From the height of the tower top Alec could see the courtyard again, as well as the stables, and an open walkway between two buildings. Guards were running in all of the locations; Alec began to fire a flurry of arrows at targets in each opportune spot, dropping soldiers in each spot, and drawing attention to his location. He heard boots on the stairs of the tower, and ran down the stairs to fight the invaders. Slowly, step by step, Alec retreated back upwards the stairs, slaying guards as he went, until there was a disruption in the oncoming forces, and a new opponent jostled forward to the front of the pack to begin to fight with the furious competence of another Warrior ingenaire.
“Where is my companion?” Alec barked at the man, slowly rising up step by step to draw the man upward.
“She is our new weapon now,” the Warrior replied. “And a pleasure it will be to have her as our own.”
“Where is she?” Alec demanded, beginning to fight with more of his energy, starting to drive the ingenaire back down among his followers.
“She’s beyond your reach,” the ingenaire answered.
“Then you’re of no value to me,” Alec replied, and he stabbed the Warrior through the chest, letting the dead body fall backwards among the guards there.
“Where is Andi?” Alec screamed at the guards who were frozen with fear.
“She’s directly below you, below this very tower,” a woman’s voice answered. The guards parted, pressing their backs against the walls of the tower’s circling staircase, and Alec saw a large, menacing woman rise up towards him, parting the guards like a shark parting the water as she exploded against Alec in a flurry of sword strokes that forced him backward, up the stairs in a rapid retreat.
The Warrior was as large as Armilla, Alec’s first bodyguard in his days as Crown Protector, and the woman wielded a sword as large and heavy as Armilla’s had been. He allowed her and her following squad to drive him higher in the tower, until they reached the top floor.
“Thank you for the battle,” Alec told her, “you’ve been a challenging opponent,” and with that he used his Traveler energy to translocate himself back down to the third floor of the tower, beneath the crowd that had converged there to battle him. He adjusted his energy use, calling upon his Stone energy, and sealed the stairwell closed, so that none of those within the tower would be available to fight him any further.
He maintained his Stone energy, and opened up the floor beneath him, so that he dropped down to the ground floor, then he opened a hole within that floor, and dropped down to the first level of the basement below the surface.
One more level, he judged, and he would be at the level the Warrior ingenaire had claimed held Andi. Alec pulled a knife from his bandolier and held it in his right hand with his sword in his left, so that he would be better ready to fight against multiple opponents, if they were down there waiting for him.
Alec melted the opening in the floor, and leaped down into the darkness. The fall was more than he expected into a chamber with a greater height than he anticipated, and he felt his ankle twist badly when he finally hit the floor in an unlit chamber.
He rolled immediately to his right to escape the dim illumination that fell from his opening above, then he applied his Healing energy to his ankle to repair the wound. Already, he had used so much energy that his next steps were going to be increasingly diminished, he knew. He felt the constraints beginning to drag down his ability to call upon power from the energy realm, as his body wore down from the continued, unnatural flow of such high volumes of power that passed through it. He needed to find Andi in a hurry and escape with her.
There were others nearby. He sensed their presence in the chamber he was in. With a quick burst of more energy, Alec ignited a series of globes of light that danced around the chamber, giving him a sense of what he faced.
The room was vast. Not only was the ceiling high above, but it was held up by a forest of pillars that circled the oval chamber he was in, a vast room in which a single bier was centered. Andi lay upon the bier, pale and unmoving. And Alec could sense that there were other people in the chamber as well, hidden behind the pillars that were scattered about.
A curtain of air became Alec’s protection as he ran towards the bier where Andi lay. Arrows flew from the shadows, striking the air and falling to the floor. Alec reached Andi’s body and looked down upon her, peripherally aware that the watchers behind the pillars were coming out into the open space of the chamber, drawing closer, ever closer, as they began to chant a disharmonic tune that grated in his nerves, while he tried to examine Andi.
They were safe for the moment within his Air protection, and Alec placed his hands on either side of Andi’s head, cradling her as he stared down upon her pale features. She was alive. She was unconscious; frighteningly unreachable, even with his Spiritual energy, Alec could not detect her spirit within her. Or rather, he detected some barrier or conflict or other element that was transposed between her spirit and full consciousness.
The chanting continued, and Alec looked up. The people around him had formed a chain, their hands connected, and arms held wide so that the circle around him was uninterrupted. The chanting was growing louder, and a new, green glow was in the chamber, a light that was painful to observe, that Alec imagined even felt painful as it fell upon his skin.
“We thank you for joining us,” a voice spoke from the shadows. The voice was familiar, but unplaceable.
“You came closer, faster, than most of us expected,” the voice said, and a figure emerged from the shadows, its features still unrecognizable. “I told these people that we could not over-estimate you, that your abilities were extraordinary a hundred years ago, and had only grown stronger since then.”
The figure stepped forward, and ducked beneath the hands that formed the circle around Alec and Andi, then penetrated through Alec’s curtain of air. Alec reached for Andi’s hand and squeezed it in sudden fear. He grabbed for her, hoping to take her and translocate away instantaneously, as he realized the tremendous danger he was in, but at that moment the chanting reached a new, louder, unearthly wail that felt like nails piercing his skull. He felt a horrible twisting of his body and his spirit, and he couldn’t concentrate any longer on grasping the energy as his very being was painfully turned inside-out.
Alec realized he was on his knees, his hands squeezing his skull to try to stop the pain, and then the chanting was at an end. He opened his eyes and slowly raised his head. The chanters had ceased their cries, and had ceased to hold hands with each other.
Standing directly above him, looking down upon him, was Kinset.
“Dear Lord,” Alec whispered, fully understanding the danger he was in.
“Yes, thank you for acknowledging my deification,” Kinset said.
Except Alec knew that the figure was not a simple Spiritual ingenaire. No Spiritual ingenaire could have managed to translocate from Stronghold to Michian. No Spiritual ingenaire could have known what Alec’s powers had been like a century earlier, when he had fought his greatest battle, in the unnamed mountains west of Black Crag. No Spiritual ingenaire could have manipulated the air curtain so effortlessly.
The figure above him was Hellmann, somehow risen from the tomb Alec had created and trapped him in.
The malevolent ancient power had escaped and was at large upon the face of the earth, now here in Michian, working with ingenairii and sorcerers for some purpose.
“Yes, you know who I am,” Hellmann said, nudging Alec with his foot.
And Alec had no powers with which to respond. He could not grasp any ingenaire energies; they all lay beyond his abilities.
It’s an ancient rite of your ingenaire, the rite of removing the ability from another ingenaire,” Hellmann told Alec, the monster still maintaining his appearance as Kinset the Spirit ingenaire. “It takes thirteen Spirit ingenairii, or in your case, this combination of Spirit ingenairii and sorceresses, working together, chanting these songs, to create the conditions for shutting the energy real
m away.”
Alec struck out at Hellmann’s feet, pulling them out from underneath him.
Hellmann did not fall. His feet gently rose and floated above the ground, then kicked out viciously, catching Alec between the eyes and knocking him back against the bier.
“I don’t need this body any longer now,” Hellmann said, taking no more notice of Alec’s effort to fight. “It is weak, but it served as a gateway, a means for me to return to the world. This Kinset tried to delve into arcane knowledge, and he opened the door for me to possess him. Then I used him because I needed him in order to control the ingenairii, and move them towards my purposes; I managed to cut off the flow of energy to potential new ingenairii, so that the population would cease to grow, and the existing ingenairii would become desperate to find ways to preserve their race,” he explained.
“I thought that I could find one of them with the strength I needed, a better body I could possess and take over to more fully engage my powers, and restore myself to the glory I deserve,” Hellmann seemed ready to explain everything to Alec. “But none of them had the capacity I needed. I even sent them scouting across the eastern civilizations, looking for women I could mate with to produce a greater body that would grow strong enough to contain my power. But they came back almost empty-handed. At least a couple of them came back, and they told me of you – as though I needed to be told about you – and the companion you had.
“She has nearly the strength you do, in some manner,” Hellmann said. “The capacity is there in potential, not yet realized, as though she were young in her power. And better yet, she is pregnant with your child, a child that should grow to be capable of wielding all the power I have the potential to utilize.
“So now I can dispose of this body,” there was a flare of light, and the Kinset body fell to the ground, lifeless.
“And I can possess this body for a few years,” Hellmann spoke from Andi’s body, as he took control of her and sat up on the bier. “Your own body would have been best for me of course, and a pleasant trophy as well, but given your sudden loss of the ability to grasp the power, you’re no longer suitable. And even if we were to reverse the loss of power, putting up with your spirit in the background fighting for control would be a bothersome chore; this woman of yours is trying enough as it is – not like meek, mild Kinset was, but she is still not strong enough to disrupt my work.”
Andi’s foot dropped over the side of the bier, then kicked Alec in the temple, powerfully knocking him to the ground.
“It will seem strange to be a female for a time, but when the child is born, and it will be a boy, I’ll only have to wait for it to grow to an age I can abandon this vessel and make the child my new home. And in the meantime,” Andi’s voice uttered Hellmann’s words, “this body can do a great deal.”
Alec felt his body heaved up into the air as Hellmann used Air energy, then he felt the painful impact as he fell back to the stone floor.
“It would probably be prudent to kill you now, but I think I would enjoy these next few years a little more if I knew that your mouth and heart were filled with bitterness and pain,” Hellmann stood over Alec. Alec looked up, and saw a momentary spasm cross Andi’s face, as something discomforted the occupying monster that controlled her body.
“So you may go out into the world now, a powerless ingenaire. In a few months, your clever trick with the restorers will wear off, And I’ll be able to resume my occupation of the Dominion. There may be cause to send an army of demons there to punish the cities that rose up against my control,” she said. “And you won’t be able to do anything to help them.”
Andi kicked at Alec’s head again, then picked him up and punched his face so hard that he passed out.
Chapter 24 – Stripped of Powers
Alec awoke in an alley in the warehouse district of Michian, sore and bloody. His face felt puffy, and he knew that if he were to look in a mirror he would see a grievous mass of bruises, cuts and lacerations. He still had his sword, but the bandoliers of knives, and the bow and arrows were gone. Even his boots had been taken for some reason, leaving him barefoot to roam about the city. He stood and steadied himself by placing one hand against the rough wooden wall of the storage building he was next to.
He stood and raised his head to the sky, his eyes closed, trying to find some shred of hope, something he could grasp as a way to turn the unthinkable situation around. He was without powers, while Andi’s body and soul were possessed by Hellmann the great, virtually immortal being who controlled powers beyond comprehension.
There is hope, Alec. Come visit me, he imagined he heard John Mark’s voice say to him.
“John Mark! Please take me home,” Alec cried aloud. “I need your help.”
There was a noise behind him, and Alec turned to see a tramp emerge from a hole in the wall of the building.
“Who are you talking to?” the vagrant asked, looking around at the otherwise empty alleyway.
Just then a foursome of toughs walked by the mouth of the alley, then stopped and stared at Alec and the other man.
“Oh stormy day,” the other vagrant said softly. There was some soft murmuring among the men at the end of the alley, and then the foursome started to walk towards Alec.
With his disheveled appearance and well-beaten face he surely looked like an easy mark, Alec guessed, and the other vagrant looked like easy pickings as well.
Find a way. Come to me, John Mark’s voice called softly again.
Alec drew his sword. “Come no closer,” he warned the approaching men.
One of them laughed, as two of them drew their own swords. “Worthless trash,” another muttered, and pulled a long knife from his belt.
The alley way wasn’t wide, Alec noted, so the attackers wouldn’t be able to spread out in their attack. He would have preferred if they had spread out, because such a formation usually allowed him to isolate and conquer one or more members of any multiple opponent attack. But he would fight under the circumstances, and he would fight to show that he could – he wanted to prove to these aggressors – and to himself –that he was formidable, even without his powers.
As the unprepared attackers came within range, Alec lashed out, swinging his sword with all his force in an arc that knocked one man’s sword out of his grip, and caused the man with the long knife to jump back and stumble away. Only one armed opponent stood before Alec in the succeeding moments, and Alec wasted no time in launching an attack that was fueled by sheer rage, cutting and slicing until the man looked down at the nasty wound across his stomach, and fell to the ground clutching himself in pain. Alec charged forward, past the man on the ground and carried his fury on his face, stabbing another of the attackers hard in the thigh, cutting another’s throat, and slicing the buttocks of the last one who tried to run away.
“Oh blue skies!” the other vagrant in the alley way crowed. He ran up to Alec. “Thank you, friend. Thank you. These men have been beating and robbing my friends for weeks, looking at us as easy pickings.
“What’s a fighter like you doing here anyway? You oughta be serving guard duty on a trader’s caravan headed to the Dominion. They’ll feed and pay money for swords like yours, unless you’re a thief,” the vagabond said to Alec.
“I’m no thief,” Alec shoved his sword back into the scabbard on his hip, and prepared to walk away, when the implications of the vagrant’s words sunk in.
“How would I find a caravan that needs a guard?” he asked the vagrant.
“Come with me,” the man told him. “I’ve got a friend, well, an acquaintance. She runs her own little trading company, and I know she always wants help, not that I’ve ever heard about her getting robbed. She’s always worried about being taken advantage of by men though; you wouldn’t cheat her would you?” the vagrant looked into Alec’s eyes. “No, you look like a man with an honest soul. She deserves to be treated fairly; she’s always been fair with my buddies and me – she’ll hand out a meal if she can afford it.”
“Take me to her, and we’ll see if she’s looking for help,” Alec replied, looking down as he began to tread cautiously among the littered pavement of the alley.
“How did someone who fights as good as you get beat up that bad?” the vagrant asked as they started walking down the street. “Was it over a girl?”
“Yeah,” Alec said after a pause, “it was over a girl. I never saw it coming.”
“Well, Roslyn may look like a girl, and have a big heart like a girl, but she’s still all business. If she hires you on – and I’ll make you sound as good as I can ! – don’t make the mistake of thinking you can share her blankets. Keep your hands to yourself; she’ll treat you fair if you treat her fair,” the vagrant told Alec. “I’ve seen her hire other guards on the spot.”
“Did they like working for her?” Alec asked.
“I don’t know,” the vagrant answered. “I never saw them again to ask how she was to work for.”
“What’s your name?” Alec asked the man.
“Boris,” the man answered Alec. “What’s yours?”
“I’m Alec,” he held out his hand to shake.
“That’s a Dominion name,” the vagrant said. “And you’ve got an accent that’s mostly Dominion, and a little something else. Roslyn will like that.”
“I’ve lived in the Dominion, and I’ve lived out in the far east,” Alec told him. “That probably gave me an accent.”
“Those are the traders,” Boris pointed at a wide field of tents and mules. “Roslyn usually is in the middle of the field, with the Dominion traders, not that I know for sure she’s one of them; she’s just a one-woman trading shop, but the other traders seem to respect her. She’s been in the business more than a dozen years and keeps coming back with more goods on every journey,” Alec followed Boris through the unorganized maze until they reached a small encampment.
“No, I’m not going to give you three golds for ale today,” a gruff female voice shouted as Boris and Alec stopped next to a dirty green and yellow tent. There was a trace of a lilt in her voice that Alec couldn’t place, but it distinguished her from the other Michian residents
The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities Page 29
