Book of Heroes: George of Sedona I - 14. Road To Arcadia

Chapter 14: Road to Arcadia

“We’re going south?” George said. “Farther into Arcadia?”

“We’re going to try,” Arthur said. “I’ve been in Elvenhold for nearly 70 years; maybe they’ll think we have gone back there.”

“They.” Gary said. “You mean the ones who are after us.”

“Yes,” Arthur said. He watched Gary’s reaction.

The boy frowned, but only briefly. Then he smiled. “They’ll be looking for two people, won’t they? Three will fool them really good,” he said.

Arthur returned Gary’s smile. “It surely will,” he said.

Still, it’s a risk, he thought. Destiny is silent, now. A thought struck him. Does destiny also act on those who are pursuing us? Are we merely pawns in some giant chess game? Why did I never think of this before?

Arthur shook off that thought as something to ponder later, when he had leisure to do so. “George, would you find a place for us to camp?” he asked.

The small clearing to which George led them was not up to his usual standards. There was no place to bathe. The only water was a small seep, hardly even a spring. The ground was rocky. Arthur saw no place to put their blankets that was not broken by cobbles.

“I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” George said. “This is the best place—”

“Oh, George, does it show that much?” Arthur said.

George nodded. Gary looked from Arthur to George and back again. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing, really,” Arthur said. “I’d rather hoped for a more comfortable bed and a hot bath for your first night on the road. George has found the best possible place for us, though. He’s very good at that, you know.”

“Uh,” Gary said.

“I guess you didn’t know, did you?” Arthur asked.

George dug carefully at the seep and created a small depression into which he could dip a drinking mug. Slowly, patiently, he filled their mugs and bowls with water. “Let me show you how to bathe in only a cup of water,” he said to Gary.

The boys were clean, if a little cold. While George had been expanding the seep, Arthur had gathered brush. Gary understood, and helped pile brush into a mat. Arthur spread one of their blankets over the brush. “This will help keep the rocks from digging into us, tonight,” he said.

An hour later, George was breathing slowly and softly at Arthur’s right. Arthur turned to Gary, on his left. “Gary,” he said. “I’m so glad you are with us. So is George, you know.”

*****

The Royal Road wound through woods bright with spring wildflowers. Their perfume filled the air. Underlying the scent of the flowers were the sharper and more mysterious odors of herbs. Arthur paused often to search the verge for plants.

“Here’s Johnswort,” he said, after he carefully pulled a leaf from a plant. “In the fall, the leaves and flowers will be full of hypericin, an essential oil that is useful to heal wounds. George’s world is the only one on which it’s called Saint Johnswort,” Arthur said. “Everywhere else it’s either Johnswort or simply, wort.” Arthur looked at George and Gary, both of whom watched politely, but with little interest. Neither one will become a healer, I guess, Arthur thought. Oh well, they’re both diligent in their own interests. George is going to become a respectable mage, and Gary? Gary will become much more than a smith, I think.

“How many other worlds have you lived in?” Gary asked.

“Lived in?” Arthur said. “Lived in, two—this one and George’s. Visited? Three or four besides George’s Earth, maybe five.”

“How can you not be sure?” Gary asked.

“You know that World…this one…and George’s Earth are a lot alike?” Arthur said. “People look the same, so do horses and other animals, and most plants. Things work the same, except for magic and some parts of chemistry. Besides magic, the big differences are the races other than human. This world is the only one I’ve been to that has elves, dwarves, trolls, and such. Of course, the stars and Bright Travelers—what George calls planets—are different. George noticed right away that the sun was different too. It’s more yellow than is his Earth’s.”

By this time, Arthur had remounted. Gary and George flanked Arthur and listened intently. “On most of the worlds, it’s easy to see differences. If I stay long enough to see the night sky, I can tell if the stars and planets are different.

“Sometimes, the language people speak is one I know…either from World or Earth. Sometimes, it’s not. You know that when George came to World, something magical taught him this language?” When Gary nodded, Arthur continued. “We thought it had also taken away his knowledge of his own language, called English, but as George and I talked, we found out that he is remembering more and more English words, especially where those words don’t exist in this language. George also learned Old Elvish fairly quickly because it is similar to an Earth language called Latin.

“You mustn’t talk of these things, you know,” Arthur said. Gary nodded solemnly.

“There was one world,” Arthur continued after a mile or so of silence, “where people like us spoke the English of George’s world. I didn’t see the night sky: it was always overcast. Even after a heavy rain which usually clears pollution out of the air. I thought it was George’s Earth, but there was something not quite right.”

“What’s pollution?” Gary asked.

“You know how the mountains near Bowling Green often look as if they were bathed in a light smoke, even when there are no forest fires?” Arthur asked. Gary nodded.

“That haze is caused by chemicals that the trees release as they breathe—”

“Trees don’t breathe!” Gary exclaimed. And then, “Do they?”

“Actually, they do,” Arthur said. “Actually, during the day, trees take in carbon dioxide from the air, and give off oxygen. We do just the opposite: we breath in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. We breathe through our mouth and nose and fairly quickly; trees breathe through invisible pores in their leaves or needles, and do it slowly. Besides carbon dioxide, they breathe out other chemicals.”

“Oh,” Gary said.

“When trees burn in a forest fire, or when they die and rot, they release chemicals. Normally, the other trees—new trees—will absorb those chemicals. The amount of chemicals stays about the same. Do you understand, so far?”

“Sure,” Gary said. “What goes out goes back in. Hey, wait a minute. That means that things are in balance…wait, wait…and it also means the trees and animals and people are used to things being that way.”

“That, Gary, is a brilliant deduction,” Arthur said. “And correct.

“On George’s world, long before people lived there, for millions and millions of years, trees and other plants died, were buried by more dead trees, and turned into coal. Do you know what coal is?”

“It’s like charcoal but harder,” Gary said.

“That’s one way of saying it. It’s harder and denser and burns very hot. There isn’t much on World, and it’s very valuable,” Arthur said. “On George’s world, people had been burning coal at a rapid rate for two centuries. Millions of years of tree chemicals, especially carbon dioxide, were put into the atmosphere in less than two hundred years. By the time George was growing up, humans had put so much of these chemicals into the atmosphere that the world was getting hotter and weather patterns were being changed—for the worse.”

“So, what’s pollution?” Gary asked.

“I hadn’t forgotten that was your question,” Arthur said. “Pollution was the excess tree chemicals people put into the air. There were others, too. But, I see some Echinacea.” Arthur turned his horse to the verge and dismounted.

*****

The town of Canute Crossing was unremarkable. Its log palisade and narrow streets were like those of a hundred other farm-market towns. Its people were neither friendly nor unfriendly. The publican was neither glad nor unhappy at their custom. However, the bath was hot, and the food was good, and the bed was soft.

Gary looked up sharply when a bell chimed above his head. He’d pushed open the shop door and stepped in, with Arthur and George close behind. George had grown an inch, and needed larger clothes. Arthur had given George a shilling. He handed Gary a tupence, and said, “Here, Gary, you don’t need any clothes, but you may see something you want.”

Once in the shop, George looked through the stacks of trousers, tunics, tights, and jerkins. Arthur spoke politely to the shopkeeper, and then studied the racks of herbs and spices. Gary wandered around, mindful to keep his hands in sight.

That was a lesson he’d learned in Bowling Green, a tenday or so after he’d received his sword. He’d been so proud, so pleased—gloating over the other boys we saw on the walk to the square is more like it, he thought. That wasn’t nice.—He was so proud and pleased that he’d kept his left hand on the sword’s hilt and his right thumb stuck in the sword-belt, at his right hip. A shopkeeper, not recognizing him or the others, could not see his hands, and had thought he was stealing. Arthur had been angry—not at Gary, and only for an instant at the shopkeeper who had accosted him. Gary had seen the anger, but it was George who had raised the subject with Arthur. “I was angry at myself, boys,” Arthur had said. “I remembered to explain to George the first time we went into a shop, but I overlooked that you were perhaps as unknowing as George.”

*****

“That’s pretty,” Gary said. They’d returned to the inn and bathed, and George had put on one of his new tunics.

George blushed.

“I’m not sure George wants to be thought of as pretty,” Arthur laughed.

“Okay, then,” Gary said. “It’s beautiful.”

Gary giggled as George blushed even more. Gary stood on tiptoe and kissed George. “You told me the day we met that I was cute,” he said. “I think you are beautiful!”

“Here,” Gary said. He offered George a bandana of lavender and green. “It matches your eyes and your tunic. I watched what you bought.”

Gary has never had a real lover before, George realized. He’s never had anyone but family to give him gifts and to give gifts to. He took the bandana and tied it around his neck as he’d seen other boys do. “Thank you, Gary,” he said. He hugged the smaller boy and whispered into his ear, “I love you so much.”