Free The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities by Jeffrey Quyle

exasperation, knowing that he would now spend the day healing and helping out of a sense of obligation.
    “Shall we go meet Aja?  Are you able to stand?” Kendra asked Alec, rising and wrapping her blanket around herself.
    “If you are able to heal, why are your wounds here not healed?” she asked Alec, touching some of the scars he had suffered from the attack by the demon.
    “Those wounds, the wounds delivered by a demon, are beyond my ability to fully heal,” Alec asked as he stood.  “There is such power in the evil that inflicted them that the scars remain.”
    “And how is it that you brought that demon to your village?” he asked, suddenly suspicious of the women around him once again as he remembered the ordeal of fighting the demon.
    “We opened the gate to the afterlife to any of those who had died and held a relationship with you.  We did not know that you had caused such a horrific creature to die.  The demon’s death at your hands enabled it to take advantage of the opening,” Kendra answered.  “We are shaken, and in sorrow, and in awe of the thought that you could fight and slay such a monster.
    “It was a horror for us, and it was a horror to the spirits on the other side that we call upon.  It has hurt us all.  Come this way,” she directed.
      Alec followed Kendra from their hut, and when they got outside he used his Light powers to gather together the shreds and threads of starlight that fell through the tree leaves overhead, and fashioned them into a dim ball of light that floated in front of Kendra.
    “What things you are able to do,” the woman commented, and led him between numerous huts on a meandering path.   As they moved across the village Alec heard the faint sound of someone gently singing a ballad ; he remembered having heard the voice before .
    “That’s her voice,” Kendra spoke softly to Alec.
    “Her voice is lovely,” Alec replied.   He felt moved by the melancholy tune she crooned.   “Is she as sad as her music?” he asked.
    They were almost to the hut that was the source of the music even as he spoke, and Kendra stopped to knock at a doorway.   The singing stopped, and a woman’s voice invited them to come in.
    “Visitors?   So late?   What have I done wrong now?” the girl asked in a whimsical tone as Kendra and Alec entered his home .
    She was a lovely girl, Alec could tell even in the dim light that his illuminating globe barely projected.   Her hair was cut very short, barely covering her ears, but that only served to allow her other features to draw the attention of anyone who looked at her.   She had a small, dainty nose and a wide mouth that smiled generously.   Only her eyes detracted from her striking appearance, as they wandered aimless ly about, unfocused on any object.
    “ Aja , it’s Kendra.   I’ve brought you a visitor, the man who came to our village and caused such a stir these past few days,” Alec’s guide explained.
    “Is he twelve feet tall?   Does he have nine fingers and three eyes?   He doesn’t smell as bad as ev eryone here says most men smell, ” the girl laughingly asked.
    “Actually, I have three fingers and nine eyes; you were close,” Alec agreed with her.
    “ Well, he’s got a pleasant voice; and he’s a man who has a sense of humor.   You’re the funniest man I’ve ever seen,” she told Alec. “Quoth the blind girl,” she emphasized her own humor.
    “Enough, enough child,” Kendra shushed her.   “We are here with a proposition.”
    “I waited for one of those once, and all I got was a broken heart,” the girl replied.
    “Is she always like this?” Alec asked.   “I’m afraid of how I might react if I have to listen to this on a daily basis while we’re traveling together.”
    The girl’s head, which had swung randomly around on her neck, grew suddenly still.
    “Did you just stab my heart for fun?   I thought I was the one who knew how to joke, but now I’m afraid you’re