The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Aja, we need to leave the city. Are you ready to go?” he asked his companion.

  “Anywhere you want, Alec,” she told him, still reacting to the pendant he held.

  “Does this work on everyone, or just her?” Alec asked Erwin.

  “It works on all women, but it has no effect on men. What are you going to do?” Erwin asked. “Are you done with it? Can I have it back? I’ll never come close to Aja again, I promise,” he said earnestly.

  Alec reached out and took Aja’s hand. He extinguished the light that illuminated their little dramatic tableau that was now being watched by a dozen people on the street. Alec led Aja with him down to the street, then lifted Erwin with his Air energy. “You’ll abuse this charm and abuse women with it, I have no doubt,” Alec told Erwin, “so it has passed from your possession. Now go away from us and learn to live honestly.” Erwin began to shout in anger and sorrow, as Alec lifted him high above the street and deposited him on the roof of one of the nearby buildings, as a means to separate him from the two travelers.

  “Come on Aja, let’s go,” he told his companion, and pressed through the small circle and began walking down the street, with Aja in eager pursuit. The night was far advanced, after the time spent in the tavern and the time spent confronting Erwin’s seduction of Aja, and Alec fretted over the time they had lost, time that could have been spent traveling.

  “Aja, I’m going to carry you so that we can travel faster for a few minutes,” he told her. “We ought to get out of the city and into the countryside before we stop for the night.”

  Without comment, Aja let Alec sweep her up into his arms, as he embraced his Warrior energy and his Light energy. He was tired; he could tell he had used his energies for too long during the day of travel, and he knew that he would sleep soundly as soon as they reached a safe place outside the city. Carrying Aja, invisible to those around them, Alec hurried as fast as possible through the nighttime streets, avoiding the few obstacles he found, and then shot through the partially closed gate in the city’s walls on the west side. Within a half mile he felt free of the confinement of the city, as buildings grew less densely packed, and he relaxed as he pushed them on.

  Aja was silent throughout the journey he realized, her head snuggled docilely on his shoulder. Another few minutes brought them past the end of the development around the city, and Alec slowed to a walk, released all his ingenaire energies, then stopped and placed Aja on the ground.

  “We need to find a place to spend the night,” Alec told the girl. “Let’s go up there,” he pointed to a tree-covered hillside nearby. They trudged through the underbrush and found a cluster of rocks where Alec removed his supply sack and unrolled his blankets. He heard Aja rustling behind him, then he lay down to rest, and felt her lay down against him. She was naked, and running her hands against his body. “Aja!” he sat up in surprise. “We can’t do this!”

  “I love you Alec. I want to marry you and be yours forever,” she told him as she began to unbuckle his pants.

  “Stop!” he told her, sitting up and grabbing her hands. “You don’t know what you’re doing. This pendant is enchanting you, making you think you love me. Please put your clothes on,” he insisted.

  “I know what I’m doing. Erwin and I did many things, until he grew tired of me and started liking other women. That’s when I knew I had to leave him one night,” she told Alec. “I can make you feel wonderful.”

  “Aja, listen,” he said sternly. “We are not going to be lovers just because I have an enchanted pendant. You wait right here, and I’ll be back,” he told her. He stood and ran down the hill to a crooked tree that was hollow and next to an empty stream bed. He took the pendant from his pocket and placed it inside the tree, then ran back up the hillside.

  Aja watched him approach. “How do you feel, Aja?” he asked. She had gotten dressed, he noted with relief.

  “I feel, awkward,” she answered. “I’m sorry I acted that way.”

  “You were under an enchantment from a pendant. It makes the man who wears it appear desirable to women, apparently irresistible,” Alec told her, sitting down again and kicking off his boots. He lay back on the ground and adjusted his position to move off a sharp stone.

  “You have an incredible voice, you know,” he told her. “You’ve really got an enchantment all your own.” He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Good night, Aja,” he mumbled, then drifted off to sleep, leaving the troubled girl to ponder what had been done to her.

  Chapter 8 – Aja’s Daylight

  Alec awoke to the touch of Aja’s fingers poking him in the ribs. Her feet were already atop her canvas rooting bag. “Good morning, Alec,” she said softly, and then transformed into her arboreal form.

  The change occurred so swiftly that Alec wasn’t sure he had really even seen Aja’s face before she had transformed. There had been no time for morning chit chat, and he felt cheated by the loss.

  He still felt weary as well. After the long day of using his energies to reach and get through Moriadoc, Alec felt sluggish. He packed up his supplies, ate a brief breakfast of dried fruits, then, ambled down the hillside and grabbed the enchanted pendant out of the hollow tree before returning to the dimly lit road and starting to walk westward.

  There were mountains not far ahead. The hill he had slept on, and the surrounding hills, were the out flung beginnings of the chain of stony sentinels that soared high above the vast plain of the Twenty Cities. Alec started walking, looking up at the mountain chain that reared its peaks far above him. The road towards Boundary Lake was likely to climb a considerable amount of altitude, and the Warrior kidnappers would presumably be slowed down as they dealt with their large collection of captives and hired helpers during their journey. Andi would be slowed down as well, needing to slow down for Amane. That meant that he had a real opportunity to catch up with all of them in the mountains.

  He did not know how far away Boundary Lake was, he realized. The journey had been described as a week on horseback by the officer he had talked to, but Alec didn’t know if the officer knew what he was saying. It had to be at least five days, possibly as long as nine, he decided. And he wanted to rest for a day, to be better prepared to fight when he did meet the Warriors. But if the mountains were the place he could best catch up with the kidnappers, maybe he ought to exert himself to find them, then rest when he caught up; he told himself that once he had them in his sight he could follow them surreptitiously, for they would not be traveling at any accelerated rate at that point. It would also give him a better chance to catch Andi and rendezvous with her before confronting the Ingenairii as well.

  With a deep breath, he engaged his Warrior powers, and began again to run at a speed that transcended the ability of any person not endowed with extraordinary abilities. During the course of the morning, Alec passed through five small villages and completed the passage of the foothills. At noon he slowed down to a walk as the roadway began to climb more steeply amidst the increasingly stony landscape. He ate more dried fruit, and stopped to pick a patch of wild greens he saw growing along the side of the road, one that he knew was edible and tasty.

  As he squatted by the patch of green and ate, an elderly man driving a flock of goats came down the road towards him. “Not many of the youngsters will eat the rocky climbers,” the goatherd commented on the plants Alec was chewing.

  “It’s good to eat, doesn’t cost anything, and it’s right here,” Alec smiled at the old man. “Why not eat it?”

  “That’s what we old folks say!” the man answered with a toothless grin. “It’s what our parents said to us, but now the young people, they say they know better.”

  “Someday they’ll be the old ones shaking their heads, eh?” Alec smiled, then went on his way uphill, resuming the use of his energy to climb the route along the east face of the mountains. All during the afternoon he had an open view of the distant terrain on his right as he ascended, and he looked out over the vast plain of ranches and farmla
nds that spread out towards the Twenty Cities.

  Half an hour before sunset he reached a wide plateau, where a sizable village was situated at the mouth of a pass, and Alec decided to spend the night in the village. He found three taverns with rooms and stables, a sign that many travelers spent the night at that location. All three had full stables, and so Alec spent time at each tavern, asking if his traveling companion would be allowed to sing as the evening’s entertainment in return for a room and a meal. Two said no, but the third manager said he wanted to see and hear the girl for himself to decide.

  Alec left the inn with a promise to bring the girl back. He barely had time to get into the corner of the stableyard and unload his tree before the sunlight disappeared from the sky and Aja reappeared. She performed her luxurious stretch, rotated her head from side to side, then looked at Alec. Her eyes narrowed speculatively, and Alec realized that he carried the enchanted pendant in his pocket.

  “Aja, I want you to wait right here,” he commanded. “Will you stay right here until I return?” he asked.

  “My lord, I’ll stay here as long as I can, but then I’ll come in search of you,” she replied.

  Alec ran to the stable, and stashed the pendant behind a beam in the floor of the hayloft, then returned to Aja.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t think to lose that sooner,” Alec told her. He opened his arms and gave her a hug of friendship.

  “What has happened today? Where are we?” Aja asked.

  Alec led her to the front of the inn and showed her the view of the wide valley far below. “We’ve climbed up into the mountains,” he told her. “We’re going to spend the night in this inn, if it’s okay with you. But the catch is, you will have to sing for our supper and room, if that’s not too heavy an obligation for you?” he grinned.

  “Really? You need me to sing tonight?” Aja asked with a laugh. “Because I was going to offer to take the night off from singing if it would help you travel farther tonight.”

  Alec’s smile disappeared, until Aja laughed. “I’m teasing you, Alec,” she reached out and ruffled his hair.

  Alec smiled again, glad to see her personality on display. “Let’s go in and introduce you to the innkeeper,” he proposed, and minutes later a corner of the tavern room was converted to become the performance stage from which Aja could sing her repertoire of music. Alec was given a seat next to her, and she incorporated him into her singing act, making him clap the beat for her livelier tunes. She introduced him to the crowd as Alec, then changed her song about the terrible apprentice to name the apprentice character as Alec, and shook her finger at him angrily with every chorus she sang, causing her audience to roar Alec’s name in laughing disapproval.

  They stayed in the main room of the tavern until late at night, and then finally went upstairs to their room. “I could do that with you the rest of our lives! Wasn’t that fun, Alec?” Aja gleefully asked as they opened the door to their room and went inside.

  “When I was a boy I worked in a carnival, and the entertainers always enjoyed a good show,” he replied. “And tonight you put on a good show for the folks here. Where did you ever learn so many songs?”

  “Erwin made me work for a living to earn money for him for many months, the first time I passed through Moriadoc,” she replied. “And so I had a lot of time to learn the songs the patrons and the tavern owners wanted played. I learned to feel what a crowd wanted to hear, and now I just play the songs that are right for the mood.

  “What was your carnival?” she asked. She sat down on the narrow bed, next to Alec as he took his boots off, for the only other piece of furniture in their tiny cubby was a rickety chair.

  And so he told her. He told her about Richard the owner, and Jonso the clown, and Arthur the weightlifter. He told her stories about Natalie and the dancing girls, and how they all packed up and rode from city to city. He leaned back and laid on the bed, and as she listened, Aja laid back with him and snuggled in the crook of his arm, asking questions and listening to stories about entertainment and the business of entertainment much later into the night than Alec expected.

  “I have to get some sleep,” he told her at last, as he yawned. “I’m sorry to leave you like this.”

  “You have been fabulous tonight, Alec,” she told him with a profound smile. “Go to sleep now,” and he soon began to breathe the regular rhythm of a sleeper as she lay on the bed against him, sharing his body heat and replaying the memories in her head of the laughter and the clapping and the celebration by the crowd in the tavern.

  Aja awoke Alec just a few short hours later, well before sunrise.

  “I feel the sunrise will come soon, and I didn’t think I should revert to my other shape here in the inn, in case anyone asks you where I am,” she explained as Alec blinked his eyes.

  He concluded her logic was sound, and slowly packed his supplies in his sack, then the two of them headed out the door and downstairs.

  “Hey!” a voice called, and Alec saw a sleepy clerk at the front desk motion. “The master was sure you’d sleep in late this morning, so he expected to see you himself, but he told me to give you this in case you got out the door before he told you what a fine job you did last night,” the boy tossed a small bag of coins to Alec and Aja.

  “Wait here just a moment,” Alec told Aja when they went outside. He ran to the stables and retrieved the pendant once again, and as he returned to Aja he saw her change into her daylight tree form, as the edge of the sun’s disk came blazing above the eastern horizon.

  With a sigh he strapped his passenger on his back then began to trudge up the trail that climbed straight west towards the mountain pass behind the village, and realized that he sincerely wished he could enjoy Aja’s lively company and her wonder at the world as he walked the mountain path. Alec felt tired; he made a conscious decision to travel only on his own powers that day, and focused on rhythmically lifting each foot to keep moving forward. Clouds began to move in from the west, and less than an hour after he left the inn, Alec felt drops of rain sharply strike his face. Despite the temptation to make his journey more comfortable, Alec resisted the temptation to use his energies to shield himself from the rain, stubbornly deciding to make it through the day without the use of energy.

  And so it was in that state of mind during the late afternoon that he walked through a curving pass in the mountains, tired and cold, wiping the rain out of his eyes, when an arrow pierced his shoulder. He let out a cry and fell to his knees. The arrow wound was shallow, and a tug revealed that it was not barbed. He stifled another cry as he pulled the arrow free and threw it away. He heard the sounds of footsteps nearby and rose to his feet and pulled his sword out of its scabbard.

  Four men were upon him at that moment, swinging their swords and axes fiercely at him.

  Alec called upon his Warrior powers and swung his sword in a wide sweep behind him, slicing across the man who was closest to him. He dodged into the open space created as that man fell, then threw his sword at a second man, while picking up the axe of the first man he’d engaged.

  That’s when he felt the pressure of something making solid contact behind him and he swung around, his legs sweeping the feet out from underneath another assailant, who Alec kicked hard in the groin. He rose to his feet, and saw only one man standing; Alec ran at the man and kicked hard, landing his heel in the man’s neck.

  As he landed he looked around at the small battleground. All four men were on the ground; two dead, two injured. Alec released his energy, then used his Healer energy to remove the pain the arrow had inflicted in his shoulder. He went to the bodies of the men he had killed, and removed a bandolier of knives from one, while taking a bow and arrows from the other. With his new arsenal in his hands, Alec walked for several minutes to get away from the bandits, then stopped again. He needed to put the bandolier over his shoulder, which required rearranging his supply sack and Aja first.

  When he lifted the load off his back, Alec stopped and took a deep breat
h. There was a long gash in Aja’s trunk; Alec had no idea of how a wound to the tree would translate into an effect on the flesh of the woman when sundown came. He decided to prepare for the worst, and packed himself up, then began looking for a sheltered gulley off the mountain road.

  When he found a suitable location away from the road, Alec seized his Stone energies, and slowly parted the rocky cliff side of the gulley to create a cave that was deep enough that wind would not swirl into it. Alec unloaded all his cargo within the cave (except the pendant, which he left outside), then went back out and chopped several branches off fir trees to serve as bedding for the night.

  With the bedding providing a pleasant fragrance inside the new cave, Alec used his Light energy to warm several stones within the shelter, as he had done on so many occasions during the trip through the eastern mountains. The last step he took came as he judged Aja’s transformation was about to occur; he removed his shirt, and held a knife blade against his arm, prepared for the potential need to heal the worst type of wounds that might have been inflicted on Aja, then stared at the small tree that was laid flat on the floor next to him, and waited.

  The seconds seemed to each take an eternity and then the change occurred, as quickly as usual. But this time, instead of the silent, languid stretching with which Aja always returned to her body, she arrived screaming and writhing in pain. There was a long, deadly slice up and down her torso, starting at her hip and crossing her stomach and chest with deep and surgical penetration, then ending where it opened the flesh of her breast.