Alec the Wanderer: Generations of Eredwynn #4

by Daniel B. Harris

  “What the hell are you doing, you frigging idiot! What if it hadn’t worked? You coulda killed me!”

  I laughed. “That was the about the weakest spell there is. If it had gone through your shield, it would have hurt, and I would have felt terrible. Your magic, my magic or Carol’s magic would have had you healed before you could call me an idiot. I’m sorry, please forgive me for alarming you.”

  “I’m sorry too, I know you’d never do anything to hurt me, when you’re thinking with your big head. It just startled me, but now I know it works and won’t whine about it.”

  I smiled and with an amused shake of my head, took the lead. Carol and the girls followed along, chatting about magic and trying simple spells. I knew that I’d have to spoil the fun when we got close to a city or a road with noisy, speeding cars. For now I just listened to the happy noises of a Stephenson wife with her Consorts.

  We continued on our eastward track until noon and the girls had me stop for lunch. I gathered firewood and the sisters started a fire that was almost a forest fire before they gained control of the magic again. It was quite a bit more powerful than they expected it to be. Which only excited them into wanting to learn more.

  After we ate, we extinguished the fire and continued on. Four hours later, we broke free of the forest and ran across a road. The road curved almost due east, so I decided to follow it. Barbara tried to tell me that it wasn’t a road, but just a dusty trail in the middle of nowhere. But I could see wagon tracks, so I knew it was used on occasion. If nothing else, it would lead to a farm or ranch were we could ask directions. I had figured out that we were a long way from Vegas, but where, exactly, none of us could guess.

  We walked on until dusk and it was time to stop. We cleared the road, as was my habit, and made a camp site. Carol cast back to the forest with the girls in tow, and ported an old dead tree near our camp. She took the girls and instructed them on how to use their telekinetic skill to cut the tree into usable logs. The girls were slightly frustrated that they had to be hobbled to each other, but Carol reminded them that Davie said it was only temporary. As they became used to the skill, they worked opposite ends of the log and met in the middle. They piled it and floated it in a stack near the fire pit, set some to be burned and ignited it. The fire-starting went much more smoothly than it had at noon. They were learning control as rapidly as Carol had with her elemental magic, and it made me happy for them.

  I put up the large tent while they cooked. We wouldn’t need the little one, as far as I was concerned, but had brought it in case. They fixed a nice dinner but informed me that we’d only have enough rations for the next four or five days, unless we found a town or I went hunting for real.

  We ate, cleaned up and undressed for bed. Surrounded by soft skin and pretty eyes, I slept under our warmed dome shield like a baby.

  Bright and early the next morning, we rolled out. I packed up the bedrolls and sleeping bags that had been used for pillows. I’d just finished with the tent when breakfast was ready. We ate, cleaned up and hit the road once again. Just before noon, we encountered a traveler in a wagon, loaded with what appeared to be all of his belongings.

  When he was within twenty yards, I hailed him. “Good noontide to you, sir. Could you tell us the name and distance to the next town?”

  He looked at us like we’d lost our minds. “Aye, the next town is Amiens, less than half a day ahead, but ya don’ wanna be goin’ in there. The town is done for. I don’t reckon Jesus his self could save ‘um now.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was telling me. “Done for, you say? How so?”

  “They all got the sickness. Ya know, the one that eats you alive and makes the black sores, what some call ‘buboes’. It’s the plague, son, and you’d do well to get your lady friends clear of it.”

  Amanda stepped forward. “Excuse me, mister, but we’ve been traveling a very long time. Could you remind me of the year?”

  He was sure we’d lost our minds now. “Perhaps y’all already have the sickness and that’s what wrong wit cha. It’s the year of our Lord thirteen hundred and forty-nine! Now it’s time for me to move along, and if you’re smart, y’all will do the same!”

  The man passed us and Amanda dropped to her knees with her face in her hands. We all gathered around her, concerned and a bit frightened by her sobs. When Carol and Barb had comforted her enough, she took a deep breath and informed us of our plight.

  “The year the man told us was near the height of the Black Plague that we were talking about with the King at dinner! The town that he mentioned was practically annihilated. We can’t be here, Alec, we just can’t!”

  I nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly, “You’re right, of course. What I suggest is that we continue on to this town. Remember what you and my father were saying about saving people? Our magic will protect and cure us and our shields should help protect us, too. Then we’ll leave first thing tomorrow.”

  Carol shrugged. “I guess it is helping people that we set out to do. These certainly weren’t the people that we had in mind, but we might be able to help. But I want to know how we ended up in the past, and I want to get out of here shortly after sunrise.”

  I replied slowly, “I think I might know how were got here, and I’m afraid it’s all my fault. I listened to Amanda and Father talking about this time period in their history and about the plague. I even dreamed of giant fleas the last night before we left. The thoughts were still fresh in my mind when I cast for the circle and the magic must have been confused by them. That’s why we were taken so far out of Eredwynn and into the Elven Forest, where nature magic is the most powerful. It needed the boost to send us back in their time.”

  Carol sighed and shook her head. “As we’ve been told and all have recently seen, accidents can and do happen with magic. We’ll just have to live with this one for a short time, until we can locate a ring out of here. I’m sure Amanda will agree, the sooner the better.”

  Amanda nodded her wholehearted agreement, and we continued on toward the suffering town of Amiens. An hour before dusk, we passed the sign announcing we’d arrived.

  As we walked into town, we could hear a hand bell ringing and a voice calling out. We couldn’t make out what the caller was saying, and so I made for his location. As we walked, I freed my enchanted dagger from my pack, and strapped it to my waist. I wasn’t sure what I was walking into and needed to refrain from using magic, if at all possible.

  As we caught up with the caller, we could finally make out his cry of ‘bring out your dead!’ I looked at Amanda and she had tears streaming down her cheeks, as if living a nightmare. Barb and Carol were on either side of her for comfort and support. As we approached, men carried two bodies, wrapped in sheets, from the house they’d stopped in front of. They tossed them into the wagon as if they were tossing bags of flour.

  The man with the bell noticed me and called, “Would ya happen to be lookin’ for work, lad? You look strong and healthy enough.”

  I shook my head. “No sir. We were just passing through and hadn’t planned on staying.”

  “Well, that’s a shame. It’s a fairly easy job and pays darn good too. Ya see, the way the boys and I figure it, the dead ain’t got no use for their gold and silver no more.” His boys showed up at the door with a couple of young girls, twins by the look of them, and shooed them down the stairs. The man sighed. “Now this part of the job I’ll never get used to.” He walked toward the girls, drawing his sword.

  I yelled, “HOLD! What are you intentions toward those girls?”

  He shrugged. “We just tossed their ma and pa in the wagon, so they ain’t got nobody. They’re starting to show signs of the sickness, so they’d join ‘um by week’s end anyway. It’s just a mercy killin’.”

  I shook my head and signaled Carol and the sisters to collect the girls. I walked close to the man and spoke quietly, “We’ll take them with us, feed and calm them. If they get to where they’re in pain, I’ll finish it myself.” I tapped the
dagger on my hip meaningfully.

  He nodded, accepting my plan. “Then you need to get them, your lady friends and yourself outta this town, afore y’all catch this for your own selves.”

  I gave a slight bow and signaled for my party to head back out the way we’d come in. I needed to get them out of there quickly, because the sisters were starting to flicker with blue flame and there were very noticeable sparks in Carol’s eyes. The man’s suggestion of a mercy killing had not gone over well with them at all. And the idea of killing two helpless ten year olds had almost caused another magical accident. One we could ill afford while we were looking for our route back home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A mile outside of town, we set up camp once again. Carol took care of firewood duty while Barb and Amanda made the girls comfortable. As soon as a dead tree appeared out of nowhere, the girls forgot about their aches and pains. They went to Carol and watched in fascination as she cut up the logs and prepared the campfire. She passed the magical chores off to the sisters, who lit the fire like old pros.

  One of the girls tugged at Carol’s dress. “Ma’am, are you a witch?” Amanda began shaking her head so hard I thought she’d hurt herself.

  Carol answered, “No sweetie, some call me a Sorceress, but you can just all me Carol. These young ladies are Barbara and Amanda, and this is my husband, Alec.”

  The girl curtsied slightly. “My name is Mary and this is my twin sister Martha. We’re ten and those men said our mom and dad died. What’s gonna happen to us now?”

  Carol looked at me pleadingly, causing my heart and resolve to melt simultaneously. I nodded and she smiled at the girls. “We could take you somewhere, if you have family that you could stay with.” The girls stared at the ground and shook their heads. “Or we could keep you with us and you could be part of our family.”

  The girls faces lit up though the pain and fever that was building. Martha smiled and asked, “We’re strangers to you; why would you just take us in?”

  Carol chuckled. “Because helping people that need help makes me feel good. And I think that if a person is able to help someone in need, they should.”

  Carol got food cooking and called the sisters and me to her. “The girls’ fever is getting worse as the evening approaches. They’ll have a miserable night and they don’t have to. Alec, do you think that our fire sorceresses have progressed enough to attempt healing? Their skill and healing should go hand in hand, I would guess.”

  I looked at girls and they were looking confident and hopeful. “If you two think that you can do it without hurting them, be my guest. You’ll need to learn sooner or later, and sooner works for me. But I do have one question: ‘fire sorceresses?’ Where did you pick that up?”

  She gave the three of us a sheepish look. “Davie said I was a sorceress because I used the magic of the air element. I figured that they use the magic of the fire element, and sorceress sounds nicer than ‘pyromancer’ to me. Besides, if we tell people who we are, they don’t want to be known as the pyromancer sisters! They could simply be sorceresses. If that’s wrong, I won’t use it again.”

  Amanda and Barb looked at me and all I could do was what felt right. “That makes perfect sense to me. So I’m traveling with three sorceresses. But I noticed that Amanda almost shook her head off when Mary asked if she was a witch. What was that about?”

  Amanda became serious very quickly, which got our attention. “In this time and place, if they even thought you had special powers like the four of us have, they would kill you. They were quite creative about the ways that they would kill anyone they suspected of ‘witchcraft’. Especially around anyone that had anything to do with ‘the church’.”

  I had no clue what she was talking about. “The church? What is that? Is it the government here or a powerful cult of some sort?”

  Amanda giggled. “Some would call it a cult. I haven’t heard of anything like it in Eredwynn, so it’s hard for me to compare it with something you’d understand. They worship invisible beings called God and Jesus. If you even suggest you don’t believe in them, they will have you tortured and killed. It’s all kinds of complicated and I can’t explain it all.”

  Carol nodded and I could tell she was thinking back. “So that’s why we hear you say, ‘oh my god’, and things like that. Are you from that same cult?”

  Barbara laughed. “Not exactly, it’s just that it’s all mixed up in our society, even in the time we came from. It’s become part of the language.”

  Amanda looked around, then looked back with a grin. We’ll go and heal our new girls. It looks like they’ve about finished cooking.”

  I looked toward the fire and saw that they had dishes laid out and were getting ready to start serving. Having them around might make things easier and they were very friendly. I hurt for them because they had just lost everything they knew and their family. I knew that there would be some long nights and plenty of tears as that sank in, but they’d be taken care of. Carol and the sisters were becoming attached very quickly.

  I followed the ladies to the fire and sat out of the way, in a supervisory position. From the way that Carol’s magic had taught her, I felt that the fire element should be similar. They called the girls to them and explained what they were going to do.

  Amanda spoke very gently, “My sister and I would like to try to make you feel better. We’re not sure what will happen, but it will either be pretty or you might not see anything at all. We’re really new to doing this, but you shouldn’t worry. Carol and Alec are really good at it and can help if anything comes up.”

  Mary looked concerned. “You ain’t gonna be usin’ witchcraft on us, are ya? We dinna get takin’ in by some witch’s coven or somethin’, did we?”

  Amanda shook her head. “It’s true that we can do things that other people can’t, but that doesn’t make us witches. For one thing, witches are evil and mean creatures, right? And you don’t think that any of us are evil or mean, do you?”

  Martha shook her head. “She’s just being silly ‘cause the church said ya can’t let a witch live. You folks are too nice to have had anything to do with the Devil.”

  Barbara giggled. “I was sure we’d met the Devil once, but he just turned out to be a guy named Grady. Carol and Alec saved us from him and are teaching us to help people live better. So, are you two ready for this?”

  The twins nodded nervously, Carol and I paid more attention and the sisters took their hands. They joined hands themselves and began to focus. From the middle of their chests blue flames appeared and began traveling down their arms to the infected girls. They watched with wide-eyed fascination and fear as the flames touched their hands and caused a blue glow to spread up their arms and disappear under their clothing. The fear faded when the fire didn’t burn, and the glow brought titters of giddy happiness and awe as the fever left them. The black patches and swelling that was just beginning disappeared, and whole, healthy skin was left behind.

  As the glow began to fade, the sisters opened their eyes and were met with two huge hugs from two very happy girls. The sisters told the twins that they were happy that they were able to help them. They turned and grinned at Carol and me, who were grinning back at them.

  Amanda suddenly got a strange look on her face and walked over to me. “Alec, the twins are speaking English! How can that be? That’s not the language that people spoke over here. In fact, the guy on the wagon and the caller in town were all speaking English.”

  I shrugged. “There must be some kind of magical influence at work that’s making us be able to communicate. In all my years of using magic, I’ve learned never to second guess it or think that I know it all. Davie always says that he could spend two lifetimes studying with the centaurs and not know everything they know about it.”

  She nodded, accepting my answer. I ate quickly and began setting up the tents. As I started to set up the second, smaller tent, Mary came over to me. “Sir, are Martha and I going to be sleeping in this small tent
?”

  “I do believe that is the plan, hun. You don’t have to call me ‘sir’. I like to be called Alec by all my lady friends.”

  She giggled. “I ain’t a lady, and won’t even be a women for a few more years! But if you’d like to be called Alec, I’ll try to remember. The reason I was asking about the tent is we’d like it to be really close to yours, if ya don’t mind.”

  I smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll put it just as close as I can, but you don’t need to be afraid. Healing isn’t the only thing that the four of us can do. I’ll put up a protective shield over our camp that will keep out anything that might think that a girl would be a tasty snack. Just don’t leave the campsite without waking me; you might have some trouble getting back in! If nature calls, just say my name. I’m a very light sleeper.”

  She smiled happily and went back to the others. I finished my chores while they finished theirs. I unrolled and fluffed sleeping bags for the girls’ tent and laid our bedroll blankets out for ours. The sun had set and darkness had settled in by the time we had everything ready. The twins hugged everyone goodnight and crawled into their tent. Barbara went to the flap to assist with the sleeping bags, while Carol and Amanda settled into ours. When the girls were squared away, Barbara joined them and I crawled in after. We fell asleep quickly and I kept an ear open for my name.

  The next morning I awoke and began shuffling around in my pack. I wasn’t sure what food items were in what pack, but I was trying to estimate. I’d been taught as a youngster never to look in a lady’s things, so to get a good idea, I’d have to wait until they woke. Since we were going back to Eredwynn today, I wasn’t too worried.

  One thing that had flashed through my mind last night was the possibility that we would change the timeline of the realm if the twins went with us. I quickly put that to rest by determining that they, most likely, would have died if we hadn’t stepped in. So taking them with us to Eredwynn shouldn’t change a thing.