The road turns back again - If you don’t act you will regret it the rest of your life and maybe if you do.

This is a fan-fiction set on Terahnar the world created by L.E. Modesitt for his Imager series. I have no rights to any of it and don’t claim to. I just wanted to see what a story about a MTF transgender person set in the time just after Rex Regis consolidated Lydar into Solidar would be like.

We were back on the road shortly after sunrise and stopped only to water and rest the horses once before noon. We went a little way off the road to stop by a stream and had some cheese, bread and dried meat strips plus an apple. The wagon was full of baskets of apples, nuts and root vegetables that were the reason for the trip. Once a year the family made the trip to collect these very high quality consumables to sell. There were also crocks of juice and some boxes with blocks of cheese. Mixy’s family had a produce store; a factorage, in Llantiago and all thee things would sell quickly according to Nilynn, Mixy’s father.

As the sun was going down Nilynn took a turn off the road, down to a lake where there was a shelter next to the lake. Mylinco explained that her family used to come up here in the summers when she was a young girl. She told us stories of playing in the lake and collecting berries from the woods. Mixy and I took off our pants and splashed in the lake then washed up for supper. Nilynn had a fire going in a rock rimmed pit in front of the shelter which was like half of a house. If you had built walls and a roof, but stopped when you got to the roof beam, that’s what the shelter was like. There was a built up stone floor and sleeping platforms in the back and along the sides. After we cleaned up the super dishes and pots we sat around the fire and listened to some stories. Before long I was nodding off and so was Mixy, so we were put to bed in the wagon and were soon asleep. We were up just after sunrise and after a breakfast of eggs, cheese and pan bread, we were on the road as the sun started to warm the forest.

About mid afternoon the road began a long, twist-back path from the crest of the pass between hills above Llantiago. I could see looking down on the road from the pass that the road ran through cut in what looked like a stone wall . As we neared the stone outcrop, I could see that at one time a stone wall, the inside of a mountain, went all the way from one hill to the other, but a stream had cut a large gap wide enough for the stream and a road bed on one side. Once though the gap, the road bent sharply and entered a grove of woods and think brush, almost like a tunnel because the branches f the trees met over the roadway. The shade under the trees gave way to a clearing ahead, lit up by sunlight. As we came to the clearing, a man walked from the woods and stood in the middle of the road, holding a spear with a really long blade.

It was like I had seen this man with the spear before, then I remembered the dream.

“You will be needing to stop and pay us a toll to use this road,” he said.

“This isn’t a toll road” was Nilynn’s response.

“Well it is now,” the man said, as he walked quickly to the side of the wagon nearest to where Nilynn sat.

“You could let your woman pay the fee,” said a voice from behind us.

As I looked around behind us to see another man with a, Nilynn slapped the reins a yelled for the horses to move. The man with the spear jabbed it at Nylinn. It looked to me like he was going to stick it into Nylinn as the wagon bolted into the clearing and toward the man with the spear.

This couldn’t be happening I thought and wished that the spear would disappear!

The spear vanished! The man was looking at his empty hands as he ran into the side of the wagon and was knocked onto his back. As we rolled past I could see him working his mouth but he wasn’t making any sound. His friend, who was behind us was yelling at us and running after the wagon. He stopped and drew back his hand to throw the spear at us. I imaged his spear away as the man who had been in front of us yelled, “run, he’s an imager, run!”

But the man behind us was running at the wagon and reaching for a handhold to climb up. I wished he would trip on a rock, and suddenly he was on his face in the dirt.

The horses were moving the wagon down the road at a good clip and we were bouncing around and holding on the sides. We went about a mille and around two bends in the road before Nilynn, pulled the reins and slowly stopped the wagon.

“You are a Namer-dammed imager aren’t you!” demanded Nilynn and a loud voice.

“What if she is?” Mylinco asked. “She saved you, me and Mixy too most like. Didn’t you see where he was about to put that spear point? And what do you think the fellow in back of us had in mind? Eating a few apples?” She was shaking and Mixy was crying.

I just sat there rocking back and forth crying. Mixi was crying too. I could see them leaving me on the side of the road with nothing but what I was wearing.

“Is that why you are going to Westisle?” he asked. “Is your uncle one of those imagers from Teleryn who are setting up that place for imagers?”

I just cried more tears until I felt both Mixy and Mylinco wrap their arms around me in a big hug and tell me it was going to be all right.

“Nilynn, hush and drive the wagon. We’ll take care of this little girl and see that she gets where she needs to be,” Mylinco said. “It’s the least we can do after what she just did. She saved our lives!”

Gradually, my tears stopped and I sat there with Mixy’s arm around my shoulder as we went down the road.

As we continued down the road, with no one saying anything, the forest gave way to small farms and then mostly houses. I had never seen so many houses and so close to each other!

We arrived at their store as the sun was setting. Nilynn drove the wagon behind the store where there was a small building that had stalls and a place for the wagon and feed for the animals.

Before we took our clothes to the upper floor where they lived, we loaded the produce from the wagon onto a cart and put it into the store.

The bottom floor of the building held the store, and had produce organized in bins on tables: root vegetables in one row, leaf and bean vegetables in another and fruits and nuts and grains in rows of bins. There were shelves on the walls with canned goods and bottles of all sorts of things that I had never seen before. A counter at rear of the store had a small stack of bags and baskets that customers could use.

“This is where our customers pay for the produce,” said Mylinco “and here on the side we put some of our special items so that they can be noticed.”

It took about a glass to transfer all of the things from the wagon to the store.

“You girls take your things up to Mixy’s room then come to the kitchen and help make supper.”

I collected my things and followed Mixy up stairs to her room where I would be sleeping. The room was amazing. It had a single bed with a canopy and pink and white curtains around the window. She had a chest with drawers and another taller cabinet with doors that held her dresses and coats. There were several dolls on her bed, placed so that they leaned on her pillows. There was a rug next to the bed so that she didn’t have to step on a cold wood floor when she slid out of bed.

The room was just beyond anything I could imagine!

“Your room is wonderful,” I squeaked. “I have never seen anything like it!”
“You didn’t have a room in your home?” she asked.

“No, we all slept together in a bed in the loft,” I explained. “I don’t have to sleep with you if you don’t want to. If you would rather not share your bed”

“Oh no,” she said, “I liked sleeping together like we did at aunt Colbuyn’s farm.”

“Yes, I liked sleeping together too. It reminded me of sleeping with my sisters” My eyes got moist as I thought about my sisters and the life that was gone to me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“You and your family have been so nice to me, and you don’t even know me.”

“Well, I think you saved my father’s life and kept us from getting robbed and I can’t tell you how much I want to thank you,” she blurted out, and grabbed me in a tight hug and kissed me on the lips.

I hugged her and kissed her back. This was the first time anyone had touched me with affection since before my family found out about my imaging. I was both happy and sad at the same time. I didn’t know that you could be both at once.

“This is Bytte, she likes you, I can tell,” she said as she held up one of her dolls.

I hugged the doll and said, “its nice to finally meet you Bytte, I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Let’s go see if your mother needs any help preparing supper.”

“Alright, I don’t mind helping out when you are helping too,” she said.

We helped prepare the meal by peeling and chopping vegetables then putting them into a big pot. The meal was a heavy broth and dark bread and a mild cider.

Before we started to eat, we all held hands and Nilynn said, “For the grace and warmth from above, for the bounty of the earth below, for all the grace of the world and beyond, for your bounty from the fields, and for your manifold and great mercies, we offer our thanks and gratitude, both now and evermore, in the spirit of that which cannot be named or imaged.”

“In peace and harmony,” Mixy and Mylinco replied.

Our family had not been very spiritual, perhaps because we lived so far away from any Anomen. I could remember only a few times when I had gone to one, once when my brother died and again after my younger sister was born. I did know about the Nameless, my mother had made sure of that, along with our regular nightly lessons in our numbers and reading.

The three of us cleaned up after the meal and Nilynn went downstairs to work in the store.

“He likes to play with the produce just like I like to play with my dolls.”

“Why don’t you girls get ready for bed, and then play in Mixy’s room for a little while,” Mylinco said.

It was wonderful to play with the dolls and stuffed animals and then be tucked into bed and given goodnight kisses.

* * * * *

“Do you think it’s safe to have an imager sleeping under our roof?” asked Nilynn as they were preparing for bed.

“I have a feeling that it is, this time,” was Mylonco’s response. “I’ve heard the tales of imagers destroying a house, but those stories always tell of mistreatment of the imager and trying to keep them locked away. We didn’t do anything like that. I just looked in on them and both were sleeping with smiles on their faces. I’m not worried that we will be burned alive in our sleep.”

“Well tomorrow I’m taking her to the Teleryn Army post and turning her over to the imagers there.”

“Be sure to thank her for saving your life and probably ours when you do.”

“Did you see the clothes the one in front of us was wearing? I think he must have been one of the renegade army men we’ve heard about. What did he expect to get from us? A basket of apples?”

“I think you are right about him. I’ll tell the Teleryn soldiers what happened and where. I’ve heard that they have been tracking down these troublemakers. I hope they go after those two.”

* * * * *

I woke up with the sunrise, which was my usual routine and enjoyed Mixy’s holding me like a big doll as she slept. I wondered what my life would have been like if I had been born into a family like hers. Then I realized that being an imager, I would have had to leave it and that might have been even harder than what I had been through.

I heard noises from the kitchen. I slipped out of bed put on a robe and went to see who was making the noise.

“Good morning early-bright, did you sleep well?” Mylinco asked.

“Yes, it was wonderful. I haven’t ever slept in a bed so comfy.”

“We have an indoor privy just down the hall,” she said. “Just pull on the wooden spool attached to the chain when you are through. There is also bowl with a spigot in the room. Plug the hole in the bottom of the bowl and turn the spigot to let water into the bowl. There is soap and a towel next to the bowl.”

This was amazing. I was used to using a privy that was some distance from the house and an outdoor wash-room with a pump

When I returned to the kitchen, Mixy was there along with her father.

“Well Joli, you are a miracle worker! You’ve been able to get Mixy out of bed before the noon meal!” her father said with a grin.

“I’ve been up before lunch all the time,” was her response with a small pout.

“I need to work with some of the things we brought down in the store then I can take you to the place where there are some of the Teleryn imagers,” said Nilynn as we finished the dawn-meal, “and we can see about getting you to your uncle.”

It was everything I could do to keep from breaking down and crying. I had fallen in love with this family and would have happily spent the rest my life with them. I knew that wasn’t to be so I headed up to Mixy’s room to help straighten it out and collect my things.

I’d like to thank Anne Mouse for her help making theses stories readable and especially her suggestions and critiques.