Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian

by Jeffrey Quyle

“I’d love to hear it,” Bethany said with cloyingly false sweetness. “But first,” she motioned for the waiter to bring an entire bottle of wine. “This is on your bill by the way, since you’re filthy rich.”

  You told me you had money but you never said you were filthy rich,” Rief accused.

  Alec rolled his eyes, then began his story from the day the carnival was attacked in Riverside, and his first encounter with the Cave of John Mark. Both girls settled into listening quietly through his story of his first spell in Goldenfields and the battle with the ingenairii who chased him after he healed Lewis. “No wonder Fallion hated you so much,” Bethany said.

  Alec’s story moved on to his arrival in Oyster Bay. “My very first day there Bethany started dumping buckets of water on me,” he explained to Rief.

  “Why?” Rief asked.

  “Because,” Bethany said, her cheeks reddened slightly

  “But then the back of my dress was cut off!” Bethany rebutted.

  “Why?” Rief asked again.

  “Because,” Alec mocked.

  “So you can just make water appear out of thin air? Is that what happened to the creepy guy in the bar? Rief asked, as Bethany nodded.

  His story continued with meeting Noranda, then sealing her in a time containment, and his feat of healing Cassie’s legs.

  “Tell me precisely what you did,” Rief asked, and Alec was diverted for several minutes in discussing the medical intricacies of the operation.

  “Are you a healer ingenaire too?” Bethany asked.

  “She is,” Alec answered. “She passed through the Cave of John Mark and received the powers.”

  Their meal came and went. Alec moved on to his return to Goldenfields and the battle there, then the arrival of the ingenairii who fled from Oyster Bay. He talked about the creation of the cavalry, and their ride to Bondell.

  “See that scar on his face?” Bethany asked Rief.

  “The one under his eye that Mooreen gave him?” the former slave clarified.

  “No, the one across his nose. He got that from Imelda, who he put in charge of the cavalry. Who he proposed marriage to,” Bethany said with warmth in her voice.

  “In Bondell I tried to use two different powers at the same time, and healer powers and warrior powers are especially adverse to one another,” Alec said. “It wrecked my ability to use either power, and it wrecked my physical health as well.”

  “He was a mess,” Bethany reminisced.

  “Then the cavalry had to take the princess back to Goldenfields, and I insisted Bethany go with them, to provide water and to be a companion to the princess,” Alec said.

  “When we parted, I whispered in his ear ‘I love you,’” Bethany added, “and he didn’t say anything. Nothing. Not a word.”

  “Tarnum!” Rief said.

  “I am truly sorry about that. I wanted to say it a hundred times later, but you weren’t there, or you didn’t want to hear,” he countered. “Of course that was not too long after she had told me she would wait for me forever, too,” he said defiantly as Bethany shifted her eyes uncomfortably.

  Alec moved on to his pilgrimage to the pool in the Bondell dessert.

  “You were unconscious in that cave for three months?” Bethany asked. “I didn’t realize you were that way for so long.”

  “And when I returned to Bondell, another invasion had occurred, and I had to fight two warrior ingenairii without my own warrior powers,” Alec added.

  “How did you do that?” Bethany asked, caught up in the drama.

  “I managed to defeat the weak one, then let the other one pierce my leg with his sword to trap the blade, and then I killed him. After that I healed my leg,” Alec explained. Both girls turned slightly green.

  The tables around them had filled and emptied and refilled and emptied again as they continued to occupy their corner and listen to Alec’s saga.

  “So I continued up to Oyster Bay, and when I saved a sailor, they talked me into drinking, and I woke up with this,” he tapped his shoulder. “I drank a lot that night,” he said looking at the second bottle of wine on their table.

  “And when I got to Oyster Bay, I started killing the usurpers, until Hingis’s daughter shamed me into stopping the killing. But I absorbed all the power from the rogue ingenairii, then created an explosion with their own powers that killed most of them off,” he added.

  “That’s when you created the new fountain by the gate?” Bethany realized.

  “And then I went on my way to Stronghold to finally finish healing Noranda,” he started.

  “The girl you jilted before you jilted me before you jilted Imelda before you get ready to jilt Rief?” Bethany said bitingly.

  “No. No,” Alec insisted. “Let me tell the story.”

  He described sitting in Red Water, and writing a love letter to Bethany.

  “But I never got it until much, much later. Later than after I’d seen you. I wish I’d received it right away,” she cried.

  And he explained his arrival in Stronghold, the betrayal and retreat, and then his second arrival with the party of the younger Locksforts. He told about the visit to John Mark’s tomb and the balancing on the scales and the loss of powers again, before he healed Noranda.

  “And she married Brandeis, her first boyfriend?” Rief asked. “After all you went through to save her life?”

  “That’s women for you,” Alec said unintentionally out loud, and sputtered as cold water splashed in his face seconds later.

  “If you want to leave here with any clothes uncut, you’ll not do that again,” he threatened Bethany.

  The torture in the dungeon and the battle for control of the clan followed, and led to his eventual return to Oyster Bay. “Where the girl I had thought about for weeks and weeks across hundreds of miles in danger and through torture and in flight, that girl told me she’d found someone else. After I’d poured my heart out to her in that letter, she’d found someone else.”

  “Oh Alec, you were gone and unconcerned about me for months, while Tritos was present and considerate and affectionate,” Bethany said.

  “And then I threw a ball at the palace,” Alec said.

  “Since he was the crown protector and basically the same as the king of the Dominion,” Bethany added.

  “And when I danced with Bethany, I wanted it to be friendly, but she was ready to argue,” Alec told Rief.

  “I was put out that night,” Bethany admitted in a low voice. “And he was willing to fight back.”

  “And then I took the army to fight the war against the lacertii to help Goldenfields. I healed Annalea, then went on to the front, and that’s when more than a score of us went behind the lacertii to ambush their supply lines. We lived together and fought together for weeks. I had to heal Allisma from some serious wounds,” Alec told his story.

  “This is where he proposed to Imelda,” Bethany said again.

  “And we captured a lacertii, who Kinsey said we have to save, so we did and I healed her,” Alec surprised Bethany.

  “You healed a lacertii?” Bethany was suitably surprised.

  “Just a little really. And we fought against a small army of lacertii, then forced them to follow her, and then we helped that lacertii army fight against another lacertii army, and when our lacertii won, they went back to their homeland to put an end to the war,” Alec said. “But Imelda was badly injured, and I had to save her life. It was a lot like that night on the beach with Cassie,” he nodded at Bethany, “where I used my spiritual powers a little I think with my healer powers to bring her back to life.”

  “And that’s when you asked her to marry you?” Bethany asked.

  Alec thought. “It was right about that time. But she said ‘no,’ and told me to marry you instead, and Allisma told me the only thing I had to do was tell you I love you and what I was doing, and you would have waited for me forever,” Alec shot back wickedly. “But I’d already seen how that worked out in Oyster Bay.”

  “So then
,” he continued after Bethany’s silence, “when that was over, we rode back towards the Goldenfields army, but they were beating the lacertii so badly that the lacertii army retreated right on top of our forces. Kinsey and I stayed away, but when we went to the battlefield, we found them all dead – Yula, Armilla, Nathaniel, Imelda – dead bodies everywhere. It made my time ingenairii powers take us back in time, and I fought forever to save them all and keep them alive.

  “But the very last lacertii I fought killed Imelda with an arrow, so I followed a prophecy John Mark had told me, and I surrendered all my powers to bring her back to life,” he told the two girls, who were sitting quietly, listening.

  “I woke up almost three weeks later, and Imelda had gone to fight in Bondell, and Nathaniel had gone to be with Moriah, and most of the army had gone home because the war was over. John Mark visited me and told me I could have my powers back if I returned to his cave, so I rode back to the cave. And I made a mistake there, but was forgiven, then I started on the three adventures.”

  He took a pause, and Rief filled in, giving a good summary of the story in Michian, and then the meeting with Armilla and company.

  “So now I am in Frame, waiting to see the person I’ll know is the right person to bring back to the Cave to hear John Mark’s exact assignment,” Alec finished. “And whether you like it not, I’m certain that it’s you,” he looked directly at Bethany.

  “Alec,” she paused. “Let’s talk in the morning. We’ve had a lot to drink, and we’ve listened to you talk more than I’ve ever heard you talk in your life – you don’t have a personality to say much about yourself.”

  “I see some things differently than I did before,” she told him. “Let’s just leave it at that. Now go out and get a new tattoo,” she grinned. She rose and bent to kiss them each on the top of the head, then was up the stairs and gone from sight.

  Chapter 38 – The Decision to Depart

  “Come on Tarnum, it’s time to go to bed,” Rief said standing first and trying to pull Alec up from his seat. He sat and played possum for a minute, then rose and followed her to bed. They pulled on their pajamas and climbed atop the narrow mattress. They lay there back-to-back in silence, each thinking their own thoughts about the narrative of the evening, until Rief heard Alec’s slow, even breathing indicating that he had fallen asleep.

  She mentally shook her head, thinking about how her life had changed. A week ago, she had been an ordinary house slave in a clan mansion. Five days ago she had been a personal slave to the most mysterious person in the empire. Four days ago, she had become a sacrifice to a demon. Three days ago, she received mystical powers to become a supernatural healer. And today she had become the fourth wheel in a love triangle. Her head was crammed with conflicting emotions, and she lay with her eyes open for a long time before she finally fell asleep.

  The next morning Alec awoke with a wine-induced headache, which he promptly healed away. One part of him wished they had not gone through the long, revelatory story. He didn’t think he had ever spoken for so long ever in his life, and especially about himself. Rief stirred beside him, causing him to reach out and preemptively remove the wine-drinking after-effects he expected she was about to feel as well. At least, he reflected, he and Bethany had ended the evening on a gentler note than it had begun, he was pleased. But she didn’t seem disposed to being taken away to the Cave of John Mark.

  He was convinced that she was the person he was supposed to bring back, though he had no notion what the purpose was for having her on the next mission. Could he take her forcibly? He could, but it would be so unpleasant in its consequences that he didn’t want to give it any further thought. There would have to be a way to convince Bethany to come willingly. He looked at Rief, who had tenuously established a friendship with Bethany. If needed, he would ask her to help him persuade Bethany. And then he would have to deal with the consequences of traveling with the two of them.

  Bethany had been a good person to travel with, and a good person period, he knew. Sighing deeply, he stood up and crept out of the room, going down to the common room to eat breakfast alone. He sat and thought, as the bright airy light of the morning sun shone in the east-facing windows, causing the shadows of the panes to move across the room. Alec measured his time in the room by the movement of the shadows. The lines had moved one table’s width when Bethany entered the room.

  “Good morning, Alec,” she said, looking a touch indisposed. Alec reached out and pressed his fingers against her temple, letting his healing powers remove her discomfort, then combed a tress of hair behind her ear.

  “You should ask permission before you do that,” she said sharply. “Not everyone wants to be healed when you think they should.”

  Alec sighed.

  “That was quite a story you told last night,” Bethany spoke in a less acerbic tone. “What were you trying to say? What is the real message you want to tell me, Alec? You’ve never been good at communicating, and it’s now or never for me to understand what you want to say.”

  “Bethany, I didn’t come here to force myself on you, at least not in terms of love. I told you I loved you when I wrote that letter from Red Water, and I told you I loved you when I saw you in Oyster Bay,” he paused, and took a deep breath, “and I’ll tell you I love you right now, because seeing you has burst my heart open all over again.

  “ but I’m not trying to lure you away from Tritos,” he immediately added.

  “And I need to take you with Rief and I back to the cave. I have a mission to carry out to protect the Dominion, and in some way you will be a part of that mission, but I don’t know what,” Alec told her.

  “Do you know what Rief is supposed to do?” Bethany asked.

  Alec hesitated for a moment. “John Mark was surprised when I brought Rief back with me from Michian. I don’t think she was a part of his plans. But I want to take her with me; I can’t just abandon her somewhere in the Dominion after I brought her here. I’m her only friend, well, one of only two friends, now that she’s met you.”

  Bethany sat back. “I believe you really have spoken with John Mark, Alec. I know you’re destined for great things. I believe you sincerely think you need me to help save the Dominion, and I know you have no hesitation about putting me to work on some crazy adventure, like charging across the desert to Bondell!” she smiled.

  “I have to finish this project here in Frame, and I need to write to people to tell them that I am leaving for a while. Can you wait for me before we go away?” she asked.

  “How long will it take? Is there anything I can do to help?” Alec asked, delightedly.

  “There’s nothing you can do, and I can reach a finishing point in a day and a half of hard work,” she said.

  “Who will you write to, Tritos?” Alec asked, and immediately regretted it. “I mean, I don’t think you should tell folks you’re going with me, or going to see John Mark. Just say another mission has come up and you’ll be safe,” he spoke to cover up his embarrassment.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Diplomat, I’ll handle it tactfully,” Bethany said. “Why are you wearing only one glove, and during the summer? I meant to ask last night.”

  “I told you I made a mistake when I returned to John Mark’s Cave,” Alec began. He pulled off the glove, revealing the ugly scars on the front and back. “It has permanently changed my hand,” he stopped not wanting to talk about what he had actually done. “I learned that it is reckless and foolish to sin in the holy place of a prophet.”

  Bethany sat in silence as Alec pulled the glove back on, respecting his evident desire to say no more. She stood up from the table, having nibbled on much of Alec’s breakfast. “Thank you for another delightful meal. I’ll be off to work now.”

  “We’ll come down and continue healing, later,” Alec called.

  Bethany walked away, thinking about the fact that Alec had just told her openly that he loved her. And she had listened politely, without responding, both because it would be unfair to
Tritos, and because she still was upset to think he had asked another girl to marry him just weeks ago. She didn’t want to be his second choice. Mulling over the conflict between her heart and her pride, she walked through the streets of Frame.

  At the same time, Alec walked upstairs, and saw Rief’s open eyes looking at him as he stepped in the door. “I’ve been down and had a bite of breakfast, although Bethany ate more of it than I did,” he told her.

  She saw his smile. “You’re in love with her, and she’s going to come with us on this journey. Does that sum things up?” Rief asked without hostility.

  Alec looked off into space. “I think that sums up most of it,” he agreed, and looked back into her eyes.

  “Well, what do we do now?” she asked, and Alec could tell the question had many layers.