The Caravan Road (19 page)

Bauer?
He called next, hoping to contact someone he knew before he began to directly approach the settlement. 

Who calls?  Who are you?
Alec faintly heard the voice of his long-ago acquaintance reply.

Alec, it’s Alec,
he answered. 
I am on my way to visit Warm Springs.  I’ll be there by nightfall.

It will be so good to see you, such a wonderful day,
Bauer answered. 
Thank you for such an inspiring surprise!

“Come along, my friend,” Alec said to the silent Lugust, who followed him obediently through the late fall weather on the trail that rose from Valeriane towards Black Crag and the frontier of the Avonellene empire.  The man had tried to escape from Alec the first night after they had left Valeriane, only to discover that Alec had created a wall of air surrounding the exiled ruler, a dense cell of atmosphere impossible for Lugust to force his way through, leaving him invisibly imprisoned.

Throughout their journey, during the days that had transpired as Alec and Lugust walked along the road, climbing steadily higher into the mountain elevations, Lugust had tried multiple times, in multiple ways, to make a case for his release and return to the throne.  He had tried to bribe and threaten and cajole and to be a co-equal ruler with Alec, all to no effect, other than to test Alec’s patience.  Even now he did not surrender hope that he would somehow miraculously attain his freedom and return to Vincennes.

Alec had grown weary of Lugust’s incessant whining and complaining.  Additionally, the emperor’s physical condition was commensurate with the indulgent life he had lived in the palace, leaving him physically unable to travel at Alec’s pace.  Between the two matters, Alec had finally placed Lugust in a traveling cocoon of air, one that carried him and also contained his noise, so that Alec had travelled for three days with Lugust floating behind him, seldom heard and never listened to.

Now, Alec stopped at the entrance to the valley, and let Lugust down, then released the confining air that surrounded the man.  The emperor was free, though he did not realize it yet.  He continued his constant wheedling, not knowing that Alec could hear him now but had not heard him earlier in the day.

“Once we arrive at Black Crag, you can turn me over to the garrison there as the emperor-in-exile, and they’ll serve me quite well.  They you can go back to Vincennes and tell the court that I’ve been disposed of,” Lugust was plotting.

“And in a year or so, after the court grows tired of Carl’s sanctimonious ways, you can send a message to me and I’ll bring the Black Crag brigade down so that we can assume control of the throne again.  It is a perfect plan!” Lugust was urging Alec.

“Come on, let’s go this way,” Alec replied, turning off the caravan road to head north into the mountains.

“What?  What madness is that?” Lugust asked in astonishment.  “Are you taking me out into the wilderness to murder me?”  He turned and started to run, until Alec used his Air energies to lift him off the ground and bring him back to where Alec had advanced several yards along the narrow trail.

“If I planned to kill you, I would have done so long ago,” Alec repeated the same answer he had given innumerable times in response to Lugust’s accusations of impending murder.  “We’re going someplace where friends live.”  He made Lugust walk in front of him, desirous of wearing the man down through the arduous
journey, as a way to stop the o
ngoing mutterings and schemes.

Alec did not comment as they passed the trail that led to the cave where he had long ago met Bernadina, then held as a captive by a band of highwaymen, robbers that had descended into cannibalism as well as murder and theft.  He had set Bernadina free, and she in turn had rallied a number of her fellow lokasennii to come to rescue Alec from the bandits.  Bernadina had taken Alec back to Warm Springs, where she had tended him and helped him heal from numerous injuries, and revealed to him many secrets about the existence of the lokasenna, the ancient, hidden race of people who exhibited some of the powers of the Spirit ingenairii, as well as the unusual ability to shift their shapes between human and animal.

Through Bernadina he had learned that his own Spirit ingenairii abilities were the result of a distant lokasenna heritage in his own family history, just as his Warrior ingenairii abilities had descended from the ancient Ajacii.  There were other ancient races as well, the Sleigh Maith, from who his Healing powers had been passed down, and Sylphs, Huldra, Hermeticans, and others he did not know, but had heard Bernadina mention.

Bernadina had been a counselor and a friend and a spiritual soul mate in many ways, a being with whom Alec felt closer than with virtually any other, as their souls had communed in the mystical spring waters of Warm Springs.  Now, with Bernadina’s voice silent, Alec feared that her long years had caught up to the grandasteur, the leader of the lokasennii, and a woman who had lived far beyond a mortal human lifespan.

Onward they trudged through the path, over a stretch that was icy and slick, then around another pair of mountain ridges.  It had been many decades since Alec had passed this way to visit Warm Springs, but he remembered the path well, and after a certain point, he boosted his Spirit powers to detect their approach towards any lokasenna sentries who might be guarding the entry to their community.

Five miles later, Alec sensed a pair of lokasennii nearby, and he prepared himself for the encounter.  He did not prepare Lugust however, and when a large mountain bear suddenly lumbered from the bordering scrub to occupy the trail directly in front of them the former emperor screamed and ran to Alec.  “Save me!  Fight it!  Kill this thing.” Lugust shouted his commands in a fearful squeal.

“I am a friend of the lokasennii,” Alec stood still and spoke softly, his hands held together in front of him in a non-threatening posture.

“I saved Bernadina, the grandasteur, many, many years ago, and the grandasteusse, in a different place, Ailse.  I come to see my friends, including Bauer,” he explained.

There was a shudder in the bear’s frame, and it rose tall and vast on its rear two feet, towering higher than the two humans, then it began to shrink, and grow pale, as it morphed into a human man.  Lugust fainted at the sight, and the lokasenna looked down upon the figure on the ground.

“You know the names of our race, though I do not know you.  Who is this one?” he gestured towards Lugust.

“He is a visitor,” Alec made the statement that he knew would seal the fate of Lugust, permanently imprisoning the deposed ruler at the village, for no mortal visitors were allowed to leave, once they learned of the lokasennii.

The eyebrows of the lokasenna rose.  Alec bent and picked Lugust up, lifting him over his shoulder with a grunt.  “Tell your companion that we are friends, entering the village.  I’ll contact Bauer and let him know of my arrival.”

“How will you contact Bauer?” the man asked.

“I am like a grandasteusse, a little bit,” Alec answered, “although a man.  I can communicate with a few others,” he stepped forward and clasped the other man’s hand in his. 
Usually only when in physical contact with a friend, but I can also communicate at a distance with my closest friends.
  He released the man.

“You’re a rare one,” the lokasenna guard said, but he stepped aside, making way for Alec to go on.

“I haven’t seen Bauer since before you were born, when he was a very young man.  It will be good to see an old friend,” Alec said, then gave the man a slap on the shoulder and passed him on the trail.  Moments later he heard a grunt, and turned his head to see the bear meander off the trail into the woods, satisfied that no further sentry duty was needed with Alec.

Alec engaged his powers and wafted Lugust off his shoulder, and thought about how marvelously valuable the Air ingenaire abilities were; in his youth he’d called on other Air ingenairii to propel ships through the water and arrows through the air, and even with those clues he hadn’t thought further about what the power could be used for.   He’d never heard anyone extol the usefulness of Air ingenairii during his years in the Dominion, and even when he’d been busy rebuilding Ingenairii Hill during his later reign as King, he hadn’t emphasized the power.  He’d acquired this ability for himself, and still not recognized its usefulness until this campaign for Valeriane and Vincennes had required him to improvise, and apply his abilities in these new ways.

Lugust gave a groan, starting to arouse from his fainting spell, calling himself to Alec’s attention, and making the ingenaire re-examine his decision one more time.
             

Was it fair, Alec asked himself, to impose this exile on Lugust?  It seemed like the best option, and perhaps the immature, self-aggrandizing former emperor would grow to be a better person, exposed to the life and philosophy and wisdom of the lokasennii.  Ultimately, whether it was fair or not, this was the path Alec had chosen, at a time when the only alternative he could imagine was execution of the self-centered man.  The palace, and Carl, needed the space to establish a new way of rule, a more ethical way that was truer to the tradition Caitlen had set in place, and Lugust’s selfish ego needed to be out of the picture for that to happen.

The sun was starting to set in the west, off to his left as Alec continued along the path.  The sun was behind the mountains already, and the shadows were chilly.  Lugust groaned again, then his eyes opened and the man was awake.  Without ceremony, Alec set him down on the ground.

“What was that back there?  What happened?  Where are we?  Am I safe?”  the questions were fired forth in staccato fashion.

“Everything is fine,” Alec answered calmly.  “Keep walking.  We’re approaching the village of the lokasennii.  We passed one of their sentries on the path a short while ago.”  He started walking again, pressing Lugust forward, and just at that moment they rounded a stony curve in the path and saw that the path was ready to descend into a green valley with numerous buildings scattered throughout the fields and forests.

“What is this place?” Lugust asked with a note of wonder in his voice, a difference from his usual whine or ineffectively peremptory note of command.

“This is the home of the lokasennii,” Alec answered.

“Why is it so green?” Lugust asked as they began to descend the trail.

“There are warm springs scattered throughout the valley here.  They maintain the temperature, even in the depth of winter,” Alec explained, leaving Lugust to contemplate the unusual circumstances in unusual silence. 

When the trail reached the level of the valley floor, Alec saw a middle-aged man standing, waiting for their arrival.  “Bauer?” he called aloud, recognizing the matured face of the boy who had once been a sorceress’s apprentice, who Alec had rescued from death and then shared blood with, changing them each radically as Bauer had been cleansed of the influences of his upbringing while Alec had
suffered
excruciating pain from purging the boy of evil.

“Alec?  My lord, you look the same now as you did when I met you!” the man shouted, and the two embraced warmly.

“Who do you bring with you, Alec?” Bauer asked when they broke apart.

“This is Lugust, my traveling companion, the former emperor of Vincennes,” Alec introduced.  “And this is Bauer, a man who came to live here many years ago.”

“Your highness,” Bauer acknowledged Lugust.

“How long have you been here?” Lugust asked as they began to walk into the village.  “I’ve never heard of this place; I never knew it existed.”

Bauer turned to Alec.  “I don’t know time on the outside; how long have I been here?” 
Do you know what you’ve done by bringing a mortal here?  Does he know?
  Bauer asked.

“Bauer came here to live in the first year of the Empress Caitlen’s reign.  He’s been here nearly one hundred years,” Alec replied. 
I want him to stay here the rest of his life.  That’s why I brought him here.   I want to keep him out of Vincennes and the palace forever; it was either place him in exile here or kill him,
Alec added silently.

Aahh,
Bauer replied silently. 
That is not the way we normally think of Warm Springs, as a prison.

I understand,
Alec agreed,
and I hope that the peace and nature of Warm Springs will not seem like a prison, and hopefully, the people and the community here will make Lugust examine himself.  I hope that he will become a better person.

For his sake or for ours?
Bauer asked wryly. 

Alec laughed aloud.

“What?  What was that for?” Lugust asked.

“Someday Bauer will tell you,” Alec answered, as they began to walk among the scattered buildings.

“The grandasteur would like to see you,” Bauer said to Alec.  “If you head to the cottage there, I’ll take your friend to his home.”

Chapter 11
– Meeting the Grandasteusse

Lugust looked at Alec as he silently walked away, and strode over to the small building that awaited him.  Alec paused at the door and removed his pack, and the winter jacket that he no longer needed to wear in the Warm Springs climate.  Then he knocked on the door, and gently pushed it open so that he could step into the relatively dim interior.