The Guided Journey (Book 6)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “I thought we might set up a market, and let the imps come to buy them from our people,” Kestrel said. “That would make the imps happy, and let our folks earn some money, or encourage them to trade with the imps. At least they’d get to know the imps and I think we’d all be better off to be on friendly terms with our neighbors.”

  “The manor could make a lot of money from this venture,” Whyte ventured after considering the issue.

  “I don’t want to take more than a fair share,” Kestrel said.

  “I’ll handle this, my lord, if you like,” Whyte told him.

  “Can it be done quickly? Will you have a market ready to set up soon?” Kestrel asked. “Within a few days?”

  “Give me three days and all will be ready,” the steward said. “Do you remember the market at Center Trunk, where you were such an outstanding competitor in the archery competition?”

  Kestrel was startled, and thought back, to the days when he hadn’t even really realized that he was embarking on such an extraordinary series of adventures, when he and Vinetia and Lucretia had met for the first time – when Dewberry had stolen an arrow to give to him as a way to offer her apologies.

  “How did you know about that competition?” Kestrel asked in astonishment.

  “I have my ways,” Whyte said smugly. “Once I heard you were the lord of the manor I asked questions and learned information.”

  Kestrel looked at his steward appraisingly.

  “Well,” he decided he didn’t want to know any more, “shall I inform the king of the imps that the mushrooms shall be available in three days?”

  “Certainly, my lord,” Whyte answered.

  “Jonson, Dewberry, Jonson,” Kestrel called the royal couple, who appeared instantaneously, much faster than Kestrel had expected.

  “Kestrel-sneak, wherever have you been? You have been moving about for two days and I have not been able to find you until you called us just…,” Dewberry began scolding him, then stopped, as she saw the basket of mushrooms in his hands.

  “Look, my king! The elf who loves me has the mushrooms we crave!” her voice rose to a squeal of delight.

  “I’ll trade you Dewberry for the gray plate mushrooms, Kestrel-friend-ally-friend,” Jonson said excitedly, his eyes momentarily rising from the mushrooms to offer a friendly glance and a grin to Kestrel, before he looked back down.

  “You think I am worth that much in mushrooms?” Dewberry asked.

  “I present this basket to you, friend Jonson, as a token of friendship between neighbors,” Kestrel spoke in a stately manner, and held the basket forward in a formal manner of exchange, “without requiring the sacrifice of your lovely and enchanting wife”.

  Dewberry swooped and grabbed the basket, although it was nearly as large as her torso. “I have it! I have them!” she gleefully shouted.

  “And I have an announcement to make,” Kestrel added, making the two small blue beings study him intently.

  “In three days’ time, we will open a market here in the square of Oaktown, where all elves will be free to bring mushrooms to sell, and all imps will be free to come and shop and buy,” he told the royal couple.

  “A market?” Jonson spoke in disbelief. “You really claim there is enough of the food of the gods to occupy a market place? Unbelievable!”

  “In three days’ time we will find out,” Kestrel answered.

  “What must we do?” Dewberry asked intently.

  “You must bring my lord twenty virgins,” Whyte spoke up for the first time.

  “Done!” Dewberry said instantly.

  “No!” Kestrel laughed.

  “Just come and bring the other imps, and we’ll see how it works out,” he told the royal visitors. “Now take your mushrooms and go back to your home for a feast,” he directed them.

  “We will never forget your kindness,” Jonson said. He and Dewberry looked at one another in a moment of unspoken communication, and then disappeared.

  “You could have had twenty virgins, my lord,” Whyte said confidently.

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with them!” Kestrel laughed.

  “That’s not what I’ve heard,” Whyte answered. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I sense that I really must make this market work. I’ll go set some things in motion,” he made a sketchy bow and departed from the room.

  Kestrel stood alone and shook his head, astonished at the exchanges.

  Chapter 6 – From Pebbles to Pearls

  Kestrel slept soundly that night, tired from the days of travel around the villages of the forest, and he woke up early the next morning, a grin on his face, as the first thing he thought of was the joyful rapture the imps had experienced upon sight of the basket of mushrooms.

  He had dreamed during the night, and he was aware of the dreams. Amjay, the mother of the twins in the village of Little Wheel, had been present in his dreams, swimming in the waters of the healing spring, her body glistening as moonlight shone and sparkled along her length. She was an admirable woman, someone who had the inner strength to raise two boys who had been given such disadvantages at birth, and she had seemingly had no help from the father of the boys. He hoped that the healing waters of the spring would do as much as he thought they could do to change the lives of the boys for the better, and thereby change her life.

  Soon, Kestrel told himself, he would make a return journey to Little Wheel to check on the boys, and Amjay, to see if they were progressing. He knew that in Firheng, Belinda’s husband had been miraculously healed of profound injuries, and so he hoped the same was possible for Amjay’s boys.

  He spent the day catching up on the news and tasks that were his responsibility as the lord of the manor in Oaktown. It was satisfying work, he realized. After getting out to see the surrounding villages, he felt a greater sense of responsibility and duty. The things that he did as lord of the manor made life better for his community, even if they seemed tedious at times.

  “My lord,” Remy said the following day, when their paths crossed in the garden.

  “How is Pont? Did you two decide whether you enjoyed our journey out to see the villages?” Kestrel asked the boy.

  “We loved it!” Remy said enthusiastically. “When can we go again?”

  “We’ll go again soon,” Kestrel assured him. “I enjoyed it too.”

  “Will we get to see those boys with no arms? Are they going to get better?” Remy asked. “I think about them a lot. The gods were good to me to make me whole and healthy.”

  “You’re right Remy, most of us don’t know how lucky we are,” the lord of the manor agreed. “We’ll go again soon, maybe next week, but we’ll go to different villages. I’ll check on Amjay and her boys sometime soon though, and let you know,” he promised.

  “I’ve got to get going,” Remy said, starting to walk away. “I’ve got to finish my chores and then go mushroom hunting.

  “Whyte said the imps are going to come tomorrow to buy them. How much do you think I should charge for a bowlful?” he asked earnestly.

  “I can’t tell you,” Kestrel said, patting the boy’s shoulder. “I think you ought to save some until most of the other mushrooms are already sold, then see if the imps will give you more for what’s left; and save a couple for me, if you would. Good luck,” he told the boy, who ran off to do his work.

  Whyte was out recruiting mushroom pickers, Kestrel realized. He was glad he had left the marketplace idea in the hands of his steward.

  On the following day, Kestrel had breakfast and inspected his garden in the morning, then went to the front of the manor in mid-morning, drawn by the noises he heard out in the village square.

  “Are you going to see the big to-do, my lord?” an assistant cook asked. “There’re plenty of elves looking forward to it! I wish I could go.”

  “If this works out, maybe you can go to the next one,” Kestrel suggested.

  “A lot of folks don’t even believe in the imps being real, but I’ve seen them with you here in the manor,
so I know they are. This is going to be a real day to remember. Good luck my lord,” the boy offered to Kestrel.

  Five minutes later, Kestrel was in the middle of the square. Two dozen tables, carts, and blankets were spread out around the periphery of the open space, and dozens of elves were looking on anxiously.

  “Where are the imps, my lord?” three people asked simultaneously as Kestrel arrived in the center of the square.

  “Your elves are anxious, my lord,” Whyte said. Although everything appeared to be in order, there was an air of anxiety in his eyes.

  “Perhaps we should inform the imps that our market is ready,” Kestrel said. “Jonson, Dewberry, Dewberry, Jonson,” he called to the royal couple.

  They hovered in the air in front of his face before he had even finished calling for them.

  “Kestrel-provider, is there a problem? Why have you waited so long to call? Our people are working themselves up into a madness waiting for these alleged,” he paused, as his eyes roamed away from Kestrel’s face and caught sight of the mounds of mushrooms piled around the square.

  Dewberry shot up into the air and did a flip in excitement at all that she saw around her.

  “Please, call your people to come visit our city,” Kestrel said. “Our people are desirous to meet them.”

  And seconds later, the air over the square was thick with small blue bodies, crowded so close together that a shadow was cast, as the sunlight was blocked by the sudden arrival of the shifting, anxious imps who gazed in astonished wonder at the heaps of riches below.

  The imps all gave a nearly simultaneous gasp of delight at the sight of such a quantity of gray plate mushrooms lying in wait, a mass gasp that was nearly choreographed with the shouts of amazement that arose from the astonished mass of elves below, all of whom had prepared for this event, though most had secretly doubted that it might really happen.

  And after that moment of sounds rising and descending from the imps above and the elves below, chaos and cacophony emerged. With frenetic energy, the imps descended and the elves were subjected to the unleashed activity of the impish lust for the mushrooms.

  Neither side knew what to expect at first, and instant transactions at easily agreed high prices occurred at tables that were immediately next to other tables where protracted dickering occurred over low prices. Happy buyers grabbed their purchases and often danced acrobatically in the air in celebration, while those who could not purchase immediately began to move about from seller to seller with increasing distress, looking for delicacies that were being quickly snatched up by the other imps.

  Within forty minutes, the market was done. All the mushrooms were gone. Nearly all the imps were gone, and those who were left were forlornly cruising at a slow pace past the emptying tables and stalls, as the astonished elves pocketed their profits and headed to stop by Whyte on their way out of the market.

  Kestrel watched the end of the market slowly dwindle away to emptiness.

  “Acanthus, Mulberry, Stillwater,” he called.

  The three imps arrived. “Kestrel-delicacy-giver, how are you?” Mulberry asked.

  “Is this where the great sale occurred?” Stillwater asked.

  “This is where it was held,” Kestrel confirmed. “Did any of you come and buy anything?”

  “Only select members of the court were invited to such a privileged event, not regular working members of the guard,” Acanthus answered matter-of-factly.

  “Well then, here,” he reached into his back pack and pulled out the handful of mushrooms that Remy had given him in the morning. “Thank you for your help during the past few days,” he told them.

  The three imps eagerly snatched the collection of grays out of his hands.

  “How can we ever repay you?” Mulberry asked.

  “There’s no need to repay. This is my thanks to you,” Kestrel said in a sincere tone. “Now go home and enjoy your treat!”

  “Will there be another market soon?” Acanthus asked.

  Kestrel looked around. Whyte was virtually the only other person left in the square, as he stood at a table counting coins out into piles.

  “Fairly soon, I’m sure,” Kestrel pleased the imps with his answer, just before they disappeared.

  Glad to see that the day was an apparent success, Kestrel walked slowly over to see Whyte.

  “My lord, the manor has just enjoyed an incredible boon!” Whyte told him with glee. “Can you help me carry this back to the manor?” he asked, motioning towards the three leather bags that sat on the table.

  Kestrel lifted one, and found that it was extraordinarily heavy. He slipped the palm of his hand beneath to add support. “What’s in here?” he asked.

  “That’s all the silver coins that the manor was paid,” the steward answered. “This,” he patted a smaller bag, “is the gold, and this,” he patted the third bag, “is the small coins and the shiny pebbles.”

  “What shiny pebbles?” Kestrel asked curiously.

  “Many of the imps offered these as payments,” Whyte explained, as his hand dug into the bag and pulled out several white, shiny, hard, relatively small round balls.

  Kestrel picked one of them from the man’s hand. “What are these worth?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” the steward answered. “Some of the imps wanted to use them as payment, and our folks were making so much money they agreed to accept them, then decided to pass them along as their payment to us. They didn’t know what they were worth.”

  “What are they worth?” Kestrel asked.

  “Whatever someone’ll pay for them. I don’t know,” Whyte admitted. “They’re just pretty pebbles to me.”

  “They don’t seem like pebbles,” Kestrel said as he ran a fingertip over one of the strangely translucent stones.

  “Well,” Whyte grunted as he picked up the sack of gold coins, “they’re all yours now.”

  Kestrel picked up the other bags after pouring the pebbles back into their bag. “So, will we do this again anytime soon?” he asked.

  “Your people want to do another one tomorrow!” the steward said as they walked to the manor. “I’d recommend we wait a few days, maybe a fortnight.”

  “If we did one every two weeks that’d be two every month. That sounds about right,” Kestrel decided. “You tell our elves and I’ll tell the imps. We’ll have a market every fortnight. Maybe we’ll be able to trade some of these pebbles back to the imps, eh?” he jested. As he thought about the strange pebbles, he felt a sense that he had seen something like them before, somewhere. He walked silently, trying to wrack his brain, but he could collect no memories.

  Kestrel walked out into the woods alone the next day, and sat on a rock beside a small stream. “Dewberry, Dewberry, Dewberry,” he spoke in a gentle, conversational voice.

  After a moment’s pause, the imp queen arrived. She fluttered in the air above him examining the scene, sensing something pensive in her friend.

  “Kestrel-friend, are you unwell?” she asked, dropping slowly down to rest beside him on the rock. “You look concerned.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking, Dewberry, but that’s not why I called you here. I wanted to see my friend, and I wanted to let you know that we have decided we would like to hold a mushroom market every fortnight for as long as the mushroom season lasts, if you think the imps would appreciate that,” he explained.

  “Our people will be delighted! You could not hold them too often for us,” Dewberry answered.

  “I think that our people need some time to do their usual things and live their usual lives, so we can’t hold the market every day,” Kestrel explained, “but once in a while will certainly work.”

  “What else are you thinking about? What troubles you?” she leaned against him.

  “I was thinking about an elf woman I met,” Kestrel began.

  “Of course you were!” Dewberry interrupted him immediately as she smiled. “You are ever in pursuit or being pursued by so many women.”

  “The
one I was thinking of was not pursuing me, nor was I pursuing her. I just met her, and she lives in a village some distance away. She is married,” he explained.

  “Kestrel-carouser!” Dewberry said in dismay.

  “And she has two sons who are not much younger than me. No Dewberry, I know that she is not a woman for me, but I saw her and I think about her and I believe I want to know that there is a woman out there for me, one who I can meet and love, and be loved by, forever and always,” Kestrel responded. “I feel a little lonely; I want to meet that person.”

  “You are so very special, Kestrel-dear, that the gods must do a great deal of work to find the right woman for you, and then place her where the two of you will meet,” his sprite friend counseled him. “I know that the time will come, and I hope it is soon for your sake. If I can do anything to help, please let me know.”

  “Thank you Dewberry dear,” he answered, leaning over against her. “I will have to find some way to put you to work!

  “Now, go back home and tell the others that there will be another market in two weeks,” he stood up. “And say hello to all of my friends.”

  “I shall, dearest,” she floated upward and kissed his cheek. “Farewell for now. Call upon me if you want to talk, or need my help.” And with that she disappeared.

  Kestrel returned to his manor house, and found several elves gathered, waiting for him, as Whyte finished announcing the establishment of regular markets for the imps.

  “Thank you my lord, you’re the best lord of the manor we’ve ever had,” one of them cheered. “Who knew we could meet real imps who are our neighbors, and get along with them?”

  “That’s why he is the Warden of the Marches of the Eastern Forest, after all,” Whyte said, using Kestrel’s official title.

  That night, Kestrel spoke to Whyte before retiring. “I’m going to go to Hydrotaz later this week,” he announced.

  “Will you have the imps carry you there?” the steward asked. “That’s a considerable journey, I believe.”