The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell

by Jeffrey Quyle

  In a narrow arroyo with trees hanging overhead Alec tied the horses and tended to them, then unrolled his blankets. There was a shallow creek bed with large puddles of water in the center of the canyon, where he allowed the animals to drink. He knew that tomorrow he would go on foot to find a small hill that had an opening at its mount, and descend down in that opening to find the pool of bitter spring-fed water. And once he found the water he would step into it, then wait for something to happen, whether painful or peaceful -- the something that he expected to restore his powers and allow him to journey to the farthest part of the Dominion to find and free Noranda.

  Alec awoke in the middle of the night, and looked up at a bright red star in the over head sky. He speculated that it was the same red star he had seen when he had kept watch in the far-away mountains as he traveled with Natalie and Ari. He knew the star was an omen, then closed his eyes and fell asleep again.

  When Alec awoke the next morning he tended the horses, watered and fed them extra portions, then tied their leads longer than usual so they could browse further, since he did not know how long he would be gone. Taking a jug of water with him, he began to circle the mountain to the left.

  The ground was uneven to walk on, and his progress was slower than he anticipated as he struggled across the rocky surface, but by mid-morning Alec saw a small cone that he was sure was his destination. Within another hour he was at the base of the hill, and began the short climb up its steep side.

  It was a barren hillside he climbed, and the dust he raised as he stumbled upward was slightly acrid, making his mouth more parched than it already felt in the dry terrain. As he looked at the top of the hill above him he noticed dark clouds moving rapidly across the sky from many directions, far from the normal clear sky conditions he had seen throughout his trip in the desert. He felt disturbed by the patterns, unlike any he had ever seen before, or any he had ever heard about when Ari had lectured him about the weather during their long hours riding in the carnival wagon together.

  The clouds continued to move and thicken, darkening the sky as he reached the end of his climb. When he finally clambered upon the top, it was a small plateau, with a concave center that he walked down into.

  At the very center was an irregular opening that entered the hill below him at a perilously steep angle. Alec had no doubt that the cave was the place he was meant to go, and his conviction that he must enter was reinforced when a terrific clap of thunder from the clouds above coincided with a lightning bolt that struck very near him on the hilltop, with a pounding rainwater coming down so suddenly that Alec had no chance to prepare himself. He ducked his head and clumsily slid over the stony slope into the protection of the cave.

  From the rim of the opening Alec looked out at the inexplicable rainstorm that was drenching the arid landscape around him. Water falling on top of the hill was collecting within the bowl on top and flowing into the center, draining down into the very cave he crouched in. He had a sudden recollection of the shower of water that had curtained the entrance to the other miraculous cave he had entered, and he crouched for several minutes, transfixed by the clarity of his memory of that other experience.

  He realized that he needed to do something as the water became a torrent flowing around and against him. Alec decided to move downward through the cave, looking for the pool that he expected to heal him. The cave went evenly downward, then switched back on itself, a move that Alec had to navigate gingerly, scraping his arms on the rocks as the stream of water from outside flowed steadily down on him and around him.

  Once around the bend, Alec found the cave much darker, harder to see in. His pace slowed as he felt carefully in front of him before advancing, and several minutes passed while he left the last visible features behind and crawled into total darkness.

  Alec could not recall ever experiencing such a complete lack of light at any time in his life. Even the miraculous cave in the Pale Mountains had been suffused with a dim light. As he pondered what the source of that light had been, his hands reached a very wet, slippery patch of mud. Alec fell forwards, landed awkwardly, and began sliding downward through the cave, bumping into the stony walls and picking up scrapes and bruises as he went.

  Suddenly, after several frightening seconds of speedy travel, Alec left the slippery chute and plunged into open air. In the darkness he could see nothing of his surroundings as he fell, and he was shocked and unprepared when he splashed into a pool of water.

  Alec’s momentum carried him far below the surface of the water, and he thrashed wildly in fear as he tried to find his way to the surface. He thrust his legs and pushed himself forcefully, only to bash his face against rough stone. His hands went to his face, and he waited a moment to see if he could tell whether he was drifting upward. Feeling his buoyancy assert itself, he stroked his arms to move faster towards the surface desperate for a breath of air. He stroked again, and again, no brightness above him to help gauge how close he was to reaching the boundary between water and air. He let out his last reservoir of breath and gave another tremendous kick, knowing that he had to reach the top very quickly now.

  He involuntarily breathed in, and chocked as the bitter water entered his lungs. He tried to reach upwards to find air, but his hands only felt more of the cold water, and suddenly he knew that he was inescapably drowning in the dark, cold underground pool. With a sob he sucked in more water.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder and lifted him up through the water, and he felt air on his face. Alec gasped and sputtered and choked as he felt cold, hard rock underneath his arms. The hand held him steady, then a second hand grabbed his other shoulder and he was dragged up over the edge of the pool onto a stony shelf above the water.

  Alec rolled over and vomited water out, breathed more air, and retched more water. He lay exhausted and frightened not even aware of having been saved at first.

  In a new, dim blue light that now permeated an indeterminate space around him, he saw a man sitting next to him, his wet sleeves plastered to his arms. The man stared back at him. “That was very close,” the man said from a mouth that was surrounded by a neatly trimmed mustache and beard.

  “Thank you,” Alec said breathlessly at last, starting to come to his senses. He realized that the man and the blue light had not been present seconds ago when he plunged down through the cave. “Who are you?”

  “Can’t you tell?” the man asked, inviting close inspection.

  Alec looked at his face closely, and concluded that it did seem familiar, though different from whatever original face he was remembering. The clothes were well made, elegant fabric superbly pieced together. He had golden hair and a young middle-aged face.

  “Think of your last days in Oyster Bay,” the man said with a hint of humor in his eyes. He enjoyed the game of making Alec study him.

  “You look like King Gildevny, around the jaw and chin particularly,” Alec replied, remembering the elderly king he had treated before his assassination.

  “Very good. Thank you for helping him by the way. Your treatments were on their way to making him feel better than he had felt in years,” Alec’s rescuer replied.

  “But the way it worked out, the people who wanted to kill him did so sooner because they were afraid of good health in the king,” Alec said angrily, mad at the assassins, and mad that his efforts had had such an unintended consequence.

  “You need to revenge him, for me. That is one of my claims on you, since today I am your rescuer,” the man said. “Don’t let his murder end up being a reward for the power-hungry ne’er-do-wells in Oyster Bay. Go back, and restore our good name.”

  Alec felt a peculiar change in the still air in the cave, a feeling of increased pressure against his body.

  “Why do you want me to wreak revenge? Why not do it yourself?” Alec asked, knowing that there was some obvious reason he didn’t grasp.

  “It’s difficult for a dead son to avenge his murdered father,” the man said in an emotionless tone of voice. “Sin
ce I am not alive to take action, I charge you with our family’s retribution.”

  Alec gasped at the matter-of-fact claim that his rescuer was dead. “What do you mean you’re Gildevny’s dead son? I never heard talk of such, and I don’t think a dead man can rescue and talk with someone who’s alive.”

  “You’re at John Mark’s Pool, Alec, and many impossible things can happen here. This is just one of them. Where God’s plan requires, the rules will be suspended, and his Holy Spirit will move, so that what must be, can be accomplished,” the dead man said. “You are such an important part of that plan, God is arranging many things for you.”

  “What is your name?” Alec asked.

  “I was Enguerrand, of the House of Tarnum, killed ten years ago in the prime of my life in a horse-riding accident, of all things,” the man told Alec. “Still unmarried and enjoying life, but ready to rule the people fairly when my turn came. Except it never came. And father was too old by then to start another family, and unaware of the heir I had left behind through a small indiscretion. So the House of Tarnum is thought to have ended and a bunch of jackals are expecting to feast on the throne they think is empty.”

  “You mean there is a hidden heir?” Alec asked in surprise. “Do other people know?” he asked, not knowing if the hidden heir was like Enguerrand himself, something known to many, but not known by Alec.

  “Only a few know,” the dead crown prince said. “The mother died in childbirth, so only Lord Bayeux in the north, a very close friend of mine, and one other person know.”

  Enguerrand’s ghost nodded, looking at Alec closely. “I saved your life today. For that reason, I have every right to ask you to go to Oyster Bay to avenge our family by slaying the murderers who killed my father, preserving the crown and preparing the throne for a rightful ruler to return.”

  “But remember Alec, you must still come to save me,” Noranda said, suddenly sitting on the other side of him. “That commitment weighs even more heavily upon you than the prince’s charge.”

  Alec turned and looked at her, also clearly visible in the dim blue light. Her eyes were full of life.

  He felt his head grow light, and his eyes closed as he fainted.

  Chapter 21 – Returning to Reality

  Alec opened his eyes and looked up at the stony ceiling faintly visible above him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man sitting next to him. He rolled and pressed his arms against the slab he lay on, groaning at the stiffness of his muscles as he sat up. He looked to his right, but Noranda was gone. He turned to his left, but Enguerrand no longer sat there. Instead a small dark-skinned man sat watching him with great patience visible in his face.

  “I’m certain your muscles are stiff,” the man said in a conversational tone. “Lying in a coma in a cave for such a long time can’t leave you in very good shape.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alec said, trying to shake the fog from his head. He put his hand on his forehead, and felt long tresses of hair, then detected soft whiskers on his chin.

  “It was three months ago that you entered my cave,” the dark man said.

  “And who are you?” Alec asked, suspecting that the three month time frame might be true.

  “I am John Mark, an apostle of our Savior, Jesus of Nazareth,” the man told him. “Brought by sacred powers to this world so that I could explain and spread the teachings and the message of salvation Jesus brought to humanity.”

  Alec shook with fear at the notion of being in the presence of such a transcendent figure.

  “My lord,” he muttered, at a loss for how to comprehend so momentous a meeting.

  “No, I’m just a follower of the Lord,” John Mark said. “I came on a journey to spread a message.”

  “And for you I have a specific message, Alec. It is time for you to go. You have been treated and cured here, sheltered in the amniotic pool deep in the earth, but now is the time for you to emerge back into the world that awaits your arrival. Your healing powers are restored, totally and completely. Your spiritual powers have been strengthened, so that you may be able to discern the spiritual honesty of men’s souls, if you pay attention and learn to use your powers. And your warrior powers are healed in a somewhat peculiar way; you will have those powers only while you are making progress on your mission to heal Noranda,” the prophet told him.

  “Am I going to heal her? Will it be successful? Are we going to love one another? Is she going to be my wife?” Alec asked.

  “I hope that the answer to the first two questions will be yes. No. And no,” John Mark said. “There is another future for her. Your charge, your duty, is to restore her to life and health, so that she can attempt to carry out her own destiny.”

  Alec felt shaken. Though he knew his affections for Noranda had receded in recent months as he had come to know Bethany, since his abrupt vision of the Stronghold girl in the Bondell cathedral, he had been convinced that he was going to save and marry Noranda. Now he was being told that it wouldn’t happen in such a way. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this latest test of his affections.

  “Am I going to avenge the king?” Alec asked.

  “That is possible, depending on many unknown outcomes, including the choices you make, and the purity of your heart when you make them. You have many other challenges ahead of you to concentrate on overcoming first before you should worry about whether you will ever recover the crown from the usurpers,” John Mark said.

  “Are my friends all doing well? Where is Aristotle?” Alec asked.

  “The rest of your questions about the world must be answered by the world,” his holy companion replied in an abrupt end to the interview. “You will see a light that will lead you back to the surface. Your horses are gone, taken by your friends who came looking for you many weeks ago. It is spring time outside, and you will find the desert is in the last days of relative moisture and mildness for your journey back to mankind; with your skills and perceptions the trip will hardly be arduous. The sooner you return, the more you will be able to accomplish. So travel safely, and know that the Lord loves you and relies upon you to be his tool in this world.”

  The cavern darkened, and Alec blinked his eyes. When he re-opened them the prophet was gone, and a faint glow was visible at a distant point. Alec sat on the ledge of stone and stared in the direction of the light, wondering what was true and what he had dreamed. The three visitors who had been with him here in the cave left him feeling overwhelmed with feelings.

  He imagined overthrowing the coup leaders, and then he imagined himself sitting as king in their place, in the absence of any other contenders for the throne, thinking about the world like no other king had ever thought. Then he thought about how he had watched Duke Toulon of Goldenfields sit and govern, balancing the concerns of the traders and the nobles and the people and the farmers and his own treasury and the army. Those revelations of the complexity of rulership had astonished him when he had first begun to observe them. He knew he wasn’t ready to try to navigate through such difficult challenges.

  His attention was drawn by the light across the cavern as it seemed to fade then rise again, appearing impatient for Alec to follow it. He stared at the light. He had to go, he knew. He had to find out how much of the visions in the cave were true.

  Alec slipped back into the water of the pool, and let his head drop below the surface, compelled to feel total immersion in this holiest of water. He broke back above the surface and began to stroke across the water towards the light. When he reached the other side he carefully felt his way up the side of the dark, stony cave, and climbed towards the tube he had slid down. He reached the point at which he could see the distant dimness he was following, and kept climbing. The tube he had slid down at such a fast rate, when it was a muddy wet chute, was now dry, completely dry, despite the rainstorm that he had experienced while entering the cave so many weeks ago. Slowly Alec climbed upward, then doubled back and suddenly saw a brighter light, barely shielded, providing evidence that
he was virtually back on the surface of the earth once again.

  Alec climbed up and stood slowly and painfully upright, stretching out muscles that protested his efforts to reach his full height and span. He put his hands to his head and felt his hair reach down nearly to his shoulders, and there were more whiskers growing on his cheeks and chin. The boy looked around at the cloudless sky and the bright sunshine reflecting off the mountainside nearby and the ground that stretched out to a greater distance than he had been able to imagine while in the cave.

  Alec carefully climbed off the hill and circled back around the singular mountain to look for where he had left his horses. He arrived at the small canyon they were tied up, but the horses were not there. As John Mark had told him, his horses were gone, and so were all the traces of his supplies. No water bags or food remained. At the back of the canyon he could see a small pool of water, and the foliage in the area had clearly been grazed heavily. Perhaps, he inwardly acknowledged, he had been gone three months, and the winter and spring showers had replenished ground water around the canyon, giving another year of moisture to the stunted growth that made the spot seem like a comparable Garden of Eden, compared to the surrounding desert he had experienced when he entered the cave.

  He contemplated what to do next. Climbing down the hill and walking had worked much of the soreness out of his muscles, and now Alec felt more energetic and healthier than at any time since he had come to Bondell and over-exerted his ingenaire powers. He sat down in the shade and thought about the length of his journey to arrive here. Traveling by horse had taken him days to travel, crossing the bleak desert over the last stretch. He wondered how he was supposed to re-cross the desert to return to Bondell on his journey to carry out his duties.

  Alec lay in the shade throughout the afternoon, waiting for the sun to begin to set. He thought about the implications of all he had heard in the cave from the specters that had visited him, and he fell into self-contemplation.