The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Andi would have enjoyed the trip, Alec reflected. She would have enjoyed hearing the language, and mingling among the rowdy disorder of the harbor front. Andi would have appreciated walking through the countryside, seeing the crops grow the foods that were so common upon the plates of the residents of the Avonellene lands. He should have decided to take the trip twenty years earlier, when she could have come along with him herself, in person, instead of coming along in his memory only. He felt a touch of melancholy as he walked beside Kale and observed the sights around them on their journey.

  At the end of the day, after they had walked and talked over several miles, Kale spoke up when they reached the front door of the small city inn that Alec had decided would be their resting place for the evening.

  “My lord, I made a mistake,” the cook told Alec.

  Alec’s Spiritual senses picked up a sense of embarrassment, and of regret.

  “It was you!” Alec blurted out. “You’re the one who’s been feeling melancholy this afternoon!” he exclaimed. “I was thinking of Andi, and I thought it was me, but it wasn’t.

  “You don’t want to be on this journey after all, do you?” he asked Kale.

  “No my lord,” Kale said in a low voice. “I don’t understand the people’s talk, and we’re walking in places that all look the same to me, and I miss Kora.”

  “Do you want me to take you back to Goldenfields?” Alec asked, knowing that was what he was about to do. “Here,” he didn’t wait for the younger man to reply. He reached out and grabbed him, then the two of them disappeared from the front step of the inn to the astonishment of the handful of people who were passing the location at that moment.

  They arrived in Black Crag, and Kora took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry my lord,” he said.

  Alec took a breath too. Each jump through space always produced the same twinge of pain, the same sense of his body being forced to do something it shouldn’t and reacting in protest. It made sense of course; he had forced his way into the Traveler power. He had been in desperate need, when Jeswyne had been taken captive. He’d gone physically to the axis mundi, the very center of the energy realm, and from there he’d gone into the chamber of the Traveler energy, so that his body had absorbed the ability to jump through space. It was an ability that only a certain breed of a certain beast of burden that lived in Michian had ever exercised before Alec had become the first ingenairii to attempt it.

  Alec had forced his body to adopt the power, and as a result he could do what no other man could. But the price was that his body rebelled against using the inhuman ability, and he felt a twinge with every jump he made.

  But it was a small price to pay for the ability to move around the world. He prepared himself, and he carried Kale to the next stop, in the Twenty Cities. Alec paused only briefly, then went to Boundary Lake, and on to the lacerta lands, and to the abandoned city on the west slope of the Pale Mountains, and finally back to Goldenfields.

  They arrived in the palace, in a corridor on the fourth floor, outside the room that had long been Alec’s own.

  Alec released his grip on Kale, and knocked on the door.

  The echo of steps sounded inside the room, and then the door opened, revealing Kora.

  “Kale?” she asked in astonishment, as Alec stepped back. He watched the happy reunion, assured the couple that they could remain in the palace, or they could return to Healing Springs together to gather their belongings there, and he disappeared. He transported himself to the Healing Spring palace, and surprised the small staff by spending the night there. In the morning he filled a water skin with the liquid from the spring, then transported himself back to the small village outside of Raysing, and he resumed his journey.

  He found that he was lighthearted as he walked along the main thoroughfare through the city streets. He thought that Kale was a nice young man, but Alec realized that the cook's presence had been an unexpected burden. Kale had relied on Alec to provide translation services, as well as a guide to local customs and culture, when Alec had really wanted to indulge his own memories. Alec had wanted to recollect his times with Andi, and the world she had grown up in.

  Beyond that, further in the journey there would be places that Alec would visit without Kale that would be reminders of his earlier life in the Avonellene empire. He could roam the streets of Vincennes freely, remembering the adventures and battles he had endured there. He could go to Valeriane, where he had been Duke. He could stroll off the roads known to normal humans, and perhaps visit the Ajacii and the Lokasennii and even the Sleagh Maith.

  Beyond even those places he could take his time to revel in the sights of the Twenty Cities, and perhaps visit Aja, who he hoped might still be alive, if her race was endowed with the longevity of the trees that were a part of their heritage. He’d not ever returned to the Twenty Cities after the conclusion of his long race across the continent. He’d gone from chasing kidnapped girls to chasing Andi to chasing after the ingenairii who had been commanded by Hellmann; it had all been in one long, exhausting chase. And when the chase had been over, when he and Andi had settled into their peculiar, dual-personality existence and roles as the rebuilders of the Dominion and Michian, he’d never gone back.

  None of those places were likely to be the same after the decades of time that had passed, and none of the people would be the same, but he would recognize enough to feel his memories rekindled. He would be able to go to Caitlen’s tomb to make sure it was properly tended, he told himself, fondly remembering the empress he had loved and married.

  His spirits rose as he traveled alone, and he felt so energized by the prospect of the adventure ahead that when he went through one small village in the afternoon, he impulsively stopped at the local healer’s home. He recognized the sprigs of healing herbs hung from the porch bannister, the widely acknowledged sign of healing in the lands of the empire. Alec opened the door and looked in at the handful of patients who sat waiting for attention to their concerns, one of them moaning softly.

  Alec walked to the injured man and placed a hand on his head. He grasped his own Healing energy and called it into use, then released a steady stream into the man, healing the infected and inflamed hand that the man had swaddled in his lap.

  “You can go on your way,” Alec told the man, as he walked away from him and down to the woman who held an infant tightly against her shoulder. Alec touched his fingertips to the woman’s shoulder and the baby’s head simultaneously, and released more healing energy.

  “What are you doing?” asked another patient, an elderly woman who had a cane across her lap.

  “I’m trying to make everyone’s day just a little better,” Alec replied as he removed his hand from the woman and child. “Ask them how they feel,” he motioned to his first two healings.

  The man with the bandaged hand was no longer moaning, and was rapidly unwrapping the blood-stained cloth from around his injured hand.

  “It’s as good as new!” he marveled as he held the hand up and flexed the fingers.

  The mother lifted her baby and unwrapped its swaddling to examine its skin. “The jaundice is gone!” she exclaimed.

  “What are you doing to them?” the elderly woman asked.

  “I’m just healing them,” Alec replied. He stepped over to the woman, and held out his hand, inviting her to take it. She reached out her own hand in response. When their fingers touched, he gently wrapped his around hers and gave a soft squeeze, as he released another wave of healing energy, one that was directed towards her hips and knees. He healed the rheumatism and then strengthened her legs muscles for good measure, and also rejuvenated her inner ears, restoring her sense of balance and hearing.

  “You don’t need to stay here, or use that,” he motioned towards the cane.

  She stood carefully, and checked herself internally, then broke into a wide smile. “You’ve done the unbelievable!” she exclaimed. She kissed his cheek, then left the room and went out onto the street, abandoning her can
e in the waiting room.

  As Alec attended the last patient left, a man with a stomach ulcer, the healer opened a door and let out the patient he’d just finished consulting with.

  The waiting room was nearly empty, as the other healed patients had followed the elderly woman out.

  “What’s happened out here?” the healer asked in surprise.

  The ulcer patient stood up, unconsciously rubbing his stomach in wonder.

  “We’re all better now, thanks to this stranger,” he said.

  “I’ll be on my way out,” Alec felt pleased with his work, though a bit guilty for having taken a few coins from the coffers of the healer. He walked out the door and back out onto the street, then resumed striding towards Witten.

  He felt good about the quick exercise of healing. In the most recent years of his life he’d come to practice healing almost exclusively on Andi, without realizing that he missed the chance to share the gift with others in the world.

  Healing had been the first of his ingenaire skills. He’d gained it when he’d visited John Mark’s holy cave for the very first time. He still thought of it as his most natural talent, the one that defined him and fit him most closely. Although he’d come to have three other talents that were his through nature – his Warrior powers, Spiritual powers, and Time Traveling powers – and although he’d been able to pick up additional talents as he’d needed them through his access to the axis mundi of the energy realm, he still thought of himself as a Healer.

  Buoyed by the experience, Alec walked with a smile, nodding at strangers he passed on the road. In the evening, he chose to spend the night in a hayloft in a barn, feeling that the rustic setting was more appropriate to the adventure he had in mind for his travels than the dingy inns he had expected to use while Kale was along.

  The following day Alec arrived on the outskirts of Witten, the large metropolis where ocean-going ships swapped their freight for the goods that were produced and shipped from the inland provinces of Avonellene. Goods from as far away as Black Crag traveled all the way to Witten, where they were mixed and sorted and sold and shipped to the places all around the empire.

  Alec had been through and in Witten many times, traveling with Empress Caitlen, his wife, during her long reign. He remembered the vitality of the city, where traders were constantly trying to add value to their goods and purchases, and businesses grew. It was a city that also produced entertainments for the masses. The city had large stadia where performances and fights were held to occupy the sailors and stevedores and longshoremen during the hours they weren’t laboring in the harbor.

  With Caitlen, Alec had gone to watch ceremonies performed in the arenas, but always as a celebrity. As part of his newest trip, he decided on a whim that he’d go to see the real activities, the shows that entertained the crowds when there was no empress in the audience. It was sure to be different, and he hoped livelier.

  He found a nice inn on a quiet square, where the merchants gathered and carried out their exchanges in sedate drawing rooms, and he paid for a small room there. It was late afternoon, and he decided to go spend the rest of the day observing the entertainment at the harbor front arena, just a few minutes’ walk away from his inn.

  He entered the arena, and found it half full of spectators who shouted loudly at the contest taking place in the sandy pit in the center of the ring. Three men with swords were facing one another, while a pair of former combatants lay on the ground, not moving. The men were wielding swords that were metal, deadly enough to have wounded or killed the men on the ground, and the three who remained standing carried no protective equipment – not shields or staves or breast plates. Their flesh was there to be struck, their blood to be spilled.

  Alec was appalled at the violence that was staged for the sake of entertainment. Displays of skill were one thing, but the sacrifice of lives just for the howling masses was unconscionable in his eyes.

  He contemplated whether to interfere. He could jump over the wall and onto the floor of the stadium, and he could interrupt the battle. He had his many abilities available at hand to use if he chose. But he paused and contemplated the battle wondering if his interference would make any difference, and as he sat and considered the question, the three survivors entered a go-for-broke skirmish that left none of them standing, while the crowd cheered lustily.

  Attendants sauntered across the fighting surface to check all the fighters. Two were helped to walk off, while the three other bodies were pulled away, and a separate crew of workers installed a tall wooden post in the center of the pit. The crowd cheered in anticipation as they saw it, and Alec decided he’d seen enough of the bloody sport. He stood and started to walk up the steps to leave.

  There was another roar, and he saw three large cages with lions rolled out to surround the stake, and then four men carried a large burlap sack out towards the stake, the contents of the sack writhing in their grasp.

  The crowd screamed wild approval as Alec reached the top of the stairs, and he turned to see that a small dark figure was being chained to the post. It was an unusual figure, and until he heard it wail with despair, he couldn’t place what it was.

  But upon hearing the grief and surrender in its thin, high voice, he realized. It was a lacerta!

  The attendants were moving rapidly away from the scene, and as they went they tugged on heavy ropes that caused the doors of the lions’ cages to open up.

  He looked at the poor girl who stood with a short length of chain confining her to just a small circle of movement, surrounded by the snarling lions that were slinking out of their cages, their eyes on her.

  Without hesitation – without thought – Alec started sprinting down the steps, headed towards the poor, terrified victim of the stadium, while the crowd continued to roar in bloodthirsty delight at the prospect of seeing the lacerta be mauled to death.

  As he ran, Alec called upon his ingenairii powers, focusing on his Warrior abilities, and his speed increased, so that when he reached the end of the stairs, he was able to hurdle over the retaining wall, land on the sandy floor of the arena, and continue to hurl forward towards the girl.

  He had no weapons with him, he realized. He couldn’t use a knife or sword or other means of defense. He’d have to do something different, something that utilized one of the other ingenaire abilities he had developed over the course of his life.

  The first lion was completely free of its cage, and just feet away from the girl. There was no time to think through a solution – Alec had to act on impulse. He dropped his Warrior abilities, and called upon his Air abilities, then created a targeted downdraft of air, three simultaneous currents, and focused each of the powerful forces directly into the faces of the lions.

  The animals stopped in their tracks and snarled. One rose up on its hind legs and swatted at its unseen assailant, while the other two snapped their jaws fruitlessly, trying to fight the force that they could not see. Alec was approaching the battle scene, and he increased the force of the air, trying to not just stop the lions, but to force them to retreat back toward their cages.

  He slipped in through the gap between two of the lions.

  “Please don’t kill me,” the lacerta sobbed.

  “I’m here to help you, little one,” Alec replied, taking a position in front of the girl, and turning to face the lions.

  “Though we have not bit one another in the neck, we are friends,” he assured her.

  He focused on the air currents, making them wider and stronger, finally creating enough force to make the lions begin to backpedal.

  The crowd continued to cheer, surprised by the unexpected turn of events, but still anticipating blood to be shed.

  Alec switched powers with a nearly simultaneous dropping of the Air power and then adoption of his Light power. He focused the beams of sunlight into narrow, intense bands that struck the ropes holding the cage doors open. All three ropes suddenly flared with bright light and a puff of smoke as the strands parted, and the c
age doors slammed shut.

  Then, to his surprise, his powers abruptly ceased to flow for a long pause, before they began anew.

  The crowd cheered again at yet another unexpected turn of events, one that seemed to be done by magic.

  “Kill it!” the crowd began to chant.

  Alec turned to the lacerta. She was a girl, small, as lacerta females were inclined to be. She was still chained to the post, and backed up against the post as she looked at Alec uncertainly, holding the edges of her tattered clothing tightly as if it could protect her from whatever blow Alec was about to inflict.

  The crowd grew silent, ready to see Alec deliver the coup de grace.

  Alec held on to his once-more flowing Light power, and stepped closer to the girl. “Hold still,” he directed, as he lifted her hand with one of his, and stretched out the length of chain with the other hand, then commanded the Light energy to concentrate a narrow stream of sunlight onto a link of the metal chain.

  He had a momentary recollection of the battle he had fought with a lacerta army long, long ago. Alec had fallen unconscious for a portion of the contest, wounded in a battle to save Imelda’s life, as they had fought to seize control of a lacerta army, so that it would listen to the commands of Rosebay, the exiled lacerta regent. And in that battle, for the first time that any ingenairii could recollect, the Light ingenaire power had been used as a weapon. After the battle, he’d listened to Shaiss recount the amazing event, telling of his own astonishment at the success.

  And the irony struck him, as he watched the metal chain link glow red, then smoke and sizzle and suddenly snap apart. The power had been used against lacertii that first time, and it was now being used on behalf of a lacerta.

  “What’s your name?” Alec asked the girl as the remains of the metal link fell into the sand.

  “Bungacantik,” she replied.

  “That’s a long name for such a small person,” he smiled at her.

  “My friends call me Kecil,” she said shyly. “What are you going to do now?”