“Your friend, Andi, she doesn’t stay with any of us. They keep her separate, I think in the basement,” one of the girls told Alec as she passed him.
“Thank you,” he told her as he followed her into the hallway. He was walking visibly now, wary of using his energies too greatly before he faced the Warriors somewhere in the building.
“What do you think you’re doing? Where’s Warel?” Alec heard a guard ask as the girls ahead of him opened a door and entered a room.
Alec entered the room behind them, saw the two guards and the four sick girls lying on beds, then swung his sword rapidly, disemboweling both guards with a single slice of his blade. He heard another girl retch, but he paid no attention as he stepped over to kneel beside a girl on a bed. It was Kriste, and she had the plague.
With only a moment’s hesitation, Alec dropped all the energies he was using, and grasped his Healing energy, then laid his hands simultaneously on Kriste and another girl, bringing them back to health, as he heard shouts of anger and shock start to rise up the staircase from below.
Someone had discovered his first victims, he knew, as he moved forward to treat the other two ill girls. He was shocked to discover that they had already contracted the disease after only being in the city for a couple of days; it made him fearful of how thoroughly the population of the city would be decimated by the plague that moved so fast through its victims.
The boots were pounding nearer on the stairs. “All of you stay here,” he ordered. “Don’t open the door for anyone but Andi or me. Push furniture against it as soon as I leave.
“Will you obey?” he asked, looking around at the grave countenances in the room. “Good,” he responded as all heads nodded. “You can throw those out the window if you want to, but keep their weapons,” he advised, and then he stepped out of the room with his Warrior energy engaged and his throwing knives drawn.
He stalked down the hall, and began throwing knives from forty feet away as he saw the heads of men begin to appear at the top of the staircase. With four knives thrown quickly, Alec whipped the bow off his shoulder and began notching arrows as he ran towards the staircase and heard men starting to scramble in retreat. Three of his arrows struck guards who were attempting to retreat, letting Alec add seven more victims to the total of men he had killed in just a few minutes.
Virtually all of the mortal guards should be out of commission, Alec calculated, but so far he had no more than half of the captive girls. He leaped down the stairs and turned to his right, entering a series of empty rooms that he ran through quickly until he reached one with a locked door.
“Come out with your hands over your head if you want to stay alive!” he ordered, then stepped back, dropped his Warrior energies, and utilized his Light ability to become invisible.
The latch on the door shivered, then the door opened, and a half dozen girls, wearing only towels around their bodies, came out of the bathroom, their elbows tucked against their sides to trap their towel wrappings as their hands were raised. “We’re here. Please don’t hurt us,” one girl said.
Alec removed his invisibility, making the girls scream, and two girls jerked so wildly with surprise that their towels fell to the ground.
“Where are your clothes?” Alec asked.
“There’re in there, sir,” one girl answered, pointing back into the bathroom. “We were going to take showers, but the guards went running off after there was a shout.”
“I’m here to set all of you free; some of the girls are safe upstairs, and we’re going to go join them. Get your clothes and follow me,” Alec ordered. “Hurry!” he commanded, anxious to move on. There were still ingenairii and Andi somewhere to be found, and he could sense that his ability to utilize the power of the energy realm was beginning to dwindle. The girls hustled, and came out of the room carrying bundles of cloth.
“We’re going upstairs to join the other girls,” Alec told them, then led his parade of frightened followers back through numerous rooms and past the scattered bodies on the hallway floor. The sight of the bodies frightened the girls even more.
“Where are the rest of your team?” one girl asked as they ran up the stairs.
“I came here alone,” Alec barked, then he reached the top of the stair case and strode down the hallway, his Warrior energies in place once again.
“Kriste, it’s me, Alec. Open the door. I have more girls,” he called.
“How many total girls are there being held here?” Alec asked one of the girls in the hallway with him.
“Um, counting the new girl they have, there are seventeen of us,” a voice answered.
Alec counted quickly in his head. He had them all except Andi, his next and final target.
The door began to open, and Alec shoved it mightily with his shoulder, pushing it wide open.
“Kriste,” he addressed the only one he knew. “Is this everyone except Andi?”
He saw the blonde girl’s head bob as she counted those present. “Stand still,” she said peremptorily, then resumed counting. “This is everyone except the one who fought them, your friend.”
Alec heard the sound of horses neighing madly from out in the front of the house.
“Kriste, I think all the guards are dead except for the Warriors who are in charge, and I think they may be trying to get away!” he shouted. “Get everyone together, keep them together, and if I don’t come back, take them all to the Twenty Cities.” With that he ran with all the speed his Warrior ability could provide, down the hall and stairs, then outside the building, where he stopped until he spotted the two Warriors carrying Andi away at a full gallop along with several of the extra horses.
Alec didn’t bother to take a horse, but instead began to run at his top speed, drawing ever closer to the fugitives. He began to fire arrows as he ran, never hitting his targets, but coming close to both of them, as well as close to Andi with the final arrow he shot.
He drew considerably nearer to them as they reached the mighty bridge over the deep canyon. To his surprise, they stopped in the middle of the bridge, recognizing how close his pursuit was getting.
“Who in Mosha’s name are you?” one of them screamed, holding a sharp blade at Andi’s neck as he wrenched her into place in front of him, providing a shield. She was wrapped in chains, thick metal links not only encircling her hands and legs and feet, but linking all her limbs together, as well as weighing across her neck.
He could see that the girl had been badly battered. She was bruised and cut, and one arm was bent in an unhealthy manner.
“He is the Crown Protector,” she spoke up.
“He is the Demonslayer. He is the King of the Dominion and the Consort of Michian. He is Alec come again, the end to all your plots!” she told them, her voice ringing in a cadence-like chant.
“Come one step closer and your girl friend dies,” the ingenairii said who held the knife to her throat. “How do you know those old myths?” he screamed at Andi.
“If you agree to let us leave the city, I will not slice her throat,” the man said. “Do we have a deal?” he asked, his horse nervously dancing near the edge of the bridge.
“I will let you leave the city, but then I will come hunt you down and kill you,” Alec replied.
“You aren’t going to do anything to us. Once we reach Michian we’ll be safe, and you aren’t going to be able to catch us before that,” the first one answered, raising his sleeve and exposing his Warrior’s mark as he suddenly raised Andi high and then tossed her over the edge of the bridge.
Alec saw Andi’s face for just a moment as she fell, a face that was shocked, then he dove over the bridge after her, dropping his Warrior energy and adopting his Air abilities once again. He had little energy left, but he threw it all into creating an air pad beneath Andi, then holding it stationary as his own body flew down and struck it hard. He struggled to maintain the hold he held on his powers as his body bounced upon contact with the air, then he gave a final thrust that raised the pair o
f them back up onto the bridge, and roughly deposited them there in the middle of the lane. He raised his head and saw the Warrior ingenairii riding away in the far distance, then he looked at Andi, her eyes open and staring at him. “Amane and Aja are staying at the Red Horse Inn on the square,” he blurted out, then lay his head back and passed out.
Chapter 12 – Healing Boundary Lake
When Alec awoke, he was lying in a room after dark. He felt a soft mattress beneath him, and he saw a dim ceiling above. He turned his head and saw the outline of someone sitting in the darkness in a chair on the far side of the room.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“I could tell you were coming after us when you were a hundred miles away,” Andi’s voice answered, “I knew you were in the city, and they attacked me when I told them you were coming to hunt them down.” She rose from the chair and came to the mattress, then lay down on top of the covers next to him. “But you can’t tell it’s me from a dozen feet away,” she sighed, and Alec heard the tears in her voice.
“I told myself that I had learned to live with the separation from you, even when I knew I could still feel your feelings,” she rambled on. “But I never felt anything from you that was love for me.”
Alec reached his hand out and stroked her hair. “Andi, I don’t mean to hurt you,” he said softly.
“Hurt me? You just saved my life in multiple ways. I shouldn’t be complaining. I am grateful, Alec. But I’m bitter that something tied us to one another in such an extraordinary way, then the bonds that held you to me were completely severed, but my bonds to you continue to hold me just as tightly as those chains the ingenairii were using,” she told him.
She sat up, and seemed to wretch herself out of her deep self-pity. “How do you feel?” she asked. Alec sat up. He reached for his Light energy, and illuminated the room with a small ball of light. Andi was wearing a sling on her arm, and remained bruised and scraped from her punishing captivity.
“I feel well,” Alec answered. He held out his hand, and when Andi grasped it, he released his Light powers to instead engage a stream of Healing energy, which he poured into her, addressing the many injuries that had been inflicted upon her. He recognized all that had been done to her, and he grew angry at the ingenairii that had treated a prisoner in such a way.
“They thought I was their grand prize, an unexpected bonus captive that was better than all the other girls put together,” Andi told him, releasing his hand. “Of course, they needed to justify my capture after the price I made them pay before they overcame me. It might have been better for all of us if they had just killed me outright.
“Thank you for the healing,” she said after several seconds of silent thought, then she yanked the sling to draw it up over her head before she flung it onto the floor in the corner of the room.
“Where are the girls?” Alec asked.
“They’re downstairs with Amane and that new girl you like,” Andi replied.
“Aja?” Alec asked.
“Yes, you know, the one who turns from a vixen into a tree,” Andi answered sourly.
“She’s a good person,” Alec answered, amused by Andi’s apparent jealousy, yet sorry to realize that it was another wound he had imposed upon her. “And the perfect traveling companion – she’s a silent tree by day, and full of energy at night!”
“You’re awful,” Andi complained. “Now Amane is becoming smitten with her too. I should be glad that he’s moving on, but it’s not fair that she can take both of you from me.”
“She hasn’t taken me from you, Andi,” Alec told the upset girl. “She has been a friend and a ward, but not anything more for me. She’s been a good companion since leaving Birnam Wood. I don’t know what to do with her now, that’s the problem, at least one of the problems. Understand Andi, I don’t share the feelings you feel.”
“I know Alec; you should be thankful. You didn’t feel what I felt after they caught me and did the things they did,” she paused. “Whereas I do feel what you feel; I felt you in Birnam Forest. I awoke on the forest floor, and I felt you undergoing something that moved you deeply, and then you were filled with horror, and anger, and so much pain. And then I didn’t feel anything from you, as if you were dead.
“I feel what you feel. The day you revived, days later, I felt you come back to life, and I knew that I had mistakenly abandoned you in that forest; I felt awful – awful for you and awful for me. I had thought you were dead when I couldn’t detect you, and I went on in pursuit of the kidnappers to complete your quest for you, when I should have stayed in that forest and looked for you,” she shook her head in regret.
“You don’t care for me Alec, any more or any less that you did in Exbury, or even when we first met, but me, I’m obsessed and possessed and depressed by you. Can you get this out of my head? Can you set me free from you, Alec?” she spoke in an anguished, plaintive tone.
Alec let out his breath, the breath he didn’t even realize he had held as he had listened to Andi’s statements. Disturbed by the pain the girl felt, he stood and hugged her against his body, while she passively stood still. He let his spirit enter her, and begin to explore her spirit.
It was astonishing. There was such an entangled mix of elements that seemed native and foreign that he withdrew immediately. The foreign elements must have been the pieces of his own memories and experiences that had become imprinted upon her. The intricacy of the involvement was staggering, and the thought of trying to extricate them appeared beyond his abilities.
“I need to think about it Andi. It will be difficult,” he said gently. He had never thought about removing his influence on her before, but it was something to consider. It was something he would maintain as a possibility to try later, if all else failed. And then he remembered an alternative.
“I have a way to restore my memories Andi,” he told her, and felt her body stiffen. “I was given a way to do it, and I have to do it. There was a prophecy made while I was in Birnam Forest. I have to regain my memories, or you will die.”
He looked down and saw hope and doubt in her eyes.
“You have to regain your memories to keep me alive?” she asked. “What does that mean?”
“When I was in the village in the forest, there were spirits of the dead who came to pass judgment upon me,” he explained. “One of the spirits was yours,” he held up his hand to forestall her protest, “the spirit said it was the spirit of your death that would come to pass, unless I regained my memories; it was a prophecy.”
“How will you do it? How will you regain your memories? Why haven’t you done it already?” Andi asked, sitting down upon the bed next to him.
“The witches of the village gave me the way,” he stood and walked over to his supply pack, then rooted through it until he found the two small jars.
“During a full moon, I must rub some of this on my lips, then some on your lips, and we must kiss,” he explained, handing the containers to her.
She looked up at him. “You’re kidding? A kiss? That will restore your memories?”
“Andi, they told me, and I believe them,” he answered. “I don’t know how long it is to the next full moon, but if you can just wait here with me for that long, then we can fulfill the duty and you will be saved from whatever death is waiting for you in the future.
“Andi, I know,” he paused, “there must have been something powerful between us, and the thought of that haunts me, but I can’t change the past. Maybe when I get my memories back, we’ll have a chance to reconnect, but until then, we are comrades and friends, but no more,” he held her hands and looked into her eyes.
“I want you to take this out of my head, Alec,” she said. “You figure out how to do it. We’ll have plenty of time on the journey to take these girls back to their homes.”
“I’m not going back,” he said quietly. “I’ll count on you to take them home.”
“What the tarn do you mean, you’re not going back, for the love of heaven?” she a
sked incredulously. “What else is there to do? Stay here and watch this city die?”
“I’m going to go after them, the Warriors,” he said evenly. “They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what they did.”
“How will you find them? They’ve gone Alec; there’s just the two of them to track – they won’t leave such an easy-to-follow trail as they did before, without all the girls,” Andi was standing again.
“I know where they’re going,” he said evenly. “Either they’re going back to the Dominion or they’re going to Michian.”
Recognition dawned in Andi’s eyes, then they hardened. “You can’t count on me to take the girls home; you’ll have to let Amane do it; I’m going to go with you. I want my revenge, Alec, and I won’t bother you and the tree while we’re traveling in return for the chance to even the score.”
“I don’t know if Aja will go with me or not. She’s just been traveling with me up to now, but I don’t think she has any roots of her own. She’s not my lover, and neither of us have that intention,” Alec replied. “And I understand your desire for revenge, Andi. I will grant you that right, but I want you to think about it, because you need to consider that I may never go back to Avonellene after this is over. Do you want to go all the way west and become an exile, the way I have been in the Avonellene Empire?”
“I’ll know how to get home when we’re done,” she objected “whereas you didn’t know the way until now.
“I know, the Dominion is your home, or it was centuries ago. What kind of home would that be for you now though, Alec?” she asked.
“I’ll find out. It’s not something that has to be decided at this moment,” he answered. “But there’s nothing written on my heart that urges me to return to Valeriane or Vincennes or even Ridgeclimb when this is all over.”
The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities Page 13
