The Caravan Road (37 page)

“I may have seen something,” the guard attempted to equivocate.  Trayma virtually whimpered in dismay, then suddenly grabbed the man’s sword and swung it wildly in the air in front of him, missing the unseen Alec as he tried to intercept the vengeful spirit that haunted him.

“This won’t do.  How do I protect myself?” Trayma asked aloud.

“You’ve not been harmed yet, my lord,” the guard attempted to sooth his commander.

“Not been harmed yet?” Trayma shrieked mockingly, as the two guards outside the door opened it to see the ruckus inside, and watched their ruler melt down.  “That ghost is going to get me!  No one can see him but me!  The ghost is going to kill me – he wants revenge!” Trayma stopped suddenly, realizing that he was over the line.  “Take me to my chambers, immediately,” he ordered, and stepped towards the door at a hasty pace.

Alec fell into place behind the swiftly moving quartet of ruler and three guards as they mounted two sets of stairs to the private quarters, where a separate set of guards awaited and took responsibility for Trayma’s safety, allowing the three from downstairs to separate themselves from their rule.  “Thank the stars!” Alec heard a low voice say as the guards went downstairs.  “Did you hear him cry like a girl?” the voice said before they moved out of ear range.

The guards accompanied Trayma along an opulent hallway, one with thickly carpeted floors, then the lead guard held a particular door open and Trayma bolted inside, making Alec sprint to get into the room before the door closed.  He nearly failed, as he felt the door bump the back of his heel when it closed on him.

He stopped and stood inside the doorway to look around at the chambers.  Trayma was passing directly through the large sitting room to another door, the bedroom, Alec saw as he followed, then into a third room, the bath chambers it turned out.  Trayma went to a counter and stood there with his hands propping him up, looking into a mirror, Alec realized.

Carefully Alec positioned himself behind Trayma, then made himself visibly reflected in the mirror as Trayma examined his own face carefully.  At the appearance of Alec’s face the marquis’s eyes widened and his face grew pale, while he sharply inhaled between clenched lips.  Trayma whirled around quickly, but Alec re-engaged his invisibility, preventing Trayma from seeing him directly.

“Leave me!  Leave me!  Haunt me no longer!  What is it you want?” Trayma’s voice began as a scream, and ended as a whimper.

“I want revenge,” Alec said as he reappeared on Trayma’s left.  “Quisel will be my weapon of revenge, just as he was your weapon.  Your own followers will turn on you, as you turned on me.”  He regained his invisibility and edged out of the bath chambers back into the bedroom.

As he did, a pair of servants entered the room, one carrying a tray loaded with food, the other carrying a very inebriated young woman.  Both were unloaded, the food tray gently on a table, the girl carelessly on the bed.  Alec approached the girl, as he listened to Trayma still in the bathroom, talking to the invisible ghost he thought was still with him.

Cautiously, Alec examined the girl with his Healer vision; she had been given some plant extract that made her comatose, relaxed and unresponsive, red hartsbane, he concluded.  Alec lifted his invisibility cover, and focused his Healer power on treating the girl, improving her blood flow, strengthening her ability to cleanse the intoxicating agent from her blood.  The girl raised her head and looked around, dazed.  She was a very pretty girl, with long blond hair, Alec noted.

“Where am I?” she asked, then spotted Alec and stared at him.

“Ssshh,” Alec cautioned her.  “You are in the palace of the marquis.  Do you know how you came here?” he whispered.

“I was eating at a café, and a man brought a pair of drinks to the table.  We drank them, and he asked me if I wanted to do something.  What was it?” she asked herself as she started to sit up.

“Stop, stay down,” Alec quietly urged her.  “You were drugged, and they brought you to the palace for the marquis’s pleasure,” he said.  She looked at him without comprehension.  “He plans to use you,” Alec obliquely clarified.

There was a look of comprehension and horror on her face, and she started to rise.

“No.  Stay down.  We can make this work.  I can protect you if you pretend to still be drugged.  Lie down,” Alec urged.

“Now listen.  The marquis is in the room next door.  When he comes in here, you need to play asleep, and he’ll probably eat some food first.  When he approaches you and touches you, then you jump up and run over to the window there,” Alec pointed.  “I will be there, but I will be invisible, so when you come to me I will be able to hide you as well.”

“Invisible?” the girl asked skeptically.

“Watch this,” Alec told her, and he made himself invisible momentarily.

“How do you do that?” the girl asked in astonishment when Alec quickly reappeared.

Alec heard movement in the bathroom.

“What is your name?” he asked urgently.

“Kate,” she told him.

“Trust me Kate.  I’ll be over by the window.  I will not let him hurt you.  Just play asleep until he touches you, then run to me,” Alec urged, and he stood, backed away from her, and resumed his cloak of invisibility, just moments before Trayma entered the room, a haggard look on his face.

Kate looked at the blank spot where Alec had disappeared, then dropped her head and closed her eyes to mere slits, watching carefully as Trayma wandered into the room, still muttering.  “Quisel.  Quisel has betrayed me,” he said as he approached the tray of food.  He picked up a piece of roast beef and took a bite, then dropped the food as he chewed.  He sat on the corner of the table and removed his boots, ate another bite of meat, then removed his shirt, and ate a bite again.  He stood and pulled his pants off, ate another bite of food, then approached the prone girl, placing his hand on her bottom, only to jerk it back in shock as the girl rose to her hands and feet and jumped away from him like a sprinter leaving the blocks in a race.  The blond girl went ten feet towards the window, then abruptly disappeared from view.

“Oh stars!” Trayma said, standing naked in the middle of his room.  “The ghost took my girl!”

The girl ran straight into Alec, hitting him with the full impact of her momentum, wrapping her arms around him and looking up at him.  He clamped a hand over her mouth to prevent her from making a sound, and when he saw the comprehension in her eyes, he removed his hand.  Gently, he shuffled his feet to the left, holding his arms around the girl to lead her with him away from the window.

“The girl!” Trayma wailed.  He ran to the window and jerked the glass panes open, looking out at the courtyard below, as though he might somehow find her there, then he reversed direction and ran to the doors of the sitting room and jerked them open.

“Guards!  Guards, come at once,” he commanded, standing naked before them.  “The ghost has stolen the girl from my room!  Come find her.”

The guards looked helplessly at one another, then entered the room with the distraught ruler.  As they entered the bedroom, Alec led Kate into the sitting room, reversing positions with the guards, out of the way of the search.

“The girl ran at the window and disappeared,” Trayma insisted.  “The ghost took her.”

“What ghost, sir?” asked one guard, looking around the room.

“The ghost of Coden.  He told me he was going to get revenge.  He said that Quisel would attack me!” Trayma rambled.  “Send a message to Bened; tell him I command him to send a squad to find and execute Lord Quisel immediately,” Trayma ordered.

The two guards stood still, aghast at the conversation they heard.  “Go, go at once!  Shall I have you killed for treason as well?” Trayma shouted at them.

Come with me, we’re going to safety now
, Alec told her silently, then clamped a hand over her mouth again. 
Think your thoughts to me; do not speak.

This is possible?
Kate articulated each word carefully.

It is right now
, Alec affirmed.  He released her from his hug, but held onto her hand. 
As long as we touch, it will work.
 
We’re going to leave the palace,
he explained, as the two guards ran past them and out of the chambers.

Kate looked at him in astonishment. 
We can see each other, but others cannot see us as long as you stay next to me
, Alec explained.

I’ve never had such a dream
, Kate told him.

I hope you never have such a reality again
, Alec answered.  He held her hand and led her into the hallway, then down the stairs, and down another set of stairs to the ground floor of the palace. 
When we go out the door we’ll walk straight ahead and through the gate to leave the palace grounds,
Alec explained. 
Which way should we go to take you to your home?

Left,
Kate answered,
but you don’t have to take me home
.  She paused. 
Wait!  Please do.
 
I would appreciate the escort; I don’t know what is happening around me, thank you,
she acquiesced.

The level of guard activity was rising as the two approached the door, and Alec realized that a hastily organized squad was being assembled in the front courtyard and sent out on a mission, possibly the mission he had set in motion against Lord Quisel.

With a loud command from a sergeant, the squad passed through the gates and headed towards the left.   Alec and Kate ran quickly to follow closely behind the squad out of the gates, and then turned left behind it.  When they passed a block beyond the palace, Alec released his use of the Light power, and with night time having fallen, they suddenly came into visibility in the darkened city.

“We’re visible once again,” Alec told the girl conventionally.  “You don’t have to hold hands to communicate any longer.  And I’m going to do one more thing,” he added as he released his grip on her hand, and brought both of his hands to his face.  He stood still for thirty seconds, Kate peering at him curiously, and when he removed his hands, she gasped.

“You changed your face?  Was there some kind of mask? Is this a mask?” the girl asked in astonishment.

“No, this is my real face,” Alec answered.  “The face before was a mask I used to fool the palace.  I don’t need to show that face around the city any longer,” he said.  “Let’s go on our way; please lead on,” he told her.

The squad of soldiers had disappeared from before them during Alec’s delay to reassert his features.  “I wished we’d stayed invisible,” Kate told him.  “The neighborhood is not a safe one after dark.  My sister and I don’t leave the apartment after sunset.”

“I’ll get you safely there,” Alec pledged, as they resumed walking.  “If it’s not safe, why don’t you live someplace else?”

She gave him a look that made him think he’d overstepped good manners, but then she answered.  “We don’t make a lot of money, and unless we agree to start doing things like what the Marquis planned for me, we’re not going to make a lot, so we live where we can afford, and we stay out of trouble.”

“What do you do for a living?” Alec asked.

“Sewing; mostly mending work for the well-to-do,” Kate replied, leading Alec down a dark side street.  The sound of scuffling feet began to follow them, and Kate moved closer to Alec.  “Stand over here,” he told her softly, and cloaked her in invisibility, then he split his energies, using his Spirit energy to insulate the use of his Warrior energy as he stood in the dark road and waited.

Seconds later four young men appeared, scruffy in appearance, and carrying wooden clubs.

“Where’s the girl?” one of them asked.

“You should’ve kept going; you should’ve run instead of standing still and making it so easy,” another one spoke.

“If you turn around right now and leave, none of you will get hurt,” Alec told them, provoking laughter.

“Do you want to talk about getting hurt?” the boy on the right spoke as he wound up and swung his club viciously.

Alec leaned back and let the club pass in front of him, then grabbed the boy’s arm and used his momentum to swing him around and back at his own companions, striking one in the head and making him crumple to the pavement.  Alec struck his fist on the back of his assailant’s head, knocking him unconscious as well, then he grabbed the club that had been aimed at him, and swung it with blinding speed across the legs of the remaining two robbers, knocking them onto the top of the heap.

He released his energies, and held out his hand to Kate.  “Let’s get you home,” he told her, and they walked without further incident for the next ten minutes to deliver her to a dark fourth floor apartment door, where she had to convince her sister it was safe to open the door.

“I can’t thank you enough for all you did,” Kate told Alec.

“Knowing that you’re safe is thanks enough.  If you’ll excuse me now, I need to go home as well,” he
told the girl, as her sister pee
ked over her shoulder at the man who had escorted her safely home.”

“Tell me what happened!” he heard the sister cry as Kate locked the door shut.  He smiled at the thought of how unbelievable Kate’s story would seem, then he ran downstairs and back outside into the cool air of the spring evening.