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

by Jeffrey Quyle

  And that became their morning routine. For the next several days they started their day with a minimum of conversation, as each knew what to do. On rainy mornings there would be no fire, and breakfast would be carrots or other uncooked vegetables, or remains from the previous night’s meal, if there were any.

  Alec complemented Roslyn on the quality of her mules. Their travel was the easiest he could recall with a group of pack animals. Every night they seemed to stop in a spot with plentiful fodder for the mules, keeping them content. Alec cared for them carefully, brushing a pair of them every night, keeping them healthy, watering them and talking to them so that the animals were peaceful; thanks to the contentment he bred into the animals, they accordingly traveled far each day. Alec and Roslyn practiced swordsmanship, and Alec collected plants that struck his healing fancy, but nothing in the way of personal interaction occurred between the two guarded companions.

  They reached the rugged mountains, and began the steep ascent into the stony terrain. There were other travelers along the road, but they encountered no problems. As Alec’s wounds on his face healed he took on a more ominous, determined look that discouraged others from trying to interact with either of them.

  Neither he nor Roslyn revealed anything to the other over the course of their journey; most of Alec’s conversations were internal, one-sided diatribes in which he berated himself as he tried to find something he could have done in the past to prevent Hellmann’s reemergence and Andi’s captivity, or he plotted and planned potential scenarios that might lead to righting the dreadful situation that existed. As the days went by, his thoughts continued to churn and spin, but still he found no good solution to the challenge of fighting Hellmann in Andi’s body.

  By the nineteenth day they were far into the mountains, past the last guard post on the Michian side of the unmarked boundary and approaching the first settlements that claimed loyalty to Bondell, when Roslyn called a halt late in the afternoon.

  “I’m going to go up there,” she pointed to the left, up a narrow canyon that intersected the valley their road was contained in.

  “My cargo will be up there. Give me an hour head start, then bring the mules up along with you. Take the cart only far enough so that it’s not visible from the road, and leave it there; we’ll pick it up on the way out,” the caravan leader directed.

  “Don’t you want me to bring the mules along now, and come directly with you?” Alec asked.

  “No,” Roslyn spoke more sharply than at any time since the first day. “I need a few minutes of private time,” she explained.

  Alec dutifully waited on the sparsely-traveled road, watching a single string of wagons filled with water barrels pass by, then he began traveling up the canyon when he judged appropriate, and unhitched the cart behind a small tree, before taking the mules inward into the trackless interior of the mountains. The canyon allowed travel along only a narrow trail between its steep walls; after ten minutes of following its direction with his string of mules, Alec came to a halt where the canyon dramatically widened out, when he spotted Roslyn standing in the middle of a small plantation spread across the width of the canyon floor.

  “Here is our cargo,” she said, gesturing to the bushes, trees, and plants that were lined in rows that crossed and followed the canyon, covering several acres.

  All the plants that visibly bore fruit were laden with ripe berries, nuts, and fruits that appeared ready to harvest. Roslyn walked up to the mules, where she pulled a pair of spades off one of the animals. “Let’s dig up the roots first, since they’re the most work,” she instructed as she handed one of the instruments to Alec. She pointed towards rows of low plants against the south wall of the canyon, and Alec led the mules as directed.

  The two of them spent the rest of the day and all the following day working their way across the small farmstead, progressively filling the previously empty bags the mules had carried, loading them with items that appeared delectable, and in the prime of ripeness, even though Alec knew that they obeyed different calendars for ripening their fruits. He thought long into the night as he lay without bothering to serve a guard watch, puzzling over the small mysteries that seemed to increase as the journey continued – the strange coincidental ripening of plants that shouldn’t mature together, Roslyn’s ability to provide fresh vegetables or fruit every day of the trip from the small wagon they pulled, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of food that appeared beyond the natural ability of the wagon to carry, the continual supply of fodder – they were pieces of a puzzle whose answer seemed obvious, but impossible, he realized.

  The next afternoon, as they stood beside one another, filling the last pannier on the last mule, Alec reached out and took Roslyn’s hand in his own, then swept his other hand up her arm suddenly, pushing her sleeve up to her elbow, looking for the ingenaire mark of a Plant ingenaire.

  She looked at him with raised eyebrows as he studied the smooth, unblemished skin on her forearm. “I had concluded that you were never going to attempt to woo me,” she said. “You’ve certainly caught me off-guard with the time and the manner in which you’ve chosen to begin to shower me with signs of your affection, odd as it is.”

  Alec stood facing her, still clasping her hand in his, when the gentle lilt of her phrases finally struck a chord in his memory. “You’re an Old One!” he exclaimed. “From Exbury! You can make plants grow at command!”

  Her eyes widened in reciprocal shock. “How have you heard of Exbury?” she cried.

  “I traveled through the Twenty Cities this spring on my way here from the Avonellene Empire,” Alec answered, then abruptly realized he had revealed more than he intended.

  “Why is an Old One here on the border between Michian and the Dominion?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story,” she answered, “and not worth retelling.”

  Her grip on his hand suddenly tightened, and her free hand swept his sleeve upward, revealing the marks on his arm, dull and faded. She switched arms as he stood passively, and looked at the marks on his other arm. “By all the temples, what an extraordinary story your arms tell; so much more than I ever imagined,” she said softly. “My lord, what has happened to you?”

  “That too is a long story,” he replied. “Are we going to spend the rest of the day here, or shall we return to the road?”

  “I suppose you’re really no different than you were a minute ago, are you?” Roslyn asked rhetorically. “I just think of you in completely different terms.

  “Let’s start moving,” she said, “and perhaps we can talk on the road.”

  By sunset they had left the canyon and moved along the trading route, feeling the warmth of the heat that had baked into the stone walls around them, making them sweat as they labored with their new, heavy loads. The pace was slower now, with the mules carrying full loads of trading goods, and Alec and Roslyn paying little attention to the aches in their muscles as they spoke to one another tentatively, trading a few cautious stories, until they reached a roadside spring, where they pulled their animals onto the dusty shoulder of the trail and ceased their travels for the evening.

  Roslyn prepared a vegetable stew while Alec tended to the mules, giving them each a drink of water from the spring. He kept an eye on a small band of travelers that passed by as he worked at the campfire, then, as the group passed by, he went to tend the animals, where he then combed the mules and staked their leads in place for the night.

  “Are you coming back for dinner or are you going to woo the mules all night?” Roslyn called, then squawked suddenly in distress.

  Alec pulled his sword loose and abandoned the mules as he ran to see what had disrupted her comment.

  Five men with swords, the men he had seen earlier, surrounded her. Two of them held her arms, as three of them advanced to confront Alec.

  Alec took a defensive stance and watched them approach, confident and negligent. He darted at the robber on the left and sliced his arm badly, then turned to face the remaining two, a
ggressively engaging them until he stumbled on an unseen stone that rolled beneath his feet, unseen in the gloomy dusk of sunset. As he fell he felt a blade cut his back, but he flicked the point of his sword at the legs of his opponents and pinked one, who cried out as he fell to the ground.

  Alec rolled over in pain, then rose to his knees to face the one armed robber who still faced him, when there was a cry from the two men who were holding Roslyn. In the darkness Alec could see that the men had released Roslyn as they shouted in terror. Multiple vines were climbing upon each of their legs, visibly wrapping tendrils around the men and starting to squeeze their torsos as they immobilized the bandits.

  There was a shout behind him, and Alec saw that similar vines were beginning to grab hold of the two wounded robbers who he had bested, as they lay on the ground injured.

  “Forgive us, lady and lord,” the one uncaptured, unwounded bandit begged.

  “Please set us free, and we will trouble you no more,” he asked, his feet rapidly changing locations to avoid being snagged by any new growths that wiggled on the ground all around him, seeking to grab hold of him.

  “Take your companions and go from us. Do not return or ever trouble us again, or the plants will seek you out while you sleep, and creep into your mouth and your ears and your nose, so that you never wake up,” Roslyn said in an imperious voice.

  The plants ceased to grow upon the men, then began to loosen themselves, and the free bandit used his sword to cut his companions free. Carrying their wounded comrades, the small band hurried away from the campsite.

  “Let me look at your back,” Roslyn told Alec, authoritatively pulling him over to the fire.

  “Oh stars!” she said, as she gently pulled the shirt from him and saw the ancient scars that still covered his back, remnants of his battles with demons in past ages. “You never mentioned anything that did such damage to you,” she reprimanded him as she opened his bag of medicinal supplies.

  “Demons,” Alec said. “I don’t even like to talk about them. Do you know what to mix together to treat the wound?” he asked.

  She handed him his bag of supplies, which he pulled several items from and loosely mixed together. “Here, put this on the wound,” he told her as he reached around.

  “So that’s why you didn’t really worry about a full complement of guards, and how you always went to sleep in the middle of a briar patch,” Alec murmured as Roslyn gently pressed the herbs onto his sticky flesh.

  “Yes. The plants are generally pretty effective if I have any time to react. Although your heroics were appreciated,” she added. “They snuck up on me and grabbed hold of me before I knew they were there.”

  She finished treating his wound and pulled his shirt down, allowing the two of them to finish their duties and sit down to eat, then silently retire for the evening, Alec feeling his back throb from the wound. Roslyn caused a thicket of thorny bushes to spring up around them both, and they slept soundly.

  They next day they got off to a relatively late start, for Alec’s back was stiff. As they walked they began to talk in earnest, for the first time on the trip, telling one another more detailed stories of their past lives. Roslyn admitted that she had made the long journey away from the Twenty Cities decades earlier, as a young woman, coming out of a failed romance, unable to accept living with a broken heart among the tight-knit community of Old Ones in Exbury. In the years before war existed between the lacertii and Boundary Lake, or between the lacertii and Michian, she had been able to cross the boundaries between the peoples as she traveled. A human traveler among the lacertii lands was possible in that time, and conversely, some lacertii had traveled into the human nations as well.

  That was when she had perfected the practice of trading as a way to make her talent with plants a lucrative endeavor. When she grew tired of the trading and when the exotic lands no longer seemed so appealing, she had longed to go home. But by then the wars had broken out, and crossing the frontier had proved impossible, so she had continued to trade across the safety of the border between the dominion and Michian.

  “But you will go back to Exbury someday?” Alec asked.

  “So I hope,” she agreed. “But I think someday is a long way away,” she spoke with a distant note in her voice.

  Alec related his story from his time since leaving Ridgeclimb and trailing the Warrior ingenairii kidnappers; he judged that while the faded ingenairii marks gave him credibility for many things, they probably failed to give credibility to the story of his centuries of life beforehand. He simply said he traveled east from the Dominion before the lacertii wars began, and settled on the fringe of the Avonellene Empire, a strange name unknown to Roslyn, as it was to virtually every other resident of the Twenty Cities.

  It sounded incredible, the repeated tale he told of his travels across the wilderness and cities between the two distant locations, but of it all, the part that fascinated Roslyn most was the story of Aja, the tree nymph, and her unknown home village of similar members of a unique race.

  The day came when the heavily laden mules began to pass down a long slope that led to an impressive stone structure across a river. It was the bridge over the Ravinia River, a place familiar to Alec from his recent Traveler energy sojourns as well as his long ago memories of the battle he and his friends had fought against demons to stop the first Michian invasion of the Dominion.

  It marked a boundary, and it set Alec’s thoughts spinning again, speculating on overcoming Hellmann and setting Andi free. He lost himself in daydreams about a future life with a freed Andi and the baby she carried, a new family with a tighter and more unique bond that had ever been known before.

  “Do you go to South Harbor or to Bondell to sell your goods?” he asked Roslyn as they walked down the slope towards the river that afternoon.

  “I’ve sold at both cities,” she replied, then looked at him. “Is there one you prefer?”

  “I will have to go to Bondell,” Alec told her. “If you plan to sell at South Harbor, I will part ways with you there when you’ve finished your trades.”

  “I’ll go to Bondell, if you’ll travel with me,” Roslyn declared.

  “And where will you go after Bondell?” she asked.

  “There is a hidden spring, a lake in a cave in a desert mountain. It’s called John Mark’s Pool; it’s a sacred place where I hope my powers can be restored,” Alec told her. “The mountain is out in the wilderness, a few days ride outside of the city.”

  “Would it help you to have a companion on the trip to this cave? A companion whose mules could carry water bags?” Roslyn asked. “I believe the things, the impossible, crazy, dangerous things, you’ve told me. If you must make a journey to this cave, then I am willing to help you.”

  Alec considered the offer. “That is generous, Roslyn. Thank you,” he told her. “But once I am healed, I will not be leaving the desert on foot; I’ll use my Traveler energies. I couldn’t carry a mule out!” he grinned. “And I don’t want to just abandon one there.”

  “I could be your two-footed mule,” Roslyn replied. “I’m not begging you, but I can use the plants to find and provide water in a desert, much more readily than you would ever find it. The plants that live there know where the water is, and how to find it.”

  Alec gratefully agreed to her proposal. Ten days later, they reached the city of Bondell. While Roslyn spent a day in the market selling her goods, Alec visited some of the places he remembered. He was not able to enter the prince’s palace, which he remembered had once been so careless in security, now tightly patrolled and occupied by the rulers appointed by Michian’s ingenairii and sorcerers. The cathedral was empty, abandoned by the command of the new order, and Alec sadly sat and reflected outside the crumbling shell that had been Brother Chaer’s workshop.

  Roslyn sold her goods within a day to the buyers in the marketplace, who bought her plants for reselling throughout the Dominion. She paid a stable to care for her mules for a week, then she and Alec left the ci
ty and began to walk towards the far-off mountain where Alec remembered miraculous occurrences at an ancient holy site.

  They traveled for four days, through rural villages that seemed unchanged from the days when Alec had traveled the same route. On the fifth day they reached a reminder that marked the changed circumstances of the Dominion – an ancient monastery that had fallen into an abandoned ruin. Alec remembered the psalms and prayers he had shared in the monastery, and shook his head at the change that turned the structure into a collection of cobweb strewn empty rooms. He and Roslyn spent a silent night there, and filled their water bags at the forlorn well in the yard the next morning, then started to cross the last stretch of the journey, the true desert that isolated the mountain of John Mark’s Pool from the rest of Bondell.

  For two more days Alec led Roslyn across the empty landscape, in which the secluded peak rose on the horizon and grew larger as they trudged. They emptied their skins of water the first day. The second day they traveled more slowly, stopping in the shallow, empty water courses, where Roslyn used her powers to make plants swell with moisture, so that the two travelers could chew and suck on the leaves and stems to quench their thirst.

  When they reached the foot of the mountain at nightfall, Alec built a small fire, and they sat eating their travel food, as Roslyn asked Alec what would happen tomorrow.

  “I will climb up to the top of a small hill around the side of the mountain. I will go inside, and I hope I will be back soon,” he told her. “It feels like something I have to do on my own. Please wait here for no more than a day or two, and if I don’t return by then, don’t wait for me,” he told her. “I know you can take care of yourself if the situation demands, but I hope it won’t be necessary.”

  “You say you’ve been here before; how long did you stay last time?” Roslyn asked.