Perilous Travels (The Southern Continent Series Book 2) (6 page)

When she announced that Grange was openly available to play music, she told him and the villagers that he would perform a concert that evening for all to hear.  He complied by playing a variety of songs beginning at sunset, as the entire village sat and listened with great interest, making him sweat with nervousness as he watched the reactions on the faces of the audience members.

They seemed to accept the way he played their own songs, though he saw many listeners cringing from time to time as he worked his way through the body of songs that Oleen had taught him, and he wondered what note he had misplayed.  But they seemed to be surprisingly receptive to the Palmland and Fortune songs that he wove into his performance as well.  By the end of the night he had numerous requests for an encore performance, so that the villagers could listen again and evaluate the songs they liked.

After he played again, and named each song before he played it, he found a handful of eager men seeking to find him and covertly arrange for him to join them and their intended mates.

The end of the monsoon season arrived without Grange having to experience the arrival of any of the storms on land, and he stayed in the village carrying out his obligations to play engagement songs, learning to fight in the passive way of the villagers, and enjoying the carefree lifestyle of the kind people on the island, despite everyone’s initial expectation that he would be quickly shipped off to Kilau.  He didn’t bring the matter up, nor did anyone else, and Grange was satisfied.

Shaylee was his closest friend, and he returned the favor of her rescue by teaching her, Oleen, and another girl to make their own wooden flutes and to play a few simple songs.

“You are teaching girls to be musicians?” Lastone asked, aghast, when he discovered what Grange was doing.

“I’m teaching them to play music,” Grange admitted, unaware that he had done anything wrong.

“The villagers will not want to have girls play their songs,” the man insisted as they practiced their fighting stances.

“I will leave someday, and you will need to have someone play the music,” Grange noted as he launched an attack on his teacher.

“Do you think you need to leave?  You’ve actually fit into our village pretty well.  The people like you,” Lastone surprised him by saying, as he evaded Grange’s effort to trip him.

“I think I do need to leave,” Grange surprised himself by saying.  He had been in the village for more than a month past the date that was supposed to be the end of the monsoon season and the threat of cyclones.  He had been busy in the village, helping the people with chores, learning and teaching music, providing the musician duties that had not been filled in the past, and learning to fight with the skills of the villagers.

But he knew he had obligations.  He missed the wizard training he had left behind, and he vowed to himself that he would begin to practice it immediately upon his return to Palmland.  He was ready to reunite with Bartar – if the man had survived the ship’s passage through the tropical storm – and see the court at Kilau, and then make the journey back to Palmland, where he could see Becca once again.

“If you stay among us long enough, Shaylee will probably become the next head woman of the village, you know,” her father said as they finished their practice and started back to the village.  “The girl likes you, and she is a good girl.  The two of you could marry and lead our people in the future.”

Grange aimed a tentative, embarrassed grin at his companion.  “That’s not what you thought the first day we met, when you were ready to stab me,” he said.

Lastone smiled back.  “I’ve learned more about you since then.  There is a question that we would have to ask, one that I’ve heard many people ask of course,” he paused in some embarrassment.

“What is that?” Grange asked curiously, after the pause stretched out.

“It does not matter, if you are not going to stay,” Lastone said. “Your answer wouldn’t matter in that case.”

That night, when the two of them sat together on the beach, watching the glowing surf roll in, Grange asked Shaylee what question people wanted to know about him.

“No one ever sees you without your pants on.  They wonder if maybe you cannot have babies,” she told him simply. 

“I think I can help make babies,” he barely whispered the answer, as he blushed then – for the first time in a long time –  invisibly in the dark, and they talked about it no more.

“You don’t talk about the jewels in your arm either,” Shaylee changed the topic when he said no more.

“They are a special decoration,” he said.  “They make me feel good,” he added.

Thank you
, the jewel voices spoke.

Grange laughed.  It was the first time he had heard from the jewels since he had arrived on the island, though he had tried several times to talk to them.

“What’s so funny?” Shaylee asked.

“Nothing,” Grange replied.

“You laughed; something must be funny,” the girl said.  She sat up straighter and looked him in the eyes.  “Tell me!”

“Nothing, really,” Grange insisted.  “I was just laughing to myself.”

Shaylee pounced on him unexpectedly, knocking him back from his sitting position on the sandy beach, as she sat on his chest, looking down at him.

“Tell me, or else!” she insisted as she looked down at him.

“Or else what?” he asked, then bucked his hips up high, tossing her to the side and reversing their positions, so that he sat atop her; he was bent low, his hands holding hers above her head as she lay on her back, their faces close together, both laughing, though the moment was precariously balanced between wholesome horseplay and an eminent eruption of the unspoken and unacted-upon attraction between them.

“What is going on here?” Layreen’s voice was suddenly directly over his shoulder, unexpectedly; he had thought the two of them were alone on the beach.

“Nothing, mother,” Shaylee answered as Grange released her and rolled off her, allowing her to sit up next to him.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Layreen answered.  “You go in the house now, while I talk to our friend,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Shaylee gave Grange’s hand a squeeze, then she obediently departed, leaving Grange with Layreen.

“That girl still has a crush on you,” Layreen said.

“Nothing happened, my lady,” Grange said.  It was a protest, and it was true, but in his heart he knew that the two of them had possibly only been moments away from letting their exuberant spirits lead them into physical affection.

“I believe you,” the girl’s mother said.  “And Grange, if I thought you were going to settle down and stay here, I wouldn’t mind if something did happen; I might even encourage it.  You are a good person with a good heart, and you would treat my daughter well.

“But,” she said, “I know, and you know, that you are not intended to spend your life in this village.  I can see fate riding around on your shoulders, ready to lead you off to something big, very big, much bigger than anything this village will ever know.”

She paused, and the two of them were silent in the dark.

“I don’t want her to be hurt,” Layreen said.

“I don’t either,” Grange said in a soft, sincere voice.

“Are you ready to move on then?” she asked him.

He paused to consider the question, then answered it honestly.

“It’s time,” he acknowledged with a sigh.  “It’s time for me to go to Kilau.”

“I’ll ask Lastone tonight,” the woman said.  “I’m sure he’ll agree.

“We can leave tomorrow – you and Shaylee and I,” she surprised him by saying.

“I’d like for my little girl to see the Queen’s court at the great city; she’ll probably never have another chance like this.  And I’ll be along to keep an eye on both of you,” Layreen told him.

“What is your plan?” Grange asked, upset, intrigued and confused.

“We’ll take one of the canoes.  It’ll be a three or four day trip,” she answered.  “And maybe we’ll pick up some supplies to bring back home on the way,” she added.  “I’m sure there will be some surprises at the court too.”

“Now, let’s go inside and get a good night’s sleep,” she suggested, and they walked up from the beach together.

Chapter 7

The village was in an uproar the following morning, when word of Grange’s imminent departure circulated among the residents, and a crowd turned out to follow Shaylee, Layreen, and Grange as they walked east of the village to the small harbor where the fishing boats and canoes were kept.

“It’s a good day for travel,” Layreen said as they loaded supplies into the canoe.  The waters were calm around the island, and a light layer of high, hazy clouds was the only disturbance in the sky, other than the flocks of birds that wheeled over the beach noisily.

Grange placed his hands on Oleen’s shoulders and designated her as his replacement as village musician.  He was repeated embraced and held tightly by his friends from the village, until Layreen spoke up to finally begin the departure.  Shaylee, was already sitting in her position in the front of the canoe waiting for the departure.  Grange and Layreen ran the small vessel out into the shallow waters of the harbor, then climbed in, picked up their paddles, and began the journey.

It was Grange’s first departure from the island since his rescue by Shaylee.  He felt a sense of melancholy, despite his knowledge that he needed to move on, to resume the trip that had been so violently interrupted.  He was going to the court in Kilau to find out if his Palmland companions had reached the city.  When he found them there, and was reunited with them, he would be metamorphosed back into the wizard apprentice that he had been in Palmland, instead of the itinerant musician who had lived in the peaceful village.

“You never used your great powers again in our village, after the first time you showed up,” Shaylee spoke between strokes of her paddle.  “Why not?”

“I never needed to do anything,” he answered simply.  “Other than you pestering me, I had no problems,” he laughed, then choked as her paddle sprayed a heavy wave of sea water back upon him.

They paddled on that morning, crossing the strait between their island and the next closest island.  They stopped briefly to rest, then resumed their journey as they used the afternoon to cross a wide stretch of water that left them completely out of sight of land.

“What will we do tonight?” Grange called the question over his shoulder to Layreen.

“We’ll sleep,” she said without a detectible not of sarcasm.  “On the beach,” she added.

“What beach?” Grange asked.

“We’ll reach an island about an hour before dark,” the woman explained.  “No one lives on that island; it’s hardly more than an atoll.  It’s a pile of rocks, a fringe of sand, and a few trees and bushes.  We’ll pull the canoe up above the tide, and sleep until sunrise.  We’re making good time,” she added.

They kept paddling, and after the designated small isle came into view, Layreen baited hooks on fishing strings, which she threw into the water to trail behind the canoe, as they maneuvered through a break in the surrounding reef and entered the lagoon waters on the way to the beach.

When they approached the gentle surf, Layreen spoke to Grange.  “Hop out and drive us up onto shore,” she ordered.

Grange rolled over the edge of the canoe, then ran alongside in the shallow waters, pushing the canoe so that it rode high up onto the beach, safely above the tide line.

“Shaylee, unload our things; Grange gather some wood for a fire.  I’ll dress the fish,” Layreen ordered everyone to their tasks, and twenty minutes later they had skewered fish filets cooking over the small fire on the beach.

They sat together silently, watching the stars emerge in the sky overhead as the sun set, and ate the fish that Layreen offered them.

“Will we go to the court?” Shaylee asked.  “Or are we just going to drop Grange off and turn around?”

“We’ll visit the court for a few days, to help Grange get oriented until he finds his friends,” her mother answered.  “I suspect this will be your only chance to see the court, and I don’t want to you miss that.

“I’ve even brought dresses for us to wear over our chests,” she added.

Grange’s eyes reflexively glanced at the bare breasts of the women, though he’d grown used to their village’s casual state of dress, and then he looked at Layreen’s face in the flickering firelight.

“What prompted that?” he asked.

“It is the way of the court – the way of the city.  They think they are high and mighty people.  I lived there once upon a time, but I left because I didn’t fit in – I didn’t enjoy the people’s pretensions.  I went out and met your father,” she said to Shaylee with a smile, “and we returned to the village where we live today, where we’ve raised you.”

“What did you do at court?  I never knew!” Shaylee said in surprise.

“I did pretty much whatever I wanted.  I am the Queen’s niece, so I just had to stay out of terrible trouble,” her mother answered.

“You’re a princess?” Grange asked in astonishment.

“Actually, just a duchess,” Layreen laughed.  “But I’d rather be a wizard like you.”

“What is a wizard, exactly?” Shaylee asked.

After a moment of hesitation, Grange launched into a stuttering, meandering explanation of the world of wizards, and answered questions with examples.

“So you could play music to make people feel better?” Shaylee asked skeptically.

“If Grace was singing with me,” he clarified.

“Think about how many of our people have been ill this past season,” Layreen said.  “Ever since Grange came among us and played his music, there have been no illnesses.

“Maybe you don’t need your friend to sing with you,” she said to Grange.  “Maybe you’ve been offering healing all by yourself.”

“I played music before I met her, and no one noticed healing,” Grange protested.

Layreen shrugged.  “Well, let’s all get some sleep, and with an early start tomorrow we can cover most of the journey, then arrive at the palace the following day.”

Grange lay down on the sand near the glowing embers of the fire, and fell asleep, Layreen not far away, and Shaylee on the far side of her mother, as they all rested in the peaceful setting.  When Grange awoke, it was to the sound of Layreen urging him to sit up and start the day.  The eastern horizon was pink with the promise of sunrise already, and the water of the lagoon was smoother than any that Grange had ever seen before, reflective as a mirror, showing the calm images of the dark sky and stars overhead as well as the light in the east.  By the time they trio started paddling, the sun was broaching the horizon.  Under the rosy light of the bright pink sky they slipped through a gap in the coral reef and returned to paddling through the open sea.

They passed an island in the morning, before they stopped at an inhabited island at midday, where Grange’s lightly tanned appearance and white hair was the subject of curiosity similar to what he had faced in Shaylee’s own village upon his initial arrival.

He answered many questions, and let the hosts touch his hair and skin to satisfy their own curiosity, until it was time to leave.  Shortly after noon, the three of them paddled away from the island and continued traveling west.

An hour after they resumed their journey, Layreen changed their course dramatically.  “We’re going to go north,” she said without explanation, as she used her paddle in the rear of the boat like a rudder, curling it in the water to alter their course.

“How do you know this is the place to turn?” Grange asked, searching the empty landscape vainly for some landmark that would signal the need for the change in course.

“Because I want to see if those other canoes are following us,” Layreen answered, referring to a set of canoes that Grange had not even noticed on the horizon behind them.   “There’s no reason in the world for anyone to turn right here, so the canoes behind us should keep going straight west.  If they head north, it means they’re chasing us.”

All heads began to watch backwards frequently, and within minutes, they saw that the three canoes behind them were angling north, seeking to intercept the small canoe that was heading to Kilau.

“Who are they?  Why are they after us?” Shaylee asked.

“I think they must be from Micah, the village we just visited,” Layreen answered.  “I’m not sure why they’re following us, but it probably isn’t for any good reason,” she answered.

“Is there something you can do, any wizard powers you have that will solve this problem?” she asked Grange.

“Let me think,” Grange tried to come up with a means of escaping from the problem.  “Put us back on our original course,” he suggested seconds later.

Layreen shifted her paddle with another jay stroke in the water again, and they swung to the left smoothly.

“Hold on to the canoe now,” Grange told his companions.  “I’m not sure if this will work, or how.”  He turned and looked backwards for a moment.  The pursuing canoes were closer, drawing near enough to allow their features to be distinguished.  Each was a large vessel, with eight or more rowers it appeared, enough to easily overtake and overpower the smaller vessel.

“Pwerau, byddwch gwelwch yn dda yn gwneud ein llong yn mynd ymlaen un filltir yn gyflym iawn?” he spoke the words hesitantly, unsure if he was phrasing his unusual request correctly.  His memories of the scrolls he had studied had been made hazy by the weeks at Waters End, when he had paid little or no thought to the subjects.

He saw a sudden glow in the water around the canoe, and then there was a jerking motion, a pair of yelps from Layreen and Shaylee, and the boat leapt forward at a speed that was many times faster than the three rowers could have ever attained.  The front of the boat was cutting through the water so quickly that it sent waves soaring far above the heads of the astonished passengers, while soaking them all with its heavy spray.

They all turned their heads to the side to breath, as the air came rushing at them so quickly they could not cope with the pressure blowing down their throats.

And then, several minutes later, it was over.  The accelerated voyage ended so abruptly that they all flopped forward, Shaylee bumping her forehead against the bow of the ship.  Their pursuers were no longer in sight.

“Oh Ralax!” Layreen called out to the god of the islanders.  “Thank you for preserving us from Grange’s crazy efforts to preserve us!

“I thank you for the thing you did, but I hope you will not do it again,” she spoke to Grange.  “I’ve never been so frightened in my life.  I’m surprised the canoe did not come apart.”

“What if we could do it again, going only twice as fast as usual?” Grange asked, more exhilarated by the experience than alarmed.

“It would be something to consider in the future,” Layreen answered in a doubtful tone.

Grange didn’t wait, but he immediately called upon the energy to do as requested, “Os gwelwch yn dda pwerau, byddwch yn gwneud i ni symud ymlaen ddwywaith mor gyflym ag y byddwn yn aml yn mynd?”

He saw again the glow in the water around the hull of the canoe, and then they began to move forward at a pace that was fast, yet seemed sedate after their previous episode of assisted travel.

“Grange, is this safe?” Shaylee asked, her hands tightly clutching the gunnels on each side.

“It seems safe to me,” he said intently, carefully observing the structure of the boat as it sped forward, checking to make sure there were no leaks or signs of stress.

After several moments of tension, all three of them relaxed as it became evident that the canoe’s integrity was not in danger, and Layreen kept her paddle in the water at the rear of the craft, adjusting their course as they skimmed forward rapidly.  They approached an island in their path, and she simply curved them around its surrounding reef with a measured twist of her paddle.

“How long will this last?” she asked Grange.

“I think until I stop it,” he told her.

“If we keep going at this speed, we could reach Kilau’s large island tonight.  We’ll have to keep a careful eye out for the other islands along the way – we don’t want to go past Kilau in the dark, and we don’t want to crash into any islands along the way. 

“What would happen if we went up on land?  Would your powers make us keep going, right across the sandy beach and into the trees?” Shaylee asked, curious.

“Since you’re in the front, you’d be the first one to find out,” Grange told her and grinned at his own wit, until Shaylee sent another paddleful of water into his face.

“I hope I’d tell the power to stop before that happened,” he answered further.  “Unless you thought it was faster to go over an island than around it,” he told her.

“Grange!” Shaylee squawked from the front of the canoe.

“If I don’t need to sit up here to paddle, I’m coming back there with you two.  I’m getting too much spray,” she complained, as she turned in her seat, grasped the canoe sides, then lightly stepped back along the length of the canoe.

“Move over,” she told Grange as she reached his narrow seat in the vessel.  He inched to the side, making the canoe rock side-to-side as he continued to thrust his paddle forward into the water, more from habit than need, as the energy propelled the craft regardless of his efforts.  Shaylee cautiously planted herself next to him, each of them wedged into place, hip-to-hip, Grange facing forward and Shaylee facing backwards towards her mother.  She turned to the side and grinned at him with an intimate friendship, and he laughed at the sparkle in her eyes.