As moment passed into moment and moment and moment, there came one further second when he registered a change in the curse. “Your term of punishment is complete now, grave plunderer. Your cause was just, but the crime required the sentence to be served. I return in peace to the tomb, while you may continue your struggle here. You can succeed if you surprise the demon by making the ultimate sacrifice, but then you will need God’s love to give you your own future.” And with that there was a whispering sigh, and he felt his mind emptied of his curse.
Alec felt suddenly emptier and lighter. The fraction of change that the removal of the curse made was an enormous difference in the finely balanced battle he waged against the demon. He staggered forward a step, and the hot, stinging breath of the demon gave a snort of surprise at something new happening, a change in the long conflict that had tied the two combatants together.
The piece of the One Cross still rested in his pocket. He’d never been able to free a hand so he could bring it out and apply it directly to the demon, as he was certain he must. Its presence was enough to allow him to battle against the demon on equal terms, but its isolation prevented it from fulfilling the service Alec had hoped for so long ago.
With this new change in circumstances, could Alec bring the remnant out for use? And if he did, what would occur? The curse had implied that Alec was going to have to make a sacrifice, “the ultimate sacrifice” it had said. Would Alec need to apply the Cross and also die? Here in his experience of the reality of the energy realm he was occupying his physical body. If he gave it up to the demon, he would have no body to occupy for a return to the Dominion.
His leg twitched with more concentration, and the demon shifted slightly in response, bringing Alec closer to a dominant position. He looked at the enormous red eye that was so close to his own, and saw the hatred that perpetually resided there. Beyond the hatred and loathing though there seemed to be something else; it wasn’t fear, but it was awareness that somehow Alec was bringing a new element to the entanglement after so much time had passed.
Alec considered again what he would have to do. He would have to achieve enough advantage to open up space between them, so that he would be able to disengage from his grasp on the demon’s throat and reach into his pocket to pull out the Cross fragment.
Gathering up all of his will, Alec shoved with the intent of sending the demon falling backwards, so that Alec could bring out the fragment. The shove though only put the demon at an extended arm’s length instead of the present bent arm’s length, and accomplished nothing more. The demon roared in response, and Alec felt its claws tighten their grip on his shoulders.
The first gambit had failed.
Alec thought through his alternatives. He could remain here indefinitely, relying on the power of the energy realm and using it to preserve this interminable status quo battle with the demon. Or he could remove a hand from the demon and plunge it into his pocket, hoping to pull the Cross fragment out quickly enough to be able to swipe it across the demon before the demon could deal a deadly blow to him. That would be risky. He knew from experience how swift the demon’s movements were. Alec might be able to pull out the piece of the cross, he suspected, but he was likely to suffer injury as a result of weakening his defenses. It would be a gamble, but he knew in the instant he conceived the tactic that he was willing to gamble instead of continuing to suffer this dismal exile in purgatory. If he lost the gamble, he would die, but if he won, he would be free, able to return to the real world, and able to go on living a life in a place where ingenairii lived and worked and utilized their abilities.
With a tremendous shove, Alec pushed the demon a hands-span beyond his reach, holding his right hand out to protect himself as his left hand dove into his pocket. His fingertips touched the wood of the fragment as he saw the demon begin to lunge back towards him. Alec’s fingers closed around the wood and began to pull it out of his pocket as the demon’s jaws engulfed his right hand and began to clamp down.
Alec freed the wooden fragment and thrust it upward and outward. The piece of the One Cross touched one of the demon’s arms as the monster’s other arm reached behind Alec and pulled him into a deathly embrace. The fragment of the holy relic was crushed between the two antagonists as the demon bellowed in agony, and Alec too screamed in pain and despair. His right arm was a mangled mess above his elbow, where the demon’s teeth had eviscerated it. The claws that were behind him crushing him against the monster were ripping into his flesh, puncturing his ribcage.
Alec felt the unbearable pain, and made the decision to let his spirit leave the dying body behind. He thought of Bethany, and he thought of Leah, and he mourned over all the personal dreams he had cherished so long ago, as he prepared to die.
The demon was screaming as it was pressed against the fragment of the Cross that was trapped between the two bodies. It too was dying.
Alec felt his spirit begin to rise above the battle. His consciousness dwelt without form, and looked down at his own dead body. The flesh was horribly rent as the demon’s claws tore again and again. On his face though, there was a peaceful expression, and the two scars that crossed on his left cheek seemed to grow lighter, standing out as a cross on his skin.
The demon was winning, but was unable to enjoy its long-sought victory. After the decades it had spent immobilized with Alec, it too was pleased to end the standoff, but the price of its victory was even worse than the price Alec paid. Flames erupted across the whole expanse of its flesh. Flames did not accurately describe the consuming energy that Alec saw upon and within the demon, but there was no word that came to mind to better explain what was happening.
The touch of the Cross was driving away the hatred and bestial intolerance that were the substance of the demon. The core that held the demon together, and Alec suddenly realized that it was an actual embodiment of pure hatred, was flying apart. The cross, with its substantiation of the promise of forgiveness and love, was dissolving the demon, and the horrific energy was exploding away.
It was burning away Alec’s old body too. Together, the terrible mass of destroyed and destroyer were dwindling down to a misshapen lump, then a pile of cinders, then only the fragment of the Cross rested alone, still pure and good.
Alec dwelt on what he had just seen, the purging of the demonic hatred from the ingenairii power realm. Now he was there, without a body, ready to be taken away to the afterlife. He looked down at the Cross, and drove his shapeless, formless spirit towards it. As he came in contact with it, he felt again the boundless compassion that it contains, and he felt contentment. With a concentration of his will, he tried to give his spirit a form, so that he could reach out and touch the fragment. He felt a twist again, and suddenly he was a figure, holding the fragment, and full of ingenairii energy. He had gained the spirit body of an ingenairii now, able to exist as though he had a physical body awaiting his return to the real world!
Chapter 17 – Becoming Gordon
His body had taken the form of a physician, a healer ingenaire. He looked down and saw that he wore a long white robe, with many pockets from which herbs and tools protruded. Alec tested the new image body, moving it easily about in the realm, feeling the power intoxication that came from accepting the power too readily. Alec clamped down on the amount of the energy he used to animate his image, and he began to walk about. He looked around for the exit to the external world, the real world of solid and tangible life, even though he knew he no longer had a body to return to.
For fifty years he had focused all his attention on the single task of enduring the clench of the demonic hatred. He had thought of nothing except the need to withstand the feelings of revulsion and the urge to destroy that were the core of the demon. His mind had managed to withstand the decades of torturous grappling only by ignoring everything else, and now that he was free from the desperate need to concentrate, his mind was boggled by the ability to consider so many possibilities. He froze in indecision as he let his mind, energized by
the power of the ingenairii energy realm, expand and push out its boundaries. He felt himself relax as he regained the ability to think.
The characteristic veiled atmosphere, a fogginess of sorts, obstructed his view, and he walked in a straight line, trying to count his footsteps so that he might return to his starting location if he needed to. So dedicated was he to counting that as he reached his five hundredth step, he collided with another ingenaire.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the ingenairii asked Alec.
Alec inspected the other person closely. He appeared to be extremely tall, with a face that displayed wisdom and patience.
“My name is Alec. I’ve never met another ingenaire here before! This is amazing!” Alec replied.
His companion was quiet for a long second. “I don’t know a healer named Alec, and I thought I knew all the healers. Of course, with the war we don’t all communicate any longer, do we?
“I’m so glad to be here. It feels so much better than our other world,” he continued.
“But we have to go back to live our lives. We have to go back to share our powers with the rest of the world,” Alec rebutted quickly, sensing a melancholy defeatism in the other.
“I’m not going back. Livva is dead. Mother is dead. Father is dead. Stracha doesn’t love me. It’s so bleak back there, and so full of life in here,” the other said.
“What’s your name?” Alec asked.
“I’m Gordon,” the healer told Alec.
“Gordon, you have to go back. If you don’t, you’ll roam around in here until your body expires, and then I don’t know what will happen. Apprentices make this mistake from time to time, but you’ve got to focus. Let go of your power and go back, before it’s too late,” Alec pleaded.
“Alec, I don’t want to go back to that world. I can’t stand the pain that it holds. I want to enjoy this peace. I’ve been in here for a long time. I don’t even know how to get back,” he said.
Alec looked at the healer, and saw his image flicker, changing briefly to a short, spindly boy with a careworn face, before he restored himself. He also saw a faint trail behind the healer, a sense of a path of the direction he had come from. Reaching out his hand, Alec switched to his Spiritual powers, enhanced greatly by the piece of the Cross he carried, and touched the other ingenaire’s head, feeling his emotional state. The boy was every bit as disillusioned as he spoke, and Alec knew that Gordon could not envision ever feeling healed. The boy looked at Alec in wide-eyed surprise as he sensed Alec’s examination.
“Who are you? Don’t do that. I just want to leave,” and with that Alec felt Gordon disengage his spirit from the healer image, but not in the usual way. The image quickly grew transparent, and within seconds was gone, just as the spirit of the wounded boy Gordon was gone forever. He had willed himself into suicide.
Alec was stunned. His spiritual ingenaire image felt pain in his own soul at the thought of someone being so full of sorrow that they would uncouple their soul from the world and walk away. “Please Lord, let him find peace,” Alec prayed momentarily.
“Quickly Alec, follow the trail!” he heard John Mark’s distinctive voice.
“What? Where are you? What do you mean?” Alec asked in bewilderment.
“There isn’t time for conversation! If you want to return to the world, you can inhabit the body that Gordon has abandoned. You have to do it now, though. The body is already beginning to die – the heart is ceasing to beat. Go now. Follow the trail!” John Mark’s voice called.
Alec saw the faint trail, and suddenly found himself in his Warrior ingenaire mode, speeding at the highest rate he could achieve. Ahead he saw a small, gray spot that quickly expanded to become the portal back to the world where the Dominion and the lacertii and Goldenfields and all the things he had once known as the realms of reality, and he drove his spirit through the opening and through the grayness. As he left the energy realm he felt a gut-wrenching pain, one not confined to his gut, but one that pervaded his whole being, and made him want to shout in agony.
Ahead he saw the opening in the fabric that was the entry to Gordon’s body, but the pain was crippling and twisting him so badly he could struggle forward only with the greatest effort. As he approached it, he saw that the opening was shrinking, and he dove through it desperately, just as he passed into unconsciousness.
Chapter 18 – The Return to the World
Alec was screaming, he could tell. He became aware that his chest was heaving and his throat was raw with pain as he sobbed.
“Gordon?” he heard a voice say, and then another one and another repeated the name. He felt hands holding him down as his body convulsed.
“We have to go. We’re going to have to leave him behind, even if he did come back from the dead,” a deeper voice said, a voice that cut through the other noises. Alec realized that there were other sounds as well, sounds of horses and wind and people on the move, and far off, perhaps the screams of the battleground.
Alec forced his eyes to open, and saw three out-of-focus faces above him.
“He’s awake! Gordon! You’re back!” a boy said, while Alec focused on the tears dropping down the cheek of a black-haired girl.
Alec tried to sit up, but the arms were holding him down. “Let go. Let me up,” he said in a choking voice. He realized that his arms felt weaker than the arms of his own body.
“Really, I’m alright. Let me up. Where are we; what’s happening?” he added.
The hands on his arms released, and Alec forced himself to sit up, feeling dazed. He was lying in the back of a wagon, which was tilting precariously, and a steady flow of people were walking past the wagon on both sides. Tree branches were overhead, and a man was unhitching a team of horses from the front of the wagon.
There were four others on the wagon bed with him. One was the dark-haired girl he had seen above him. She was a beautiful girl, with rosy cheeks and a pale complexion. Right now though her hair was bedraggled, plastered against her skull, and her smock was grimy. Next to her was the boy who had held Alec down, a boy with the longest chin Alec had ever seen before, a face that seemed to stretch as far below the set of lips as it rose above to the light brown hair on top. On the other side of him was a girl with a freckled nose and toothy smile. “Gordon, I was so afraid for you. Thank goodness you’ve survived!”
“Can you walk, boy?” an older man behind the freckled girl asked briskly. “We’ve got to get out of here before the war front catches up to us.”
Alec tried to grasp the situation, and tested his legs. They were weak to begin with, and he felt ill in addition. He had made a mistake he realized, in coming out of the healer energy realm while engaging his warrior powers. It had been something like trying to use both powers in full capacity at once, a mistake he didn’t want to ever repeat. “If I can have a staff to lean on, I’ll make it out.”
The man looked at him quizzically for a moment. “Good lad,” he said affirmatively. He pulled a long stick out of the wagon bed. “Here’s your staff. Now everyone carry as much as you can. Harry, get those horses unhitched. Stracha, you come up front with me,” the man motioned to the pretty girl, and they climbed down.
Alec shook off the offers of help. “I’ll get down,” he insisted. “Help unload the wagon. He’s in a hurry,” Alec slid off the side of the wagon, hit the ground, and sat on the muddy roadside as his legs failed to hold him up. He accepted a hand from the freckled girl. “Thank you,” he said, as the girl patted him on the shoulder then began loading up a blanket of goods. Alec also reached into the wagon and pulled out a dirty blanket, which he knotted in a loop and flung over one shoulder. He pulled a bag of roots and a box of herbs off the wagon, then stuffed then in the folds of the blanket.
The others were already starting to walk behind the unhitched horses. There were two armed guards accompanying them, Alec noticed approvingly. Taking a deep breath, Alec pushed away from the side of the abandoned wagon and fell into the rear of the small group tha
t was a part of the much larger stream of refugees fleeing along the beaten road.
Every step was a laborious one for Alec. Between the native weakness of his new body and the energy weakness he brought to it, he felt exhausted within ten minutes, and breathed heavily and noisily as he struggled to keep up with his group. He fixed his sight on the checked scarf that hung in a bright triangle on the back of the dark haired girl, and followed it like a beacon. He didn’t notice the frequent backwards looks others made to check on him. At a pause in the journey, caused by someone else’s wrecked buggy blocking the road, Alec caught up with the others and stood huffing and puffing, letting one hand and his eyes roam over this body he now inhabited.
There was no sword, nor even a knife on his hip. The boots he wore were thin soled, made for indoors life, not hiking across the country like this. Looking around past the crowds, he realized there were ample numbers of abandoned goods along the sides of the road, including a sword he saw sitting in a muddy swale. Taking a deep breath, he walked over and picked up the sword and sheath. In a minute’s time he had them on his belt, adding another heavy weight to carry, but making him feel much more secure in the unsteady environment of a retreating mob.
“I’m impressed you’ve made it this far lad,” he heard a voice say.
It was the man who appeared to be the leader of the group. “I didn’t think you were going to live back there, and I certainly didn’t think you would have the gumption to be able to keep up with us. We’re in a spot where we’ll have to let the Devil take the hindmost, you understand. Keep up with us for another day, and we’ll be safely in Three Forks, and I can try to get you some aid.
Preserving the Ingenairii Page 12
