The Blinded Journey

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Kendel awkwardly sat up using only his good arm, and awkwardly used the pot, then covered and placed the artifact in a corner of the room and returned to his bed just before Flora re-entered.

  “The tavern considers you a hero, because two of the robbers you attacked had robbed the tavern a year ago. So they donated this to the cause,” she pulled a pair of bottles of wine out of the wicker basket she carried. “I consider it medicinal, as a pain reliever for your shoulder,” she declared airily.

  Flora fed him the stew with a spoon and gave him draughts of the wine to ease his thirst and diminish the pain. He fell back to sleep during the afternoon, but insisted on getting up and leaving the room in the evening, so that they could eat dinner at the tavern together.

  “Ingman tells me the palace is the largest palace of all the royal families in all the known lands,” Flora conversed during their dinner. They sat at a table slightly apart from the other patrons, and Kendel belatedly realized that they were the subjects of whispers and pointed fingers.

  “Everyone’s been waiting to see what a great sorcerer looks like,” Flora interrupted her conversation when she noticed his attention wander. “If we were back in our own world, they’d be taking selfies with you and getting autographs,” she chuckled.

  “If were back in our own world, they’d be taking selfies with you, and ignoring me,” he answered with a smile.

  “So I think that if the palace is that large, and if Agata passed through Chacer, she would want to stop by and see it, don’t you think?” Flora asked.

  “She would be a memorable figure, don’t you think?” she asked in addition.

  Kendel knew what his friend meant; the princess had a figure that had been reflected in the fictional book that their ill-fated movie had been based on. Agata was an extremely buxom girl in the book, and only slightly less buxom in the reality of the world he and Flora were traveling through.

  “Ingman will provide us with passage into the palace. We have to ask for him or his father, Silver. Silver is in charge of all the stables, over one hundred fifty horses. He’s apparently a real big wheel in the palace,” Flora said.

  “You’ve been gone for days now,” he followed his own train of thought about Flora’s disappearance from their own world.

  “I know. I’ve thought about it from time to time,” she admitted. “Not that I have any regrets about being here. I’m just curious about how the system is handling my disappearance. I imagine they’ve tried to keep it covered up for as long as possible.

  “I hope Megan’s okay,” she said reflectively.

  “Who?” Kendel asked.

  “The agent in New Orleans, the one who works for Jane’s agency. They’ll figure out we were with her, and she’ll have to face some questions,” Flora answered.

  Kendel had never actually seen Megan due to his blindness, but he remembered her voice, and her kindness and helpfulness.

  Their plates of food arrived, large pieces of beef and parsnips covered in gravy. Kendel awkwardly managed to feed himself one-handed. After the meal, feeling the effects of the wine that had been consumed, he suggested they walk around the center of the small city so that he could stretch his legs.

  After the walk they returned to their room at the inn, and Kendel discovered that Flora was sharing his bed with him, lying on the narrow mattress and softly making contact body against body, as they each sought their most comfortable sleeping posture.

  “You know this doesn’t mean anything, Kendel, right?” Flora asked. “It was much easier to do when you were so unconscious, I couldn’t wake you if I tried.”

  “I know. Don’t worry,” Kendel brushed off the topic of the nearness of Flora as he tried to relax and fall asleep. Only after he heard the steady breathing pattern of sleep from Flora did he carefully rise from the bed and help himself to more of the undrunk wine to help him eventually fall into a troubled sleep with dreams of blindness and Ingman and Flora in a New Orleans barber shop.

  In the morning they bought food at the local market, then caught the first coach out of the city. They chose to ride on the roof once again, watching the countryside flow past the rolling wheels of the coach.

  “What happened to the robbers?” Kendel asked as he thought about their previous coach ride.

  “Some were killed by your attack. A couple were killed after your attack, and a few were just left to lie in the road unconscious,” Flora shrugged. “There weren’t many still conscious, maybe a couple, and they ran off screaming.”

  As the journey progressed, Kendel felt a sense of constraint between the two of them. He felt the tension of his own affection for her, and he felt her awareness of it, as well as her sympathy without reciprocity of the deeper affection.

  The coach driver had learned of Kendel’s astonishing power during a conversation with the staff at the inn, and he treated the pair with considerable respect. The following morning he was relieved from his shift and a new coach driver heard the improbable story of the powers wielded by the boy on top of the coach before he set the vehicle in motion with a fresh team of horses in a small town just a day’s ride more away from the capital.

  Kendel and Flora huddled together through rain that afternoon, and were still damp the following morning when the marathon cross-country journey ended at an inn in midtown Chacer.

  “Let’s get a room and rest and freshen up before we go to the palace,” Flora suggested wearily.

  The pair carried their small but heavy amount of luggage with them up to a room in the inn where the coach had stopped, and they immediately fell asleep.

  “We need baths; both of us,” Flora said when she awoke and sat up. “And maybe we can find some new clothes, so we look presentable; let’s go talk to the front desk.”

  They received information they didn’t expect.

  “You can go down the block to the public baths,” the clerk at the desk suggested pleasantly.

  Kendel and Flora looked at one another with uncertainty, but decided to explore the public baths. They came out of their respective sides of the baths later, Flora much later than Kendel, after getting a massage in addition to the bath.

  Then they walked along a city street of shops and found a few with ready-made clothes that they purchased to wear, and finally were ready to make their visit to the gates of the palace. The city was an impressive one, with many small and narrow roads in neighborhoods that were crowded, as well as a few wide boulevards that opened up paths of light and fresh air.

  “Parts of this remind me of Paris,” Flora ventured as the pair walked on their way.

  Kendel nodded his head in vague agreement, while they both looked ahead at the palace grounds that were on the opposite side of a river they were approaching. The walls of the palace appeared to extend along the top of the river bank for as far as they could see upriver.

  “Do you think all that space behind the wall is part of the palace?” Kendel asked.

  “Ingman said it was big,” Flora reminded him.

  They reached the gates of the palace, and approached a guard.

  “Go on,” Flora poked Kendel in the ribs. “They’ll probably listen to a boy more than a girl.”

  “Not more than a pretty girl.” Kendel responded.

  “You’re trying to be cute again,” Flora said. “but it’s not going to work this time.”

  “We were invited to visit the palace by Ingman, the son of Silver, the head of the stables,” Kendel told a bored-looking guard. “Can you ask him to vouch for us to enter the palace?”

  “No,” the guard said dismissively.

  Kendel turned and looked at Flora, feeling a sense of secret satisfaction in the rejection.

  “Won’t you please send a message?” Flora begged the man. She stepped in closer to him. “Ingman seemed so sure you guards would listen to us. He said you were the best in the land. And looking at you I can see why he said it.”

  The guard – who had not even looked at Kendel as he rejected him –
turned to look at Flora, and gave a half smile.

  “When we have a messenger available, I’ll send someone to the stables,” he agreed. “But it may be a while.”

  “We can wait,” Flora answered. “I’ll just stand over here in this shady spot,” she pointed across the street from the guard. “You can signal when we’re allowed in.

  “Kendel,” she turned, “why don’t you go back to the inn and get our belongings and bring them back here. I’ll be fine while you’re gone. The guard will keep an eye on me, won’t you?” she asked winsomely.

  “Of course lass,” the man answered immediately. “This is a safe part of the city, of course, but I’ll watch you while your fellow’s gone.”

  “He’s my friend, but not my fellow, not like that,” Flora answered the man. She turned and gave Kendel a sly wink. “You go fetch the things and I’ll see you when you return.”

  Kendel grumbled to himself, but nodded his head and turned to head back across the city. He admitted to himself that Flora had done a brilliant job of turning on her charm and turning the guard into an ally. Was she able to manipulate him as well as she did the guard, he asked himself, and he resolved to force himself to be thoughtful in his reactions to the things she said and did with him.

  He maneuvered through the crowded streets to reach the neighborhood where the inn was located, then removed their belongings from the room and adjusted his heavy load away from his wounded shoulder so that he could carry all the coins that still remained in their possession. He said good bye to the desk clerk without checking out, and walked out the door, then began to walk slowly back towards the palace once again.

  “What do you have that’s so heavy? Need a hand?” a voice next to him asked as he slowly trudged along the city street, trying to stay out of the way of faster-moving people in the road.

  “No, I’ve got it fine,” he answered, looking up to see a pair of burly young men walking alongside him.

  “There’s no reason to struggle when you’ve got people ready to help,” one of the men said as he reached over and began to remove one of the loaded packs from Kendel’s shoulder.

  “No thanks. I said I’m fine,” Kendel reached over and jerked the pack back into position.

  “We think you’re not,” the other man said, and he suddenly swung a short club at Kendel’s head, unexpectedly striking him and knocking him to the ground, dazed by the unexpected attack.

  Kendel heard gasps among the crowd in the street, then felt the backpacks being pulled off his shoulders as he tried to focus.

  Without any second thoughts, he engaged the blue and green energies, making himself glow and causing more gasps, before he sent a mild shock into each of the robbers who were still standing over him. The men stiffened in pain and surprise, but didn’t loosen their grasps on the bags they had seized.

  Kendel felt and accepted the mild pain he received in return for his attack, then sent a second, harder shock at only one of the men, making him cry out and drop his bag as he fell to his knees in pain.

  Kendel moaned in pain too.

  “What are you doing?” croaked the man who was still standing, still holding a bag. “What are you?”

  “Drop the bag and leave, or I’ll treat you to what your friend just got,” Kendel warned as he put on a show of strength.

  A whistle sounded from down the street.

  “The patrol’s coming Sturn. Let’s go,” the man who was standing dropped his captive booty and pulled on the shoulder of the man who was kneeling.

  “What are you?” the kneeling man asked as he got to his feet, staring hard at Kendel.

  In response, Kendel made the energy that lit his body grow more intense with a blinding flash of light that made the surrounding observers shriek once more, while the two robbers staggered away.

  Kendel released the energy he held and sat up. His head felt woozy from the blow struck against him as well as from the pain of the attack that had recoiled against him, as all his attacks were doing.

  He rose to a crouch, and gingerly placed one pack over his right shoulder, then lifted the other pack onto his left shoulder, and leaned against the wall as he stood up.

  A crowd was still watching him, or parts of a crowd, as some people had left and gone on their ways.

  Two men in uniforms arrived.

  “What’s happening here?” one of them asked.

  “He’s a sorcerer,” a bystander immediately pointed at Kendel.

  “He doesn’t look like one,” the patrolman said.

  “He looks like a drunk,” the second added at the sight of Kendel’s unsteady posture.

  “I just was attacked,” Kendel spoke up. He didn’t know what the police would think about being a sorcerer, and he didn’t want to find out. He simply wanted to move along. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to be on my way.”

  “He really did do some kind of magic,” another voice in the crowd chimed in.

  “Are you a sorcerer?” one of the policemen asked in a lighthearted way.

  “If I was a sorcerer, that robber wouldn’t have hit me in the head,” Kendel pointed to the welt on his forehead.

  “Move along, everyone. Stop blocking the road,” the patrol members were only interested in resuming the flow of traffic. “Everyone go.”

  Kendel nodded and resumed his journey toward the palace grounds, irritated by both the pain of the attack and the delay in his arrival back at the palace gates. His irritation though turned to befuddlement when he crossed the bridge over the river and got to the gates of the palace once more, only to find that Flora was not standing in the designated shady corner across from the guards at the gate.

  He snorted in annoyance, then crossed over to the gates to speak to the guard, only to discover that the guard who Flora had flirted into submission was no longer on duty at the gates.

  “Do you know where the girl went who was standing over there, waiting to visit the palace?” Kendel asked an unfamiliar guard. “She was waiting for Silver the stables boss or his son to come let us into the palace. There was a guard here who was going to send a message to the stables,” Kendel explained to the impassive guard.

  “I don’t know anything you’re talking about,” the guard answered.

  “She’s a pretty girl, not much older than me, with dark hair,” Kendel offered a description. “She was standing in the shade over there when I went to get some things.”

  “I don’t know anything about it. Move away from the gates now, son,” the guard spoke in a bored voice.

  Kendel stepped back a step, then looked right, and left, and then up in the sky in exasperation. There was no obvious solution to his problem.

  The green sun was visible, just a fraction of it starting to pass behind the larger yellow sun. It would be gone from view in just a couple of days, and then be absent for a few more days before re-emerging. Flora had been standing in the shade, sheltered from the warm light of both the suns when he had left her.

  He turned and walked over to the spot where she had been, then put the heavy packs down on the ground to relieve his aching shoulders. He assumed Flora was inside the palace grounds, that she had been fetched by Ingman to enter, and she hadn’t waited for him. He was hurt. He was angry.

  He was angry at himself for letting his feeling be hurt. He had been friends with Flora, and been able to accept her as a friend, as a pretty girl, but not more than a wonderful friend. And somehow his heart had changed, and friendship had become affection that had become infatuation. While at the same time, Flora seemed to have reciprocated the evolution – right up to the point of the monstrous interference by the ghosts of Impiraght, who had stripped away Flora’s affection for Kendel, while leaving his for her in place.

  He closed his eyes and he pictured her. He saw the shape of her lips and the curve of her eyebrows and the shape of her body. He thought back to the two memories of her that were sharpest in his mind. He remembered when he had awoken in the Los Angeles hospital bed and seen her lea
ning over him. He had seen Flora, not the Agata image that she had occupied for weeks. Her hair had been shaggy and matted from lying on the hospital pillows for so long, and her face had been pale, but her eyes had been bright and sparkling and he had known that the two of them had returned home. He had kissed her, impulsively.

  He remembered the other image, a picture of her on a day just a couple of weeks later. She had surprised him with a visit to Bedford, and he had taken her into the woods for a hike on the Knobstone Trail. He pictured her standing on a stretch of the trail surrounded by tall trees but illuminated by a chance ray of sunlight that had woven its way down among the leaves and branches in the canopy overhead. The sunlight had struck her like a spotlight. Kendel had turned around to see her just a short distance behind him on the trail, and the image of her in her hiking shorts, tee shirt, and rock-climbing shoes was an image he knew he was destined to take to his grave with him. She had personified in that moment the graceful good humor and adventuresome spirit that he knew she possessed.

  His eyes still closed, he let his consciousness rise from his body to begin to search for her, his senses keenly attuned to the characteristics he had just reminded himself she possessed.

  He sensed her, inside the palace grounds, perhaps a mile away. Her presence was like a faint beacon as he thought about her and the essence of her personality. Kendel could tell it was Flora – specifically that it was Flora – from a distance vastly farther than he could detect any other person.

  He was astonished at how readily he had found her. He let his awareness return to his body, and he stared at the palace gates, wondering how he was going to get inside.

  He hoisted his supply packs and began to walk around the circumference of the walls that enclosed the vast palace grounds, heading clockwise toward the part of the grounds furthest from the river frontage. The length of the palace wall was paralleled by an inland road that allowed him to move at a steady pace in the direction he wanted to go. He walked for several minutes among a steady stream of other travelers, then stopped and put his bags down, while he searched for Flora once more.