Jed entered the caves in a gloomy mood, no closer to a solution for his problem than when he had set his mind to work figuring one out. Wrapping his bearskin around his head and shoulders for protection against the coldness of the cave he seated himself by the fire and listened to the stories the Noragin women were telling the children. Something he heard gave him a glimmer of hope. An ancient woman was recalling the days of the Great Trek. She had been a young woman at the time she claimed, but her memories of it were still as vivid as if they had only happened yesterday.
Amora leaned over to whisper in his ear. “It is said she is over nine hundred years old.”
Jed didn’t have any trouble believing it. The old crone looked like she was up from the grave on a day trip. He didn’t doubt she had been on the great trek either assuming that it was shortly after the small band of Vikings had come in through the North Polar opening and travelled their way here. The time frame fitted perfectly.
“We were travelling through mountains far from here when we came upon an enormous glittering dome made of glass,” the old girl said. “It was all the colors you could imagine and then some.”
Made of glass, Jed tried to work out what the substance could be. Obviously it couldn’t have been glass or being so large it wouldn’t have stood up to the elements. But it must have looked sufficiently like it for the old women to describe it so.
“I was frightened by it,” she confessed, “for it seemed to give off a certain power that left us all in awe of it.”
A log crackled on the fire sending a cascade of sparks cavorting upwards, the children watching them slowly descend as if they were tiny fairies come to hear the old lady speak.
“The men were all for going inside to see what it was. I was glad to stay safely outside with my mother.” She shifted her crippled body to a new spot on the log she sat on in an attempt to get more comfortable. “They were gone for two whole days.”
Even though the children had heard the story many times before there was still an audible gasp.
“What did you do?” a little girl asked.
“There was nothing we could do but wait. When our men finally did come back they amazed us with stories of what they had seen.”
“She tells some wonderful tales,” Amora whispered, resting her head on Jed’s shoulder.
“Is that all they are,” Jed whispered back, “just tales?”
Amora smiled sweetly. “What else can they be? You listen and judge for yourself if such things could really exist.”
Jed leaned in a little closer so he wouldn’t miss a single word the old girl uttered.
“When they entered the dome they were greeted by a strange race of men who made the tallest Noragin seem like a midget.” Someone handed her a cup of wine, and taking it in both hands she began to drain its contents. “They took our men deep into the dome,” she said, placing the half drained cup on the log beside her. “Through vegetable gardens not lit by the sun but by strange lights hung from the ceiling. Then through rooms that had boxes which contained moving pictures of men who spoke, and even a big room that had noisy metal monsters that the strange men said made the lights work and also heated the dome.”
Jed considered what she had just told them. The gardens were artificially lit greenhouses; the talking boxes must be computers, and the noisy monsters the engine room that powered the domed city.
“They told our men that the city was called Chantros, and that they had lived there for many thousands of years.” She stopped to take another sip from the cup. “They even showed our people a mighty weapon they said could defeat any army that came against them.”
Jed’s ears pricked up. A mighty weapon…what kind of a weapon?
“It was a metal box,” she said, as if answering his unspoken question. “It could shoot out a wide beam of light, and with it they could tell the outcome of a battle. If they began to lose the battle they fired the beam of light and it would take them back to the start of the fight. From there they would try a different tactic until they found one that worked and had won them the battle.”
It sounded incredible to Jed’s ears. Could such a weapon actually exist? Could you rewind history after every battle until you found a tactic that would defeat your enemy? It didn’t seem possible, and yet, to Amora the computer sounded impossible, to him it was just the norm. So what was stopping there from being technology in those far off mountains that was more advanced than anything he had ever experienced?
“There were many other wonderful things our men were shown,” she concluded. “Then they were given food for our journey and escorted peacefully from the domed city.”
Jed couldn’t sleep that night for thinking about what the old woman had said. Amora assured him it was only a tale to amuse the children and that the story teller should not be taken seriously. But he wasn’t convinced. There was something about the way she had told her story that led him to believe she meant every word of it.
So what if this weapon really did exist? Was it the miracle he was looking for to defeat Montrose? How could he sleep with this possibility hanging over him? Leaving his mattress he ventured out to the cave entrance for some fresh air and to find some answers to his questions. He wondered if there was anyone still alive who knew the way to this Chantros. It might be a long shot but what did he have to lose? Unless he came up with something pretty special and real soon then Montrose was going to either kill or enslave them all. If there was a unique weapon at Chantros then he had everything to gain by travelling there.
He carefully considered what the old woman had said. A metal box that shot out a beam of light was what she had said. That light somehow rewound an event until it hadn’t yet happened. It sounded like something out of a science fiction movie, only, it wasn’t. Jed already knew these people lived longer because the speed of light travelled faster here inside the earth. What if the people of Chantros had stumbled upon a way of cranking up the speed of light to unbelievable proportions? Would they now be able to rewind an event? This was crossing over into the realms of quantum physics, and as much as he wished he had the intellect to grasp it he knew he couldn’t quite.
A pair of feminine arms slid suddenly around his waist as Amora snuggled her body into his back. “Can you not sleep?” she asked softly.
He placed his big hands over hers. “I keep thinking about this…Chantros.”
“I wouldn’t think too long on it. I’ve been to those mountains when I was a girl with my father but we never saw a domed city.”
He spun around to face her. “You’ve been there?”
“When my father was alive he took me there a few times to dig for ore to smelt. He was a master sword maker,” she said proudly.
“Could you find your way back there?”
“It is a very long and dangerous journey,” she said suspiciously. “Jed, you aren’t actually thinking of going there are you?”
“If Chantros has a special weapon then it might just be what we need to free ourselves from Montrose.”
“They are just fairy tales to entertain children,” she insisted. “Do they not have such tales where you come from?”
“Yes, they do, and they are usually based on fact, even if they have become distorted with the telling.”
She sighed. “Well, I can promise you this one has become much distorted with the telling.”
“Can you find these mountains?”
“Jed, it’s not worth it.”
He placed his hand gently against her cheek. “Amora, please do this for me.”
She looked deeply into his imploring eyes. “All right, Jed,” she said lovingly, “I will take you.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I’m coming with you and that’s an end to it,” Rex said defiantly.
Jed shed a sigh of defeat. “Okay, Rex, if you’re sure your shoulder is up to it. Just bear in mind that it’s a long hard slog to those mountains.”
“I’m an adventurer, pal,” Rex said, excitement sparkl
ing in his clear blue eyes. “That’s what I live for, and I’ve done precious little of it since I’ve been in this unexplored world.”
“It’ll just be Amora, you and Jonathon coming with me. I’m hoping a party that small will slip past Montrose’s patrols undetected.”
“A domed city huh,” Rex was sporting a grin that stretched from ear to ear, “that I just gotta see.”
They passed out of the community later that evening, the hope being that the dimmer light of night would give them some cover from Montrose’s prying eyes. Amora had said it was a journey of at least two weeks, so that meant a round trip of a month. Jed just hoped that they had that much time left before Montrose sniffed out the caves and put an end to everything.
Amora would stick close to him on this journey; he had no doubt about that. Since he had given her the ring they had been the talk of the community, and she had relished every second of it. He had watched her when she didn’t know he was looking, proudly showing the ring off to the other women and giggling excitedly with them. She was like a little girl in some ways, especially when she got excited about something. So different to Cassie, an ice maiden, that was what Cassie was. Displaying a girlish side was just not something Cassie would do. For her it was imperative she maintain an air of dignity, or at least that was what she used to tell him whenever he suggested she let her hair down and have some fun.
Amora was wholesome, and not that boring stick in the mud type of wholesome that some girls were. She was a refreshing kind of wholesome. She knew when to laugh, when to cry, when to have fun, and when to take things seriously. She was all the things a man prized in a woman rolled up into one delectable package, and right now she was wearing his defenses down. He knew that before this mission to Chantros was over she would own his heart totally, and that scared him almost as much as the possibility of discovering that Chantros did not exist.
Amora wasn’t his only problem however, just getting to Chantros was going to be a problem in itself. Amora’s assessment of the places they would have to pass through on their way to Chantros left him feeling more than a little uncomfortable. A land teeming with prehistoric monsters that Amora couldn’t even bring herself to describe to him, and then there was the so called Forbidden Lands where goodness knows what lay lurking just waiting to pounce on the unwary traveler. He didn’t much like the sound of either of them, and with places like these on the agenda Rex was definitely going to experience all the adventure he craved.
Before the early hours of the morning they had reached the range of mountains that Jed had often noticed while sitting on the flat rock above the village. Being honey-combed with caves they found no trouble finding suitable accommodation and made preparations to settle down until the dawn.
Amora brushed past him carrying an armload of soft fern as he was kindling the fire. “I’ve collected fern for our bed,” she said breezily.
Alarm bells started ringing in his head. “Our bed?” he questioned her, looking up into her blue eyes in surprise.
She took the ring she wore around her neck between thumb and forefinger and turned it toward him. “I am yours now,” she said firmly.
He straightened up immediately.
“Amora, we aren’t married yet. I can’t lie with you in that way.”
“We will be married soon.”
“But until then we must sleep apart, Amora. I promised Erik I wouldn’t touch you until we are married.”
“Erik…Erik…Erik… he doesn’t own me, Jed. I can give myself to any man I choose to give myself to.”
Her sudden outburst shocked him. He had never seen her lose her temper before, and although it wasn’t a screaming fit like Cassie would have, for she had been in total control throughout, the tone of her voice and the fire in her eyes had betrayed the fact that she was angry.
He must tread carefully here. This had the potential to spill over into something nasty. “I’m proud it is me you have chosen to give yourself to,” he said truthfully, “but I have made a promise to Erik and I would be a dishonorable man if I were to break it.”
Her eyes locked onto his and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Was she going to accept this from him or was she going to do a Cassie?
“All right, Jed,” she said calmly, “you keep your honor. But we will be sleeping next to each other tonight, and every night from now on.” She left before he could think of a suitable reason why they shouldn’t sleep beside each other.
Later, as she snuggled in close he offered no objection despite the effect her well formed body was having on his. How much longer he could resist her charms he didn’t know, but if she kept this up for the duration of the trip he doubted he would be keeping his promise to Erik.
“I’m missing Frida already,” Rex moaned, as they picked their way up and over the mountain range. “Just seeing you and Amora cuddling up together last night nearly had me packing up and heading back to her.”
“We’ll only be gone a month,” Jed said optimistically. “There’ll be plenty of time for you to get reacquainted when we get back.”
“I’ll say there will be,” Rex said happily. “I asked her old man for her hand in marriage before we left.” The twinkle in his eye was unmistakable. “He said yes, so you’ll be attending a wedding when we get back.”
Jed stopped dead in his tracks. “Why haven’t you told me about this?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“And have you informed Jonathon of this development yet?”
“I’ve known about it for days,” Jonathon said, as he carefully picked his way past the pair.
Jed turned his full attention back to Rex. “So you tell Jonathon of your marriage plans but you don’t tell me?”
“He didn’t need to tell me,” Jonathon said, “it was obvious where he and Frida were heading.”
“I suppose you’re marrying Anna when you get back too,” Jed said sarcastically.
Jonathon slipped his thin frame over a jagged boulder. “Well, yes actually. Anna and Frida decided they’d like a double wedding.”
“Aw come on,” Jed blurted out angrily. “Why am I the last to find out about this?”
“Because you’re blind to what’s going on under your own nose. For crying out loud, Jed, you can’t even see what’s going on with you and Amora.”
Jed’s eyes fired pure daggers at Jonathon. “I know perfectly well what’s going on with Amora.” He glanced down the slope to where the shapely blonde was blazing a trail amongst the debris of rocks. “That’s why I’m playing it cool with her.”
Jonathon clambered back over the rock he had just slipped over and stood right in front of Jed. “Why on earth would you want to play it cool with her,” he said seriously. “Why would any man want to play it cool with an angel like that?”
“Cassie,” Rex said quietly to Jonathon.
Jed instantly rounded on him. “It’s got nothing to do with Cassie.”
“You do get very defensive when we mention her name.”
“Look,” Jed was making a concerted effort to calm himself down, “if we marry these women then we can’t just leave them when we discover a way of getting back home, and we can’t take them with us. Even if they did survive the journey they’d never adapt to our modern way of living. They’d hate New York, so what right would we have to do that to them.”
Jonathon huffed. “Who said anything about going back to New York?”
Jed stared at him. “Are you telling me you’ve got no intention of even trying to find a way home?”
“Why would I even want to?”
“So are you interested in finding a way home, Rex?”
Rex looked at Jonathon and then back at Jed. “Not really.”
Jed placed both his hands together on the top of his head and drew a deep breath. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this, we’re explorers not settlers.”
“And what do you think we’re doing now?” Jonathon asked. “We’ve got the best of both worlds. Three bea
utiful women who adore us and an unexplored world that probably runs all the way to the North Polar entrance. Even if we do live another six hundred years we’ll never be able to explore it all. There’s nothing left to explore back home, it’s here that we belong.”
“I’m not listening to any more of this,” Jed said, half stumbling, half heaving his torso over the same rock Jonathon had just come over.
“What are you afraid of, Jed,” Jonathon yelled after him, “being happy… because that’s the worst that’ll happen to you if you stay here?”
“Ignorant fool,” Jed muttered under his breath as he quickened his pace. “He’s just bowling ahead with this without giving it any serious thought.”
A low rumble sounded from somewhere deep beneath his feet, followed by a sudden and violent shaking.
“Earthquake,” Rex shouted. “Take cover.”
Jed looked back up the slope in time to see a gigantic boulder careering down the slope towards him. “Look out, Amora,” he screamed, just seconds before diving out of its thunderous path. By the time he had picked himself up there was no sign of either Amora or the boulder.
“Where is she?” Rex demanded as he scrambled down to join him.
“I don’t know, I took my eyes off her for a second and when I looked back she was gone.” He knew the pair was thinking the boulder had run right over the top of her, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that. “I’ll go find her,” he said suddenly.
The Reluctant Warrior Page 13
