The Caravan Road (24 page)

“Yes, they went west.  One of our people heard them mention that they were on their way to the Twenty Cities for more captives, and they had a long, long way to go after that,” she insisted.

“Marva, hold this boy for me,” Alec directed, as he moved to a young boy who was writhing in pain.  The guard knelt next to him and wrapped her arms around the boy in a maternal manner, calming him before Alec released his energy to heal the terrible burns that covered much of his legs.

“You do miracles without end!” Marva exclaimed as she looked at the fresh pink skin that faded to a healthy tint as Alec administered his energy, causing the boy’s whimpers to cease.  He looked up at Marva, then snuggled closely in against her and closed his eyes.

“Stay with him,” Alec instructed softly, then moved on to the next patient.  Within minutes he had healed three more patients, but knew that his capacity to use much more of his ingenaire talents was nearly at an end for the night.

“How many more wounded do we have?” he asked.  His ball of light was flickering, and his skin was gray, causing Mirren to look at him with concern.

“There are six more, lord,” she answered.  “They’re around the corner.”

“What is the worst case there?” Alec asked.

“We had to amputate a girl’s arms, both of them, and there is infection, despite everything we’ve tried to dose her with,” Mirren answered.  “The others are not so bad.”

“Let me give them each a touch of healing for tonight, and we can tend to them tomorrow when I’m refreshed,” Alec spoke mostly to himself.

“Can we do these things?  Can you teach us to carry out miracles with a touch?” Mirren asked.  “We could take some of the strain off of you.”

“This is something beyond what can be taught,” Alec said.  “I try to teach all of you as much as I can to help you heal as much as you can, but this is not something one is taught.”

Mirren continued to look at Alec with shining eyes of admiration, as Marva joined them, carrying a lantern that someone had given her.

“The little one is asleep, sound asleep,” she told Alec.

“Thank you for attending him,” Alec told her.  “Mirren, show me where the other patients are, then take Marva and show her where to lead our guests for the night, after them put their mules up.”

Mirren showed Alec where to go, then the two young women left him alone with his sputtering light and the six patients, all of whom were awake, and all of whom looked at him from their straw pallets.

“I’m here to help you,” Alec told them.

“You can help me die,” one voice spoke bitterly, and Alec knew it was the girl who had lost her arms.

He started at the other end of the line, away from the girl, sending gentle streams of healing powers into each patient, helping to fight infections or mend injuries slightly, trying to take away the worst of their pain as he worked his way at last to the girl without arms.  Alec recognized her, as he recognized nearly every patient he had visited this night.  Now that he was coming out of his shock, he was cognizant of who the people were that he was there to help.  This girl was Trevia’s daughter, Ingenia, the one who Trevia had complained to Alec about as an unmannered teenager.

“Just let me die,” she moaned.  “I can’t even feed myself.  Let me die.”

Alec called upon the last reserves of energy he could muster, and began to release them into Ingenia.  “We’ll keep you alive, and we’ll heal your wounds.  Just be patient and have faith,” he told her.

“You can’t heal these!” she held her stumps up before his face.  He reached up wearily and grabbed one, then unwrapped the bandages.  The stump was clean, after he had forced his energies to remove the infection and heal the flesh.

“I will heal them tomorrow or the next day,” he said solemnly, then released the arm and slumped down onto the floor.  “I’m worn out from healing now, but tomorrow I’ll finish this, I promise.”  He leaned his head back against the wooden side of the stall they were in, and closed his eyes.

There was so much pain and destruction, and there was no possible explanation.  He had put decades into building security and peace in this settlement, giving the people of the region and the travelers on the caravan highway a sense that civilization could exist even in the middle of the rugged mountains.  Then, for no reason, some band of rogues had come and torn away the sheet of tranquility and harmed so many lives.  He wondered if he had done anyone in the mountains any good through his efforts, or if he had simply led them astray into a false sense of security.

“I believe you,” Ingenia said softly.  “I believe you can grow new hands and arms for me.”

Alec smiled, pleased to hear the affirmation of trust, and then fell asleep, exhausted from his ingenaire labors.

Chapter 13
– Healing at the Clinic

When Alec awoke there were a blanket and two bodies draped over him keeping him warm.  Stacha and Racha were on either side of him, cuddled against him beneath separate blankets; their eyes were closed, and their foreheads were calm and smooth, while they each had the hint of a smile on their lips as they slept.  He shook his head at the notion of the two girls, people who had been sold and used abominably, now attaching themselves to him.  They deserved his protection and
they
would receive it as he tried to figure out how to give them some sense of self-worth and independence.  That, however, was a long way down his list of priorities at the moment.

He rose from beneath the girls, both of them limply slumping into the spot he vacated, staying asleep as he stood over them and looked around.

Ingenia was awake, and her eyes were watching him.  He walked over to her, and saw that Andi stood on guard in the doorway, a frown on her face as her eyes shifted to the sleeping girls in his spot.  He gave the Black Crag guard a wave of thanks, then knelt beside the wooden frame and mattress that provided Ingenia’s bedding.  He placed his hand on her head and sent a stream of healing energy into her body, not to begin the monumental task of growing her new limbs, but to heal all the other maladies that had occupied her body in her period of stress and shock.

“Is this it?  Are you going to give me back hands now?” she asked him as she felt the vitality spreading through her body.

“Not yet,” Alec said.  “That will be a taxing task; I want to heal these other folks first, and make sure we don’t have any other emergencies I need to deal with first.”  He saw the disappointment, and then distrust, appear in her eyes.

“When I use my energy to give you back your hands, it will take everything I have to carry out,” he explained.  “I won’t be any good to do anything else afterwards, so I want to make sure there’s nothing I need to do that can’t wait another day.  I will serve you, and give you all the power I have to use
,
” he pledged.

“You promise?” she asked.

“I promise,” he affirmed, then rose to his full height, and left to heal the other patients who were suffering in the stables, treating them all, and then felt himself starting to wear down already.  He had used so much power the day before that his labors today were already beginning to stretch his abilities.

“Andi,” he said as he stepped away fro
m the last patient he healed, “H
ave you slept tonight?”

“No, my lord,” she answered alertly, dark rings around her eyes, though she looked at him brightly.

“Thank you for serving watch duty.  Let’s go see what the situation is and what needs to be done,” he requested as he gave her a small stream of Healing energy, and she fell in step beside him as they left the stable doorway and walked out into the yard.  The morning sunlight felt warm as they walked over to the door to the main building, and stepped inside.

Many members of the staff were industriously working inside, still repairing damage to door frames.  “Where’s Partre?” Alec asked one apprentice he recognized, hoping to find that his senior assistant was organizing the recovery of the clinic.

“Partre was the first one they killed,” the boy told Alec.

“Who’s in charge now?” Alec asked, shaking his head over the loss of the man who had been so capable as a healer and as an administrator.  He felt a lump rise in his throat as he thought of all that Partre had done, and all that he had been capable of doing.

Grile is now,” the boy answered.  “He’s down in the root cellar, checking supplies,” he anticipated Alec’s next question.

“Do you know where Marva, Bauer and Hope are?” Alec turned to ask Andi.

“They’re upstairs in the loft,” the apprentice answered that question as well.

Alec sent Andi up to the loft to check on their friends and then to sleep, then went down the stairs to the root cellar, where Grile and Mirren were each starting to carry a bag of potatoes up the steps.  Alec took the bag from Mirren and joined the two upstairs in the kitchen.  “I’m glad you stepped up and took control of Ridgeclimb,” Alec told the young man.

“We’re so sorry we didn’t protect it better for you,” Grile protested.

“I can’t imagine that you could have done more.  I built it strong enough to withstand an attack by regular highway robbers, but not by a dozen Ajacii or Warrior ingenairii,” Alec assured him. 
“
This is not your fault.”

“Ingenairii?  I think that’s what they called themselves; I’m sure that’s the word they used,” Mirren spoke up.

“There are no ingenairii in this part of the world,” Alec said sharply.  “I’m the only one.”

“If you say so master,” Mirren backed down hastily.

“You’re sure that’s the word they used?” he asked again.

“They said, ‘it seems like a waste of ingenairii energy to fight this lot,’” Mirren replied.  “That was right after they just murdered people right and left, after Partre met them at the door and told them that the clinic was a sanctuary they could not enter to take people against their will.”

“And they went west?” Alec reconfirmed what he had heard the night before.

“We saw their tracks go that way,” Grile confirmed.  “We were afraid to try to follow them.”

They heard a clatter on the other side of the kitchen, and saw Jasel placing food items in a large sack.

“What’s up Jasel?” Mirren asked.

The large farm boy looked up and saw them standing.  “Master Alec, thank you for the healing last night.  I feel good.  I’m ready to go now; that’s why I’m packing,” he answered.

“Are you going back to the farm?” Grile asked.

“No, I’m going to go find Kriste and bring her back home,” Jasel spoke with steely resolve.

“Where are you going to go?” Alec asked.

“West, I’ll just keep going west, to the land of lacertii,” Jasel replied.  “I heard them say they would have an easy trip until they got to the lacertii.”

“Don’t go just yet,” Alec spoke authoritatively.  “I know the land of the lacertii, and I know the ingenairii,” he said.  “And none of this makes any sense.  I want to gather everything we know about what these attackers said and did, so that we understand what happened here. 

“And then, I’ll go with you to rescue Kriste,” he concluded.

Jasel’s eyes lit up.  “You will?  You’ll go with me?”

“I will, but not this moment.  I have to make sure everything here is in order, and I have to settle things with the companions who came with me,” Alec said.  “I don’t have any idea how far we’re going to have to go, but it could take weeks,” he added.  “So let’s take time to make sure we do it right.”

“Master,” Grile spoke up.  “Mirren said many fabulous things about what you did last night.  I’m sorry I was sleeping; I’ve been so worn down with all we’ve been doing.

“What are your abilities?  How did you get them?” he asked.

“I’ve had most of my abilities since the day I began to build Ridgeclimb, and actually for many years before that,” Alec answered.

“I am an ingenaire, from a far-away land called the Dominion; a few people in the empire have noticed my slight accent,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.  “I have many abilities, but I’ve never had to use them overtly here at the clinic before.  We have built a good community without needing to have ingenaire energy in constant use,” he told the three listeners.

“There you are!” Stacha said brightly, wandering into the kitchen with her sister, followed immediately by Hope, Bauer, and Marva.

After introductions were made, they all moved to the dining room and sat around the largest of the communal tables, as Jasel, Grile, and Mirren gave a repeat recitation of what had happened and been said.  Marva gave a report that her impromptu inspection of Ridgeclimb indicated that other than glass for the windows, most of the structural damage had been fixed.  Mirren spoke at length about what they had done to fix the damage they had suffered.

“I’ve promised Jasel that I will go with him in search of his sister, and the people who kidnapped her,” Alec revealed to his traveling companions at last.  “We may have to go all the way to the Twenty Cities to find them,” he indicated, “given the long lead they have.”

“But they won’t be able to travel through the snow as well as we will,” Hope interjected.  “You’ll be able to block the blizzards, and clear the snow from the road, or light up our path, so we’ll be able to travel much faster than them.”