The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (15 page)

He felt her shudder at the thought.  “I don’t remember a thing, nothing at all.  I just woke up and I was lying her
e
with you, and I felt this when I started to stretch.

“Alec, what is that glow?” she gestured towards the cave’s opening.

Alec looked, and then his eyes widened in surprise.  “Aja, I think that’s sunlight!”

Chapter 9
– Healing an Old One

The girl sat bolt upright.  “How can that be, Alec?  I’ve never seen sunlight before!”

“I can only guess – either it’s because our bodies are connected, and so the connection prevents you from changing into a tree,” he paused as he reflected
o
n what could have happened had she converted to a tree while they were grafted together, “or maybe simply having my blood in your body stops the conversion.”

“Can we go see it?  Can I see the sunlight and the world when it’s all lit up?” she pleaded with Alec, her free hand clutching his arm with a
desperate
grip.

“If you’ll do a favor for me, and cover your, um,” he motioned to her chest.

She looked down without regard to Alec’s embarrassment.  “This girl was cut?” she asked.

He nodded, and turned a faint pink.  “Well I appreciate you healing it, but it doesn’t look the same as the other
one
now; the shape’s a li
ttle different.  Will you fix her
for me later, even them out?” she asked as she attempted to shrug a blanket around her while her left hand remained connected to Alec.

“I can separate our arms if it will make it easier for you,” Alec offered.

‘”And maybe miss the sunlight?  Not a chance.  Why don’t you just be a gentleman and drape this around my shoulder for me?” she asked.  “And you haven’t promised to fix my breasts.”

“I’ll fix them sometime,” Alec agreed hastily, as he swung the blanket up over Aja’s shoulder, then offered her a hand up so that she could stand, making it possible for the two of them to walk out into the sunlight together.

Aja held her hand up to shield her eyes from the bright rays of the sun that was climbing above the horizon.  “Oh Alec, everything is so brilliant!” she said, and Alec saw tears in her eyes that were tears of joy.

“I never imagined that we could see so much at once – look!  Look all around,” she swiveled her head in every direction.  “I couldn’t see anything at all just a few days ago, then I could only see at night, but now I know what all of you have seen every day.  You don’t know how wonderful this is, do you?” she hugged Alec with emotion.

“Let’s get packed and we can start walking,” Alec suggested.  “Then you can see more.”

“Will we stay connected?” Aja asked.

“Yes we will, for as long as we can today,” Alec promised.  “Unless we come to some village where we need to separate.”  They re-entered the cave and awkwardly gathered their belongings together, then helped each other drape goods over their shoulders to complete their outfits, and walked out to the road together and resumed their journey.

With trepidation, Alec stopped by a large stone on their path and picked up the enchanted pendant he had confiscated from Erwin.  Aja waited nonchalantly, and did not react at all as the golden jewelry returned to Alec’s possession.  He did not say anything, as he tried to puzzle over her sudden resistance to the pendant’s charms, and concluded that his blood within her body must grant her immunity to the magical powers of the pendant.

By mid-morning they passed through a small village without incident, and then saw another small village two hours later, and passed through it as well, then continued to travel on; the villages reminded Alec of the vicinity of Ridgeclimb, before he had established his clinic there, back when a scattered collection of families had lived precariously in the mountains.  As sunset approached, they found themselves on the outskirts of a moderately large town, larger than both the earlier villages combined.

“I feel like I need to be ready for something,” Alec commented as they saw the wooden palisade that surrounded the town, “but I re
alized I was thinking about
your change from a tree to a person, and that’s not happening tonight, is it?”

“Do you feel up to singing again tonight?” Alec asked, “or would you like to just get a room and relax?”

“I thought I was too worn out from walking all day, until you mentioned singing, and now I’m ready to go,” Aja replied.  “I insist we find some place I can sing!”

Alec looked at the dimming light in the sky overhead.  “The sun’s down now.   Are you ready for me to cut us apart?” he asked.

“Will it hurt?” Aja asked.

“Yes,” Alec admitted, “but only for a few seconds.”  He pulled a knife from his bandolier and held it up.

Aja closed her eyes and turned her head. “Go ahead Alec,” she sighed.

Alec sliced as quickly as possible, then immediately clamped his hand over Aja’s arm as she squealed, and he healed the wound, before addressing his own deep cut.

“That was fast,” Aja said gratefully.

“Well, we’re back to being ourselves,” Alec told the girl.

“It was fun to be you for a day, but kind of boring too,” Aja told him, with an impish smile.

Together, they went into the town and found four inns; one was too rough and one was too refined, so they visited the first of the other two, and Alec introduced Aja as a singer, and made his proposal for a room and meal in exchange for entertainment.  The manager was captivated by Aja’s beauty, and agreed to the deal.

“We’d like to unload our goods in our room, please?” Alec suggested, as Aja held his hand and convincingly stroked her other hand up and down his arm.

As soon as they reached the room, Aja raised her face to Alec’s and placed her lips against his in a hungry kiss.  Shocked, Alec pulled his head back.

“Come on, Alec,” Aja spoke in a husky voice, “you can have a little more time with me before we start the show.”

A light dawned in Alec’s mind.  “I still have the pendant with me
, and we’re no longer connected
!

“Stop!  Wait right here,” Alec told her.  “I’ll be back.”

He felt for the pendant in his pocket, then ran downstairs and out to the stables again, where he found a knothole in a post that nicely concealed the golden charm.

“I’m sorry, Alec,” Aja said
upon his return
.  “I couldn’t help myself.  I don’t know why it happened so suddenly.”

“Because we severed the graft between us,” Alec guessed.  “I had that pendant with me all day, and there was no problem, but just a few minutes after we cut the connection, you lost the immunity to the enchantment.”

“Shall we go downstairs and entertain the crowd?” he asked, and together they went down and carried out their act again, Aja singing and using Alec to provide comedic relief for her first set, and getting a standing ovation as she took a break.

“Alec, I’m hungry!” she told him, as surprised as he was.  “I haven’t had any food all day and I wasn’t soaking up sunlight with my leaves.”

Alec looked at girl and tried to imagine what she would enjoy eating.  “Let’s go to the kitchen,” he took her by the hand and led her back through the crowd to the kitchen.  “Do you have any fresh bread and honey?” he asked the cook, and delivered a surreptitious dose of healing power to the man as thanks for the treat he provided.

“Um!  This is so good, Alec!” Aja told him
moments later
, licking sticky honey from her fingers.  He grinned at her enjoyment.

“Let’s go sing some more, and then you can give me something else!” she said enthusiastically. Alec looked at the cook with a quick glance and raised eyebrows, and was pleased to receive a wink and a nod in return as Alec followed Aja out into the dining parlor.

They provided another set of entertaining songs, yet despite the good will that Aja’s music created, late in the evening a fight broke out in the center of the audience, one which sent many people off to their rooms or out of the tavern as a half dozen men brawled fiercely.  Alec immediately moved Aja to a spot directly behind him and waited until the fight was over, then walked through the wreckage to kneel next to the three losers of the battle, who lay bloody and unconscious.  Alec examined them carefully, then released his Healer energy into each of them as Aja knelt next to him and watched over his shoulder, astonished to see the cut skin knit back together and the scrapes and contusions fade from their skin.

“How do you do that?” the cook’s helper asked as he too watched the healing.

“It’s a special gift I’ve been given,” Alec said simply.

“Can you do that to anyone?” the helper asked.  “Could you even help an Old One?”

Alec raised his head and stared at the boy.  “Of course,” he answered.  “Is there an Old One here?”

“Not here anymore, but not far,” the boy told Alec and Aja.  “You’re the best entertainment we’ve had in a long time,” he nodded to Aja, “but you’re the second entertainment we’ve had in the house in just this week.

“Three days ago an Old One and his pretty lady stayed here, and the Old One did some tricks for us in the evening, making plants do odd things.  He made them grow right before your eyes, or he’d cause flowers to bloom.  As I was saying, nothing as good as this lady’s singing,” he nodded at Aja, who nodded back.

“Well they left our house and went on their way up towards Boundary Lake.  We heard just today that the Old One is lying almost dead from a fight up the road now,” the boy spoke as he started to rise.

“Where up the road is he?” Alec asked with concern and excitement.

“The rumor is that he’s in a small village, the one that has two blacksmith shops, and someone’s taken him into their home, but the injuries are so bad he’s likely to die soon anyway,” the boy answered.

“What of his lady?” Alec questioned.

“There is no word of her.  A traveler brought the story of the Old One only.”

“Thank you for the tale,” Alec told him, then turned to Aja as the boy left.  “That must be Amane.  He and Andi must have caught th
e Warriors and their captives
.”  It must have been an encounter that had gone badly, and Alec felt a fearful anxiety to discover Andi’s fate.

Aja yawned then, and Alec felt weary as well.  “I’ve never felt this way before, Alec,” she said sleepily laying her head on his shoulder.  “I think I could go to sleep now, and I’ve never felt such a need to sleep.  What’s it like?”

“Let’s go upstairs and find out,” Alec told her gently, and they went to their room to lay down.

“Does it hurt to fall asleep?” Aja asked as they lay on the bed together.

“Not at all, my lovely one,” Alec told her softly.  “Just close your eyes and remember the good things that happened today.”

“I had a wonderful time seeing sunlight and daytime, Alec. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve given me,” Aja murmured in response, and minutes later they were both asleep.

When Alec awoke in the morning, a young sapling stood in the corner atop a canvas-bound ball of soil.  Alec stared at Aja’s return to form, and felt his eyes start to tear up at the thought of the girl having only one day of sunlight.  He might be able to effectuate a permanent change in her, he speculated, through application of Healing and Spiritual energies in some extraordinary fashion that he would have to give long thought to, but Aja would no longer be Aja if he did that, he knew, and the relative value of the gain and loss was something that only the girl could judge, he decided as he put his pack on his back.

On top of his misgivings about Aja’s nature, Alec felt considerable unease over the prospect of what he would discover later in the day when he found Amane.  Amane without Andi could only mean that the Black Crag ingenaire was either still tracking the Warriors, something he didn’t think was likely, because he didn’t think Andi would just abandon Amane, or she was dead.  The truth was waiting for him, somewhere not too far away, he knew.

Securely packed up, Alec left the inn, retrieved the pendant once again, then engaged his Warrior abilities as soon as he was outside the palisade of the settlement, and began climbing the road that led up the still rising slopes of the mountains of the west.  During the morning Alec traveled at a rapid clip, slowing down only when he entered villages, so that he could examine each for the number of blacksmith shops. It was not until mid-afternoon, when Alec was many miles away from the settleme
nt where he had spent the night,
that he found a village with two blacksmith establishments.  The village was set in a wide valley with rich alpine pastures, located where two mountain roads crossed one another, and Alec guessed that enough traffic came through each route to keep the two blacksmiths busy.

He dropped his energies and entered the shop of one of the blacksmiths to ask questions of the trio of men who were working hard inside.

“I’ve been trying to catch a pair of friends who traveled in this direction, and I’m told that one of them was injured and is in this village.  He’s an Old One from Exbury, a young man with long black hair, named Amane.  Can you tell me if he’s here, and where Andi is?” Alec thought of blacksmiths as straightforward men who were likely to appreciate a simple and honest approach to any issue.