The Guided Journey (Book 6) (22 page)

“I have a mission I’m on,” he replied.  “My friends are waiting for me down by the river.  I have to go.

“My advice is that you stay away from this place,” Kestrel said earnestly.  “If you’re going to stay, I hope you’ll run away if something else strange happens.  I don’t know what that was, but it almost made you murder someone for no reason.  That ore was always there; the thing in the mine was just hiding it from you.  Be very careful.”

“We will leave as soon as things start to go bad,” one of them promised.

Kestrel concluded that there was nothing else he could say or do for the miners.  “Be careful,” he warned them, then waved and started to search for his path to descend down the mountainside.  He spent an hour moving around rockslides and slipping down gullies, following game trails, and even climbing trees from time to time so that he could use the branches as his alternative route.

And while he climbed down, he puzzled over the strange entity that had occupied the end of the mine tunnel.  It had some feel, some characteristic that had seemed almost divine, yet he had been able to easily defeat it with his own unsteady abilities.  It wasn’t a god.  It wasn’t anything he could explain.  It was weak, yet without his interference, it would have been able to force the murder of a man, and it could have turned the small band of miners into a cult that might have resorted to more such evil.

And the gods were silent.  He paused in his travels, and beseeched Kai and Growelf once again for a response.  Though he now knew that Krusima was not at the heart of the murderous demands, he desperately wanted to hear the gods tell him what he had faced.

He slanted his path to the north as he went, and by the time he reached the river, the sun was past its zenith and he was miles north of where he had started the day.  And he had no idea of where his companions were.

He stood on top of a bluff that looked out over the river valley, and he looked both up and down river, hoping to spot his friends.  The valley was empty of any sight of the others; the river flowed peacefully, and birds circled lazily high overhead.  There were no signs of Hampus, Putienne, Raines, and Passet.

“Putty!” he shouted loudly, his hands cupped around his mouth as he projected his voice up the river in the direction they would have come from.  There was no answer, and he felt uneasy suddenly as he stood alone in the wilderness.

He turned to face north, cupped his hands and shouted again.  “Putty!” he screamed, and listened to the echoes reverberate off the mountainsides, then felt his heart leap when he heard the yeti’s distinctive call come floating back down the river valley towards him.

He felt a smile crease his face, as he felt relief at knowing the others were not far away.

“I’m coming!” he shouted, then scrambled down to the river, and began to sprint along the surface of the water as the fastest way to reunite with the others.

Ten minutes later, after a rest between two water-top sprints, Kestrel spotted the four members of his group walking down the shoreline of the river, and he maneuvered over to join them.

“Welcome back!” he heard both elvish and human greetings, and he realized that the others had shared no common language as they walked along.

“The miners’ problem is solved, for the time being,” he said, hoping that he wouldn’t have to explain a situation that he didn’t really understand himself.  “They apologize for their madness,” he added, then repeated his comments in elvish for Hampus.

Putienne hung back until Kestrel’s words were done, then rushed forward to hug him tightly, a crushing embrace that left Kestrel breathless as it extended for several seconds, until he managed to leverage himself away from the yeti.

“Thank you, Putty, it’s good to see you too,” he said sincerely.

“Are we all ready to move on?” Kestrel asked.

“How far north are you going to take us?” Passet asked.

“We’re going all the way to the North Forest, through Narrow Bay and North Harbor,” Kestrel answered.

“We don’t plan to go that far,” Passet answered.  “We’ll just get supplies and go back out into the wilderness, to start our lives together.”  He reached out and took Raines’s hand.

“Back to the wilderness?” she asked.  “We couldn’t live in the wilderness.  We were just a day away from disaster before the miners attacked,” she countered.

“What else are we to do?” Passet asked.

“We can go to North Harbor with these men, and start over when we get there,” Raines answered.   “You can be a cobbler in North Harbor just as easily as you were in Narrow Bay,” she explained.

Passet released her hand.  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said passively.

“What are they talking about?” Hampus asked Kestrel.

“They’re arguing about where they’ll go next,” Kestrel answered.  “And I suppose they can argue about it while we keep walking,” he added.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said in human, then took the lead and began to walk north along the river bank, causing the others to turn towards him, ready to move along, just as a loud, rumbling noise suddenly shook the ground.  They all spread their feet apart and raised their arms to maintain their balance.  Kestrel looked around, and saw a small plume of smoke rising from the mountain where the mine was located.

“Oh no,” he said softly in elvish.  Something had happened already, just minutes after he had left.

“What is it?” Hampus asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied.  “But it isn’t good.”

“What was that?” Passet asked.

“I don’t know,” Kestrel answered.  “But I think we ought to get away from this place.”

They started walking, and Kestrel set a pace that was as fast as he thought the two humans could manage, so that by sundown they had traveled several miles, and the two hangers-on were exhausted.

Kestrel left them to rest at the
chosen campsite, while he, Hampus, and Putienne went out hunting in the nearby wilderness.  The three hunters went separate ways, and Kestrel returned first, bringing a trio of squirrels back to camp.  He sat down and skinned the game, then started a fire, just as Hampus returned with a turkey.

They roasted all the meat, and were eating when Putty returned, having satisfied her own hunger.  Kestrel shared a piece of his squirrel meat with the yeti.  After the meal they all sat silently, swatting at the small insects that occasionally circled near the fire, until Kestrel decided it was time to turn in.

“We’ll take turns at guard duty tonight,” Kestrel said to the humans.  “Hampus will go first, then me, then the two of you can have the last watch before dawn.”

He repeated the directions to Hampus, then walked to a soft, sandy patch, and laid down to sleep, secure in knowing that Putty would sleep close to him, providing an extra level of protection, not that he thought he needed any extra.  But the evil thing in the mine had left him slightly less sure of the safety of the world, and so he decided to post the watch for a night or two, until they reached human civilization.

Kestrel quickly fell asleep, and Hampus’s signal to take over the watch seemed to come too soon.  Kestrel watched Hampus pick his own spot to sleep as he began to patrol the perimeter of the camp site, listening to the nearby river and noting the ordinary sounds of the birds and animals of the evening.

In his turn as the watchman he sat and stared at the dull glow of the coals, and tried to understand the strange evil that had lurked within the mountain.  All during the day, as the small group had traversed the river valley terrain, he had thought about the evil that had sprung up in the darkness, and tried to guess what it was, without success.

He had also tried to recall the precise emotions and thoughts that had triggered the protective shield he had thrown up with his powers.  There had been fear, he admitted that to himself.  And there had been some sense of self-awareness, a recognition of the ability that lay latent within his soul.  And there had been a need, a dramatic need, for protection.  As he sat and pondered, he thought that he was coming to understand how to put the emotions and desires together with self-command in a way that would give him control of the shield of energy.

He walked around the perimeter of the campsite, seeing nothing of note, and returned to his spot near the fire, then prayed again to Kai.

“My goddess, if you hear my prayers, please answer,” he pleaded simply.  He wanted to ask the goddess about Krusima, but he also simply wanted to feel her acknowledgement of his prayers.

There was no feeling, no thoughts, no words in response.

“Kere,” he prayed in desperation, “why do the human gods not acknowledge me?” he asked.

“It is not you, Kestre
l,” he heard the elven goddess say within his heart.  “
The gods of the humans are deeply troubled, so troubled that they have withdrawn their attentions from the world.  They are answering no prayers at all
.”

Kestrel shivered at the thought of the gods leaving the world.   “What could make them desert us?” he asked.

“
It is not my place to discuss their troubles
,” Kere answered.  “
Go on with your life Kestrel, but tread carefully.   There is something amiss
.”

Kestrel felt the spirit of Kere depart, and he took a deep breath.  The world was a fearful place if the gods were troubled, he told himself.  He was fortunate to have a yeti as a companion, and Hampus had matured into a decent companion as well.  He felt relatively secure in the company of them. 

Perhaps it was the absence of the gods that had allowed the evil spirit to emerge from the mountain and infect the miners, he told himself.  Perhaps there were other hidden spirits that might come to light while the gods were absent, he shuddered to think.

There were no events during the rest of Kestrel’s watch duty, only more worries.  He awoke Passet and Raines to accept the last shift, then went to his sleeping spot near Putienne, whose eyes he observed were open, watching his movements.  “You go sleep,” he said gently to the furry being, reaching over to pat its head before he laid down and quickly fell asleep.

Raines poked his shoulder as the sun came up.

“Elf, I don’t even know your name,” she said.

“Is it time to get up?” Kestrel asked, stretching.

“Passet is gone,” the human woman said.  “I was drowsy, and must have fallen asleep.  I don’t think it was for very long, but wh
en I looked around, he was gone!”

“Did you hear anything?” Kestrel came fully awake, and sat up.  His sudden movement caused Putty to rise to a crouching position, ready for action.

“I didn’t hear anything!  He’s such a baby!” she said scornfully.  “He was angry because I said we couldn’t try to live in the wilderness, and he couldn’t get over it, or accept it.”

Kestrel cradled his forehead in his hand as he considered the new problem.

“So, do you think he went back out into the wilderness to try to live on his own?” he asked after a moment’s consideration.

“I guess so,” Raines answered.

“You stay here,” he said.  “I’ll wake up Hampus, then I’ll try to go find him.  If I can, I’ll ask him to come back to us.  If I can’t,” he hesitated.  “If I can’t find him, we’re not going to spend a lot of time out here looking for him.  We’re short on supplies, we have a mission to finish,” he told her, not adding that he no longer felt as safe in the wilderness as he had before encountering the miners and their horror, then learning of the disengagement of the gods.  He wanted to feel the safety of civilization for reassurance.

“So what’s your name?” Raines asked.  “How did you come to have such beautiful eyes?” she tacked on an additional question as she faced Kestrel in the growing light of the day.  “I’ve never seen purple eyes before!  They’re like jewels!”

“I’m Kestrel.  My friend is Hampus,” he hesitated only a fraction of a second before using the term ‘friend’.  “My other friend is Putienne, or Putty,” he motioned towards the yeti, who was watching him.  “I lived with a clan of gnomes once, and they gave me something that made my eyes purple.

“Stay here with Hampus, and I’ll be back soon,” he told her, then went over and shook the other elf awake.

“Hampus, wake up.  The human man is gone.  I’m going to go look for him,” Kestrel said.  “You stay here with the human woman and Putty,” he directed.

“How long will you be gone?” Hampus asked.

“I’ll search for one hour, and if I don’t find him, I’ll come back and we’ll go on north; we don’t need to spend another day here in the mountains,” Kestrel answered.  He picked up his knife, grabbed a piece of dried fruit, then started jogging south, looking for the foolish man who was alone in the wilderness.

He walked along the river bank, the easiest route and the one he suspected was most likely for Passet to take.  He found no signs of footprints or other evidence of the man’s passage, and he veered inland, into the trees and the rugged terrain of the river valley in search of Passet, but he found nothing after nearly an hour.  Even if Passat had left two hours ahead of Kestrel, the elf judged that the human’s weak eyesight and lack of skills wouldn’t enable him to move very far or very fast in the predawn darkness.  His absence was a mystery.

And then Kestrel heard a groaning sound.  It was a mixture of pain and despair, and it was very nearby.