Alec gathered up his bag of goods and ran from the men. He returned to Anna’s apartment, opening the door and stepping in, panting.
“You’re back! Did they let you go?” Anna said in surprise.
“Yes, in a way. Gather up whatever you need or want to save and come with me,” Alec said to her. “They’re going to come looking for me and they’re going to come looking for you and you don’t want them to find you. I’m sorry I’ve brought you this danger. Come with me and I’ll protect you.”
“What did you do?” Anna asked looking at Alec with widened eyes. “Did you kill all those men?”
Alec nodded. “Some I killed, and some I wounded.”
Anna stood and shook her head, began packing a bag of belongings that she handed to Thomis, then packed another for herself to carry. “I’m ready.”
Alec led them down the stairs and in the opposite direction from the square with the carnage. “Is there someplace you can go to stay and no one will give you away, here in the city or maybe in a village elsewhere?”
“Since someone already reported I had no grandson your age, I don’t trust to stay hidden anywhere here in the city very long,” Anna said. “My sister lives in the village of Sundbay. She’d shelter me.”
“Let’s leave the city tonight before the alarm is raised too widely. Lead us to the gate and out of the city,” Alec suggested.
Anna turned right at the next alley and they navigated through the city until they came to the gate, and quietly left the city in the darkness.
“How far to your sister’s village?” Alec asked.
“It’s about three hours,” Anna said with a sigh.
“Can you make it tonight, or should we stop someplace along the way?” Alec asked, as Thomis looked from one to the other.
Anna made it with a steady pace, arriving at Sundbay while the circle stars were still in the sky overhead.
Anna’s sister welcomed her and Thomis, and Alec felt assured of her safety in the small village. He rested for a few short hours, received directions to find the castle where the Prince and his forces were ensconced, far beyond the other side of the city, and left the village to begin his trip through the county, around the city and towards the people he planned to join.
After leaving the cave, Alec had anticipated that his journey through Bondell would be a direct trip to Oyster Bay, and then on to Stronghold. Now in a short period of hours he already had become detoured by an unexpected need. He felt relief in a sense though, that he would have a chance to carry out his duty on behalf of Goldenfields before going further. He knew that beyond this he was abandoning Goldenfields to follow his own destiny, the fate that had been given to him in John Mark’s pool.
Goldenfields was his home now, and as he walked through the evening countryside he wondered when he would be able to return to the duchy, and how he would be received. What if he returned to visit with the new king, he imagined with a slight smile.
As the morning drew closer, Alec began looking for a barn or a woodlot he could fall asleep in. He was now directly east of the city, headed north. A good rest and then a journey for most of the day would take him to the vicinity of the castle at Saltcrust Rocks. Anna had no idea of whether the Oyster Bay forces had a tight siege or only a loose trap ringing the Prince, and Alec had no notion of what he would face, or who he would know, or what the Prince could accomplish.
A ruined cottage in a woody bog provided a place for Alec to curl up under his cloak, and he fell uneasily asleep. At mid-morning he awoke from a light sleep, and noted the thick clouds that were rolling inland from the coast, suggesting rain for the day.
Alec set out walking again, not worried about meeting patrols. Anna’s sister had said that their small village had only been visited once by Oyster Bay forces, indicating how thinly the occupying forces were spread trying to hold the capital as well as capture the Prince.
Only an hour after he started walking, Alec met rainfall. It made the road sticky with mud, and he rued the discomfort that he endured during a slow journey north. He had managed to completely circle around the capital, traveling near the westernmost range of mountains that he had passed through upon his arrival in the city. Alec was now making his way through the open country, where many small farms provided customers for shops in the occasional villages he passed through. Finally, with nightfall coming, rain falling, and Alec unsure of how far he had to travel, he decided to stop in the next small town inn and spend the night in the luxury of a bed. He pulled his stringy, long wet hair into a ponytail and tucked it inside his collar to improve his appearance.
Alec found a tidy building with a candle and harp sign outside in the first settlement he entered after dark. He opened the door and entered, standing inside for a few seconds while the rain water dripped off him. When he looked up he saw the room was empty, with only a serving girl watching him. Her thick dark hair was loosely tied behind her head, clean and shiny.
“Not many people out in this weather, is there?” he asked.
“Not many people out at all since the troubles started,” the girl replied. “We haven’t seen a stranger at all in weeks other than the Oyster patrols that come through. Are you one of them?”
“No, I’m not one of them,” Alec replied with some power in his denial. A noise behind the girl presaged the appearance of the innkeeper.
“Are you looking for a room and a meal?” the man asked. “We don’t have much food to offer with so few folks stopping in, but we’ve got some good warm stew that will sit well on a night like tonight.”
“Well, I’m a healer, and I thought maybe I could trade some healing service in exchange for a meal and a room. I don’t have any money to offer,” Alec admitted.
“A healer? I don’t have any need for a healer,” the man replied.
“Do any of your family members need service?” Alec replied, hopeful that he could manage to acquire the warm bed he so craved.
“Papa, what about Joahn?” the girl asked.
“That’s serious medicine needed, not the works of a tinker wandering the country roads,” the father replied. “He’d be worse than he is right now if a quack got hold of him.”
“What is the problem?” Alec asked. “Let me see your patient and then we can decide whether I’ll earn a night in the stable or the inn.”
“Take a look if you like. Elscene, take him to Joahn’s room and call your mother in,” the man said, wiping his hands on his apron and turning back out of the room.
Alec looked at the girl. She motioned without comment, and Alec followed her through a door under the stairs and down a hallway to the second door on the left. She opened the door without ceremony, and Alec followed her in.
The room was lit only by the candle Elscene was carrying, and the air was warm and stuffy from a fire burning on a small stone hearth. Alec saw a young boy lying in bed, his eyes closed, head back and mouth open, gasping like a fish out of water as he breathed. His arms appeared thin, and his skin very pale.
“How long has he had trouble breathing?” Alec asked Elscene as he approached the boy’s bedside. He was studying the boy without his health vision yet, trying to gather as much information as possible without the miraculous powers.
“When he was very young, about two years old, he breathed some fumes that came from a sulfur spring. My father had gone there to help harvest the sulfur to sell to the traders, and Joahn wandered over to a vent, and fell in. No one noticed he was gone for a while, and when they searched, they found him unconscious and laboring hard to breath,” the girl explained. “He’s not been able to leave this room ever since he was brought back.”
“How is his mind?” Alec asked, as he started to use his vision to deeply examine the boy’s lungs.
“He can speak, and even joke sometimes. He is very sad at times about all that he misses in the world. He mostly sleeps a lot; it takes a great deal for him to just breath, let alone talk,” she answered.
Alec saw the many bed so
res, which he knew he could heal, and the weak muscles, which he knew time would address if Joahn could be given the breathing capacity to move around. The wrecked lungs he looked at made him wince, and caused him to admire the strength of will the boy exercised to hold onto life with so little ability to exchange fresh air for bad.
The healer pondered the most effective way to improve Joahn’s condition. “I have some ideas about how to treat your brother,” Alec told Elscene as he reached over to stroke Joahn’s hair away from his face. “I’d like to look at your greens and spices to see what you’ve got that we could use for him. Would you take me to look through your goods?”
“We’ll need to go to the root cellar,” she told him, and led him back out of the room and down the hall they had come. “Let’s go down these steps instead of through the kitchen, so we don’t bother Papa,” she said as she descended a narrow climb.
Her candle provided the only light as she stood closely by Alec while he searched among the bins and boxes and piles of goods, finding little of what he wanted. “You’ve got a few items we can use. Are there hollyhocks in your garden?” he asked as he considered the items available and a possible cure began to seem feasible. The girl nodded. “And what’s back there?” Alec asked as he strained to discern what was on the ground below the lowest shelf in the back corner.
Elscene lay flat on the ground and Alec crouched closely above her as she tried to reach behind the shelves to pull forward the items Alec spotted. He heard a scrapping sound behind him but concentrated on watching as Elscene moved to stretch herself further and retrieve what looked to Alec like the sweetsnip root that he hoped it was.
Suddenly a tremendous blow to the side of his head sent Alec sprawling across the floor to lie dazed, several feet away from where the innkeeper was reaching down to raise his daughter up. “You say you’re here to heal my son and then I find you hidden in the cellar lying on top of my daughter,” he said with rage, still holding the wooden club he had used to attack Alec.
Alec stood slowly as he placed his right hand against his throbbing head while drawing his sword with his left hand. “No, healer wait! Papa, stop! He was doing nothing and I was trying to get that bag under the shelves.”
“Sweetsnip roots,” Alec said groggily, with a wary eye on the angry father.
“We don’t know yet that it’s sweetsnip,” Elscene replied.
“It is; I know it. It’s what we need,” Alec replied.
“You can’t know that yet,” Elscene said, now looking straight at Alec.
“Get the bag and see,” Alec insisted.
Elscene dropped back down and reached for the bag again, ignoring her father, who was moving from anger to puzzlement at the strange conversation that erupted in the midst of his attack.
“Here papa, take this,” she ordered her father, holding up the bag before she arose from the floor, now covered in dust and dirt from her second time on the ground.
“It is sweetsnip,” the innkeeper said as he opened the bag.
“How did you know?” Elscene said.
Alec shook off her question. “Let’s go upstairs and fix something for your brother,” Alec said, sheathing his sword. He reached out to the innkeeper to take the roots, and as his hand touched the other man’s he felt a sensation of anger and self-loathing. Alec pulled his hand back in shock and dismay, then slowly reached again and placed his hand around the innkeeper’s.
He realized that he was feeling what a Spiritual ingenaire would feel in an act of healing. He saw a strange look come over the face of the innkeeper. “What is your name?” Alec asked within the innkeeper’s mind.
“Who are you?” the innkeeper asked aloud.
“Tell me your name,” Alec mentally coaxed. “I want to tell you something.”
“My name is Lucius,” the innkeeper said aloud again.
“Lucius, your son’s injury is not your fault. You should not feel this guilt. God has a plan and infinite mercy,” Alec began to try to apply healing works to the man’s psyche, feeling clumsy but not sure what to do. Suddenly, almost as if he had physically stumbled into a hole, he found a way to sooth the man’s guilt by removing it.
“God can have no mercy for me. I don’t deserve his mercy. I just want Joahn to live a boy’s life, just the way I did and you did and every other child does,” Lucius said, still speaking out loud.
“What are you talking about Papa?” Elscene asked.
“God’s plan is that I will come here tonight and heal your son and heal you. Your pain must come to an end just as his is about to. I was sent here for both of you,” Alec projected. He reached further into the man’s soul, finding the dark spot where his guilt was festering, and pulled it away from Lucius, then let it dissipate into nothingness in a void that existed around him. He felt pleased with the results of his work, but wasn’t sure he could accomplish it again except by chance.
“Let’s go upstairs and take care of Joahn,” Alec said aloud, releasing the innkeeper’s hand. “Take those roots upstairs. Elscene, take up some of the red leaf cabbage, and get some milk out, and go pick any flower buds your hollyhocks have grown. I’ll grab a couple of other things.”
He lifted an item off a shelf and headed to the stairs, then turned to see that Lucius and Elscene were not following him, but were wrapped in a tight embrace.
Alec went up the stairs alone, and found a woman in the kitchen; her lustrous braided hair was as dark and thick as Elscene’s. “Lucius, where is…excuse me, I’m looking for my family. Who are you?” the woman asked, having mistaken Alec for her husband at first.
“Elscene and her father are down in the cellar. They’ll be up in a minute. Can you get the mortar and pestle for me?” Alec asked.
The woman looked at Alec, and stared at the sword on his hip. “Is everything alright?” she asked, feeling concerned at the unexplained presence of Alec in the inn kitchen.
“Yes, everything is really good, and going to get better, truly,” Alec assured her. “Do you have a mortar?”
“It’s up there,” she indicated, pointing to a high shelf in the kitchen corner.
As Alec went to reach for it, Elscene and then Lucius appeared from the cellar. Elscene slipped out the door to go to the garden.
“Thank goodness you’re here. Do you know this boy?” the wife asked.
“Here are the things you asked for, healer,” Lucius said as he placed the items on the counter.
“He is going to heal Joahn. He is a doctor, Mama,” Elscene replied as she returned with a large handful of green buds.
Alec began to prepare the mixture he needed as the family conversed on the other side of the kitchen. “Bring a jug of boiling water and a bowl and let’s go up to Joahn’s room.” The wife looked at her husband with concern, but he nodded sagely and motioned for them to go.
With Elscene leading the way, Alec and her parents walked back to the room where the debilitated boy lay in bed.
“Elscene,” Alec heard Joahn weakly speak. “I had such a dream.”
“Joahn, my name is Alec. I have made some breathing fumes for you. This should help you feel better,” Alec said as he mixed the elements together with the hot water. “Breath these fumes,” he told Joahn as he pulled a cover up over the boy’s head.
Joahn began to cough. “Give me your hand,” Alec said to Lucius, and he placed both their hands under the cover on Joahn’s chest. Alec began to send a flow of healing strength into Joahn, and began to pray aloud for his healing, as the boy continued to cough. He sensed the dramatic growth of new tissue forming, and sensed the battle as his fumes, his prayers and his powers forced the scarred tissue to heal.
“What are you doing to my son?” Joahn’s mother asked as the coughing grew more intense. Alec altered the flow of power and directed a final surge that completed the healing with an actual glow that occurred beneath the cover for an instant, as the coughing stopped. With a momentary cessation of his ingenaire powers, Alec took a deep breath and felt th
e weakness inside himself from his first extensive use of powers in a long time, then he began to use his spiritual powers to purge Joahn of a small core of bitterness and anger over his long disablement. Minutes later, satisfied that he had accomplished what seemed right, Alec pulled his and Lucius’s hands out from under the cover and pulled the cover back down from Joahn’s face.
The boy’s eyes were open wide in wonderment. “Joahn, are you alright?” Elscene asked.
“I am…I feel better than I can ever remember feeling,” Joahn said clearly in a strong voice.
Alec smiled at the success of Joahn’s astonished healing. And he felt great weariness coming over him as the heavy use of powers and the late night and the long day of travel all combined together in their effects.
“Elscene, what room shall I have tonight?” he asked the girl who was watching in teary astonishment as her parents hugged their son. “Just tell me and I’ll go on my own. You stay here.”
“You can have any room you want upstairs,” she said looking at him with an open mouth.
Alec left the room and reversed course down the hallway to the staircase, where he staggered to the guest rooms and took the first one he saw. He closed and barred the door, laid his sword on the floor beside the bed and kicked off his boots, then lay down and fell fast asleep
Chapter 24 – Healing a Village
Alec saw bars of light. They were descending into his room at a steep angle, coming through the shutters on the window, and from the angle they fell he could tell it must already be midday, meaning that he had slept through an evening and much of a day. Alec wondered at the visibility of the light, showing so much dust in the air.
He realized then that there was noise; a constant chatter was occurring, and it seemed to be coming from within the inn where he was staying. It must be the lunch crowd, having their midday repast at the inn, Alec concluded. He sat up and pulled on his boots, then wondered where the privy was. He had a vague recollection of the stable being to the left of the inn, and so started downstairs to use the necessary facilities.
The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell Page 30
