Part Two: The Traveler
Chapter Four
The morning wore on. Alaric walked ahead, while Chris kept his distance and stuck to the side of Leo, who seemed to realize that the boy wanted him near and did not quicken his own pace. Words were rarely exchanged, save for the occasional alert from Alaric, thrown back to Leo, of some natural obstacle ahead.
In his mind, Chris rehearsed a conversation he knew he could not have: telling Leo everything, as if being his son would make this Leo more real, his protection stronger. But he was a mortal and was not going to understand that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds — how many hundreds? — of years from now, Chris would be his son.
Speaking of Dad, it would be really nice if I could orb right now, Chris grumbled in the part of his mind anchored in the reality of cold, numb feet.
He was also regretting slighting breakfast before they set off; by the time the winter sun was high above the trees, he was so hungry he even felt a sliver of gratitude toward Alaric when he stopped at a clearing in the thicket, swung his pack off his shoulders and addressed Leo: "Are you hungry? This would be a good place to stop and eat."
"Agreed. Christopher?"
Chris realized his opinion was not being sought; he was being told to sit down. At first, he eagerly obeyed, brushing snow off a boulder and sitting, but he tensed when he saw Alaric taking the food from his bag. Chris glanced at Leo, who was watching him.
"We'll all be eating the same food that Aldith packed," Leo said.
Resentment was beginning to show on Alaric's face as he handed out the bread — torn from the same dark loaf Chris had eaten the night before — and hunks of pungent cheese that he cut off a larger block. Chris would have to accept that it was likely not poisoned, hexed or whatever. He grudgingly took his share.
"Perhaps if you explain to me what it is you believe I did, then I could exonerate myself," Alaric said.
Leo looked as expectant of an answer as Alaric. Chris stalled by feeding the dog some scraps of bread, mentally casting about for what to say, or how to say it. The truth would just convince them he was insane. And as for a lie, or half-truth anyway, pretending that the attack had happened here, he was hamstrung by his complete ignorance of his own life in this time. He didn't know who he was, where he had been going out in the woods, how he knew Merlin — or in this time did he even know Merlin, really? The wizard had powers of precognition; maybe he just foresaw that Chris would be accidentally sent to the past and would need rescuing.
What was most frustrating, what had been weighing on his mind all morning, was that it seemed impossible to do anything that would prevent Alaric's future attack on Vincenta. If Alaric was a demon, Chris now would have to convince Leo of it, then Leo in turn would have to convince Aldith, who could vanquish him. But Chris had the sinking feeling the others were right about one thing: that Alaric was human, at least in this past. So even if he dropped dead today, he'd still be around in the future, living a new lifetime, just like Chris himself, and Leo, and — for a while there — Prue.
It all made his head hurt. And it made it very difficult to explain his unthinking outburst, spilling all kinds of senseless — to his listeners, anyway — information when he saw Alaric in the farmyard. Now, with a clearer head, Chris decided on some modified, cagier version of the truth.
"I can't explain what I know. I saw you using magic to … for personal gain."
"Once again, I'd note that our paths have never crossed until today. But I will not claim to have never given into the temptation of 'personal gain,' as you call it."
"It was in a way that harmed someone else. And it wasn't accidental. You had to know what you were doing."
"You are mistaking me for someone else," he said with finality, then turned to Leo. "How was the hunt? Any troubles?"
"No, I was able to convince the master huntsman to restrain the party to the safer areas of the woods. It made for some frustration among the men, to be reined in like that, but in the end we brought back enough game to satisfy the cook at the manor. They will have their Yuletide feast."
"Is that what you do?" Chris asked. "You're a hunter?"
"Sometimes. I'm an archer, usually employed during the manor hunts. On other occasions, where the Lord or the King have need of bowmen in battle."
Alaric, who had finished off the last of his bread, stood up as he said, "He's being modest. His skills are envied by manor households not as fortunate to have him."
"I'm hardly renowned."
"But you are well-appreciated in this shire, to be sure."
"Can you show me?" Chris asked Leo. "I mean, what you can do?"
"We should get moving again soon …"
Alaric dismissed that. "Go on and show him. I want to do a reconnaissance in the area ahead; there has been talk of Grimlocks roaming the stretch of forest we are moving into. Wait here. I'll return for you."
He soon disappeared into the trees as Leo gamely picked up his bow and chose an arrow.
"Pick a target for me."
How about Alaric? Chris joked — sort of — to himself. But he thought better of saying that aloud, figuring that Leo would not find it especially funny. "How far away?" he asked instead.
"I can certainly shoot farther than this clearing, but I do have to be able to see the target."
"How about that knot in the tree over there? Is that too small?"
But Leo had already pulled an arrow and was taking aim. Chris grabbed the dog to keep him out of the way, and the arrow flew. With a whoop of admiration, Chris ran over to inspect the hit more closely. The knot was wider than he had thought from across the clearing, but the arrow was easily within its center. He yanked it out and returned to Leo.
"What else?" Chris enthused. "Let's see …" They repeated the exercise a few times, Chris finding some challenging target and Leo hitting each mark. Chris only slipped up once; as he ran back after retrieving an arrow that had knocked a pine cone and a glittering shower of snow off a tree, Chris suggested, "If we could spot a bird or something, we could have something to eat besides bread."
"If you'd like me to be hanged for poaching, yes, we could," Leo replied. "I have another idea. I'd like to see what you can do."
"What I can do? I can't … I don't know how."
"You've never studied archery at all?"
"No." Of course, it was very possible that he had, if that was the normal way of things. From Leo's surprise, Chris supposed it could be. Unfortunately, the person who may have taken these lessons recently was not in his own head right now. And Chris had forgotten over the course of the thousand or more years that had passed since then.
Not that he could tell all that to Leo, who said, "Here, let me show you."
The bow, Leo told him, was too large for someone Chris's age, and as such, he warned, it would be more difficult than it ought to be. Chris tried to imitate Leo's stance, but evidently not well, as the archer repositioned Chris's hands on the bow and on the arrow that he tried to draw back. No conscious knowledge of how to do this came to Chris. But as the arrow's feather brushed past his cold cheek as he drew the bow, guided by Leo, he felt certain that his past self did indeed know how to do this — he could literally feel it in his bones, in his muscles that felt unstrained, natural. No matter how foreign the action seemed to Chris's mind, this body knew it as familiar as orbing was to Chris.
"Aim for that tree," Leo said, pointing Chris in the direction of the trunk of a large oak, "and when you're ready, just relax your hand and let the arrow go."
His brow furrowed in concentration, Chris tried to find his mark, and let go, snapping his fingers away more than relaxing them. The bowstring hit Chris's arm through the wool and soon the projectile fell unceremoniously to the ground, just short and to the left of the tree. The mind's resistance had won out over the body's memory.
Chris's shoulders sagged, but Leo said, "An excellent first try." He seemed sincere.
"What about the crossbow?" Chris asked. "Are you as good with that?"
"The crossbow is actually easier to use; it doesn't require as much training, but it is less accurate," Leo said, picking up the weapon. "Did you want to try it?"
Chris traded the bow for the crossbow, experiencing a reckless thrill. He told Leo conspiratorially, "My mother would kill me."
Leo laughed. "Is that why you haven't studied archery? Your mother has forbidden it?"
"No, not really. I've just been busy studying … other things." He lifted the unloaded crossbow and looked down its sights — to have his high spirits deflate to see Alaric's return.
Looking askance at the boy scowling and holding a weapon pointed, however inadvertently, in his direction, Alaric said to Leo, "Our way should be clear. We must set off again if we're to make it by nightfall."
As the men were gathering their things to begin their trek again, in another part of the forest, Aldith vanquished the last demon that had confronted her at the mill. It had not been a simple job, but the combination of her telekinesis and the potions Alaric had given her were sufficient to win the battle.
The miller himself, a small man with wispy gray hair, came cringing from a corner to offer profuse thanks. "Bless you, you saved my life! Will those … those creatures, are there more? Will they be back?"
"I couldn't say without knowing what they wanted from you."
"Nothing! They asked for nothing. Most mysterious. Thank you so much. Can I offer you something to eat?"
Aldith had rarely encountered the miller before, so she had little point of comparison, but his behavior, his words today struck her as peculiar. Like play-acting … play-acting as human. And there was another thing —
"Where is your wife?"
"Wife? Oh …" He adopted a mournful expression. "They killed her …" He trailed off, as if he were thinking about how to be sad. It was enough.
With a burst of telekinesis, Aldith threw the miller into some shelves. As he fell to the floor, his form altered back to its original state — larger, more youthful, with scraggly long blonde hair and glittering red eyes. Before the stupefied demon could recover, she dug into her bag for a set of crystals, and confined him magically.
She finished just in time, as he roused himself, saw her outside his glowing cage, and gave a sarcastic sigh. "You found me out. I did want to keep you here a while — maybe kill you, too. But at least I have diverted you. I have fulfilled my mission."
"Diverted me from what?"
"It's too late for you to do anything about it now."
"Then you'll have no need to keep it a secret. And if you don't speak — I've been working on ways to employ vanquishing potions in slow and painful ways. Should I make a test of you?"
His smirking bravado quickly faded. It did not take long to convince him to give up his fellows. In short order Aldith had vanquished him, and, back on horseback, she tore toward the part of the woods where she now knew that Leo, Alaric and Christopher were walking into imminent catastrophe, the potential ruin of them all.
Author's note: Okay, that wasn't as long as I predicted, but still, longer than Chapter 3. Muchas gracias again to my reviewers (welcome, Talkin' of normality)! No, you shouldn't trust Alaric, or … should you? You'll have to wait and see … (insert wicked author cackling here).