The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Inside the lacertii camp he dodged the traffic and wandered towards the center, where he expected to find the command tents, and he hoped, the prisoners. His search was in vain. There were no human prisoners to be found anywhere. Alec tried listening in on conversations within command tents, hoping that he would overhear some hint or reference to the whereabouts of human captives; all he heard were laments about the appearance of the formidable stone wall that had reduced the opportunities for the lacertii forces to engage the Boundary Lake guards, or other administrative matters that bore no interest to him.

  His listening strained him, requiring a dramatic shift in his perspective, one that he hadn’t expected. In crossing to the lacertii side of the boundary, he crossed a linguistic boundary as well. His mind began – with a shock, and then a struggle, and finally with increasing confidence – to listen and think in the language he had grown up in. It was the language of the west, he realized, of the lacertii, Dominion, and Michian.

  Alec finally realized he would have to expose himself as part of his search, by actively questioning lacertii in order to track down Andi. When an officer he had identified as a key commander entered his tent alone to settle in for the night, leaving a pair of guards outside, Alec invisibly entered his tent with him, then drew out his sword and appeared to the man.

  “Stay silent,” Alec said as the lacerta gasped in shock. “I’m not here as an assassin tonight. I’m looking for information. Stay calm, and I’ll be out of your camp in minutes. Do you understand?” Alec asked as he held his sword at the officer’s neck.

  The lacerta nodded, and Alec proceeded. “On the morning that the granite wall arose, two people disappeared. One was a female who could fight like three men, an ingenaire who had a mark on her arm like mine,” he displayed his Warrior mark. “The other was a man, a Boundary Lake officer. Were they taken captive?” Alec asked.

  The lacerta nodded again. “Are they in this camp?” Alec asked him, and the officer shook his head no.

  “Are they still alive?” Alec asked the question that he most feared.

  “They are, as far as I know,” the officer spoke for the first time.

  “Where can I find them?” Alec demanded, as he sighed in relief.

  “They’ve been taken to the capital for questioning, to learn about the connection between the marked warriors on the southern front and now the ones we’ve seen here on the eastern front,” the officer said. “The two who have gone running through our countryside, then her, and now you.”

  “She and I have nothing to do with the rest of this,” Alec answered, pondering the knowledge that the lacerta had just shared. “We happened to be in Boundary Lake without intent, not even aware there was war here until we arrived. We’re chasing the other two, the first two you mentioned, as criminals we wish to bring to justice.

  “Which way must I go to set my friend free?” Alec asked. “I do not wish to fight your people, that’s not why I’m here,” he thought with regret of all the soldiers he had massacred by the granite wall. “Which road is the road to Chanradala?”

  “Sir, are you speaking to someone in there?” a guard’s voice asked loudly from the other side of the thick cloth door of the tent.

  “No,” the officer said after a moment.

  “Which road?” Alec hissed. “Tell me and I’ll be gone.”

  “West from here, the main road. It goes all the way to Chanradala,” the lacerta replied, his eyes looking into Alec’s.

  “Thank you,” Alec said. He placed his sword in his scabbard, turned invisible, and pushed the canvas flap door of the tent open, then was gone from the officer’s tent and life, leaving the man wondering if he had hallucinated or dreamt the whole conversation.

  Alec stood outside the tent, and looked up at the stars to get his bearings, then turned and headed west through the camp, threading in and out among the guards and tents and weapon stacks that barred his way. He held onto his invisibility until he was out of the camp and on the road, then with a sigh of relief he dropped his use of the energy and began a straightforward journey through the wilderness in pursuit of Andi.

  He was a week into the month he had left, the time until the next full moon, the deadline for him to administer the kiss to Andi that would save her life and restore his memories. And he felt a growing yearning to rediscover those memories, to learn anew about the special bond he shared with the Black Crag guard. Her devotion to him, both the love and the agony, seemed increasingly appealing, as something above and beyond the ordinary, romantic love he had known in the past, if romance could be called ordinary. With every day that passed as he wandered through these unknown lands, he felt a wish to have such a love to hold on to, and Andi grew more appealing, because of her devotion and ability, to be that anchor his life could securely attach to.

  He had no idea of how far the journey was to Chanradala. It was time, he concluded, to press himself to the extreme limit of his abilities to travel across the land as quickly as possible to catch up with Andi. It would be far better to find her on the road than to have to hunt for her through the endless mazes of the vastness that he remembered Chanradala covered.

  He gathered himself together and delved into the power realm to seize the Warrior energy, then began to run along the dark road, empty in the wilderness and the middle of the night, so that there were no reasons to slow down or delay his trip. He ran and ran through the mountains, following the road as it left the great plateau on which Boundary Lake sat, following the road as it climbed up from the plateau and began to curve around the mountains, rising higher as it searched for a ridge line to follow or a pass to save further altitude. He kept running without thought, letting the energy from the Warrior realm power his body in its mindless race as his legs churned and his arms swung, and him mind distractedly thought about all that was at stake.

  The lacertii officer had said that there were marked warriors on the southern front. From the geography he knew during his life in Michian, Alec knew that the empire was the southern front to the lacertii. And the marked warriors was a reference to the Warrior ingenairii, indicating that they were fighting the lacertii on the Michian border. The lacertii were in another two front war again, and they faced another Michian invasion, one that included ingenairii. That made some sense, or at least was consistent with the name of the Michian god that the Warrior in Boundary Lake had uttered as an expletive during their confrontation on the bridge.

  That confrontation had been when he had set Andi free. He had missed his opportunity to remove the prophesized threat that hung over her then, but now, as he sensed the sky behind him in the east begin to prepare for the arrival of dawn, he could finally complete that part of his duty. Then he would face the problem of how to transport himself and her and possibly a captive Boundary Lake officer to safety from the middle of the lands of the hostile race of lacertii. And beyond that challenge came the other goal he was set on, finding the Warriors who had kidnapped girls over the span of thousands of miles, and delivering justice to them.

  Alec saw sunlight upon the landscape around him, and he saw signs of an inhabited settlement ahead, where smoke was rising from a chimney. He would hope to get past that settlement, he told himself, then find a place where he could hide for the day and safely sleep. He was exhausted from his night of traveling and energy use.

  Alec split his powers, slowed down, and made himself invisible as he passed through the village that appeared to be part settlement and part military base. On the other side of the village there were wide open pastures in which cattle, horses and sheep all had respective portions, and so Alec continued to run, dropping his invisibility once again along the empty road as he searched for any spot of dense wilderness where he could easily hide himself. A half an hour later he was back in mountainous terrain, and he left the road. He climbed up into a patch of fir trees in a steep gulley, and he finally released all the powers he used, so that he was without defense or disguise as he fell into an exhausted state o
f sleep.

  He awoke in the late afternoon, and ate a quantity of his travel food, starved from two or three skipped meals, he realized. He drank water from a mountain spring, and listened to the wind blow in the trees overhead. He still had no idea of how far he was from Chanradala, but he had covered a great deal of distance over the course of the night. Perhaps, he hoped, he had covered two or three days equivalent of the travel Andi had covered, bringing him closer to catching up with her. As he finished his meal, his mind drifted away from thoughts of the action of the pursuit and back to thoughts of his quarry, Andi.

  Andi was an attractive woman, he knew, and she was open, honest and energetic. As he thought about her, for the first time in his memory he realized she was someone he wished he did love, and he wondered why he didn’t. Her situation, trapped into being Spiritually tied to him, suddenly hit him with the realization of the full force of the tragic dimension it imposed on her, and he felt sorrow, sorrow for her and pity, and he felt real regret that he had not been better able to feel sympathy for the turmoil her soul felt. He would do better for her, he promised himself.

  Alec crept down to the edge of the road, looking for any sign of lacertii out and about. There were none in sight, and he seized his Warrior energy to resume the rapid pace of his journey. The road rolled through the terrain among the mountains, and there was little traffic for his first hour on the road, but then more and more travelers began to remain in constant sight, and Alec resorted to using his Light energy as well as his Warrior energy in order to travel unseen, dodging among the shepherds who tended flocks and the farmers who carried crops, or the carts of goods that occupied the road, evidence to Alec that he was approaching a major city.

  Within half an hour the walls of the city were in view, and Alec decided he needed to change his tactics. He wanted to question people regarding both the passage of human captives and regarding the correct road to Chanradala on the far side of the city. He could ask no one anything if he was either visible as himself or invisible, so he decided to employ his Healer energies to make himself appear to be a lacerta. He stopped and studied the features of the lacertii who passed by on the road. Within his bubble of invisibility he created a shiny surface, a mirror like the one he had offered to Aja on the night she had received vision.

  He studied his features closely as he darkened his skin, then roughened the texture. He changed the shape of his eye sockets, increased the elongation, and withered away most of the eyebrows. He looked down at his feet. They were enclosed within the boots he wore, and certainly likely to remain hidden, so he did not reduce the number of toes he had on each foot.

  He would pass inspection, he decided, dissipating the reflector. He moved alongside a wagon, where he was blocked from the view of everyone else on the road, then dropped his invisibility, and began to walk with the traffic into the city. Traffic ground to a halt at the gate, where every vehicle was subject to inspection and every lacerta was subject to interrogation.

  Knowing that he would fail miserably at creating a false explanation, Alec turned himself invisible, drawing muffled gasps from behind him, and then he threaded his way through the line of waiting entrants to the city, and slid past the guards undetected, gaining entry into the city streets.

  The quality of the city matched the vague memories he held of the long-ago visits he had made to the lacertii capital city. The streets were mostly narrow, except for a few wide boulevards, and the buildings were almost all dark in color, creating an atmosphere that struck Alec as oppressive. He walked westward on the boulevard that extended into the city from the gate he had snuck through, and tried to decide on the best means of gathering information.

  Ultimately, he decided to be bold, and he entered a building that appeared to be a police station. “I’m from the country,” he introduced himself to a policeman in the building’s entry hall. The lacerta wore a green uniform that Alec hoped meant police; it, and the club he carried, were commonly worn by many lacertii he watched enter and leave the building.

  “Where? How far? What village?” the lacerta asked immediately. “You’ve got quite an accent, not that you need anything more to stand out, as big as you are.”

  “East of here, far east, almost to the war front,” Alec explained. “I saw some human captives taken past our home a few days ago, and the soldiers said they were going to be brought to Chanradala.

  “Did they come through here, and if so, how long ago?” Alec asked.

  “Sure, the army paraded the captives through here three days ago. It was a parade! Them chained to a stake on top of a wagon, everyone in the streets throwing stones and filth at them. We don’t catch the marked warriors often, and that’s the first one they’ve caught out east. They’re on their way to Chanradala, no doubt, probably be there in another day or two,” the lacerta was garrulous in his response. “What’s it matter to you though?”

  “My brother was killed in the war, and I want revenge,” Alec replied. He had anticipated the need for a reason to be chasing the captives, and developed one, although it seemed weak. He didn’t care how sensible it sounded, as long as it was accepted.

  “We’ve all lost family in these wars, my friend, but you won’t get any revenge trying to fight one of the marked ones, believe me, even a chained one. You go on home and tend to your family now,” he said in a kindly tone, dismissing Alec.

  With a nod, Alec left the building and resumed following the road west through the city. He stopped at a street vendor and confirmed that the road he was on would lead out of town and towards the capital. He had no lacertii money, so he could buy nothing from the vendor to thank him for his help, but continued on through the city. He drew stares as he went, but he accepted that as the state of the world, beyond being helped; as the policeman had noted, Alec was big. He was above average in height among humans, and his height had not changed when he altered his appearance. Among the lacertii he was far above the normal height and weight; he’d not seen anyone on the streets any taller than he was.

  There was no reason for him to be overly cautious about standing out in the city he was in, he decided. He was almost out of the city now, not likely to return to the place, and would in any event outrun news about himself. He exited the city gates shortly thereafter, not long after noon, and he started running, using his ingenairii abilities to rush past the other traffic on the road, knowing that by the end of the day he would be two days or more in front of those travelers he passed.

  In the middle of the afternoon Alec entered a heavy rainstorm, one that created puddles, slippery spots along the road, and poor visibility as he squinted his eyes and kept his head down. Water streamed off of him as he continued to run along the road that grew nearly deserted during the downpour, and only the occasional streaks of lightening helped illuminate the view he had of the long road in front of him. There were no further mountains to climb, only rolling hills and spreads of flat fields. The land appeared to be a prosperous one, with many farms scattered among and between the small villages he flew through.

  In the city he had stopped in, the officer had indicated that Andi was only three days ahead of Alec. As night fell, Alec was sure he had made up at least one of those days during his afternoon jaunt, despite the rain’s reduction in his speed. He continued running in the night, and boldly created illumination for himself, throwing caution further aside in favor of shining a small light in front of him to show any obstacles in the road. Three hours after darkness fell the rain finally stopped, but the road began to climb a long, constant slope. In the darkness Alec could not see a wide enough view to tell how high or far the hills extended, but he continued on until he felt his energy begin to diminish in intensity. He was near a farmstead, and he let himself into the barn, then climbed into the hayloft above the livestock, and fell soundly asleep, comfortable in the hay, and comforted to learn that a lacerta’s barn was much like a human’s barn.

  When Alec awoke in the morning he ate more of his food stores, aware
that he had too little to last much longer, especially if he soon reached Andi and needed to feed her and the Boundary Lake captive as well. It was a problem to put aside until it was real and immediate, he decided, as he climbed down from the loft and left the barn behind. He immediately engaged his Warrior energy and began to speed down the road once again, up early enough to be on the way before many other travelers. He flew along, passing mile after mile in his chase to find Andi, and his mind idly pondered how they would interact when reunited. He would be kinder towards her; he felt almost affectionate now, as he better understood her predicament, and he hoped that in feeling his affection, she would be comforted.

  But he had to catch her first. Within two hours there was more traffic on the road. The landscape was visible in the growing daylight, and he could see that the road wound among numerous valleys set amidst tall hills – not quite mountains, but a challenging topography to cross. The road continued to climb, and it wasn’t until noon that he reached the crest of the chain of hills. When he reached the high ridge the road followed, he slowed down to a normal walking pace, dropping his use of his energy. He wanted time to absorb the view; from the crest he was walking along, the road descended in a long, long gradual slope, dropping a distance of more than a quarter of a mile, he guessed, into a wide lengthy valley. And within the valley sprawled the great urban growth of Chanradala. He had reached the outskirts of the capitol, and had only to begin to look for Andi, the needle in the haystack of the city. Despite his efforts and hopes, he had not caught up with her before she was engulfed in the lacertii ocean.

  Alec re-engaged his energies, and ran down the long winding road, sometimes jumping down the switchbacks, leaving the other travelers along the route shouting in excitement, surprise and outrage as he passed them easily. Within three hours Alec was at the floor of the valley, and among the scattered buildings that stretched among the fields and the farms, and uneasy co-existence with the haphazard growth of buildings from the city. He ceased his use of powers once again, and stopped in at a general store, to question the proprietor.