The Guided Journey (Book 6)

by Jeffrey Quyle

“They’re gems! They’re pearls!” the girl told the pair at the table, looking at Kestrel keenly. “They’re what the gentry wear, the ladies, that is, when they dress up to go to the palace.”

  The girl departed, and Lucretia looked at Kestrel. “So, what’s the story about how you showed up in Hydrotaz with an unknown cache of jewels?” she asked.

  The serving girl returned with the plates of thin fried pork chops, and Kestrel placed a silver coin on the table. “That’s for tonight,” he said.

  “That’s far too much,” she protested.

  “You take it,” he urged. He scooped the pearls from Lucretia’s hand, and put his pouch away. “Thanks for letting us know what these are.”

  The girl picked up the coin. “You can come back any night, my elven lord, with or without your lady,” she laughed.

  “So?” Lucretia raised an eyebrow and looked at Kestrel as she picked up her mug of ale.

  “Well,” Kestrel began, “it all started in Little Wheel,” he began, and over the course of the next hour he told the story of healing and mushrooms and trading, making Lucretia laugh at the stories of Jacquie and Parisse, and the excitement of the imps.

  “So now we’ve got all these,” he paused momentarily as the serving girl brought freshly filled mugs of ale, “what did you call those shiny pebbles?”

  “Pearls, my lord,” she answered.

  “Thank you,” he told her as she walked away.

  “So we’ve got lots of pearls and don’t know what they’re worth. So I came over here to ask some human friends about them, and to see you, of course.”

  “Of course,” Lucretia agreed with a laugh. “Shall we finish these and head back to the embassy?”

  They quickly drained their ales, belched and laughed, then walked back towards the embassy.

  “Elves! Wait!” a voice called behind them, and suddenly three men were around them.

  “Just hand over those pearls and we’ll leave you alone,” one of the men said.

  The three were holding short swords, and they were close.

  “I’ll knock his sword loose, then take the one on the right,” Kestrel said in the elvish language.

  “Agreed,” Lucretia answered.

  Kestrel slashed his staff downward viciously, cracking the center robber on the wrist, and knocking the sword from his hand. He immediately wheeled his staff sideways so that the bladed end of the weapon cut across the face of the second opponent, and then he flipped the staff around and drove the end into the man’s midriff.

  Without hesitation, he turned and saw that Lucretia’s opponent had reacted faster than the men Kestrel had faced. Both Lucretia and her opponent had wounded one another; Kestrel stepped in and swung his staff down on top of the skull of the man Lucretia was fighting.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he placed his arm around Lucretia.

  “Get me back to the embassy,” she gasped. She has a hand covering the wound in her side, and Kestrel could see that she was bleeding.

  “Stillwater, Stillwater, Stillwater,” he called instead.

  “Kestrel-traveler friend, what are you doing here?” the imp asked.

  “Your friend is hurt!” the imp exclaimed immediately after looking at Lucretia, and two seconds later a number of imps arrived in response to Stillwater’s unspoken summons.

  “Shall we go to the healing spring?” the imp asked, even as several imps swarmed in closely around the two elves.

  Kestrel heard a shriek of terror as one of the foiled robbers looked up and saw the group of imps, and then Kestrel heard no more, as they entered the netherworld between the worlds.

  Moments later they emerged in the darkness of a lightly raining night at the spring side.

  “Thank you Stillwater, for such quick action,” Kestrel spoke. “I’ll put all of you in the spring as soon as I take care of the injured one.”

  “Of course friend Kestrel,” Stillwater replied.

  “Here, get these clothes off,” Kestrel told Lucretia as he lowered her to the ground.

  “I guess you did buy me dinner,” Lucretia tried to joke as she sat down. “But that’s still pretty direct.”

  Kestrel ignored her humor as he undressed her, then carried her into the spring water.

  “You didn’t even take your own clothes off,” she murmured as he maneuvered her to a seat among the stones in the warm water.

  “I was in a hurry to take care of you,” he said.

  “But you still found time to undress me?” she managed to ask before she flinched in pain.

  “I, well,” Kestrel stuttered and blushed as it occurred to him that he should have just submerged his friend in the water immediately. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “Are you comfortable now?” he asked. She nodded yes. “I’m going to go put the imps in the water. I’ll be back.”

  He paddled over to the other side of the spring pool, where the imps stood or floated, still dressed as well. “Our clothes are going to get wet if we leave them sitting in the rain, so we decided to be like you and just keep them on in the water,” Mulberry told him.

  Kestrel shook his head and smiled slightly, as he thanked his gods that Lucretia had not heard, then he started submerging the imps in the water, taking just a short time to place six imps in the spring. He returned to Lucretia and settled into the stony seat next to her.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “In some pain, but getting better,” Lucretia answered. “I know how effective your spring water can be. Thanks for bringing me here so quickly.”

  “How did that robbery attempt happen so fast?” Kestrel asked. “Do you think the server tipped someone off?”

  “Sticks and leaves, no!” Lucretia responded energetically. “That girl might have had some plans for you, but I don’t think it was armed robbery.

  “No, we flashed those pearls around freely at first when we didn’t know what they were,” she explained. “Anyone in the tavern could have seen them. They just didn’t know that you were a battle-hardened warrior!” she said, then closed her eyes and rested.

  Kestrel sat silently beside her, able to look at her only because he had the elven vision to see in the dark.

  He was angry that his friend had been hurt, but a part of him relished the brief rush of excitement that the battle had produced. He realized again that just as the idea of travel was a relief from staying at home, he enjoyed the rush of physical conflict as well. The long months spent fighting the evil of the Viathins had changed him, and had made him a warrior.

  Kestrel sighed. There was no place to look for an ongoing battle to participate in, at least none that would have any meaning to him. He wasn’t about to go out and serve as a mercenary either, he knew that. He would simply have to adjust, and accept a more peaceful life in Oaktown, with visits to friends as his excitement in addition to the satisfaction of serving up better lives for the people of the Eastern Marches.

  Time passed, Lucretia fell asleep, and Kestrel relaxed more and more, remaining as fully submerged as possible to reduce the amount of his body that was exposed to the rain. After some time the rain stopped, and he wondered how Lucretia’s wound was doing.

  He squirmed around to examine her, but the darkness and the water were too much for him to see through clearly, frustrating him. It was time to take her back to Hydrotaz, he told himself, so that he could put her in bed and let her rest. He had a skin of healing water that he could use for extended treatment besides. He left her to go start pulling the imps from the water, then returned to her and woke her up.

  “Let’s get you back to Hydrotaz,” he told her as he stroked her cheek gently.

  “Already? So soon? I was having the loveliest dream,” she said softly.

  “Perhaps you’re part imp?” he questioned with a laugh, looking over at where the imps were starting to awaken.

  They slowly returned to the shore, and Kestrel helped Lucretia pull her wet clothes on. He examined her wound; “I think it looks better already,
” he told her, as the imps began to congregate around them.

  “Thank you Kestrel friend,” Stillwater said when they returned to the street in Hydrotaz. There had been no rain there, and bloody stains remained on the pavement.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly, and for your help,” Kestrel replied. “I may call again in a few days,” he added, thinking that he might need a faster return trip to Oaktown if his visit to Hydrotaz lasted too long.

  The imps disappeared, and Kestrel and Lucretia slowly advanced back to the embassy.

  “Don’t ask, Forrester,” Lucretia growled at the guard when they entered the building in wet clothes. “I’ll explain in the morning.”

  Kestrel helped her to bed, kissed her good night, and left the water skin at her bedside. He went to his own room, realized how exhausted he was from the long day, stripped off his own wet clothes, and happily pulled his cover over him as he succumbed to a profound slumber.

  Chapter 8 – The Unmatchable Statue

  “My lord?” he raised his head when he heard the voice.

  “Whyte?” Kestrel asked groggily, confused.

  There was a pause. “No, my lord,” a man’s voice answered.

  He was in Hydrotaz, Kestrel realized. “Is the ambassador awake?” he asked through the door.

  “She’s asking for you,” the servant said.

  “I’ll be there momentarily,” he answered, then pulled on his dry clothes, opened the door, and went to see Lucretia.

  “How are you?” he asked. She was sitting up in bed, wearing a smock.

  “Not fit to visit the palace, but much improved already,” she told him.

  “I’ve received a note from the local police, wanting to know if everything is okay,” she told him with an amused smile. “There was apparently a report of some trouble in the street last night involving elves and other strange creatures.”

  “I’ll send a report back that all is well,” she smirked. “That will leave them puzzled.”

  “Will you help me downstairs to breakfast?” she asked.

  Minutes later they were at a sunny table, eating a very human breakfast of bacon and toasted bread. “We’ll have to start arranging delivery of acorns to you on a regular basis,” Kestrel said as they finished the food. “I figure that Oaktown is closer to you than Center Trunk is.”

  “Maybe I should be Oaktown’s ambassador instead of Center Trunk’s,” Lucretia jested. “The king has been rather cranky lately in his messages,” she said. “That’s why Giardell went back, to assure his majesty that we are doing well, and relations with Hydrotaz are growing slowly better.”

  “What issues trouble the king?” Kestrel asked.

  Lucretia stared at him intently.

  “What?” he repeated.

  “It’s the succession,” she said. “The princess is unmarried yet, and producing no heir. Allegedly, the most likely royal consort remains unavailable, to the king’s dissatisfaction. And the princess’s too.”

  “You mean me?” Kestrel asked with a sinking feeling.

  “Yes. And due to your unavailability, the palace is waspish.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “The princess seems pretty enough, and the palace seems nice enough. Just go back and produce a couple of children and live a good life,” she waved her hand dismissively.

  “It’s not that simple,” Kestrel protested.

  “I know,” Lucretia said soothingly. “I don’t really mean it.

  “So, what are your plans for the day?” Lucretia dismissed the topic.

  “I’ll go to the palace, see Greysen and perhaps the princess, get some advice about these pearls, and that should be enough,” he answered.

  “That’ll be a good day,” she agreed.

  Kestrel was soon on his way, a borrowed sword on his hip, his staff in his hand, and the pouch of pearls hung around his neck. He had a hood pulled up to reduce his elven appearance, and he walked along the day lit streets with little care.

  As he walked he passed by the temple to Kai, and he stopped impulsively. He’d not prayed to the human deity in many weeks, not since before his return to the Eastern Forest. He stepped out of the stream of traffic, and walked into the temple.

  The building was under construction, but still open to worshippers even as the builders carried on with their noisy labors.

  Kestrel took a deep breath, then exhaled as he remembered the terrifying night when he had been chased into the ruins of the temple by a Uniontown-driven mob. He had met guardsman Mitchell during that dramatic night. He had seen his beloved Moorin morph into a monstrous Viathin creature, and he had seen Kai herself come to his rescue.

  The sanctum was clean and polished, a shiny, dimly-lit open space in the center of the building. A new statue of Kai was being constructed, Kestrel observed, as he knelt at one of the semi-circular railings that separated the worshippers from the rising icon.

  “My goddess, I hope you are well. I hope your people are coming back to your temples. I hope they know how much you did for them,” he breathed the words slowly, as he looked up at the incomplete statue. “I hope they give you a better sculptor to finish this job,” he added sarcastically, observing what appeared to be a decidedly ill-configured set of shoulders being created.

  Perhaps you should finish the job, he heard Kai’s voice speak to him, perhaps in his mind, perhaps in the air.

  “My goddess!” Kestrel exclaimed, swiveling his head around in search of the goddess.

  Go on, use your knowledge of me. Show my people who I am, she said.

  “I don’t have that power anymore,” Kestrel replied. “I don’t know that I would know how to use it properly, even if I still had it,” he told Kai. “You deserve the best there is.”

  The goddess was silent momentarily, then Kestrel felt the air move around him, and he heard the canvas coverings used by the workmen flutter.

  “You have the power now, Kestrel. You are in my temple, and the power is within you. See what you can do to show my people how well you know me,” her voice was definitely audible as he felt energy pulse through his soul upon her suggestion.

  Kestrel rose to his feet, and he pushed back his hood, then raised one leg, and stepped over the railing, into the dusty, sacred ground close to the goddess.

  It felt extraordinary, the sense of having the goddess’s energy within him again. He felt more alive. But he wasn’t sure he knew how to sculpt the stones and plaster that were raised up before him.

  He closed his eyes, and raised his hands, and tried to sense the statue. He let his mind reach out through all his faculties – smell and feel and even taste and something else, something that was sympathetic to the matter, an appreciation of the awareness of the solid marble statue’s building blocks.

  There might have been a noise somewhere in the temple, but he was too absorbed in using Kai’s gift of power to pay attention. He was comprehending what was possible, and he was coming to a conclusion, a realization that through the powers he felt, he could reconstruct the statue.

  His eyes were still closed. Vision was, at this point, a distraction, not a help.

  He thought of the goddess as he had seen her, so many times, standing strong and defiant, ready to face the great, fearful challenge that the Viathins had presented. But that vision of admirable strength faded, as he realized that what he most remembered was her love and compassion. That, he decided, was the characteristic that he wanted the humans of Hydrotaz to see when they gazed on her statue.

  He focused again, on the feet of the statue. They had to be wide set, within the elegant robe she wore, not close together. They had to be able to provide the stability to be strength for her worshipers; they had to be a foundation that would hold its place when blows struck against the goddess, or her people.

  He visualized the lower part of her, sure he knew what to do, then considered the next step. The waist he knew was slender, as was the torso, but the shoulders were wider than one realized, he recollected as he thought a
bout her.

  There was a terrible screeching and rending noise, as the stones already in place began to grind against each other. They moved according to Kestrel’s will, as he worked through them and with the power he held, to reshape the statue above him. He tasted dust in the air, and felt fragments falling upon him, but he felt the strength and reassurance of the stone, and knew that the statue was sound.

  He needed to form the arms. They had to offer the comfort of a lover and the love of a mother, so that any worshipper would feel the right response. The stones cracked but repaired themselves with the power he expended, and then Kestrel spread his own hands in the air, slowly, and stretched them out, as if he were about to embrace a loved one, and he felt the statue adopt the same posture.

  He pulled upward next. There was a substantial layer of fragments of stone lying on the floor around the base of the statue, and he called upon it to rise. He needed more material to carry on with his effort, and so the loose stones and chips and dust began to climb up the statue’s sides, as Kestrel widened his search, looking for, and finding, a large pile of unfaced stone, still in an alley behind the temple, and he pulled those stones in as well, feeling the building shake as the multi-ton slabs ponderously approached his workspace.

  He felt ready to sculpt the top of the statue, the head. The stone began to collect at the top, but not enough. He began to fragment the new, large slabs lying around him, and then let the small boulders fly straight upward through the air, and he listened to the sound of the collisions and jostlings as the material accumulated where he needed it, before he magically aggregated it into a solid piece.

  A drape of material flowed down, the long hair that Kestrel remembered over one shoulder of the goddess, long enough to demurely fall over her breast. Separate strands appeared, and then were cemented in place. He wanted a robe as well, and he began to shear off thin sheets of stone and sent them flying into place to cover the divine body he had created. He placed a slit in the skirt to show the separation of the material from the limbs. Up above, he pulled one side of the gown up, over the still-exposed breast above the goddess’s heart, and then belted it around her waist.