“This is where we begin our work,” Alec said as they pulled their horses up outside the gate in the city wall. “The Locksforts will give us the start we need.” They entered the city and took the long, slow walk down the cliff to the lower town, where Alec led them to the Locksfort compound gate. “We’re here to see Durer and Johanna,” Alec casually told the guard at the gate. “Would you tell them that Alec the healer from Oyster Bay has returned to town?”
The guard looked at Alec with a speculative glance. “I was here when we fought Mooreen for control of the clan. I’m a good friend of Noranda, and Brandeis and Delle, although I know he’s not here,” Alec patiently said. “Or if you could even bring Circh out, I’m sure she’ll lead us in to the cousins.”
“I’ll send a message,” the guard said in a helpful tone, and soon a servant was carrying a note up to the family quarters.
Just minutes later Noranda came hurrying towards the gate, and as soon as she saw Alec she squealed with joy and ran to him, jumping on him in a hug of friendship and kissing him soundly.
“Look at your hair!” Alec exclaimed. “It does grow back after all.”
“How many girls does he have planted around your Dominion?” Rief asked Bethany.
“This is one of the ones he saved from dying. Strangely, he seems to save the lives of pretty girls most often,” Bethany observed in an audible aside. “There’s Noranda here, Cassie in Goldenfields, Imelda down in Bondell, now me.”
“Wasn’t there one named Annalea in Goldenfields too?” Rief asked.
Alec and Noranda had turned to face the two girls in their staged dialog.
“Yes, I believe there was, and maybe Yula as well. Has he saved your life yet and fallen in love with you?” Bethany answered.
“He hasn’t done either. Should I start choking now to win his heart?” Rief continued.
Noranda was smiling at the obviously good-natured jesting.
“I’ve never seen these girls before,” Alec said solemnly, only to be doused in a deluge of water seconds later.
“May we come in?” Alec asked Noranda. “We need a place to rest, and I need to speak to Durer with a request.”
“Come in, come in,” Noranda motioned them all. “I’m Noranda,” she said, introducing herself to Bethany and Rief. “Have we met before?” Noranda asked Bethany. “You look familiar.”
“My name is Bethany, an ingenaire from Oyster Bay. I’ve heard a great deal about you,” Bethany said. “But I don’t recollect having met you directly.”
“My name is Rief,” the other girl said.
“What a wonderful accent!” Noranda exclaimed as they reached the stables. She held out an arm to hold the other girls back. “Let Alec go in and muck the horse around on his own,” she suggested.
“Where are you from?” she further asked Rief.
The girl hesitated for just a moment. “I am from a far-away land, the Michian Empire.”
“I’ve heard the name, maybe from a trader,” Noranda thought out loud. “Did you all have a nice trip up the river?”
“We actually came down the river,” Bethany answered. We came through Growerston.”
Noranda looked puzzled. “Alec must be coming from the battles in Goldenfields, and you’re from Oyster Bay, so how do you travel here by way of Growerston?”
Alec was loaded down with bags as he returned from placing Walnut in a stall. “We’ll tell you all about that. It’s part of the story I want you and Durer and Brandeis and Johanna to hear.”
Noranda was now leading them to the family quarters. “Let’s put you in rooms first, and I’ll see if we can set up a meeting this afternoon. Durer is usually pretty busy, but a surprise visit from the crown protector is special. Should I call you sire or majesty?”
“May I offer other suggestions?” Bethany quickly asked, and Noranda winked at her.
“Here are the guest quarters,” Noranda opened a door and motioned to a maid in the hallway. “We have other rooms as well if you need more,” she suggested casually as they walked into the rooms. “Alec, you can have your old room back if you like,” she added.
Alec looked at the single bed in each room, then looked at his traveling companions. “Maybe I should stay in my old room,” he agreed. The maid entered the room and brought linens to prepare the beds. “I can find my own way,” he said as he laid down the girls’ bags on a table. “I’ll be back down in an hour, if you could send word here about a meeting time and place.”
He left the room and wandered upstairs and through the halls until he came to the room he had first occupied, and he stepped over to the window to look out at the panoramic view of the great waterfall and the city spread out below. It was an impressive view, and he felt a warmth in his heart towards the city. That was a surprise, after his very first experience had been an ambush at the Millershome wharf, and he had later been tortured in dungeons below the Locksfort compound. But a number of good people had fought with him to beat Mooreen and her forces, and had turned his heart around.
“May I come in?” a voice called from the doorway, and Alec turned to see Brandeis strolling into the room.
The two friends thumped each other on the back and shoulder as they grinned at one another.
“How the devil did you get here?” Brandeis asked. “We just got a note that you’re lying unconscious in an army camp out in the middle of nowhere. Now, it turns out you’re right here back in your old stomping grounds. We don’t need to go down to the wharfside taverns to beat up more ruffians, do we?”
Alec laughed at the memory. “If we don’t do any fighting this time, I’ll call it a good visit to Stronghold,” he laughed. “It got a little bloody last time, didn’t it?
“Oh Brandeis!” he suddenly recollected. “I saw Mooreen a few weeks ago!”
“You did?!” Brandeis asked. “Where? Did you let her live?”
“It was far away. I’ll tell you all about it when we all get together,” Alec said.
“Speaking of which, I’m here to escort you to a meeting with Durer and Johanna. Norrie is bringing your lady friends,” Brandeis said as he stood and led Alec out the door, “Speaking of which, I thought you had good tastes when you were wooing Johanna…”
“I was not wooing Johanna,” Alec quickly replied.
“Am I not worthy of your royal attention?” Johanna asked, emerging into the hallway from an adjoining room.
Alec blushed, and hugged the lovely girl who was now married to the leader of the Locksfort clan. “How could I ever be worthy of the love of someone as pure and kind as you?” Alec asked in the same teasing tone, and he walked into the meeting room with an arm around each of his friends. At a rich, wooden table in the comfortable room, speaking politely with Bethany and Rief, sat Durer, now the head of the Locksfort clan after an uprising that Alec had fought in to displace Mooreen’s corrupt rule.
Durer came to greet him and Johanna, and the three of them embraced in a warm and emotional reunion. “Alec, it’s so good to see you back here!” Durer roared with delight. “I don’t know how or why you’re here, but I’m glad.”
“If Delle were here we’d have the whole gang together!” Noranda laughed.
“I think Alec’s made a good trade of those two for Delle,” Brandeis said with a laugh.
“That’s because you haven’t spent the time with them that I have,” Alec said with mock scornfulness, drawing hoots from around the table.
Johanna and Durer and Alec were seated, and Noranda rose to go stand by her husband, Brandeis, watching the happy threesome. “I didn’t know he could show such friendship and joy,” Rief said quietly to Bethany.
The blond observed him for another moment. “Back in Goldenfields, for a time, he had a lot of friends his own age and he wasn’t quite as exalted as he is now. And when he came home to the shop, he could be just one of us, able to laugh and play games and enjoy himself. And it looks like he found a group of friends here too, but he doesn’t experience this very often
at all, I’m afraid.”
“You’ll have to make sure he does,” Rief said gently, placing her hand on Bethany’s.
“Alec, why are you wearing that glove?” Johanna asked as they all disengaged and sat down around the table.
Alec’s eyes met Bethany’s for a moment before he answered. “I’ve injured my hand, and I wear this for protection.”
“But you’re a healer!” Johanna replied.
“And so are Bethany and Rief now,” Alec added. “But this is more than just a physical matter, and I need to keep it covered.
“Why don’t I start somewhere closer to the beginning of the story, and leave some parts of it out, but tell you enough to explain why I’m going to ask for more of your army to help me immediately fight against the greatest danger the Dominion has faced in generations.”
“First,” Durer said, “feel free to take as much time as you need. And second, we hope you will accept these gifts we found and wish to restore to you.” He reached under the table and pulled out a sword, which he presented hilt-first to Alec.
He accepted the gift and looked at it with a smile, then stood and held it in his gloved left hand, enjoying the perfect balance it provided as he gripped it. “This is wonderful! Where did you find it?”
Johanna came forward, and raised her arms over Alec’s head, then carefully lowered a chain around his neck. On the necklace was a bejeweled letter “T.”
The jewels in the bauble seemed to throw off extra sparkles as they rested on his chest. “These were found wrapped in rags down in the dungeons,” Durer explained. “Whether it was the jailers or Mooreen, or someone else, your sword and pendant were secured away, and we wanted to return them.”
“Oh, it’s a T for Tarnum!” Rief exclaimed, as others looked in startled surprise at her. “In Michian he was given a new name – Tarnum, and that’s what I’ve called him since we arrived here.”
“It’s the king’s name,” Durer said quietly. “Tarnum was the family name of the last dynasty of kings here in the Dominion.”
“This was a gift that the orphanage had for me,” Alec clarified. “It belonged to my mother, as a gift to her from my father. It is the only thing I have to connect me to my parents, so whatever the T means is not as important to me as the thought of whose hands it rested in once upon a time.
“Let me tell you what has happened,” Alec changed topics. “A far-away land, Michian, has invaded the Dominion and means to conquer all our lands. They have had the help of Mooreen in knowing about the Dominion.
“They have already landed a large invasion force in Bondell, and we need to send every soldier we can find in the Dominion to fight this battle.”
“How is Mooreen involved?” Brandeis asked.
“When we defeated her, she fled by riding away on an animal called a restorer,” Alec explained. “The restorer is a magical animal that can transport itself instantly from one spot to another. Mooreen had been given a restorer that she kept here in that room in the south apartments where no one was allowed to go. You’ve probably all seen the papers she left behind, talking about putting a puppet on the throne,” several heads nodded. “When she couldn’t do it that way, they must have decided to do it this other way, the brutal and direct way.”
“We will help you, of course,” Durer said. “Those men who have fought against the lacertii have been returning here, so we will send the others who have not gone off to battle yet. We can have them ready for departure in a matter of days.”
“I would like for you to also seek the addition of forces from Growerston, Sandyforks, and Sturgeon, to try to persuade them to submit forces as well,” Alec replied to him. “I have sent messengers to Goldenfields to mobilize their forces, even though they’ve been at war for months already. Next I’ll go down river to Oyster Bay to begin the dispatch of all the forces we have available there.”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Durer assured him. “That all seems reasonable. How many will we face?”
“I think there are thousands from Michian already in our land. They were using transporters to move their forces into the remote mountains of Bondell’s south. Before Rief and I left Michian, we disabled the transporters, so there will be no more troops arriving for several months, and there will not be any supplies either. So they will be on the move to forage for themselves, once they realize their predicament,” Alec explained.
“What was the start of connection between this Michian and Mooreen?” Brandeis asked.
“John Mark told me that it was through trading. Mooreen learned about Michian through the traders who bring goods across the barrier,” Alec answered.
John Mark the prophet?” Brandeis asked. “I know you said you spoke with him before, when you were here the first time. Do you talk to him regularly?”
Alec looked at Rief. “It seemed like a regular gabfest for a while! He was the one who sent me to Michian, where I learned so much about this threat. They are a different culture, completely different and foreign to us. They believe in different gods, they use demons, they possess slaves. Their victory would be a complete desolation for the life we know in the Dominion.”
“How did Mooreen get one of those animals, the restorers, into our home?” Johanna asked.
“I don’t really know,” Alec said. “I guess she must have had it brought by boat all the way from Michian, and then smuggled into the compound. Have you checked the room she used to make sure she hasn’t been back?”
“We do check the room from time to time, and twice we found fresh droppings on the floor, but there hasn’t been anything new in weeks now,” Durer answered.
“To change the subject, why don’t we all go have dinner?” he suggested, and they all trooped down to a dining room for a feast that filled them all as they talked about subjects both serious and commonplace.
“May we have your fastest boat tomorrow morning to take us to Goldenfields?” Alec asked as they sat around the table after the last plates were removed.
“You’re going to leave that soon?” Noranda asked. “It’s hardly a visit!”
“I have to move as fast as possible,” Alec answered. “Michian will show no mercy to any part of the Dominion it occupies. We have to fight and defeat them as fast as possible to prevent more suffering, and to make sure we prevent them from bringing more troops into the Dominion.
“When I was in Michian with Rief, I fed their restorer animals some feed that made them temporarily unable to move through space, but it will wear off in a few months, and when it does, we have to make sure they don’t have a safe place in our land to unload more troops,” Alec explained.
Later, they all rose from the table and departed for the night. As Alec walked with Rief and Bethany to their rooms, Bethany asked about his sword. “Is that the sword you had in Oyster Bay, the one you wore at the Apprentice’s Ball?”
“It is,” Alec confirmed. “The Duke bought it for me as a gift after I healed him. It’s specially made for left-handed use, and weighted and lengthened for me.”
You’re glad to have it back, aren’t you?” she added.
“I am,” Alec admitted. “It’s special. It’s good to use, but it’s special because it reminds me of the friends I had at Goldenfields.”
“You’ve got friends everywhere, Alec,” Bethany told him as they arrived at the guest quarters she shared with Rief.
“Good night, Alec,” the Michian girl said as she slipped through the door into her quarters, leaving Alec and Bethany alone in the empty hall.
“Rief and I both enjoyed seeing you with your friends tonight,” Bethany told him. “You need to have a chance to be a person once in a while instead of a ruler or ingenaire or mystical figure. Try to remember to not be so caught up in responsibilities all the time,” she finished, then gave him a peck on the cheek and left him alone in the hall.
Alec thought about her words as he walked to his own room, and he fell asleep to dreams of enjoying carefree times with friends from thro
ughout the Dominion.
Chapter 43 – Back in Oyster Bay
The next morning the three travelers were escorted by Noranda and Brandeis to the Locksfort docks, where they exchanged vows to see one another soon. “You two take good care of him,” Noranda told the two girls.
“Alec needs so much care,” Bethany said. “He’s very high maintenance!” she smiled.
The ship sailed with a light load and only one stop scheduled at Three Forks on its way to Oyster Bay. During the first two days of the trip the crew of a dozen sailors found themselves the subject of considerable medical care as Rief and Bethany practiced their healer skills under Alec’s tutelage. After that Bethany turned her attention to helping direct the river currents to press the ship forward with maximum effectiveness, and they sped down river quickly.
Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian Page 33
