Preserving the Ingenairii

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Thanks,” Jeswyne said drily. “How many fish will you need to catch?”

  They were traveling along their path to their hut.

  “We will need to spend at least a week catching blue bellies, and a lot more than this each time,” he replied. “And then we need to catch a bird and pluck its feathers, and also grind the quartz.”

  “And then we’ll be ready?” Jeswyne asked.

  “You’re in an awful hurry to get away from me, aren’t you?” Alec teased. He turned his head to see the smile on her face, but was surprised to see a hurt expression. He hurriedly changed subjects. “You get the fire going again when we get to the hut, and I’ll put these glands away in a safe place.”

  Soon Alec was frying the fillets on a large flat rock in the fire, and serving out fragments to Jeswyne and himself.

  “This is good,” Jeswyne complimented him. “How long has it been since we had anything besides greens and roots? What are proteins, anyway? You didn’t answer me back on the raft.”

  “Proteins are the good things our bodies get from eating meat, like this fish,” Alec said, having thought the topic was dropped.

  “Why do you say I need them? What do they do?” she continued, sensing something that wasn’t explained.

  Alec sighed. “Your body needs them because you’re growing. You know,” he paused awkwardly, “you’re getting those curves we talked about once. Your body needs protein while it’s busy working so hard for you.

  “That’s probably all I should say about that, Jeswyne,” he concluded lamely.

  Jeswyne rose and went into the hut, then returned with her arms full of her tea set pieces.

  Alec sighed again. “You probably need to be careful and know that I put the blue belly glands in your teapot. It seemed like a safe place,” he said apologetically.

  Jeswyne gave him an exasperated snort, but it came out louder than she expected, and Alec began to laugh. She looked hurt momentarily, then grinned as well. “Perhaps that wasn’t my most ladylike moment,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” Alec agreed. Her ego was less fragile than it had seemed when they first came to their exile, and he decided to say more. “Would you like for me to begin listing events, and we can decide which are the least ladylike, and which are only slightly unladylike?”

  “I am about to do something very ladylike and solemn here, and you are not going to be invited if you keep it up!” the emperor’s niece replied with her head turned away to hide her smile.

  “Now, you know the tea ceremony very well, I’ll admit,” Jeswyne said. “Someday we may need to do a certain variation of the tea ceremony. I’m going to practice it with you tonight.”

  “What’s it for?” Alec asked as Jeswyne placed the last tea pieces in place. “When will I need to use it?”

  “Never you mind for now. And don’t ever do this unless I tell you to. This will be something we can keep for ourselves if we really need it,” she said mysteriously, and refused to say more. They started going through the intricacies of the usual ceremony, until they came to the time for Alec to pour their tea. “Now, you stand up, and walk around the table, and take the teapot, and pour my cup for me, then return to your seat like so,” Jeswyne explained.

  “Then I stand up and pour tea for you, and return to my seat,” she explained as she did so.

  “After that I come pour milk into your tea, then you come around and pour milk in my tea. Then we’ll do the same thing with the honey. After that, you pick up your cup of tea and bring it to present it to me, and then I’ll present my tea to you. Finally, we’ll each drink a sip at the same time; which just leaves the last step, when I return your cup to you, you return my cup to me, and we each take another sip.

  “Can you remember all that?” she asked. Alec nodded. “Then let’s do it one time through to make sure,” she insisted intently. Twenty minutes later, they had completed the ceremony, and Jeswyne seemed particularly satisfied. “Thank you, Alec,” she said with a mysterious smile, and went inside to sleep.

  Chapter 35 – A Desperate Effort to Heal

  Ten days later, Alec judged that the seaweed and quartz and the fish and the feathers were finally ready and prepared. They had all been ground and torn and mixed to a fine consistency.

  “Do you need my drop of blood now?” Jeswyne asked as Alec inspected their work.

  “We need to wait for a full moon. And we need to gather a lot of firewood in the meantime,” he replied. They walked up and down the beach collecting driftwood, and dragging in pieces from the forest.

  “What do you expect to do with so much wood? Burn a hole through time?” Jeswyne asked as the wood became a circle of fuel twenty feet wide and five feet deep.

  “This is what we must do,” Alec answered. He knew he was drawing upon and combining elements from the most arcane forms of healing prescription that had been implanted in his brain, and he prayed that it would work as he expected.

  “Tonight’s the night,” Alec told Jeswyne one morning soon thereafter. “Everything is set, and we just have to wait for nightfall. Let me take you up to Ingenairii Hill for a tour today to pass the time,” he suggested.

  Together they climbed the hillside. Alec led them straight up to the top, where they finally stopped and gathered their breath. “The view from up here is wonderful,” Jeswyne replied enthusiastically

  “This is where the warriors will live,” Alec told her, pointing to the dull badge on his arm. He strolled a few feet down to the ocean side. “This will be where Rubicon’s house will be someday. It’s where I learned to use my powers.” He thought about healing Cassie’s legs in a room there, the first great miraculous healing he performed. They walked around and down. “This is where the healing house will be. It was my own house, but only for a short time. I never really got to settle in there,” he said reflectively. “I had so many plans.

  “Over there is where Aristotle’s house will be,” he said later as they strolled further. “And this will be where the water house will be,” he said at last as they descended again.

  Jeswyne looked at him, perceiving something unsaid. “Who was a water ingenaire, your fiancée?” she asked.

  Alec nodded, but said nothing as he recollected scenes that occurred there, both happy and sad. The sun was starting to set. “Let’s get back to the camp,” he said instead.

  They sat quietly as the tension began to build, and watched a perfect sunset over the water. An hour later, the moon rose over the hill to their east.

  “This is a very difficult form of healing,” Alec said, standing up. He picked up the mixed ingredients in one container, and gave the other to Jeswyne. He placed a couple of coals in a wet wooden bowl, and they carried it and the coarse power down to the beach. Alec was at last ready to tell Jeswyne what to do, as he used the coals to kindle a small fire on the beach.

  “We need to mix all these ingredients together to make a paste, and the paste has to be applied to every square inch of my body. There can be nothing left uncovered,” he began.

  “How do we make it a paste? Mix it with sea water?” Jeswyne asked.

  “No, it has to be mixed with my blood, as it drains out of my veins,” Alec said.

  “Oh Alec, no!” Jeswyne said in revulsion.

  “Yes, and when it is done, and I am completely covered, I must take a drop of your blood on my tongue, and then you are to set the wood on fire around me, so that the coating is baked onto me by the heat of the fire,” Alec said calmly, more calmly than he felt.

  “That’s crazy! You’ll burn yourself to death, if you don’t bleed yourself to death first, and I won’t be a part of it,” Jeswyne said emphatically.

  “This should work. It will work,” Alec said. “And if you don’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”

  “How are you going to get a drop of my blood by yourself?” Jeswyne asked heatedly.

  “I’ll think about it,” Alec said with just as much emotion, although he knew he had overlooked the obvious. He pick
ed up the two heavy crocks of mixture and carried them to the center of the wood circle. He stepped out and removed his shredded clothes, placing them on the beach at a distance from the fire, then Alec raised his knife to his arm, and cut a short slice in the flesh of his right arm.

  With his left hand, he picked up a handful of the mixture and let his blood drip into it, then rubbed the paste on his stomach and smeared it around, as Jeswyne watched in anguish. He took another handful, and repeated the practice, then another, and another, spreading the mix across large areas of his body.

  The imperial princess at last walked over to him. “Don’t Alec,” she pleaded. “I would rather remain here with you for the rest of our lives than see you do this, and possibly suffer.”

  “We have to do it,” Alec insisted. “Please help me. Put some of the material on my back, where I can’t reach.”

  Shaking her head, Jeswyne reached in to the second jar and pulled the material out, then received some of the blood that still ran down his arm and made the mix to cover his back. She mixed another handful, and began to work it into his hair, then began to daub around his face.

  “Save my eyes and mouth for last, after the fire starts,” Alec told her. “Is everything else covered? We’ve still got more of the mixture left; might as well use it. And this is your chance to look me over,” he added with a grin.

  “Me look you over? You’re the one looking up my skirt and noticing my curves,” Jeswyne responded curtly. She ended her inspection. “I think it’s just your face left.”

  “Start the fire in a couple of places, then come back, prick your finger for a drop of blood, and cover my face, then get as far from the fire as you can,” Alec told her.

  Jeswyne left to retrieve a burning branch from the small fire, then stood before Alec. “You’re sure about this?” she asked.

  He nodded affirmatively. “Then before I do this, Alec, I want you to know that if anything goes wrong, I will never forgive you. You mean the world to me. That’s all I have to say, and you aren’t expected to answer,” she said with dignity, and turned to begin burning the ring of firewood. She returned and used Alec’s knife to slice her fingertip, then placed the finger to Alec’s lips. He stuck out his tongue and took a drop of blood, then kissed the finger gently, and let Jeswyne hurriedly smear the mixture over his closed eyes, across his lips, and even up into his nostrils.

  He didn’t hear her leave, but he began to feel the heat from the fire. He felt the mixture drying, tightening upon his skin as the fire’s heat set complex reactions to work in the compound he was wearing. It itched terribly on his face, but he didn’t dare to touch it or open anything. The intensity of the heat increased, he could tell. The wood must be burning rapidly, sending up a pillar of smoke and sparks into the moonlit night.

  Alec smelled burning hair, and realized that the hair on his head was searing away. He felt the heat emphatically now through the mixture. His skin felt like it was beginning to blister, while the hardened, gritty coating upon him only aggravated the pain. Maybe, he wondered, maybe his mixture was wrong. Maybe he had made a mistake. He had taken elements of the old powers, Kasper-Ra’s pre-Christian energies, and adapted them to meet his needs. This was not a holy healing, relying on the love of Jesus, he thought to himself.

  And then he realized – he could pray. Even though the Christ was not born yet, even though John Mark had not yet visited the lands of the Dominion, he could send up his prayers! He began to pray in earnest – contego, redintegro, incendia, vestis, vigoratus, facultas,ingenairii, --and as he did, he felt the impact of the heat diminish. Minutes later, he sensed that the flames must have passed their peak, as there seemed to be less crackling and roaring about him, and not long after that, he heard Jeswyne’s voice.

  “Alec! Alec! I see you in there, still standing. Alec, the fire is almost gone. Can you come out now?”

  “Thank you Jesus. Thank you God. Thank you holy Spirit,” Alec thought. He had survived. In one respect at least the cure had succeeded – it had kept him alive through the fire. He raised an arm to signal to Jeswyne, and felt a piece of hardened shell crack and fall off. His exposed skin felt no great heat from the exposure to the fire! He could leave now!

  “Jeswyne! Which way to the ocean?” he asked with a loud shout, cracking away flakes of paste from his cheeks.

  “Turn to your left, and go straight ahead. There’s a little bit of an opening you can use to get out of the firepit. I’ll meet you there,” she shouted.

  “Give me directions,” Alec called as he began to stumble forward, still blinded by the hardened mud mask on his face.

  “Stop! Step two steps right, now go,” she directed a moment later.

  Alec felt the heat intensify, then diminish after a few seconds, and he knew he had made it out.

  “Come this way, Alec,” he heard Jeswyne very nearby, and a hand took his to pull him to the right, around the fire, and down the beach towards the water. The sounds of the waves grew louder, and then his feet were in the water, as Jeswyne continued to pull him forward. She stopped when the water was up to his thighs, and he felt her splashing water on his face repeatedly. Her fingers began to massage his cheeks and his forehead gently, until pieces and bits of the mud mask began to flake off.

  Alec stooped and began to splash himself, scrubbing at his arms and his stomach, while Jeswyne continued to open up his face, rubbing his eyes. He felt the scales fall away from his eyes, and reached up to take Jeswyne’s hands away. He blinked, then thrust his face down into the water and rose up again.

  “I can still see, and still breathe and still walk at least,” he said with a smile. He looked down at his arms, and rolled them over, and started laughing as the bright light of the full moon shone upon his limbs. “Look Jeswyne, look! My marks are alive again! My abilities are restored! We’ll be able to leave this place!

  “Let’s get up to the hut,” he said, ready to leave the water.

  “Wait!” Jeswyne said firmly. “We’ve got you in the water already. We might as well wash the rest of the bloody mixture off you so you’re clean,” and she proceeded to scrub at his shoulders and neck.

  “That feels so good,” Alec said. “It’s like getting a massage.”

  “I love massages,” Jeswyne said wistfully. “At the palace I used to try to get one every day.”

  “And soon you’ll be able to do that again,” Alec said, before the meaning of his words sunk in. He would take her back to their own time. He would turn her over to the Michian forces, and he knew he wouldn’t use her as a hostage. He would show all the respect and deference due to a member of the imperial family.

  She looked at him with a quizzical expression, but said nothing.

  Soon he was completely clear of the gritty residue, and they walked up to the beach, where the coals from the great fire were still glowing and hot. “Alec?” Jeswyne said.

  “Would you put some pants on please?” she said with a giggle. “And then tell me when we’re going to leave.”

  Alec ran over to his pile of clothes and pulled his pants on, then sat down near the fire, where Jeswyne joined him.

  “When would you like to leave? Tomorrow? Would you like to have one more day to play in the tide and run on the beach and live life as an ordinary person?” he asked her.

  “Yes, tomorrow will be perfect,” Jeswyne agreed. “And then you will take us back to our own time tomorrow evening?”

  “I think I would like to go only part way back for our first trip. We need to have better clothes before we appear, and I don’t want to try to put too much energy into traveling too far. I’ll try to take us to a time before Michian and the Dominion ever met, long, long before either of us were ever born, and I’ll ask the ingenairii in that time to take care of us and prepare us for our return,” Alec answered and explained. “And then we’ll go to our own time. I’ve been thinking about it, and we don’t want to show up right after the moment we left, because there will be chaos and people will be read
y to swing swords first, and ask questions later. I thought we could return to our own time a month after we left. That way everything will be calmer and we can work our way through, um, circumstances.”

  “What kind of circumstances do you mean?” Jeswyne asked.

  “Well, we don’t know who will be in control of the city. It could be under Michian rule, in which case it will be easy for me to make sure you’re returned to the emperor, or it could be under the Dominion’s control, in which case it will be my duty to return you safely. Or the city could be a battle zone, in which case we’ll leave again,” he answered, explaining the options he had considered for days.

  “What if my uncle wouldn’t take me back?” Jeswyne asked.

  “Alec looked at her in shock. “That can’t happen, can it?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  She looked at him and laughed. “No, I don’t think so. But no member of the imperial family has ever been taken away like this! Especially like this! Yet I think I will probably be welcomed back as a heroine of sorts.”

  With that they sat quietly and watched the embers burn down in the darkness, then walked up to their hut for the last night together. The next day they fished from the raft and ate their catch, walked around Ingenairii Hill, and then walked back to their first campsite to look at it one last time.

  “I’ll remember this time for the rest of my life,” Jeswyne said wistfully. “Thank you for teaching me to fence and to swim, and for showing me so much about the world. No one will ever believe that a warrior from the Dominion barbarians could be such a kind person. You know, we heard the Dominion had someone called the Demonslayer, and I imagined he was not much more than a demon himself. But you’re so completely different from that, in every way imaginable.”