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

wonder, he let the concocted device dissolve into the air.   “Kendra, will you lead me back to my pallet?” Alec asked, and with a gentle shake of hands, Alec left the overwhelmed girl behind as he returned to his own hut and settled back down to rest.
    He did not sleep immediately.   The discomfort of his new demon wounds combined with the churning thoughts of his brain to keep him awake, and thinking of his next journey.   Andi and Amane were traveling together, with only each other, and he expected that Amane’s persistence in his infatuation with the Black Crag guard would have remained consistent, and probably grown stronger when the two were isolated together, as long as they didn’t actually catch up with the ingenairii who they were tracking.
    By the time Alec caught up with them, certain to be several days in the future, Andi might have gotten over her lost relationship with Alec, and he would be able to do whatever task he would need to do to prevent her death, as the spirit in the fire had prophesized .   He would have to track them though, and the trail could prove difficult to find.   He only knew that he would go to Moriadoc as rapidly as it was possible to g o with a tree as a companion.   He shook his head over the concept of traveling with a tree, then sighed as he thought about how enchanted Aja ’s beautiful features left him.
    Given the record of loquaciousness displayed by the Warriors that were hi s ultimate quarry , Alec   expected that there would be information in Moriadoc about where they were to go next.   If not, there was that cryptic message one of the freed hostage s had relayed, the report that Andi had conveyed from his forgotten experiences, that the Warriors would travel through the land of the snake people.   It could seemingly only mean the lacertii, an astonishing thought for Alec to consider.
    If he reached the land of the lacertii, he would know the way back to the Dominion.   He could wistfully imagine finding a home for Aja , saving Andi, then setting Kriste free, and returning her and the other kidnapped girls to their rightful homes.   That would take several months, he knew, but in a year’s time, he could be free of obligations, and know the way to return to the Dominion.
    Would he want to go back to the Dominion?   There would be a gap of centuries since his last lifetime there.   Dynasties would have changed, some cities would have grown and others would have shrunk .   But there would be Ingenaire Hill – a place he could live, and a society in Oyster Bay that knew, expected, and accepted ingenairii to freely participate in civic life.   He would be able to serve in the cities he chose to provide service in, if he wanted to travel to see the places of his youth.   He felt a yearning, a strong desire to return home, as he realized he still considered the land of his birth.  He fell asleep to dreams of laughter on Ingenaire Hill, and didn’t awaken until late in the following morning.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 7 – Traveling with a Tree
     
    Before the arrival of sundown, Alec was finished with his work of healing the women of the village.  It has been rewarding, for several of the women had needed attention; he had healed with his powers, and he had given many directions for cures to be administered and relied upon to alleviate future maladies.  The village’s complete and utter detestation of men had suffered from his good works, and he hoped that some positive benefit would come from his service to the women.
    He had seen Aja as a tree, and was less concerned about her traveling peculiarity than he had been before – she was a sapling in truth, a very slender trunk, and just a few feet tall.  Her leaves were an attractive pale yellowish green; overall Alec considered her as graceful in appearance as a tree as she was as a woman.  Her roots were wrapped in a small canvas ball, and she was light in weight, strapped to Alec’s back, next to his