Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Oh Alec!” she said in laughter and frustration. “Can’t you be serious? Stop that. It looks like a nightmare. It reminds me of a pet dog I had once!” Her hand reached around behind her to slap his thigh ineffectually. “Make it all one color.”

  “How about this?” he asked, and a new wave of color emerged from her roots, rising up to the top of her hair, a premature silver that was striking and mature at the same time.

  “Alec, that doesn’t seem right, but it makes me look older in a good way. I think people will take me more seriously if my hair looks like this, don’t you?” she asked as she moved her head from side to side studying it with an intensity that surprised Alec.

  “When I get to Black Crag they have to think of me as a grown-up. I need for them to take me seriously. I think this will help do it,” she told him as she thought out loud. “It’s odd how people act differently because of the smallest things. People react to perceptions more than reality sometimes, don’t they?”

  “I suppose so,” Alec replied, not certain what caused the serious tenor of her comments.

  “Like last night,” Caitlen continued. “That Guard officer came into that room to catch us, and he caught us. But he was so convinced that he wanted a Jag and a princess he didn’t realize he had what he wanted.

  “And you,” she gently poked Alec in the chest. “You were smart enough to find a way to set us free without using that incredible battle ability you have. It’s something to think about. You’ll stick around and teach me those kinds of lessons won’t you?”

  “Anything you wish,” Alec assured her. “Let’s go find a stable where we can get horses, and we can get some travel supplies along the way too.”

  “I’ll be ready in a moment. I want to take a look around the lodge one last time before we leave,” Caitlen told him wistfully.

  By mid-day they had eaten breakfast rolls, bought new clothes and weapons and horses, and were comfortably trotting out the western gate of Valeriane, on their way to Black Crag.

  “This is where the river finally reaches the big falls,” Caitlen told Alec as they entered the city of Eckerd a week later. “There’s a tremendous temple to the spirit of the river here.” They rode through the city to the riverfront, where Alec saw the relatively short but extremely wide waterfall, where numerous docks stood empty on the downriver side of the falls. Although he knew the falls were a very real impediment to shipping, he was more impressed by the peaks and ridges of the mountains that loomed directly overhead, a much more formidable-looking range than the Pale Mountains.

  Their week together had been pleasant. They’d had no sign of soldiers on their trail. The weather had not been nice, but it had been less blustery than before. Caitlen had told Alec what she had learned about the coup from Abelard and from overhearing others. The rebellion against the Princess was a combination of traders – the Conglomerate – and noble families in the central part of her empire, the Avonellene Empire.

  In the southern reaches of the empire a different rebellion, large planters, nobles, and some magicians, also challenged the Princess’s authority. Caitlen hoped that with Black Crag’s help, and with the support of loyal nobles like Abelard, Esmere would be able to defeat the groups of rebels one at a time.

  Alec decided that he didn’t trust Abelard, though he kept that to himself, seeing how Caitlen almost worshipped the man. Something about the man, a repulsive sense of self-confidence, irritated Alec.

  They found a room at an inn for a reasonable rate, and Alec used his healing power as he did every evening to remove the saddle soreness they each felt. The travel by horse had been a blessing in Alec’s eyes. Caitlen rode well, and seemed at home on a horse. The journey was quick, the horses were intelligent, compliant animals who Alec treasured, and Caitlen seemed to have gained some boost in her personal confidence that made her a more pleasant companion, or perhaps she felt he had become a more reliable companion.

  “Can we eat something different tonight?” she asked unexpectedly as they carried their packs up to their room.

  “What do you have in mind?” Alec asked. He was used to travel food – hearty stew, fried meat, stale bread. It was consistent from tavern to tavern.

  “This is the last sizeable city we’ll stay in on the way to Black Crag. Eckerd is the gateway to the mountains and the wilderness and the caravan routes. Let’s have a fancy dinner to just let loose. We can go to a fine restaurant,” Caitlen said. “I won’t even mind the comments and the looks tonight; let’s just have fun!”

  Alec knew what comments and looks she was referring to. Her silver hair had accomplished her intended goal. It did make her look older. She had not expected to start being mistaken for Alec’s mother, or someone old enough to be his mother. “How old are you Alec?” she had asked him indignantly on the third night after Valeriane.

  “I’m not really sure,” Alec had told her that night. “I was an orphan. I’m probably eighteen or so.”

  “You look a little older than that, but not much. And before you changed my hair color, how old did you think I was?” she asked.

  Alec considered her looks, and her ego. “I thought you were about my own age – a little older; maybe twenty or twenty one.”

  “That’s why I wanted this new hair color,” she said emphatically. “I look so young with dark hair, no one took me seriously. I am twenty three years old,” she told him. “Do you believe that?”

  Alec shook his head in surprise. “Now with this hair I must look thirty five or more,” Caitlen continued, her voice becoming petulant. “And suddenly people don’t think I’m a young woman having a wild time with a Jag. Now they think I’m an old woman who’s corrupting a youth!”

  “And you’re not nearly as young as you seem,” Caitlen continued to complain. “This is not fair.”

  Alec had reached across the table to comfort her, and had patted her hand. “I understand, Mom,” he had told her, drawing a nasty look and a very unladylike comment.

  “I’d enjoy an evening of elegance,” Alec agreed.

  Soon thereafter they were on the street, looking for the restaurant recommended by the innkeeper as the best in the city, and then seated at a table with white cloth table clothes and a bottle of wine to accompany their dinner. Alec asked for roasted meat and grilled potatoes that were little different from the usual food they ate, but Caitlen ordered duck breast in plum sauce, with river herbs and rice.

  Caitlen poured wine in both their glasses, and Alec indulged her by sipping some after her toast to their successful journey. The wine was sweeter than any he’d had before, refreshing, almost like water, and he gulped his glass down. “Another toast to success in Black Crag and for our return,” Caitlen proposed, and they finished that glass quickly as well.

  The alcohol went quickly to Alec’s head. “A toast to our friendship, which has become so surprisingly good,” he proposed for the fifth toast, the first one from their second bottle of wine.

  “Really? You think it’s surprising that we’re good friends?” Caitlen asked after drinking the toast. “I knew right away that I would rely on you. I was ready to be your friend immediately. I’ve been a good friend, haven’t I?”

  “Yes,” Alec agreed earnestly. “You’ve been a good friend.”

  There had been some touchy moments, but after Valeriane they had come to some sense of mutual acceptance. Caitlen had overlooked his foreignness, and he overlooked her occasional woodenness – he took it as a challenge to try to cheer her up, and often succeeded with stories about his carnival companions.

  Their plates of food were delivered just then. “You’ve been a pleasure to travel with. You are brave and strong; you didn’t complain about your feet when we started and you were in those silly slippers.”

  “And am I pretty?” she asked.

  “Yes, you know you are, in a quiet way,” he said insistently. “If Bethany knew I was traveling around the country with such a nice woman, I would never be able to convince her to take me
back. She wouldn’t believe that I hadn’t been hopelessly smitten by you. Sometimes I just look at you when we ride along and think about how perfect your skin is. I couldn’t make it any better if I tried.”

  Caitlen looked pleased at the compliment as she ate her food.

  “What would you change about me?” she asked. “To make me better?”

  “I will admit that I liked you even better before,” he left the comment unfinished.

  “Before what?” Caitlen took another sip of wine, her eyes peering at Alec over the rim of her glass, twinkling wildly with anticipation.

  “When you had the hair color mix of blonde, black and red!” Alec laughed. “I’d maybe even throw in some blue to make it really stand out.”

  She snorted loudly into her wine glass, laughing, then delivered a flurry of kicks beneath the table. “You wait until I get you someplace where there aren’t a lot of witnesses around,” she threatened.

  The room was suddenly silent around them, the chatter and clinking silverware from other tables ceased, and Alec looked around to see what the cause was. At every door there were men wearing black cloths over their faces, and a half dozen men were striding towards the middle of the room.

  “If no one fights, no one will get hurt,” one of the men said loudly. “We want your money and your jewelry. One of our men will come by every table with a sack for you to quietly put your things into.”

  Alec’s head was woozy from the wine. He tried to grasp his Warrior powers, but couldn’t find the way. He hadn’t worn a bandolier of knives for the meal at the elegant restaurant, so his hand reached down to his sword.

  Caitlen saw the motion, and reached her hand across the table to him. “No Alec, don’t do anything,” she hissed. “We don’t have any jewelry or any goods to be taken. Just let this pass and it will all be over in a few minutes.”

  “This isn’t right,” he responded. “These people shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this.”

  “What’s wrong? Is mommy’s little boy scared?” one of the robbers in a pair passed by and stopped to insult Alec, his attention drawn by the conversation. “And what does mommy have for us? Where’s your jewelry?” he asked in a belittling tone as he plunged his hand down into the front of Caitlen’s blouse.

  Alec felt his Warrior energies explode through the alcohol in his body as he saw the man touch Caitlen. He rose from his seat in a leap over the table that tackled the assailant, tearing his hand from the front of Caitlen’s dress. They rolled across the floor and bumped into another table, knocking it over. Alec reached for a knife that had been knocked to the floor, and plunged it viciously into the chest of the man he fought. He turned his head to look back at Caitlen as he pulled the knife away from his opponent, then threw it at the man who still stood next to her, and was reaching towards her. The land stuck in his neck, causing him to topple to the floor in a spray of blood, as screams rose in the immediate vicinity.

  Alec stood up and drew his sword, then began walking deliberately towards the cluster of the robbers in the center of the room. Two men pulled bows from their shoulders and shot arrows at Alec as he stalked towards them. With the sword in his left hand Alec deflected one of the arrows downward into the floor while his right hand plucked the other arrow out of the air and held it over his head.

  The rising hubbub of noise in the room grew instantly silent. Alec threw down the arrow and picked a knife off a table as he passed. “If all of you leave immediately, none of you will suffer any further consequences,” Alec spoke loudly, projecting his voice throughout the room. He continued to approach the middle of the room, now just steps away.

  “What will it be?” he asked as he stopped nearly within sword stroke of them.

  “There are too many of us for you to fight alone,” one of the bandits spoke.

  From hip level, Alec’s right hand flipped the knife at the man, while he jumped forward with his sword, swinging it across the necks of two men in one stroke, then parrying another man’s effort and slicing the tendons of his forearm. The two remaining bandits in the middle stood with their swords ready to try to defend themselves as Alec pivoted and women screamed.

  “Hey, hero! Alec! Young lover,” a voice called from behind him.

  Warily, Alec turned his head, and saw that a pair of the bandit guards from the entry door had moved in to the room and taken Caitlen hostage. He wheeled around and began to run towards them.

  “Stop right there!” one of the two shouted, placing a heavy hunting knife at Caitlen’s throat. Alec halted his movement, and as he did, he heard the twang of bow strings from four different areas in the room. He raised his sword to block one, and with his right hand he deflected the shaft of another. But the arrows arrived too closely together for him to block or evade them all; one struck him in the thigh, creating a sickening sound that Alec heard before his body relayed the pain it felt. And then a second arrow hit him on the right side of his chest, grating against the ribs and penetrating to the opening between them so that its energy carried it into his lung.

  More screams filled the room, and Alec heard Caitlen’s voice wail in grief. He looked down in astonishment, then fell forward to his knees, grabbing at a nearby table to try to catch himself. The pain was overwhelming. The connection to the energy realm began to dissolve, failing him like a rope that severed thread by thread. Alec focused on the energy, grabbing two knives off the table as he slipped down to the ground and lay on his back on the floor.

  He looked up at the ceiling that seemed impossibly far away. I’m dying, he thought. Here in this unknown land, where Bethany will never know what became of me, or how much I love her, I’ll be buried in a pauper’s grave, and only Caitlen will even care. What will she do without me to protect her?

  The energy was leaving him. There was one last tenuous thread of connection not yet cut off by the overwhelming pain that he felt. John Mark, he tried to pray, but coherent thoughts were hard to maintain.

  He grasped the last shred of energy, and heaved himself upright. The two bandits by Caitlen had relaxed. The knife was no longer at her throat. There was another chorus of astonished screams as Alec rose, and he hurled the two knives he grasped at the assailants, and watched them both look in amazement at the hilts that suddenly protruded from their chests.

  His knees buckled, and he slumped against the table beside him. Caitlen was running towards him, he saw, while other people seemed to be moving all around the room now.

  Use your Spiritual powers, Alec, a voice in his head told him.

  John Mark, is it you? He asked within his mind.

  Use your Spiritual powers, the voice repeated.

  Alec tried to take a deep breath, but felt the horrible pain in his chest. He could taste salty blood in his mouth now. “John Mark,” he realized he was trying to speak aloud.

  “Alec, don’t try to talk. Alec, just rest,” he felt his head raised, and Caitlen was with him, directly over him, cradling his head in her lap now. “I need you Alec, so much. You mean so much to me.”

  Alec closed his eyes again, and tried to move his spirit into the place between the worlds.

  “I love you Alec. Please hold on,” Caitlen was crying, starting to sob. Her voice was coming in gasps.

  Alec’s spirit was ignited by her words, and flew to the portal of the energy realm. He felt his image take on the simple cloak of a pilgrim, and he felt his spiritual powers ignite, flaring forth within his dying body.

  Give her peace, my son, he heard a momentous voice call within him.

  With his eyes still closed, Alec raised a hand and placed it against Caitlen’s temple. Have peace, Caitlen, God has a plan.

  Have peace. You have a mission, a divine mission to carry out. God will not take away the tools you need, he felt his spirit pass along the divine message to her.

  I am her tool, Alec thought to himself. God still needs me here.

  His healer powers came suddenly to life, and he felt his body begin to heal itself from wi
thin.

  “Caitlen,” he whispered.

  “Alec? Your voice was in my head. Oh how? Alec? Don’t leave me, Alec,” there was sadness and wonder in her voice now.

  “Help me. Pull the arrow out of my chest,” Alec gasped. He felt his chest muscles beginning to spasm wildly, trying to expel the deadly shaft.

  “Oh Alec, I can’t. I can’t do things like that. Alec, don’t die,” she moaned.

  “If you love me, pull it out,” Alec commanded.

  Caitlen shuddered, and placed her hands on the shaft of the arrow. She began to lightly tug.

  “Pull hard. As hard as you can. Use everything you have,” Alec ordered her, bloody froth beginning to seep from his lips.

  Caitlen wailed a terrible, primal scream, and jerked on the arrow. They both felt the arrow head rasp again the bones of his chest, and then the arrow pulled away, a fountain of blood coming after it. As she watched in horror and then astonishment, the flow of blood ceased, and the bones beneath the skin reset themselves to the appropriate places, and then the skin knit itself back together.

  Staring without comprehension, Caitlen’s eyes rolled back into her skull and she fainted, falling forward over Alec, the bloody arrow still in her hand.

  Chapter 13 – Fear of Prophecy

  Alec awoke in a strange room, lying on a hard surface. He turned his head and saw Caitlen talking to a stranger. They both saw the movement of his head and hovered over him.

  “Alec,” she whispered. “How are you?”

  He felt pain in his thigh and soreness in his chest, and he felt a sense of general exhaustion. “I’m probably not at my best to meet company,” he spoke weakly, trying to comfort her by making a joke.

  “This is Doctor Silver. He’s the best surgeon in Eckerd,” Caitlen said. “He’s here to check on you.”

  “I just need to rest. I’ll be fine when I get my energy back,” he told them as he closed his eyes..

  “His lungs sound fine to me,” Alec heard the man say. “The wound must not have been as grave as you thought.”