The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (3 page)

“Which others?” Andi asked, disturbed by the conversation that made no sense to her. 
Are you feeling alright, Alec?  Do you want me to give you some quiet time to recover your wits?

“Jasel, Hope, Bauer, Stacha, Salem – the rest of our crew,” he explained
who he was referring to
.  He tried to recollect where they were, and how they had come to such extravagant lodgings.

They wouldn’t have, they couldn’t have taken up residence in such splendor anywhere in the mountains, he realized
, and began to comprehend that something had gone amiss
.  “What happened to me Andi? Why am I lying here in bed?”  He started to swing his legs to leave the mattress, then realized he was nude, and stayed in place while the girl was watching him.

“We fought those miners, and I had shared my blood with Jasel, and,” he stopped.  “That’s the last thing I remember.”

Andi stared at him in shock.  “Oh, surely you remember more than that,” she said.

He studied the look of horror on her face; she
was not faking that expression –
that look of sick fear was genuine, he was sure.

“What is it Andi?  Are the others okay?  Are you in trouble?  Are we in trouble?” he asked.

Tears started to drop from Andi’s eyes, and her face contorted with profound emotion.

Alec, please answer me Alec
, she cried
.  Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten
.

There was no answer.  She had heard no spirit messages from him yet, she realized, and her cries broke into deep, gulping sobs of loss.

Alec pulled the blanket off the bed to cover himself as he slid off the bed and
took a step
to reach her and embrace the girl in a comforting hug.  “Andi, you’re going to be okay.  This is a safe place, and I’ll take care of you,” he said soothingly, desperate to say anything to stop her tears.

Oh Alec, you’ve forgotten everything about us
, he heard her voice within his head as they hugged one another tightly.

He pulled away from her in shock, and held her at arm’s length.  “How did you do that?” he asked.  “Are you a lokasenna?”

Andi shook her head negatively, just as there was a knock at the door.  They both turned their head to look at the door, and a second later a maid opened the door.  “Pardon me, but Master Amane thought you would want to move back down here with your paramour.  He told me to bring your things here, Miss Andi,” the elderly maid said, and she paid no attention to the two people wrapped in the blanket on the floor as she neatly piled Andi’s possessions near the door and then left the room, pulling the door firmly shut behind her.

Alec looked at Andi in astonishment
, causing her to try to explain
.  “You and I Alec, we are more than lovers.  I was killed in a fight in Woven, and you saved me.  You saved me by pulling my spirit into your own body to stay alive and live with you for a day, while our bodies shared your blood to keep my body alive.

“Don’t you remember?” she cried in anguish.
  “Our blood, our minds, our very souls mingled with one another!

“Alec, I have some of your memories.  You have some of mine.  Our spirits can talk to each other at any distance.  We can’t stand to be separated; we have to be close to each other; we can find each other just by feeling where we are,” she wailed, then whispered.  “Don’t you remember, Alec?”

“What happened?” he asked stunned by the impossible relationship she was describing.
  “How could I forget something like that?”

“We fought the ingenairii,” Andi began.

“We caught them?” Alec asked.

“You found them, and you started to fight them.  I came run
ning to help you, but as I approached
you,” she paused, and her voice dropped lower, “one of them shot an arrow through your head.”

Alec stared at her, transfixed by the story.  “What happened then?”

“I called out to your spirit, and you came back to me, and you used my hands to administer your healing power; you took my powers, and the powers in Amane, and you turned them into healing power that brought you
r body
back to life.  That was three weeks ago, and you’ve just woken up this morning for the first time.  Oh Alec!  I can’t live without you,” she wailed, and she held her arms out to him, pleading for some sign.

He reached forward and took her in his arms, stunned by the story she had spun
, trying to reconcile what he had been told with what he felt
.  He’d thought of Andi as a good companion to have on the trip, a tireless worker, a Black Crag guard, and a pretty girl, but he never would have imagined her as his soul mate; she’d paid extra attention to him and he’d watched out for her with wariness at times.  Yet he could not doubt the sincerity of her pain as she cried on his shoulder.

Alec, you have made me so much more than I was.  Your love makes me feel whole
, she told him as he embraced her.

Look at what you did for me
!
  Do you remember the training we were working on?
Andi asked him.  She pulled back, then swung her arm down to show him the sword of the Warrior ingenaire mark that shone brightly in her forearm
, delivering another shock to him
.  “You taught me how to go to the place between the barriers,” she told him, “and how to find the power.  We were just starting to work on bringing the power back to our world.

“Oh Alec, where are your memories?” she wailed.  She stared into his eyes intently.  “When will they come back?”

“I don’t know,” he said slow
ly.  “I may never get them back, or they may return in five minutes.”  He sat back from her, and closed his eyes.  What was he to do, he wondered.  “Andi, listen, until we get this straightened out, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to sleep together like this,” he told her
, gesturing towards the belongings that had just been delivered, as he tried to grope his way through the inexplicable and conflicting realities he was trying to reconcile
.

“Alec, please, please don’t say that.  If you could remember, if you could feel
our bond
again, you’d know how much I want to be with you; I have to be as close as possible to you, now that you’re awake again,” she told him, almost pleading.

“Where are we Andi?” he asked, at a loss, desperate for a safe topic.

“We’re in the city of Exbury.  Do you remember the stories about the Five Cities?  Exbury is a part of the Twenty Cities,” she told him.

His hands moved
towards her right arm, holding
it gently as his
attention wandered and his
fingers traced over the
Warrior mark that was embedded in her flesh
.  “How did you get this?” he asked.

“We were riding our horses – you and Jody, and Kane and I – in a street in Woven,
on the way to the palace,
when an assassin shot an arrow at the boy.  I rose up out of my saddle and caught the arrow before it reached him,” she said.  “And then I passed out, and had headaches and felt weak for days after that.  You felt badly with me.  Don’t you remember?” her cry was repeated again.

“The second time I used my powers was when I saw that arrow strike you
in the battle here
; then I killed three of the Warrior ingenairii with a bow and arrow,” she told him.

S
he raised her hands to his face
.  Gently, both of them with open eyes, she placed her lips against his, kissing the lower lip and then the upper lip, feeling the reluctance in his reaction.  She stopped, and hugged him again as she sobbed at the horrible truth of his
imperfect
awakening, so different from the dreams she had harbored during the weeks of his invalidcy.

What can we do for you?
Andi asked.
 
How can I help you to be whole?

I can’t tell you.  Maybe the memories will return quickly
, as my mind awakens further
,
he tried to offer a hopeful response.

She pulled away from him and looked at him.  “Oh Alec,” she moaned the words, but with a note of resignation now in her voice.  “Here, get back in bed, and let me tend to you.  We need to see how the rest of you is recovering.”  They stood and Alec sat on the side of the bed.

“I feel weak,” he admitted to her, trusting that
regardless of anything else that might stun him,
he could rely on this girl who seemed so devoted to him.

“Of course; it’s like that time in the lacertii war, when you woke up after two weeks, and you could hardly walk across the camp,” Andi agreed.

“Part of that was my complete loss of powers,” Alec affirmed.  He paused, then asked, “How did you know that?”

“It’s part of our memories; we shared so many memories when
our spirits mingled while
you kept me alive inside yourself.  You know so many things about me.  You teased me about the first boy I kissed,” she told him emotionally.

“I don’t mean to upset you Andi,” he replied, concerned about the quaver in her voice.

“Let’s see how well I can walk.  Can we go find something to eat?”
he asked.

“Of course, of course,” she answered.

“Let’s get you dressed,” she picked up a pair of pants, then pulled the sheet away from him.

“You’ve, seen me, I suppose,” he said uncomfortably,
pausing between words.

“We’re lovers Alec
, spiritually and very physically
.  Our bodies have done everything together.  I’ve seen every inch of your body, and you’ve touched me places in ways I never imagined,” she smiled a sad smile.  “Y
ou’re so passionate,” she added.

“Here,” she pulled t
he pants up his legs
, then let him stand and finish the pants as she retrieved a shirt for him to wear.

“We’re in the home of
a family of
Old Ones,” she said as he stood ready to leave his room.  “They’re like ingenarii, sort of,” she said in answer to his questioning glance,  “This city has Old Ones, people with special powers to grow plants, so there are plants and gardens everywhere – everywhere, believe me,” she gave a wry smile, a smile that charmed Alec.
  “The boy who was in here when you awoke, he’s Amane, a member of the family.

“You used Amane’s energy to help heal yourself, through me, because you said that Plant ingenaire energies where so close to Healer energies in some way,” she explained.

“That reminds me of,” Alec began.

“Yula.  I know,” Andi answered.

He looked at her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I just know.”

“I’ll try to remember not to do that,” she added.

“No, Andi, it wasn’t bad, it was just,” he paused, at a loss for the right word.

“Creepy?” she suggested helpfully.

“Yes,” Alec chuckled.

“I’m sorry, again,” she said.

“Here,” he held out his hand, offering it to her, and they left the room and walked down the hall hand-in-hand, both of them trying to adjust to the altered state of their relationship.

When they reached the informal dining room, a smaller room adjacent to the kitchen, they took seats at the table and asked the s
ervant
for breakfast food, as Andi began to try to recount the adventures they had endured in the period of his missing memories.

“I lifted the entire group in the air and we flew over a city?  Really?” he asked.

“You thought it saved us about three days of travel time, and we really did catch up with the ingenaire kidnappers.  But I’m not sure we really flew – I think it was more of a controlled fall,” Andi told him.

Amane and Tarry and their sister Casse came into the room at that point, full of enthusiastic greetings for Alec, who stammered in embarrassment momentarily
,
until Andi mediated.  “Alec is awake, but he doesn’t have his most rece
nt memories,” she explained.  “For now, h
e doesn’t remember the last two months of his life, almost.  We’re trying to go over
it all so that he understands.
”

“He couldn’t have a better fiancé to awaken to,” Tarry said kindly.

“
Fiancé
?” Alec asked Andi.

“We weren’t pledged to marriage,” Andi said, blushing.

“I’m sorry, I just assumed,” Tarry said.

Amane looked at each of their faces
, grasping some intuitive comprehension of their awkward relationship
.  “Are you no longer a couple?” he asked.

There was a confused
silence.  “We are growing
re
acquainted,” Alec said at last.  “I remember Andi.  I just don’t remember everything, yet.”

“Will you be able to go with the Rangers tomorrow?” Casse asked.  “No, of course not, you’ve just gotten out of bed,” she answered her own question.