“How did the imp know about my powers? It was the large demon,” Alec gave a short stuttering inhalation of breath at the overwhelming memory of the moments his body had been merged with that of the demon. “The large demon knew, not the imp.”
“The two of them were really a single entity, sharing a single, evil awareness, Alec,” John Mark responded. “So the imp knew through the large demon what you did and how you did it and where your powers came from.
“If you want to cleanse those powers of the imp’s poison, you will have to enter the energy realm and fight it, and only these weapons will make it possible for you to fight and win,” he continued. “So you need to give your respects to Resper-Ka, and then you will need to find the crypt of Carthom Ingenaire Sivis, that last ingenairii king, and plunder it to retrieve that great amulet. After you have done that, you will still have a long journey to reach the lacertii, and to persuade them to assist you in finding the remains of the shrine where the piece of the Cross remains.”
“Rosebay will assist me,” Alec said assuredly. “The piece of the Cross; will it really defeat a demon? I don’t think I can even fight a small one and hope to win on my own. They are so malignant and indestructible,” he said, mostly to himself.
“Yes Alec, you can defeat the demon. Although even with the tools you will have it will not be easy. It is my time to go now, for this is not my place. Remember, you need to go to the crypt of Carthom, below the chapel on the north side of the narthex, to retrieve the amulet. Farewell, and travel with God’s blessing,” John Mark told him, as he literally faded from sight.
Alec stood alone in the dim stairwell. He was shaken by John Mark’s revelation. He climbed the stairs to return to the altar. “Protector!” “Alec?” “Captain!” he heard the cries outside the ruined house of worship, and realized the others in his group were looking for him.
He would need to first plunder the royal burial place of Carthom Ingenairii Sivis before he could reply to those who were searching for him. Alec groped his way back up the stairs, and in the better-lit nave of the ruined building, he worked his way among the debris back to the middle of the space, where he saw an opening on the north side, or what he thought was the north side. Without bright sunlight and clear shadows he couldn’t definitively judge directions. Upon entering the smaller space, he saw that a roof was still intact over the large room, and a stony altar at the end of the chapel was peculiarly shaped, with a circular image instead of a cross.
Behind the altar Alec moved debris, growing warm and sweaty as he tried to clear off the floor; the way to the underground crypt was likely to be through this area, he felt sure. Some pieces of fallen structure were too large for him to move alone, however, and he realized he would have to seek help from his companions.
Walking through a doorway, Alec saw that the ice had disappeared from the ground. “Armilla!” he called loudly to a distant figure, and waved his hand.
“Are you alright? Where were you?” his body guard called as she met him. “We need to call in the others; they’re out searching for you.”
“I’ve been in the cathedral. I have a mission – I know what we have to do now,” he said with shining eyes. Armilla was glad to see a spark of enthusiasm visible in his eyes; for weeks he had seemed to function only from fear, and it had affected the energy of the whole group. As they called in the others, Alec explained what had happened and a portion of what he had learned, then led them back to the chapel to clear the way into the crypt.
“I’ve never broken into a crypt before, how about you, Brandeis?” Delle asked his cousin from Stronghold.
“I didn’t break into it,” Brandeis said hotly, then realized Delle was pulling his leg, referring to the time when Brandeis had pined outside Noranda’s burial vault, before Alec had revived her and healed her wounds. He began to hastily explain the situation to the others, but their grins and nods made him realize the futility of his efforts. “Besides, it was Alec who broke into her tomb,” he said at last before dropping the topic.
Alec led them through the ruins of the chapel to the spot where a trap door was likely to lead to the burial chamber. With a rope that Armilla carried in her pack, the whole group worked at pulling and lifting several large beams and stones. Berlisle got on her hands and knees to begin brushing away the dirt, trying to find the evidence of the passage Alec sought.
The floor was a mosaic pattern of interlocking circles and arrows. There was no obvious entrance. “Maybe the altar is the entrance?” Patrick suggested, looking up from the where his fingers were tracing lines on the floor.
Armilla stepped over to the blocky stone structure, examining it carefully. She experimentally pushed against it, but the altar showed no sign of moving. Alec stepped over to help Armilla, his toe catching on a piece of the floor mosaic and tripping him as he moved.
“What the ..?” Alec said under his breath.
“Have trouble walking?” Brandeis asked.
“It’s the floor there,” Alec replied. “A stone in the floor moved when I stepped on it.”
He knelt to look at the stone, wondering how he could have tripped on a place where there was no discernible gap between the one mosaic piece and the next. “This stone drops when I press on it,” he exclaimed.
The stone was an elongated triangle, one of several that formed rays emanating from a large circle in the center of the floor area. Experimentally, Alec pressed down on several other triangular stones, and found some that moved and some that didn’t.
As Alec pressed another of the rays, there was a click, and the circular sun on which he was kneeling swung downward on a hinge, causing Alec to suddenly fall through an empty space and land with a thud on the stony floor of a crypt below the altar. He felt a sharp pain in his right wrist, and both knees ached.
“Alec? Alec!” he heard several voices calling him from above. Looking up, he saw the hole he had fallen through was nearly twenty feet above.
“I’m here. I’m little banged up, but okay,” he called up to where he saw the silhouette of Armilla’s head centered in the bright circle.
“Wait just a second. We’ll throw a rope down to you,” she instructed.
“Give me a few moments,” Alec countered. “This is where I wanted to come, so let me look around.”
He looked up again. “Move your head; you’re blocking the light,” he shouted. He stood up and allowed his eyes to adjust further to the dark gloom. He was in a small room, whose walls were lined with square columns. On the wall behind him was an opening filled with a casket-shaped chest.
“I think I found the tomb,” Alec called up as he walked over and examined the casket. It was elaborate, and gleamed with a golden sheen. A ribbon that appeared to be woven of golden fabric was stretched across the top. Alec pulled his sword from its sheath and slid it under the ribbon.
A mist jetted out from all sides of the casket, and rose to form a cloud that hovered above the casket. As Alec watched in slack-jawed amazement, the cloud formed a skeletal figure, whose dark, empty eye sockets stared at Alec.
“Do not desecrate this tomb. A curse of fifty years awaits the man who plunders here,” the wraith said in a sepulchral voice.
“I need something here. I need an amulet to help fight a demon. John Mark sent me,” Alec answered, a quaver in his voice.
The spirit did not answer, but dissolved into misty nothingness, leaving its warning as a threat that hung in the air.
“Is everything alright down there?” Armilla’s voice called.
“I think so,” Alec responded after a moment’s pause. He looked down at his sword blade. What was fifty years of a curse likely to be? Pain? Disease? Hatred by everyone around him? Would John Mark be able to protect him from a curse? Was it worth giving up fifty years to save Bethany?
Knowing that he had no choice, Alec deliberately twisted the blade and pulled it towards him, watching its keen edge slowly slice through the ribbon, which fluttered off the top of the casket. Re-s
heathing his sword, Alec grunted as he placed his fingertips beneath the coffin lid and heaved upwards on the heavy load. It was lighter than he expected, and Alec realized that the gold must be only a veneer of gold leaf covering a wooden lid.
As it rose high up into the air, Alec coughed at the stench of decay that rose and enveloped him. He stepped back and coughed, while the lid fell to the ground. Inside he found a skeleton, with tattered remnants of cloth stuck among the bones, and the glint of rich jewels adorning every conceivable spot. Alec’s eyes were drawn to the skull, which still wore a golden crown, and the dark openings of the eyes, whose nothingness Alec imagined was scrutinizing him, preparing to spring its curse upon him.
From the empty sockets his gaze moved to the empty chest cavity, where he saw a round, jeweled amulet resting within the bony confines of the rib cage. Alec carefully reached his hand between the bones to pick up the object, and to make a hasty escape from the eerie crypt.
Suddenly Alec gave a shout of panic, as the skull rose swiftly, and the jaws clamped the ivory teeth painfully on his forearm. Alec’s hand clamped around the amulet, and at the same moment he held it in his grasp, the dead teeth pierced his skin, biting into his flesh right through the badge of his Spiritual ingenaire powers.
Alec’s mind was sudden awhirl with strange thoughts and a mystifying confusion and fear. He jerked his hand upward, ripping the amulet’s chain through the brittle bones that connected the skull to the bony torso, and sending the skull spinning away to rattle around the inside of the casket. The sight of the spinning skull coming to rest was the last thing Alec remembered.
Chapter 12 – To Trust the Lacertii
When Alec awoke, he found himself in a crude campsite in the woods, where several strange people were tending to camp duties. “He’s awake,” a woman called, and stepped over next to him and knelt.
With a start, Alec realized that Armilla was placing her hand on his shoulder to keep him prone. “Take it easy, majesty,” she said as she looked closely at his eyes. Alec was stunned to realize he had not recognized any of his companions.
“What happened?” he asked. “Where are we?”
“We’re in a camp about five miles away from the ruins,” Armilla answered. “Durer went down into the crypt after you didn’t answer, and we hauled you out of there, bloody wrist and all, and we rode down the trail to put some space between us and that place.” Others in the group were gathering around, looking at Alec. “You’ve been asleep for almost a day now. It’s good to see you awake,” Armilla finished.
Alec felt a strange prickly sensation, one that seemed both internal and external. “How close are we to the river? I want to take a bath,” he said as he stood up. He ambled down the bank and jumped into the chilly mountain water, scrubbing himself vigorously through his clothes for several minutes, then climbed out. He felt something clinging to his chest under his shirt, and reached in to pull it out. The amulet was on a chain around his neck.
Alec remembered then what had happened: the fall into the crypt, the ghostly apparition, pulling the amulet off the skeleton.
The amulet that had driven his group to this far corner of the mountains was now in his hand. He looked at it closely. Incredibly fine details were etched in the gold circle that was smaller than his palm. Around the edge of the circle were a variety of shining jewels, no two exactly the same color; there were at least two dozen, perhaps more, bordering the face of the amulet. In the center was a tree whose leaves were formed from bright emerald chips, seemingly alive with their brilliance and their appearance of swaying in some unfelt breeze. On the back of the gold was written an elegant script, whose words read, “All ways lead to the tree of life and all energy comes from the axis mundi.”
Something in the words resonated deeply in his soul as Alec tucked the amulet back beneath his shirt. “Is everyone ready to ride?” he asked as he returned to the camp site. “We have a long way to go. Chanradala is at least eight days away, and we’ll have to ride somewhere beyond there,” he said as he hurriedly rolled his sleeping blankets and strapped them on the back of his saddle.
“Do you know where we’re going now?” Patrick asked.
“What?” Alec asked, turning around with a confused look on his face.
“This Chandra…place; do you know that’s where we’re going?” the Goldenfields soldier asked again. He saw the continuing blank look on Alec’s face. “You just said it would take us eight days to get there.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Alec said. “I don’t think I said anything. But Chanradala is the lacertii capital city; Rosebay told us when we were with her.” He climbed into his saddle as the others exchanged looks, and they began riding south.
Several minutes later, as the squad rode briskly along the narrow trail, Brandeis pulled alongside Alec. “You did tell us it would be eight days to Chanradala, and you said it like you knew exactly what you were saying,” he said cautiously. “Were you thinking out loud?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where Chanradala is, or how long it will take to ride there. It doesn’t make sense,” Alec pondered.
“Maybe it was just the after-effects of something in the ruins?” Brandeis suggested.
“Maybe,” Alec half-heartedly agreed, uneasy over the inexplicable event. They rode on for the next two days, returning past the splendid waterfall and descending downward with the river as it fell away from the mountain heights.
Three days later after riding long hours, they arrived back at Riverside, among the ruins in the late afternoon’s long shadows. “I don’t want to spend a night near these ruins. Let’s head east,” he pointed, and they turned their tired horses to ride up the long incline and away from Riverside’s crumbling buildings. They slept that night at the top of the slope, and in the morning saw the sun rise in the east, with no tall mountain ranges interceding on the horizon.
They began riding early the next morning, pressed by Alec’s urgency, and rode along a narrow road, overhung by majestic trees. The road rose and fell with the ridges and valley it followed on a winding eastward trip. As the sun reached high noon, Alec was about to suggest a stop for lunch, when he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and fell from his saddle. There was sustained shouting going on around him and the horses were screaming as well, trampling around, threatening to step on him.
Alec groaned and tried to roll, but felt resistance and further pain. He reached around and found an arrow in the back of his right shoulder. Cautiously, still feeling tremendous pain, he rose to his knees and stood.
There were gray-skinned lacertii soldiers all around them, and Thomis laid on the ground with an arrow in his chest. “Stop! We surrender,” Armilla was shouting, as she saw the hopelessness of the battle against the much larger lacertii forces.
“We come on a peaceful mission,” she shouted again, and the sound of swords clashing died down.
“Who are you? Why are you sneaking into our land?” a lacertii officer asked, stepping in front of his men as he motioned for them to disengage.
Armilla looked around at Alec momentarily, and he raised his left hand.
“We come on a mission of mercy, seeking help,” he said with a grimace. “We wish to meet with the Marchioness Rosebay to ask for her permission to travel further in your lands to one of our ancient holy places.”
“You think you are entitled to speak to the Marchioness?” the officer asked contemptuously.
“Please allow us a moment’s pause,” Alec asked. “I need to check on my man who is down,” he motioned towards Thomis’s still body.
“A good officer should attend to his men. Go ahead,” the lacertii agreed.
Alec motioned to Berlisle. “Get my medical bag off Walnut,” he instructed her, as he approached and knelt over Thomis. He longed to use his powers, knowing that they were beyond use. He examined Thomis closely, looking for a pulse, and finding none. The arrow had struck his heart, killing the young soldier instantly.
“He is de
ad,” Alec announced, looking up sorrowfully. “He came here peacefully and was ambushed without warning, and now he is dead.
“I was on an assignment that found the Marchioness and released her. We helped her in battle so that she could return to your land and take leadership to end the war against our own people. We never ambushed a peace mission like this,” Alec said angrily.
“You are from the western lands?” the officer asked. “You’re not part of the demon people?”
“No, we’re not,” Alec answered. “We’ve fought a war with them recently ourselves.”
“You need our help to fight them? We cannot offer any help; our own armies are fighting desperately to preserve our nation,” the lacertii told him. “You can save yourself the rest of the journey and go home.”
“We need a different type of help for another problem. It is not a war issue,” Alec grimaced from the pain of the arrow still in his shoulder.
“Put your weapons down,” the officer told the humans. “Warriors relax,” he told his own soldiers, who had remained armed and ready to attack. “Treat your own injury if you can, and then we’ll talk further.”
Alec shuddered at the prospect of treating the arrow wound without his healer abilities. He looked around at his other companions. Delle had a deep slice across his arm, but no others seemed badly harmed. “Armilla, you need to cut this out of me. Take out the bag with the blue ribbon and the one with the green ribbon,” he handed over his pouch of medical supplies.
His bodyguard looked at him in discomfort. “I don’t want to do this,” she replied simply.
“We don’t have a choice. I don’t have healing powers. If we don’t get this out, and treat the wound, it will grow infected,” Alec insisted. “Just cut it out and get it over with. Sprinkle some of the herbs from each of those two bags inside the wound, then bandage it up. After that we need to treat Delle.”
Armilla looked at him with distaste, as he pulled his belt knife free and handed it to her, while their companions looked on uneasily. “I’ll help, Armilla,” Brandeis offered, and together the two of them soon were grimly slipping a blade into the back of Alec’s shoulder to release the arrow’s head.
Preserving the Ingenairii Page 8
