The Guided Journey (Book 6) (19 page)

“You have not called upon us for so long, our commander made us start serving guard duty at the palace again,” Mulberry said in an injured voice.

Her comment brought a faint smile to Kestrel’s face.

He took a shallow breath, his chest too sore to withstand inhaling deeply, then slid the knife into his belt.  He cautiously rolled over, despite the discomfort, to let his chest better soak in the spring water.

After only a few minutes he rolled over, and sat up.  “I need to get back.”

“Can you stand up, and take your shirt off?” Acanthus asked.

Kestrel looked at him, confused by the question.

“The shirt is soaked in the water,” Acanthus explained.  “If we embrace you and touch the water in the shirt, we will fall asleep and have dreams.”

“I will do so, but tell Mulberry to shut her eyes and be careful of where she places her hands,” Kestrel laughed, then coughed.

“The Water M
ountains are a challenging place to travel.  I have friends who are gnomes who live there.  The gnome who helped me rescue your king and queen – when they were on their great quest into the other world – lives in a village near the place where I fought the yeti.” Kestrel said as he took his shirt off.

“I had hoped we would be able to visit him,” Kestrel added.  “The other elf on this journey knows nothing of the world outside the Eastern Forest.  It is my intent to show him a great deal.  But I think now, with these injuries, we better just go straight forward on the trip to Kirevee.”

“Are you ready?” Stillwater asked.

Kestrel held his damp shirt up over his head.  “I am ready,” he answered, and the three imps gathered around him, Mulberry taking a position directly in front of him, her face just an inch away from his.

“You are so alluring,” Kestrel-teaser,” she told him, her eyes glowing with excitement, then she laughed, “to a female yeti, apparently!  And yet her yeti affections are perhaps too much for you to handle!”

They initiated their transportation at that moment, and began to travel back to the mountaintop plateau.

”What’s happening?” Hampus cried as soon as they returned.  “Kestrel, where did they take you?  What are they doing to us?”

Kestrel stood stiff and immobile, the pain in his body still real, though the edge had been removed by the precious minutes in the spring water.

“Stop crying; be quiet!” Kestrel spoke with disgust to the other elf.

“These are my friends, the imps of the Swampy Morass,” Kestrel told Hampus after the elf quieted, while the imps floated nearby.  Kestrel began to pull his shirt back on, and glanced at the body of the dead yeti, and a fantastic idea suddenly occurred to him.

“Stillwater, could you and many others do a favor for me?” he asked.

“Certainly,” the imp answered.

“Maybe,” Mulberry chimed in.

“There is a place in the human city of Estone, in the great palace of their leader.  I wish to travel to that city.  The sprites took me there before,” he said.

“The sprites?” Acanthus asked.

“We were not told that an instruction course was needed to be your escorts,” Mulberry spoke up.  “Learn to go here, learn to go there.  And the queen claims that there is a different woman you have loved in every single city we will visit.”

Kestrel opened his mouth to protest, then stopped.  He might find it difficult to argue the point, he feared.

“Yes, the sprites.   The queen was not among those who went to the palace with me, so she will not be able to give you the coordinates,” he tried to be helpful.  Reasion had been the sprite he had relied upon, but his silent friend was a sprite no longer, nor silent any longer, as she lived in Albanu, where she reigned as the new queen of the recovering land.  “Perhaps she can tell you who did take me there.”

Even Stillwater looked at him askance.  “There is another place in the city we could go instead,” he decided to concede defeat.  “A room at an inn, where your queen has transported me.  We can go there; perhaps that would be simpler for you?” he suggested.  It would not be simpler for him if the room was occupied by guests of the inn, but he would risk that in order to get to Estone.

“It is a sad comment on the world when asking the queen is the simpler answer,” Mulberry told him scornfully.

“The queen says,” Stillwater spoke up, “that the place where he kept company with his human paramour is simple to reach.  She has given me directions.”

“Will you remove your shirt again, please?” Acanthus asked Kestrel.

He promptly pulled the fabric off and held it aloft again.  “I’ll be back,” he told the astonished Hampus, who stood gaping at the extraordinary activities.

They arrived in the suite in the inn in Estone, where an elderly woman sat in the bed reading, while her businessman husband sat at the desk, adding columns of numbers for his trading company.

“Pardon us, we’re just passing through,” Kestrel told the dumbfounded couple.  “This is a lovely room.  I hope you enjoy your stay,” he told them, then hastily departed through the door, the imps following him.  “Stay with me,” Kestrel told them.  “The people of Estone will enjoy having you come along.”

They walked through the hallway and the front lobby of the inn to gasps of astonishment, readily visible as Kestrel moved at a gingerly, slow pace, encumbered by his injuries.

“What are they doing?” a small human girl asked on the street when Kestrel began walking towards Castona’s trading post.  She spoke in the human language, and Kestrel paused a moment to mentally translate.

“They are my bodyguards,” Kestrel told the girl.  “They’re here visiting Estone with me.”

“Where are your bodyguards?” he asked the youngster.

“I don’t have any!” she replied with still astonished exuberance.

“As pretty as you are, your father will probably have to get some for you someday,” Kestrel told her, and he continued on through the streets.  People stopped and stared at the extraordinary spectacle, while those inside buildings hung out of windows, as the imps grew accustomed to the attention, and began to show off, gliding away from Kestrel to come closer to the onlookers.

Acanthus began to do rolls and somersaults, while Mulberry blew kisses, and Stillwater shook hands with some of those who looked out the upper floor windows of the buildings that lined the streets.

They turned a corner, and Kestrel saw Castona’s shop, with Castona standing in front of the bystanders who were craning their necks to spot the reason for the crowd noise that preceded Kestrel’s approach.  As he walked along, he saw the recognition dawn on Castona’s face when Kestrel drew close enough.

Kestrel waved, and Castona waved back.

“Will you take a yeti off my hands?” Kestrel called as they drew together, speaking in the human language.  That was the reason for his trip to Estone; he knew from experience that a yeti was an extremely valuable commodity in Estone.

“A yeti?  Look at you!  What a spectacle, with your escort!  We haven’t seen any of the sprites since your magical battle at the
palace,” the trader exclaimed.

“Imps!” Mulberry said indignantly.  “We’re imps!  We are not sprites!”

“My apologies!  I did not realize that the race of imps provided such beauty for our eyes to feast upon,” Castona said diplomatically.

“So where is this yeti?  How long will it take for you to bring some items for me to evaluate?” he asked Kestrel.  “You know the market will make you wealthy once again.”

“Stillwater, would you go get many friends, and ask them to bring the yeti here to this place?” Kestrel asked.

“Certainly, friend Kestrel,” the imp replied, and all three of the blue companies disappeared.  The crowd collectively groaned in dismay as the skies were cleared of the unusual sight.

“You’re going to deliver a yeti here by imps?” Castona asked in astonishment.

“We just fought half an hour ago,” Kestrel answered.  He patted the knife that was stuck in his belt on his hip.  “I’m still sore.  We were up in the Water Mountains, and happened to run into the monster.”

Just then a dozen imps appeared, and lowered the body of the yeti to the street.  The crowd surrounding the body screamed and fled in panic at the sight of the fearsome beast.

“You owe us a trip to the spring,” two of the imps said to Kestrel simultaneously.

“You’re sure it’s dead?” Castona asked cautiously without approaching.

“I’m still alive, but just barely, and it’s dead,” Kestrel assured him.

The trader stepped over through the wide empty space surrounding the monster, and knelt next to it.  “I’ve never seen a complete body,” he said in awe, looking at the massive length and size of the yeti. 

“Crain, Tong, Marst!” he called his assistants.  “Bring a trailer so that we can haul this around to the back of the shop.

“It’s a female,” he told Kestrel, looking up.

Kestrel approached, and the trader pointed out the breasts that were obscured by the shaggy fur on the yeti’s chest.  “It might have a baby.  Did you see one around the battle?”

Kestrel shook his head.  “All I saw was my life passing before my eyes,” he answered, as the workers for the trading shop pulled a trailer from an alleyway, and wheeled it into the street, while the crowd that had maintained its distance began to close in.

“Let’s hurry,” Castona urged his men.  “The souvenir seekers will be clipping fur off it in a minute.”

Kestrel stood back and watched and listened, as the four men grunted and strained to lift the carcass onto the trailer.  The workers wheeled it away, as Castona stood with Kestrel, satisfied with the acquisition of the monster.  The sun was starting to set in Estone, and he was assured of having the yeti that was worth a fortune securely protected in his shop.

“With all these witnesses to the full carcass, and the whole procession of imps through the street?  This will be the most recognized and authenticated yeti carcass in my lifetime!  This will bring in a fortune!  You’re going to be even richer than I expected, now that I think about it,” Castona told Kestrel.

“I need to leave immediately,” Kestrel replied.  “When you sell everything, send the money to me, care of the Princess Aurelia of the Northern Forest elves, at the palace at Kirevee.  I’ll be there in another month or so,” Kestrel said.  “And in the meantime, can you give me a belt sheath for my knife and a good new bow?”

“The Northern Elves?  You’re going to go see the princess?   Is there something I should know about an impending royal wedding?” Castona asked as the two of them entered the door of the shop, while Kestrel’s three remaining imp companions swooped into the shop along with them.

“No, we’re just friends,” Kestrel said, remembering when he had used the healing spring to cure Aurelia of the terrible ageing illness she had suffered from.  He headed to where a number of bows were on display, and he selected one that seemed straight and strong to replace the one the yeti had broken, while Castona handed him a stout leather sheath for his knife.

“Thank you
for taking care of everything for me,” Kestrel said.  “Would you give a pint of the blood to the Doge with my apologies for not calling upon him?” he asked one more favor.

“The Doge will make your titles hereditary for such a gift!” Castona joked.

“Be careful up there in the mountains,” the trader said.  “And come back to see us sometime when you can visit for a while.”

“I will,” Kestrel promised.  “I have a new trading market in my town where freshwater pearls are being traded.  I need to see if we can trade anything to you.”

“Pearls?” Castona asked with great interest, just as the imps and Kestrel disappeared from his shop.

Chapter 19 – Bathing a Yeti

When Kestrel returned to the plateau in the Water Mountains, Hampus screamed in momentary fear again.

“Where have you been?  What do those creatures do with you when they take you away?” Hampus asked.

Kestrel scanned the horizon, looking for any signs of another yeti – a mate or offspring to the one he had killed.

“A flock of them came and took the yeti away,” Hampus told Kestrel.

“We are not a flock!” Stillwater said indignantly.

“I told them to get it,” Kestrel added absentmindedly, still looking around.  There was no sign of another yeti.  Over an hour had passed since he had killed the female, telling him that the danger of further attack was slender.

“Thank you for your help,” Kestrel told the imps.  “I will call you if I need further help, but in the meantime, you are free to return to your land.  We will look forward to visiting the healing spring in the future.”

The imps bid him good bye, then disappeared from the reddening sky.

“We need to get our things together and start moving again,” Kestrel spoke.  It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was starting to set; they were further west than Estone, and he had learned through his travels with the imps that the sun’s position was always earlier in the east.

Yet despite the lack of any evidence of another yeti, he hoped they would have enough time to move out of the vicinity of the battle.  He didn’t want to have a creature sneak up on them during the night.

He walked over to the crevasse where he had fallen during the battle, and looked down at his belongings in the gloomy interior of the crack in the plateau’s surface.

“Hampus, my ribs are too sore to go down there,” Kestrel motioned the other elf to join him.  “Will you jump down there and get my things for me?”

“It’s too deep,” Hampus said in a voice that conveyed that there was nothing to discuss.

“It wasn’t too deep when the yeti knocked me into it,” Kestrel said.  “And it wasn’t too deep when the yeti jerked me out of it.”

“And look at you – you’re crippled.  You’re a mess,” Hampus stated.

At that moment, a high-pitched squeal sounded directly behind them.

Hampus screamed and jumped into the crevasse, as Kestrel wheeled around and drew his knife free of its sheath.

A yeti, a young one, was facing him.  The creature was slightly shorter than he was, perhaps five feet tall, a very immature specimen.  It was undoubtedly the child of the female he had killed in the battle.  It did not appear to be particularly hostile – not bent on revenge; it simply appeared to be lost and confused, perhaps searching for its mother.

And instead, it had stumbled upon Kestrel.

No Kestrel
, a voice spoke in the air around him, a female voice.

“Are you safe?  Did you kill it?  What did you just say?” Hampus’s voice floated up from the interior of the crevasse behind Kestrel.

Don’t kill it.  Make it your friend.  Use your power
, the voice told him.  It was a female voice.

“Kai, is that you?” Kestrel asked tentatively.  He kept an eye on the baby yeti as it stood still, staring at him.

Yes Kestrel.  Look inside, find the source of your power, and focus on love and friendship and mutual support.  Let the creature know that you will be its friend
, the goddess told him.

The proposal was ridiculous.  It was astounding, the last thing in the world he would ever consider doing.  He looked at the creature in front of him.  It already had razor-sharp claws, and strong jaws that were filled with pointed teeth.  Its hide was already tough and resistant to most attacks.  It was a menace, and only going to grow larger and meaner and more dangerous.

But at the moment the young yeti merely looked confused.

“Do you have my staff?” Kestrel called down behind him to Hampus.  “Throw it up here to me.”

“Have you killed that monster?” Hampus asked.

“Throw my staff up here,” Kestrel repeated.  “Or I’ll trip the yeti and make it fall down there with you.”

He heard Hampus scramble, and then he turned to see the staff rise up out of the darkness.   He reached behind his position at the edge of the crevasse and grabbed the staff.

“Now send the sword up here too,” he instructed.  “Then the pack of goods.”

He caught them both as they flew upward. 

“Now,” he said in a quieter voice, “time to work on the harder task.”

He stared at the yeti, which had stood in place, watching him.

“Are we going to be friends?” he asked rhetorically, then closed his eyes and tried to imagine how the power within him could provoke friendship between him and the monster.  He tried to imagine what a friendship with a yeti would be like.   The monster would never be likely to have language; it would probably be more like a pet, like the dogs that the humans of Graylee had kept, a friendly, loyal animal.

Perhaps the relationship would be akin to the way he had thought of horses in the past.  They were intelligent, reliable animals.  They accepted his control of most situations, but still felt affection.

The goddess said this friendship power was within him.  He thought of the goddess, and he remembered the love he had felt from her, and how he had tried to reciprocate it by creating the
statue of her at the temple in Hydrotaz.  That was love; it was friendship and more.

He had created that
statue because the goddess had made him believe that she had placed her power within him.  He had felt it then; he hadn’t searched for it.  He had simply focused on the task at hand, the creation of the statue that would represent the beauty and wisdom and power and friendship that Kai had given to him.  He knew that she could give it to all her worshippers.

He hadn’t looked for that power, he realized.

He closed his eyes, and held out his hands.  “Come to me, youngster,” he called to the yeti child.  “I am your friend.”

He felt the energy blossom within him.  He kept his eyes shut, so that he would not be distracted by the sight of the fangs and fur and claws that approached him.  He focused on the friendship that he wanted to hold with the yeti.  He would protect it and feed it and care for it.  When it became wounded he would treat it and comfort it.

The energy of friendship emanated from him in a steady pulse of power, and it radiated outward.  He could feel it spreading, and then he felt it touch the yeti.  The creature was instantly suffused with love and devotion, and he felt the yeti return the feeling towards him.  It placed its paws upon his hands, and when they made contact he felt a wave of intense loyalty spring outward from the touch.

Kestrel opened his eyes and looked at the yeti.  He was holding hands with a yeti!  It was an astonishing, incomprehensible experience.  He felt himself cease to release the energy, as the task of establishing friendship was completed.

“Are you ready to come up here?  I’m going to pitch our camp here tonight,” he called over his shoulder to Hampus.

“Is it safe up there?” the elf in the crevasse asked.

Kestrel broke the contact with the yeti and pointed to a spot several yards away.  “I want you to go over there and wait for me,” he told the animal.

Without hesitation, the yeti obeyed him.

“Come on up,” Kestrel yelled down.  He heard a scrabbling noise, then an oath.  A moment later there was more scrabbling, before a hand appeared at the edge of the crevasse.  “I need some help,” Hampus called.

Kestrel winced as he lifted Hampus up.  “I thought you climbed mighty mountains,” he said.  He hadn’t tried to bait the princess’s betrothed in quite a while, but the temptation was too great.

“The monster is still here!” Hampus shrieked.

“He’s not going to hurt you.  He and I have made peace; he’s a friend,” Kestrel spoke as he kept a tight grip on Hampus’s sleeve, to prevent the elf from going back down into the crevasse.

“He’s going to be with us going forward, so get used to it,” Kestrel said.  “I’m going to start a fire for a little while this evening.  He felt secure with the yeti in the camp, even a baby yeti.  There was no likelihood of any attackers being in a yeti territory, likely to sneak up on them, even if they did announce their presence and location with a fire in the wilderness.  He made Hampus arrange their belongings.

“You’re not really an elf at all, not really even half-elf, are you?” Hampus asked later, as they sat on the ground and watched the fire.  The yeti sat near Kestrel, its eyes shining brightly as it watched the flames with fascination, while Hampus watched the yeti nervously.

“You disappear with imps and play with yetis, and they say you trade with humans and talk to them and their gods,” he said.  “None of that seems like the things an elf does.”

“Maybe elves – at least those in the Eastern Forest – need to rethink what it means to be an elf,” Kestrel replied.  “Maybe the elves shouldn’t hide in the forest and try to avoid the rest of the world.”

“But we’ve always done it that way,” Hampus replied.  “There’s no need to change.  Nothing ever has to change.”

“The Southern Elves lost their entire forest,” Kestrel replied.  “The Viathins controlled Uniontown and burnt down the entire forest.  They would have done the same to the Eastern Forest if we had just stayed in the forest and tried to pretend we didn’t have to change,” he argued.

Hampus sat quietly after that.  Kestrel let the fire die down, then told Hampus to crawl into his covers and go to sleep.

“You go to sleep too,” he told the yeti.  He wasn’t going to set a watch for the night, not with the young monster present to deter trouble.  They would all get a good night’s sleep, and resume the journey when they woke in the morning.  He took a drink of the healing water, then laid out his own covers and gingerly laid down, then calmly fell asleep, with the yeti nearby.

The next morning they resumed their journey.  Kestrel and the yeti walked in front, while Hampus kept his space and walked at some distance behind them.  The yeti was hungry, Kestrel immediately realized as it eyed the dried fruit he ate while he walked.  He kept his bow and arrow at the ready, and sent the monster out to retrieve the rabbits and birds he shot for it as they walked along.

Feeding the yeti proved to be a time-consuming activity, one that slowed them down, but by midday they were descending from the plateau and beginning to follow a river bed that appeared to take them due west.  Kestrel hoped it was the river they needed, the one he had followed through the mountains on his first trip to Kiravee.

Throughout the morning, he walked in a state of dazed wonder; he was filled with disbelief at the realization that he had befriended a young yeti.  When it had happened, prompted by the divine command of Kai, it had seemed like an unusual but acceptable action.  But in the morning, as he strode along, the animal’s unwashed fragrance causing him to wrinkle his nose from time to time, the inconceivability of being friends with a yeti was driven home.

What would it be like to try to take a yeti among the humans of Narrow Bay and North Harbor?  How would the yeti react to the sight of so many people around?  Could he go on with his planned journey south to Seafare and beyond with a yeti as a companion?  It all seemed impossible.

“Stillwater, Stillwater, Stillwater,” he called as he smelled the yeti once again.

The imp appeared in the air, took one look at the yeti, and dived at it with a loud yell.

“Wait!” Kestrel shouted.  “Stillwater, don’t attack!” he said, just as a dozen more imps appeared in reaction to Stillwater’s request for help.

“What’s happening?!” Hampus shouted from his position many yards away.

“Don’t attack the yeti!” Kestrel shouted at the imps, as the monster swatted at the flying creatures.

“Kestrel crazy friend, are you alright?” Mulberry asked as all the imps hovered anxiously in the air overhead.

“I’m fine.  The yeti is not a threat.  It is my friend,” Kestrel told the imps.  “The yeti I killed yesterday was its mother, I think.”

“You are its new mother?” Acanthus asked cautiously, as most of the imps disappeared.

“I am not its mother,” Kestrel said decisively.  “But I am its friend.  And as a friend, I want to give it a bath!  Would one of you go get some soap so that when we come to the next river we can give this fellow a bath?”

“A bath?  You’re going to give a yeti a bath?” Hampus asked, approaching the stationery locations of the others.

The yeti looked on passively, focusing on Kestrel, while stealing glances at the imps to make sure they launched no further attacks.

“I’ll be back with your soap,” Mulberry said, and disappeared from sight, provoking a warble of curiosity from the yeti.

“She’ll be back,” Kestrel assured the animal, patting it on the arm.  “Let’s get moving forward and find a river or stream,” Kestrel spoke to the others, sending everyone in motion.  They had been in the descending valley of a river that drained the plateau, as their game path strayed some distance away from the tumbling water that was falling in a series of cataracts and waterfalls down towards a valley that appeared to weave a path between the mountains to the west.