“Rief, I do not know what my next trip will be precisely,” Alec said, remembering John Mark’s words about her unexpected involvement. “If you wish to ride back with these people now, you will have a safe journey, and an opportunity to learn more about the Dominion from them.”
“Are you asking me to leave you, master?” Rief asked, a note of fear in her voice.
“Oh sweetie, don’t ever call him master. His head is swollen with too many other titles already,” Armilla quickly said. “But we will accept you as a welcome companion on our journey.”
“He is my master. I am his slave. His personal slave. A personal extension is the most intimate of slave relationship in the empire. Anything he needs or asks for, I am to provide,” she said.
“You’ve got a pretty girl for your personal slave?” Delle asked
“You have a slave?” Kinsey asked.
“No, not really. Not now,” Alec said. “In the empire, they all had slaves, and Rief needed someone who wouldn’t take advantage of her, and I needed her because I couldn’t talk,” Alec tried to explain.
“But Rief, we do not have slavery in the Dominion. You are not a slave to me anymore. Any time you want to leave me you can,” he told her.
“Do you want me to leave you?” she asked, looking directly in his face.
“No. Rief, I want you to go on this next journey with me,” he answered.
“Then why did you bring all this up?” Armilla asked.
“Never mind. Please stand back so that Rief and I can return to John Mark’s cave,” Alec said, reaching into his bag. He pulled out the jar of dust, and spread it in a circle. “Good bye, and please tell our friends I miss them all,” Alec called. He clasped Rief in his arms. “John Mark, we are ready to return,” he said, and they abruptly disappeared, leaving only another spot of darkness in the evening.
“I believed what he told us, but that act sure confirms it,” Delle said.
“Let’s get packing and make our way back to Goldenfields,” Armilla said, and the three stood to begin their new journey.
Chapter 33 – Rief the Healer
Alec and Rief were back in the dim recesses of the Cave of John Mark. The saint stood waiting for them as they reacted to their arrival.
“Tarnum, you don’t live a quiet life, do you?” Rief asked.
“I would be happy to try. Prophet,” Alec addressed John Mark, “what are the odds I’ll ever get to live a quiet life?”
“Your time will come, Alec, but remember, all things are relative,” he answered.
“Would like to introduce me to your friend?” he asked.
Alec managed to make the exchange seem relatively ordinary. “Rief, this is John Mark. Prophet, this is Rief, my slave,” he spoke with more flippancy than he would have thought he could muster under the circumstances.
Rief dug a sharp elbow into his ribs, and he grunted from the unexpected shot. “John Mark, I am Rief, from the Michian empire, and am unfortunately indebted to your friend, so I must act friendly towards him,” she said.
“Rief, I am John Mark, a figure of veneration for many people in our Dominion, but just an occasional afterthought for Alec here,” the prophet replied.
“What is a figure of veneration?” she asked.
“He’s the ghost of a prophet who came to our land a thousand years ago and spread the news of the Christian faith,” Alec answered promptly, disturbed by such casual merriment in such a holy place, even though he had started it himself. “Rief’s mother is a Christian, and she said many slaves are in the Michian empire.”
“Over the generations, many people from the Dominion have been enslaved in Michian, and they took their faith with them,” John Mark affirmed. “It spread throughout the slave culture, whether from here or not.”
“May I take Rief down to the opening of the cave, so that she may become a healer?” Alec asked.
“Have you asked her if she wants to?” John Mark replied.
Alec took a deep breath and turned to Rief, but she spoke first. “We really need to have a talk soon,” she spoke first. “I have no idea yet who you are or what you’re doing, or why you socialize with such unusual people!” Alec laughed at her good nature, and the clever way she had used humor to reinforce John Mark’s point that he should talk to her.
“Over two years ago, I was an ordinary orphan boy, and happened to stumble into this cave, almost by accident. By coming here, I was given miraculous healing powers, as you’ve seen,” he explained. “Now that you are here, we can take you though the cave, and you too will have the healer ingenaire powers that I have.”
“Tarnum, are you saying that I will be able to touch people and take away their pain, the way you do?” Rief asked, her eyes large.
“Yes, with faith and practice and training. Entering this cave gives you the gift, but it is yours to develop,” Alec explained.
“And will you train me? You know what to do, and you do it so well,” Rief asked.
“Rief, I want to train you, but I will make no promises for now. So many, many things have happened in my life in recent months, I have left a great many promises unfilled,” he answered, thinking of how he had failed to train Cassie in healing powers, and suddenly knowing that he had truly left many broken promises in his path as fate had pulled him throughout the Dominion and beyond.
“That is good enough for me, healer. Take me to your special place so that I can share your powers,” Rief said with a warm smile.
“John Mark, we’ll be back in just a little while, and then we can take our third journey,” Alec promised the ghost of the prophet. He led Rief through the door to the bottom of the endless staircase. “We have to climb these stairs,” he told her, and took the first steps to begin the trip.
“Who was Kinsey, the girl who could read minds?” Rief asked. “I know what you told me, but how did you come to know her? She seemed very close to you.”
Alec though about how to answer the question. They had a long climb to make, so he felt he had time to give a long answer. “The capitol city of the Dominion is Oyster Bay. It is where the king’s palace is. There is a hill there called Ingenairii Hill, where all the people who have special powers live. Well, most of them, and probably all of them at least pass through there for training and socializing during their lives.
“There are many ingenairii. Some make plants grow, some make water flow, some bend metal and others bend light. That is where I went for my training to learn to be a warrior ingenaire, and that is where I first met Kinsey, although I didn’t really know her very well there.” He thought back to the night he had almost kissed Bethany on the beach; the night he had saved Cassie’s life after she drowned. Kinsey had been there, unknown to him.
“I really only got to know Kinsey later. After I left Oyster Bay, there was a civil war among the ingenairii, and my friends lost. Many of them, especially the young ones like you and I, came to the city I lived in then, Goldenfields. Kinsey was part of that group, but I still didn’t know her terribly well. But then we fought a war with the lacertii, and Kinsey and I were in a group that fought together ambushing lacertii supply ships, and I got to know her very well there. She is more than a sister to me. Her spiritual ingenairii powers are,” he paused as he searched for a word, “peculiar. They seem to really give her a special sense of me, more than other people. I trust her judgment, and listen to her advice.
“She is special because she can see the worst of me and still love me as a person,” he stopped talking, struck by the truth of something he was just figuring out.
“And who is Delle? He was quiet, but seemed nice?” Rief asked, breathing heavy as they climbed the stairs.
“I went to a city called Stronghold, which is a rival of my city, Goldenfields. My friend, Noranda, was buried in their catacombs, but I could bring her back to life, so I was trying to find a way to get in and rescue her, and some folks helped me, while others fought me. Mooreen, the emperor’s friend, was one of those who fought me,
and Delle was one of those who helped me. Delle’s side won, and Noranda was rescued. Then when we came to fight the war against the lacertii, Delle brought soldiers to help.”
“And Armilla? Is she your evil aunt?” Rief asked with a smile.
“When I first became the crown protector, the palace guard named her as my special body guard. She would be great, except I keep sneaking away from her. She does try to be a little bit of an aunt or a mom, I think,” he said. “And I love her dearly.”
“Who,” Rief paused to take a deep breath. “Who are Imelda and Bethany, the girls who would not love you?” she hesitated as she spoke, hoping the question sounded more nonchalant than it felt.
Alec looked at her. “It was much easier to walk down these steps than it is to climb up them, I can tell you that. There’s no real point in talking about Bethany and Imelda. You heard me tell Armilla; they’ve rejected me and gone on with their lives. They probably made the right decision.” he fell silent.
“You know I’ll never reject you, I promise, Tarnum,” Rief said softly.
Alec stopped on a step, and Rief came up next to him. “I know you mean that. And I know how good you are, and I heard Kinsey say you were truthful in the things you said at the campfire. But just a day ago, you walked away from me in the farmers market square, so you could go back to the life you lived, and I don’t blame you,” he watched as Rief winced.
“Let me tell you a story. There was a poor fishing village, and a girl lived in a filthy hut in the village. She had no legs, and could not walk, and had no friends,” Alec told. “One day I came and rescued her, and made her legs grow. She learned to walk and dance, and she was a beautiful girl, but as I treated her, we had to open our hearts to one another; she saw everything in my heart, and I saw things in her heart, and we’ve never been as close ever since.”
“What is the relevance of that story?” Rief demanded.
“I imagine you will learn too much about me, or I’ll fail to keep a promise and someday you’ll want to walk away. So I don’t want to grow too dear and precious to you in the meantime, assuming I might,” Alec told her. “Right now, my heart needs to heal, and I need to just focus on the great job ahead to protect the Dominion.”
“You take yourself pretty seriously now, don’t you healer? I think I liked you better when you were mute,” Rief said shortly, and she started climbing the steps again, moving vigorously up ahead of Alec. They continued on in silence for much of the climb thereafter.
Alec mulled her sharp retort, and admitted to himself that his words had been pompous. He looked up ahead at Rief, seeing the laborious steps she was taking, and felt the pain in his own thighs from the constant pumping up and down. And he saw something that brightened his heart. “Rief, stop! Rief, wait,” he called.
Her feet stopped lifting, and she turned, waiting on a stair. Alec stepped up. “I’m sorry for what I said back there. It didn’t come out right. You are beautiful, you’ve got a good personality, you have been devoted to me, and you are going to be happy here in the Dominion,” he told her. “Here’s the second reason I asked you to stop,” he reached his hands around behind her and placed them on the backs of her thighs, using his healing power to take away the sting and pain from the long climb.
“Oh Tarnum, thank you! That is so much better. How much farther do you think we have to go?” she asked.
“The third thing I wanted to tell you is that I see the top of the stairs up ahead. The end is in sight!” he promptly answered.
“Wonderful! These are all good. What’s the fourth thing you want to tell me? You’re on a roll now, so you might as well keep winning your way back into my good graces,” she said playfully.
“Well, I don’t want to use up all my good will at once,” he replied. “Let’s keep going.” She stuck her tongue out at him, but promptly started to climb again.
Minutes later they reached the top of the cavern, and stood silently gazing at the watery chamber. “Come on!” Alec urged. “I think we should go out, then come back in, and climb down the steps back to the chamber.”
“What? We’re going to climb right back down those steps?” Rief squawked indignantly.
“Let’s go,” Alec urged ignoring his companion’s understandable reaction.
He reached out and took her hand, leading her across the watery floor, and stopping in front of the curtain of falling water. He held out his hand, palm facing towards the water, and light appeared behind it as the round door smoothly glided open.
Holding her hand, Alec led Rief into the waterfall. “Oh healer,” Rief began, but fell silent as the water poured down on her. Alec felt again the tingle of energy and cleansing as they stepped through the shower and the doorway into a bright, breezy day. “”Oh healer!” Rief cried. “I feel so, so pure!” she loudly called out. She placed both hands on Alec’s cheeks and soundly kissed him. “And look at this view!” she walked to the edge of the stony floor and looked out over the Pale Mountains.
“What do we do now?” she asked him.
“We go back in, and go back to the chamber,” he said simply. Facing the door again, Alec opened it, and motioned for Rief to precede him. Again they stepped through the waterfall, and again they felt the cleansing emotions.
Rief stood still within the cavern, staring in amazement, as did Alec.
The long stairway no longer descended into the depths of the mountain, but instead climbed upward towards some different unseen destination.
“How did that happen?” Rief whispered.
“I don’t know,” Alec admitted. “But I’m glad it did,” he dreaded descending down to the cavern where the tomb lay.
“And all this writing? Why is it here?” Rief also asked.
Alec looked at her in astonishment. “It was always here.”
“No it wasn’t! I was just in here with you,” Rief retorted.
“I saw it when we were climbing. I didn’t realize you couldn’t see it. I saw it the other times I came in through the door too. Maybe you have to be bathed and cleansed by the water to have the vision to see it?” he pondered.
“Now we’ve got to climb again? You promised we’d get to go down the stairs on the way back,” Rief said, looking at the long flight of stairs leading up into the darkness.
“I told you before, I break promises,” he answered. “But I was much happier with the first time I came here and climbed up the stairs to a chamber. It is a more pleasant place,” he spoke. “It is more appropriate for raising your spirits by climbing upward. Let’s start going.”
“As long as you’ll treat my legs again,” Rief cajoled him, and they began climbing.
The journey was slow, as Rief stopped to look at the drawings and writings along the way. “There is so much here,” she murmured, in a low voice spoken to herself, not to Alec.
Their long climb continued, and Alec did at one point stop to relieve the strain they both felt in their legs. They finally spotted the top of the stairs, and Rief increased her pace to reach the top.
“We have spent all day climbing stairs! I am famished,” she told Alec, standing with her hands on her knees and breathing hard.
Alec did not respond immediately as he too caught his breath. Then he motioned to the door. “Rief, you must open the door and walk into the chamber within, and you will have gained the power to be a healer ingenaire. And we will be able to talk forever about healing and ingenairii,” he told her. He placed a hand on her back and gently pushed her forward towards the door.
Rief placed her hand on the door knob, then turned to face Alec, with an expression that was wistful or something else Alec couldn’t comprehend. He heard her murmur something to herself, then the handle clicked, the door opened, and as she entered the room a bright flash took place.
“I can’t see, healer!” she said in distress. Alec waited two seconds, then stepped into the room with her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Neither could I for the first few seconds,” he comforted her. “J
ust wait for it to pass.”
“Oh,” she said moments later, “I can see again.” She walked forward, and together she and Alec looked out the window at the breathtaking sunset scenery that was visible from their lofty elevation.
“It’s an inspiring view, isn’t?” John Mark said conversationally from behind them. “Now, are you ready to go on your third journey?”
Alec looked at Rief, as she drank in the new visionary power she had. He’d come to take it for granted, he realized. “In just a moment,” he replied to the prophet, letting Rief have a moment more of wonder.
The prophet walked over to stand beside them, and handed Alec another small jar. “Here is your way back to this cave. When you return, it will be the morning after you first arrived here Alec, and your horse will still be tied to a branch down near the river. Are you ready to go?”
Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian Page 24
