An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) (5 page)

“Let us go back to our cabin,” he turned to his friends and spoke.  They looked at him with puzzled expressions, all but Wren, making him realize that he had forgotten to switch languages.  He gave a rueful laugh, then changed back to his elven language, letting the others know that it was time to return to the cabin.

“Friends,” he spoke to them all, “I know we just got here, but since the imps have demonstrated that they can flit home and back here so easily,” there was a stirring among the imps, “I wonder if we all might go to our homes for this night, and then come back here early in the morning to resume our trip?”

“Kestrel-surprise?  Do you jest?” Mulberry asked.

“I do not.  There are enough beds in my home at Oaktown for all of us to sleep there, while all of you may return to your own homes in Blackfriars, and our hosts the gnomes need never know that we were gone,” he answered.

“We’ll go to your home?” Putienne asked.  “Where I was before?”

“You’ve taken the girl to your home before?” Wren asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Stop it!” Kestrel said.  “She was a yeti when we went there before.”

The imps began to close in around them.

“Away we go, Kestrel-friend,” Acanthus said, and then the entire group left the gnome honeymoon cabin empty and dark for the night.

Chapter 4

It was late in the evening when they arrived at the manor in Oaktown.

“Thank you friends,” Kestrel told the imps.  “I’ll call you when we’re ready to return in the morning,” he told them.  There was a flurry of farewells spoken as the imps flickered away, and then the three elven adventurers were left alone, in Kestrel’s own chambers, he realized.

“Let’s go to the kitchen.  There’s always someone awake there,” he suggested to Wren and Putienne.  He opened the door and led them through the dim hallways to the kitchen, where Remy and a chamber maid were sitting close together, sharing a piece of cake at a small table.

“My lord!” Remy stuttered, surprised by Kestrel’s unexpected entrance.  “Cook said I could have this,” he added quickly as he gestured towards the cake.

“Remy, it’s good to see you and your friend,” Kestrel replied.  “We’ve just arrived for the night, and I don’t doubt your right to share the cake with your pretty friend,” he made the silent girl blush.  “Are there rooms where my friends can spend the night?  We just want to get a good night’s sleep, and then we’ll be gone in the morning.”

“Right down the hall from your own room, my lord,” Remy replied, as he belated rose to his feet and stood at attention.  “Would you or your friends like anything to eat?  I know where cook hid the rest of the cake.”

“No, we just had a big meal with the gnomes,” Putty spoke up.

“Gnomes?  Did you say gnomes?” Remy asked.  “Have we met before?  You seem familiar, sort of, but not exactly,” he turned his attention to Putty, studying the half-elven girl closely.

“This is Putienne.  The last time she was here, she was a yeti,” Kestrel answered.  “So you’ve met her before.”

“She’s not a yeti now!” Remy said, speaking with wide eyes.

“Ouch!” he barked a second later as the chambermaid kicked his shin.

“Let us show you the way to your rooms,” he said.  He lit a candle and placed it in a lantern, then led the way back down the hall they had walked along from Kestrel’s room.

“This room and this room are the best for the guests,” he opened two doors across the hall from Kestrel’s room.

“They have fresh linens,” the girl beside him spoke up for the first time.  “I just cleaned them myself yesterday.”

“Thank you,” Kestrel told the pair of youngsters.  “You go back to your cake and have a good time.

“Ladies, you each get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll see you in the morning,” Kestrel told Wren and Putty, as he hugged them both and watch them gratefully go into their respective rooms.

“Did you come with imps?   Were you really with gnomes?” Remy asked Kestrel quietly as the two of them stood in his own doorway a moment later.

“Yes and yes.  We were with the gnomes for dinner, and we’ll go back to see them again tomorrow,” Kestrel answered.  “But we may be back here again some night soon,” he added.

“Now, good night Remy,” Kestrel told his companion.  As he closed his door, he heard Remy and the chamber maid walking down the hall.

“He told me they were with gnomes.  Of course they used our imps to travel.  I’ve done that myself – traveled with the imps – a time or two when I been helping his lordship.  It’s quite an experience, let me tell you,” Remy spoke in a worldly tone to impress his young friend as they went on their own way, and Kestrel smiled as the door closed.

He pulled off his boots laid back in his bed, and felt happy to spend a night back in his Oaktown manor, even if it was only a few short hours stolen from his journey.

He awoke with a start as a gentle tapping on his shoulder ended his sound sleep.

“Kestrel, a man wanted to come in your room, but I scared him away,” Putienne told him, as she sat down beside him.

“What man?” Kestrel asked.

“An elf, with hair that sticks out,” she motioned with her hands to indicate a man with bushy hair.  “It was white hair.  I heard him in the hall, and I saw him at your door, but I turned back into a yeti and scared him away.”

Presumably Whyte had intended to see Kestrel, only to be interrupted by a yeti, he grinned as he visualized the scene.

“Thank you for protecting me,” he straightened his smile and thanked his friend.  He sat up and yawned as he stretched.

“You go wake Wren up and then go to the kitchen and eat some breakfast.  I’ll go try to find out who wanted in here,” he said to the girl, then pushed himself up out of bed.

“You were looking for me?” he said to the steward a few minutes later, when he found the man in his office.

“That is a formidable protector you have,” Whyte told Kestrel in a calm voice.  The two of them shook hands warmly, then sat and went over several pages of notes and questions Whyte had written down concerning a number of topics of estate management.

“And send a bag of pearls to Commander Casimo in Firheng,” Kestrel instructed.  “Tell him to send them to Castona, the trader in Estone, and have two necklaces made with the pearls,” he instructed.  “Then have Castona ship the pearls to the palace in Kirevee in the Northern Forest, to the attention of the Princess Aurelia, with a note directing one necklace to be a wedding gift to her, and the other as a gift to her friend Lucretia.”

“Lucretia, the worldly friend who visited here with you during one of your recent jaunts?” Whyte asked with a raised eyebrow.

“The very same,” Kestrel replied.

“I better go find the ladies and return to the southern mountains,” he said after several minutes of further conversation about other matters at Oaktown.  “I don’t want to be late for today’s activities.”

“You’re a remarkable individual sir,” Whyte commented.  He began to walk with Kestrel back towards the kitchen.  “I hope you’ll be able to spend some time here in the Eastern Forest helping with our own governance someday soon.”

“I hope that better times are on their way without me,” Kestrel told him, thinking of Hampus, who was likely to have reached Center Trunk already with his treaty and report about the Northern Elves.

“Let us hope so,” Whyte said as they entered the kitchen.  Wren and Putienne sat at a small table, eating breakfast, as Wren picked out the roasted crickets from her meal and laid them at the side of the plate.

“I insisted they should eat in the dining room, being your lordship’s guests and all, but they wouldn’t listen to me,” the cook complained.  “So here they are, sitting where they shouldn’t.”

Kestrel picked one of Wren’s discarded crickets from the edge of her plate and ate it.  “You’ll have to forgive them this time.  I am constantly trying to teach them to be better,” he sympathized with the servant, then quickly stepped out of Wren’s reach.

“Let me grab some breakfast as well, and then we’ll call the imps.  Are there any supplies you think we need to take back with us?” Kestrel spoke to the two women at the table.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Putty said to Whyte.  “I just wanted Kestrel to have more sleep,” she explained.

“That was very considerate of you,” the steward answered graciously.

“I don’t know of anything,” Wren answered Kestrel’s question.  “We’re going to be climbing higher mountains?” she asked.

“That’s what the gnomes say,” Kestrel agreed, as he began to eat a piece of toast, then grabbed a loaf of bread and stuffed it in his pack.

“But the imps can just bring us back here at any time if we need anything?” she asked further.

“I don’t see why not,” Kestrel affirmed.  “It’s going to be traveling in a style I’ve never considered before.

“Stillwater, Stillwater, Stillwater,” he called the commander of his impish squad.

A pair of seconds passed, and then the entire group of imps appeared in the space near the kitchen ceiling.

“Kestrel-friend, you should have the grease cleaned from the top of these shelves,” Odare commented, making the cook’s face turn bright red.

“All in good time, imp inspector,” Kestrel nonchalantly replied.  “Are all of you in good spirits this morning?”

“We are indeed, lord Kestrel,” Killcen replied.  “But we expected you to call us much earlier, at sunrise.”

“We are in the east, and the sun rises earlier here than it does in the southern mountains,” Kestrel answered.

“How can that be?” the cook asked.  “The sun rises in the morning everywhere, doesn’t it?”

Kestrel started to answer, then paused.  “Perhaps,” he decided the point wasn’t one worth explaining.

“At any rate, we’re all ready to go, if your squad will do us the honors,” Kestrel spoke to Stillwater as he hastily grabbed a pair of carrots from the counter, while the cook watched with lips pursed in silent disapproval.

“I won’t take anything else this morning, I promise,” Kestrel grinned at the man, as the imps descended, and then the whole group departed from the Eastern Forest, passed through the suspended grayness of the nether regions, and returned to the cabin in the land of the gnomes, where a faint pink light shone through the windows.

“Sunrise is just happening,” Wren said with satisfaction.

There was a quiet knock on the door.

“Come in,” Kestrel called in gnomish, and a trio of gnomes entered the small room.

“It’s good to see everyone up and ready so early,” the village leader commented.  “This young gnome is going to be your trail master.  His name is Bradstree.”

“Good morning Bradstree, and thank you for your service,” Kestrel said politely, bowing to the newly introduced gnome.  He appeared to be slender by the standards of the gnomes, but was so covered in layers of clothing that his real shape was impossible to determine.

“Will they go dressed like that?” Bradstree asked the village elder.

“They will start out that way.  It will be your duty to know when to turn them back,” the elder gnome said.

“Let’s get going,” Wren spoke up, using the gnomes’ own language, impatient to be moving.

“We did not know that you spoke the words of our people!” the second elder said in surprise.

“I’ve only learned it recently,” Wren replied.

And with that, the group trailed out of the cabin, into the darkness of the forest, where the light from the sunrise was only beginning to penetrate.  They strolled up the path to the village, and in the center of the village, where a few men and women were already beginning to carry out chores, the elders bid them farewell.

“The journey is treacherous; do not hesitate to come back before conditions become too bad,” they warned the travelers.

And with that, Bradstree led the way south, out of the village and back into the forested slopes that surrounded the gnomes’ enclave.

The forest grew brighter as the morning grew older, allowing the elves and the imps to see their surroundings more clearly while they journeyed behind the silent gnome who was their guide.  The route was in a direction Kestrel had not traveled when he had made his
Garrant Spark
quest with Hansen and Greta, so he was unfamiliar with the landscape they passed through.

It was stony – rockier than the path they had walked when they had approached the village of the gnomes.  The stones were large, weathered upthrusts of the bones of the mountains, dripping with moss and ferns and green, softened edges, and the terrain grew more rugged, though the path they were on managed to follow the contours with a relatively moderate degree of incline, so that the walking elves – and of course the floating imps – felt no great complaint about the difficulty of their morning trip.

Bradstree called a halt in the early afternoon, near where a small brook came splashing down the mountainside.  The travelers all began to eat food from their supplies, as Kestrel took the loaf of acorn bread he had confiscated that morning in Oaktown, and split it three ways with Putienne and Wren.

The gnome looked at them closely.  “That looks fresh,” he spoke, one of the first things he had said to them all day.

“It is.  Would you like some?” Wren asked.

Bradstree looked puzzled, then shook his head and dismissed the matter from his attention.

“What will the journey be like this afternoon?” Kestrel asked.

“We’ll have an easy way for another hour, then we start to climb for the rest of the day.  We’ll need to hurry if we want to get to the sheltering caves before sunset.  It’s the only reasonable place to plan to spend the night up there,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Let’s get going then,” Kestrel said.  “We can eat while we walk.”

Bradstree grunted and then stood and began traveling once again.

The next hour was a similar steady climb, as he had said, and then the challenge of the mountains’ steeper slopes began.

The path began to grow steep, and the travelers soon found that they had panoramic views looking down on the land they had just traversed.   They could see the rolling forest terrain they had come across, all spread out to the north of them, while to the east and the west they could see a range of mountains, the abrupt beginning of the front they were climbing.  And they could see that it rose high, far higher than the level they were observing from.