feels like we’re walking into the wind. We haven’t seen anything yet, but there’s a grove of trees Jasel sees that he wants to investigate. But it’s uphill a little bit. The wagon and the mules won’t be able to reach it, if it’s a good place, and I don’t think Lady Grean will be able to climb there either, she worried.

  If you can’t get there in ten more minutes, just come back, Alec answered. You’ve been gone for almost an hour already, and if you have to come back, your body will be getting pretty cold from such a long journey.

  He waited impatiently, huddled under the wagon with the others, as his warmed stones kept the temperature in their small enclosure above freezing.

  Bring everyone up here, Hope’s voice spoke with relief in his mind, just as he started to worry about the two explorers. We made it to the trees, and behind the trees there’s a small valley that is green!

  What? How is it green? Alec asked, astonished by the grendasteusse’s assertion.

  It’s like Warm Springs, I think, Hope answered. We’re looking at it, and there are three pools of water that aren’t frozen, and they have plants growing around them.

  How easy is the climb to get there? Alec asked.

  It’s not bad. There’s a path up the hill, she told him. We just followed the valley from the road straight up here, and then climbed into the trees.

  We’ll start to make the trip out there. Be careful when you go down to look at the springs, Alec warned.

  I will. Something feels…unhealthy, she tried to find a word to describe what she sensed.

  What do you mean? Alec asked as he started to crouch and emerge from under the wagon.

  I don’t know, just, there’s something here I don’t feel good about. We’ll be careful. It’s so warm! She called. It must just be nothing; I don’t see anything wrong here.

  “Everyone, we’re going to walk up to a valley where there are thermal springs,” Alec told the other four who sat under the wagon looking at him. “It will take about an hour to get there. Pack some food on the mules so that we can plan to spend the night at least, maybe longer if the weather doesn’t change. Start going up the valley while I help get the Grazes and Mrs. Grean,” he directed.

  We’re on our way, Alec told Hope. Let me know if anything goes wrong.

  I’m going swimming! Hope called out gleefully.

  Alec’s conversation with the merchant and her companions was a long one.

  “We can’t just leave our wagon here and walk away,” Mrs. Grean said stoutly. “What if it gets robbed while we’re gone? Everything I own is tied up in this venture.”

  “There hasn’t been another traveler visible on the road since we left Ridgeclimb,” Alec answered. “And no one is going to be out in this kind of weather. Your wagon will be safe.”

  “It’s too cold to leave the wagon,” Mr. Graze argued. “We’ll freeze on the way. How do you know these hot springs really exist, anyway?”

  “We know,” Alec said flatly. “I am able to communicate with Hope, the girl,” he clarified, not sure the merchant group had paid attention to the names of the others in the caravan.

  “How do you communicate with the girl? That seems preposterous,” Grean argued.

  “After seeing me do all the things I’ve done during this storm, do you doubt that I can communicate with Hope?” Alec asked, in a deep and disapproving voice.

  “You are going to freeze if you stay here, because there won’t be heat coming up from below into the wagon,” Alec urged. “You need to come with us. Your wagon is going to be safe,” and eventually he cajoled them into leaving the wagon.

  The rest of the group had already gone, taking the mules with them. Alec unhitched the oxen at the front of the wagon and took them along the path as well, creating a shield of air in front so that the beasts could walk along the valley bottom with relative, though slow, ease. He continually added touches of healing warmth to his three companions, and finally lofted Mrs. Grean up on top of one of the oxen to speed up the cumbersome trip. Three hours after receiving Hope’s report about the warm springs, Alec and the merchant group arrived at the base of the hill that rose to a dark patch of fir trees sitting above the floor of the valley.

  “Up we go,” Alec urged. “Grab a tail of an ox,” he instructed the others, then used the last of his reserves of energy to call upon his Air powers to no longer block the wind, but to lift the oxen slowly above the trail, each animal’s hooves just inches off the ground as he floated them up towards the cluster of trees.

  Several minutes later they reach level ground, and Alec dropped the oxen to the ground, then herded them inside the trees, near the small herd of mules, where the wind and the snow no longer came pelting into their faces and multiple clumps of grasses and ferns provided something for the animals to browse on. Alec stopped and leaned against an ox, feeling his legs tremble from the impact of his exertions. “The hot springs are supposed to be that way,” he pointed. “You all go down there. I’ll rest for a minute before I come.”

  Mrs. Grean slid off her ox gracelessly and with a loud harrumph, echoed by a harrumph from the ox as well, then the three of them part
ed from Alec without comment.

  Alec let his legs collapse and he squatted on the ground, feeling the exhaustion of overuse of his energies. He leaned back against tree trunk and closed his eyes, and descended into a dreamlike state of sleep, slightly aware of the world, but not.

  When he opened his eyes again it was nearly dark, with just a red glow in the western sky behind him, and the oxen nowhere in sight. He felt only slightly refreshed from the nap that had overtaken him, but realized he needed to join the others by the springs. In fact, he was surprised that no one had come looking for him – he must have been resting for several hours.

  Hope? Bauer? Are you at the springs? He called, and waited for an answer that didn’t come.

  Bauer? Hope? I am in the woods. Where are you? He felt suddenly alert, and then suddenly felt an unpleasant presence in the vicinity, a presence that was hostile or hungry or impatient, he couldn’t tell – he could only tell somehow that it didn’t feel like any human or ingenaire he had ever sensed. The only positive element he could find was that it did not feel like the evil presence of a demon.

  Alec reached for his sword, then realized that he wasn’t carrying one, though he did have a hunting knife on his hip. Hastily he pulled the knife free, and engaged his Warrior energies, improving his vision in the dark glen. The oxen were visible not far off, still contentedly grazing on the greenery they found, placidly chewing as they stood relaxed, no awareness of predators to upset them.

  Bauer? Alec tried to call his friend again as he began to advance cautiously among the trees, moving towards the far side where he anticipated the pools of water to lie.

  There was still no answer from Bauer, and Alec hesitated to call aloud, fearful of alerting possible enemies in the vicinity. He could hear the brisk winds rustling through the tree branches overhead, but no other sounds were audible.

  The last of the sunset had faded by the time Alec reached the boundary where the fir trees opened up to reveal the open valley behind them. Alec could sense the other presence, and could tell that it was aware of him as well. In the darkness he could see little, even with his Warrior energy-enhanced abilities. He dropped his Warrior powers and focused his Light powers to create a bright ball of light far out in front of him, a miniature sun that flared into sudden brilliance, surprising the valley and its inhabitants with its unexpected light.

  Alec could see the whole narrow valley stretching away from him, the small blue ponds of water lined along the length of the center of the valley, fringed with greenery as trees and bushes grew prolifically. In the water he could see all nine of his companions, lying and soaking in the warmth.

  “Jasel!” he called loudly. “Andi!” he added, staying in the shadows of the trees to try to remain protected and undetectable from whatever might be in the vicinity.

  No one moved below him. “Bauer,” he called with all the force he could muster; Bauer he added telepathically, but not a single person responded.

  With great care, he scanned the slope down the hill until he found the path that led from the woods to the water, then examined its length for any traps or dangers. There was nothing in evidence, so he carefully crept out of the trees and descended the trail, seeing nothing that moved or threatened in the harsh white light of his energy globe, but still sensing the other presence in the valley.

  Cautiously, Alec crept down into the warmth, each step taking him further into the bowl of humid heat, and he felt a light mist of rain falling upon him as snowflakes from above melted mid-air in the unusual temperatures that rose from the ponds on the valley floor. He sprinted across the level ground to the edge of the pool, where he tapped the closest person to him, Andi, on the shoulder. The girl was immersed in the water of the pool, her whole torso and extremities submerged, her clothes and coat still bundled around her body, strangely enough.

  “Andi!” Alec called as he poked her. “Wake up,” he spoke again, but nothing roused the girl. He looked at her with his health vision, splitting his use of his powers, his thin, limited stream of powers, into three components – Light, Spirit, and Healer. The globe of light above shrank and dimmed as he decreased his flow of energy to it, but his Healer vision showed that Andi’s body was suffering some strange treatment. Then his Spirit energy made him snap his head up sharply, as he felt a siren’s call to join the girl in the water, to grow warm and comfortable and relaxed by soaking in the moist, liquid resting place that awaited him.

  The siren that called was the same presence that had felt hostile before, or was it hungry, he wondered? He felt a longing to succumb to the lure, to let himself slide into the water, and he swung his feet around beneath him so that he could dip them into the pond’s faintly glowing blue moisture.

  As his feet dropped into the pond, his Healer energies screamed at him that the water was a danger, a threat to health and life, and he jerked his legs upward. He watched in horror as streamers of water reached up from the pond’s surface, trying to follow and retain their hold on his feet, wanting to pull him into the hungry water.

  With horror, Alec backed away from the water, and watched as it splashed with inexplicable waves, reaching up onto the shore to try to reach him.

  He stood paralyzed for a moment, listening to the soothing calls to relax, while feeling an instinctive reflex that told him to flee.

  Instead, he did neither. He had to rescue his friends, he realized, and he reached forward, grabbing Andi’s shoulders and pulling her upward, a heavy sodden mass of flesh and cloth, so heavy that he dropped all three of his ingenaire abilities and called upon his Warrior powers to give him the capacity to lift her free of the water, the water that flowed upward again, trying to recapture its prey as Alec dragged Andi many feet away from the shoreline to a spot that he hoped offered safety. He roamed down the shoreline a few feet in the nearly complete darkness until he came to the next person, Jasel, he realized, and pulled the boy too out of the water.

  The pond was angry, and the anger was evident. The depths of the water began to glow a violent reddish color, and Alec hurried to the next victim of the frightening cauldron, Mr. Graze, who he likewise pulled far out of the pond.

  The light in the middle of the pond grew brighter, and yet it was becoming a deeper, uglier red as it increased, while Alec pulled both the twin widows away from its clutches. When he reached Hope the pond responded with a sudden violence, blowing a column of water high into the sky, a brilliant red organic limb, one that reached its apex, then arched towards Alec and came falling down upon him, its heavy weight smashing him to the ground, forcing Hope from his grasp, then sucking him back into the pool, immersing him completely under its surface as it began to buffet him physically and spiritually.

  The pond was intent on killing him immediately. Alec could feel its hostility, its animosity towards him. He could read its thoughts, in a fashion, completely contained within the pond as he was. The water was a living thing, a carnivorous entity that was feasting on the company he had sent to it. It was sucking away the souls of the people, converting their energy to its own energy, and then it was digesting their bodies. He could feel it focusing on his body, trying to kill him first, physically, planning to destroy him before he rescued any of its victims from its reach.

  This pond was the evil doppelganger of the spring-fed ponds of Warm Springs, he realized. While those ponds healed and imparted spiritual strength and knowledge, this pond sucked life away from its victims.

  In a panic, Alec instinctively reached for his Warrior energy, and realized that he could swing no blade nor shoot any arrow nor land any punch that would harm the pond. He dropped the Warrior ability, and chose to activate his Light powers.

  Alec formed a ball of white hot light at the far end of the pond, a ball that formed within the pond, heating up the water around it to steaming hot temperatures instantly, causing the water to begin to boil and steam away. He hoped to diminish the pond, to boil it away if possible, and he needed to do so in a hurry, because he could only hold his
breath a few moments longer.

  The pond panicked as it felt Alec’s weapon begin to succeed against it, inflicting pain, and it released its hold on Alec to focus on protecting itself. Alec took advantage of the release to burst to the surface and take a deep breath of air, then he stroked back towards the shoreline, luridly lit by the underwater white and red lights within the pond.

  With a gasp, Alec climbed out of the pond, and lay on his back, panting, as he lifted his globe of light out of the water, raising it into the air above the valley, in order to stop heating the pond to such a high temperature, afraid that he might harm the others who were still in the water by literally boiling them to death before he could pull them to freedom.

  Still gagging, Alec sat up, then rose to a crouch. The valley was full of the pond’s venomous hatred for him, and he could see the pond starting to twist another column of water into the air, preparing to use the same weapon it had wielded so effectively against him last time. Alec stood and back-pedaled, then abruptly plunged his sphere of light back into the pond. The column of water collapsed back upon itself as the pond felt the shock of a new boiling spot, and Alec lifted the small sun back up out of the water.

  The pond grew sullenly still, and Alec took the opportunity to pull the next of his friends, Bauer, out of the water, then he pulled Mrs. Graze, and reached for the last person left, the merchant, Mrs. Grean. He gave a tug to pull her large bulk and sodden clothes from the water, then fell over on his back as her body flew easily upward. She landed on top of Alec and he cried in horror as he realized that the entire lower portion of her body was gone, already digested by the carnivorous waters of the pond.

  Furiously, now that none of his friends provided hostages to the pond, their safety no longer endangered by any threat he posed to the water, Alec called upon the last of his ingenaire abilities and reshaped the ball of light into a intense coil of light, a bright rope of energy that punched downward at an angle, drilling a laser-smooth hole through the water and through the rocky bed that contained the pond, boring an underground conduit that stretched for hundreds of feet through the mountain at a steadily sinking angle, until it burst out the other side of the mountain.