There’s no end to the battles Alec faces, even when he thinks he has won peace for his new land and a new life for himself…
Alec felt a strange, painful sensation, one that was disturbing and familiar. His head began to throb, and he tried to figure couldn’t understand why. Suddenly the shocking realization of what caused such pain struck him like an arrow, and he winced noticeably, causing Caitlen and the priest to both look at him with concern.
It couldn’t be possible, he told himself. He twisted his neck, looking around the room at the crowd of people, trying to identify an obvious source. He knew he was sensing the spiritual pain of a demon being called into the world. It was something that he hadn’t known in centuries literally, something he couldn’t imagine that existed here in Vincennes. He’d never heard of demons being called forth in this nation.
Alec held up his hand to the priest, seeking a pause in the ceremony. Rahm, Bethany, stand nearby, ready to help Caitlen. Are there spare swords near me? He asked.
Caitlen, I sense great danger, something that can kill and destroy dozens of people. It is something that can easily defeat me in battle. Be ready to run, he sent a panic-stricken message to his bride.
The intensity of the pain of the demon’s impending appearance increased in his mind, and he went down to his knees.
“Alec, are you alright?” Caitlen asked aloud, bending over him. “Are you this scared of marrying me?” she asked with worried humor.
Alec vomited in response, his stomach twisting in anguish at the thought that a demon was about to appear at his wedding. “Caitlen, you and the priests need to prepare to leave immediately. Rahm and Bethany will take you to safety. Is there a back way out of here?”
“Alec, what is it? You’re frightening me,” Caitlen answered. What do you fear?
Before he could answer, he heard a crashing noise, and then a multitude of screams. He looked up and saw a demon entering the back of the room, ripping through the location where the doorway had stood.
I am so sorry we didn’t finish our wedding, Alec told her. Rahm, Bethany, come take the princess and the priests to safety, he added.
“If I survive, I may take a long time to heal. I love you, Esmere Caitlen Trelawney,” Alec spoke aloud.
The Ingenairii Series
1. Visions of Power
2. At the Seat of Power: Goldenfields and the Dominion
3. The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell
4. The Lifesaving Power: Goldenfields and Stronghold
5. Against the Empire
6. Preserving the Ingenairii
7. Rescuing the Captive
8. Ajacii and Demons
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Ajacii and Demons
The Ingenairii Series
Book 8
Jeffrey Quyle
Index
Chapter 1 – Farewell to Vincennes Page 1
Chapter 2 – Return to Krimshelm Page 5
Chapter 3 – A Jagine in the Palace Page 22
Chapter 4 – The Countess of Krimshelm Page 35
Chapter 5 – The Battle of the North Page 44
Chapter 6 – After the Krimshelm Battle Page 50
Chapter 7 – Dreams of the Life Before Page 52
Chapter 8 – The Ingenairii Restoration Page 55
Chapter 9 – Birthday Party for a Princess Page 57
Chapter 10 – A Dark Promise Page 64
Chapter 11 – The Lure Beyond Death Page 65
Chapter 12 – A Choice of Worlds Page 71
Chapter 13 – Return to Caitlen Page 84
Chapter 14 – The Battle with the Impossible Page 108
Chapter 15 – Lokasenna in the Palace Page 111
Chapter 16 – The Effort to Heal Page 126
Chapter 17 – Alec in the War Zone Page 132
Chapter 18 – The Demon Appears Page 173
Chapter 19 – The Ajacii Move Page 178
Chapter 20 – The Road to Valer Page 185
Chapter 21 – Safety in Valeriane Page 181
Chapter 22 – A Journey to Warm Springs Page 208
Chapter 23 – The Sleagh Maith Page 214
Chapter 24 – Learning of the Great Challenge Page 219
Chapter 25 – When All is Known Page 233
Chapter 26 – Back to Warm Springs Page 237
Chapter 27 – A Ball at the Palace Page 240
List of Characters
Alec, the lost ingenairii
Bethany, his adopted sister
Rahm, Palace Guard in Vincennes
Caitlen, from the Princess’s court
Connors, officer at Black Crag
Mulvane, Black Crag squad leader in Vincennes
Stocker, Valeriane Army leader
Bernadina, Lokasennii leader
Baltasar, Lokasenna
Availlen, Ajax warrior
Bauer, apprentice sorcerer
Perpet, Sleagh Maith
Macon, page at Krimshelm castle
Perry, army commander at Krimshelm
Menard, major domo at Krimshelm castle
Ailse, Countess of Krimshelm
Harbin, Krimshelm army officer
Chandler, mountain guide to Dana
Ephraim, mountain guide to Dana
Claudia, Black Crag squad member
Hector, Black Crag squad member
Ofelia, Black Crag squad member
Huena, Black Crag squad member
Adelmo, Black Crag squad member
Prologue
In “Rescuing the Captive” Alec awakens as a stranger in a strange land, without memory, not knowing the language of the people he comes in contact, not aware of his own ingenaire abilities. He is set down in the city of Krimshelm, where he witnesses an audacious robbery attempt, a crime which he foils by inadvertently claiming a wagon load of gold coins and a frightened teenage girl. Together he and the girl set out to find a better life in the distant city of Black Crag.
On their way they stop in the great metropolis of Vincennes, capital of the Avonellene Empire, where Alec slowly starts to regain some self-knowledge . There they get caught up in the politics of a coup that overthrows the young ruling princess. Driven by a sense of injustice, Alec chooses to help the princess, and with a friend sets the princess and her attendant free. In their flight from pursuit, Alec and the princess learn to respect and care for one another -- despite the culture’s xenophobic dislike of foreigners -- but ultimately are separated.
When Alec travels on alone to reunite with the princess, he instead discovers a hidden village of the Lokasennii, a race with powers that remind him of ingenairii.
Alec ultimately returns to Vincennes and finds the princess clinging to a tenuous hold on power in a court filled with treachery and uncertainty. Though disliked by most of the powerbrokers because of his foreign accent, Alec repeatedly provides critical assistance to save the princess and strengthen her claim to authority.
At the same time Alec is torn by the gaps in his memories, as he struggles to understand who he is, where he is from and what he has lost. Alec feels anchorless as he tries to discover why he has been set down in a foreign land.
When he eventually helps the princess firm up her control of Vincennes by the use of his great powers, Alec is subjected to exile from the court as a way to preserve her political power. He is sent to Krimshelm to try to fight the princess’s adversaries there in the northern city where his adventures in Avonellene began.
Chapter 1 – Farewell to Vincennes
Alec stood alone in his apartment, blinking his eyes as they adjusted to the dim light that filtered into the room throu
gh the narrow gap that framed the window curtains. He was physically alone in the empty set of rooms, and he felt emotionally isolated, abandoned in the name of political expediency. Caitlen, the princess who shakily sat upon the throne of the Avonellene Empire, had dispatched him away from her court and herself to placate the powerbrokers who currently supported her right to rule.
Upon receiving her command to leave Vincennes, Alec had transported from the poignant scene in Caitlen’s palatial suite to his apartment, where he found relief in his isolation. He sat and pondered his decision to leave her. He had left because he was a foreigner in the Avonellene Empire; and to his infinite sadness, he had discovered that he had become a foreigner in all parts of the world, except his memory, a place he couldn’t call home. His memory was the only place he didn’t feel like an outsider; but he couldn’t live there – he had to live in the world.
He had no homeland to go to – the Dominion and Michian were worlds in which he had no friends, no role to play. He believed himself called to this land of Avonellene only for the purpose of helping Caitlen regain her throne, so that she could fight the use of slavery. In the course of his struggle to achieve that, he had come to believe that he was also in Vincennes for the sake of her heart and his, and that happiness in a relationship with the Princess was something he could achieve for each of them.
Now though, he had come to feel despair over the contradiction of his love for the girl and her society’s disdain for him; the ever-present conflict had led him to flee from her. Rising, knowing that he had made the decision and would have to stand by it, Alec left his apartment and walked through town to one of the banks in the eastern part of the city. The Conglomerate, led by businessmen, had left the banks unmolested even while it had supported the failed coup attempt against Caitlen, and Alec was able to withdraw a small amount of money from the untroubled bank, a stake of cash he would possibly need to use in Krimshelm.
Caitlen, please write a letter of introduction for me to take to Krimshelm, he transmitted a message to the princess. That was something else he would need, he realized. It would ease his entrée into the palace at Krimshelm. He left the bank and walked to the former headquarters of the Conglomerate forces, now a ruin within the city after a ferocious battle had been fought there, led by Alec on behalf of Caitlen’s forces. The building was a series of jagged wall sections that surrounded charred timbers and fallen bricks. Alec had fought hard here, and expended his energies here to disrupt the Conglomerate occupants. And even after the success of his efforts, he was still seen as an outsider, and an unworthy ally.
Alec stood and looked at the destroyed building as the sun set. His urban conflict had been finished in that structure; there were no more military battles to be fought within Vincennes, and it was time to move on, he realized. He walked a meandering path back through the oversized metropolis, lost in thought, and long after dark he reached the vicinity of Caitlen’s temporary headquarters. He strode into the commissary for a quick meal, then left the building to go to a dark alley, and translocated to Caitlen’s suite.
The Princess was waiting for him. “Alec, you don’t really have to go,” she said hesitantly, as she came to give him a long hug, her arms grasping him with fearful desperation.
“Caitlen, you wouldn’t have asked for this if you didn’t think you needed it. Don’t worry; I understand that you are different from your countrymen because you did trust me as a foreigner,” he told her.
“Do you have a letter of introduction I can give to the Earl?” he asked as he gently pulled out of her grasp. She nodded yes. “That’s taken care of; now go lie down on the bed, and let me see if we can bring you closer to becoming an ingenaire.”
He felt distant from her; he realized it was a distance he was putting between them as a way to protect his own heart. And he knew that after this he would leave her for a long time, and that the next time they met, her life would have changed as she consolidated the powers of her stronger army and her growing empire.
It felt improper to delve so intimately into her soul when he felt so detached from her, but they had run out of time to patiently allow her powers to grow to maturity at a slower, natural pace. He knelt on the floor beside the bed and raised his arms to place both his hands on her head, then let his Spiritual powers open the channel between them. His spirit circled and examined her, seeing the clear signs of Spiritual abilities that he had laid down in his prior sessions with her. They were with her still, though not incorporated within her.
He moved about, establishing more of the sense of the Spiritual, opening up his own memories to show her the faith he felt, the miracles he had witnessed. He observed and felt her belief in him, and her potential for Spiritual power increased. But it remained on the surface, not suffused within her being, and he only saw one direct way to incorporate the faith within her in this session. Plunging into her with blunt force, he drove his memories deep within Caitlen’s soul, and showed her his experience in John Mark’s cave, when he had tried to focus his healing power upon the mystically dead-and-simultaneously-alive body of Christ. Alec pulled the girl with him down the remembered plunge towards Hell, then let her feel the love he felt when Jesus rescued him. The dramatically turned journey showed her the right and the wrong of faith, and let her experience its power through his first hand memories.
He saw himself staring down at the open wound on his hand, then saw the wound become a channel for his Spiritual powers, and finally saw the wound become a weapon that he used to destroy the three demons that circled Jeswyne and him in Oyster Bay. Alec began to relive the loss of Bethany, and the night he let his Spiritual powers float among the stars in a calming recollection of every moment of affection he had shared with the Water ingenaire, both pain and peace overwhelming his calm as he relived the trauma and serenity again.
Suddenly Alec was aware that Caitlen was crying. He pulled his memories away from the core of Caitlen’s spirit, and then pulled himself free from her, no longer imposing his own life experiences into her, and he ceased his self-reflection so that he could examine the spirit of the woman. The essence of faith was deep within her now, but not integrated, and she was crying, suffering from the exposure to so many of the passages in his life where he had witnessed or relied on his Spiritual energy.
Caitlen’s eyes were clenched tight, and Alec used a fingertip to wipe away the moisture that brimmed within each eye. He knew he had imposed a great deal of his own faith on her in an ungentle, fast, and direct manner. “I’m sorry Caitlen, I know it hurts,” he said gently. “The next step will be yours. You have the elements of my faith and Spiritual powers within you. If you can accept them and incorporate them into the fabric of your own being, if you can accept that these things are real, and live your life trusting in such powers, I believe that with my blood you will be able utilize the energy.
“It will be up to you,” he told her. “I’ll be listening, and I’ll come back if I ever hear you call me back. Regardless of that, I’ll let you know if we achieve success in Krimshelm.”
Her eyes opened and bored into his, searchingly, as if trying to find something more about him, something that reflected the knowledge she had just gained. Her hand crept up behind his neck, then pulled him towards her so that their foreheads touched. “I wish you weren’t going, and that this had never been necessary,” she told him. She started to say something more then paused. “Will I see you in the morning?”
“No,” Alec replied as he pulled away and rose. He strolled over to the table where an elegant scroll of paper laid waiting for him. “I’m not going to wait until tomorrow. I’ll leave tonight. I hope that I will hear good things about your future,” he told her, unable to any longer withstand the contradiction between his desire to stay with her versus the political need for him to depart.
“Alec! Wait!” she sat up and cried, but he disappeared from the room, leaving her alone with her sadness.
Chapter 2 – Return to Krimshelm
Al
ec arrived in Krimshelm after three steps of translocation, as he returned to the city when his Avonellene adventures had begun. He stood on the docks, which were empty late at night. The sounds of the water brought back memories of his time aboard the Ingrid, and he deeply breathed the salt water atmosphere. There were likely to be inns near the waterfront where he could stay the night; he only needed to pick the one that was least likely to have a rowdy sailor and longshoreman clientele. He left the docks and walked past the buildings that housed the repair shops and the warehouses and the daytime markets. Two blocks inland he found the type of establishments he sought, and he picked the one whose public room seemed least boisterous.
After he paid for his hotel room he sat away from the fireplace, listening to the conversations at the tables nearby, trying to gage the sentiments of the city he was in. Amidst the everyday talk of boats and families and neighborhood issues, he heard fears of the anticipated arrival of the Conglomerate, whose forces had arrived by ship and landed in nearby harbor. The earl was recently dead in a freak accident, and his untested, pregnant wife was viewed as unlikely to have the ability to lead the city to withstand Conglomerate demands.
Upstairs in his room, Alec pondered the unpromising state of affairs he found. In addition to the problem of fighting against the Conglomerate, he now painfully knew that his accent and foreign origins would limit his effectiveness, in addition to the problems he knew a female head of state would have in controlling and leading the city. The woman must face sleepless nights, alone and carrying the child of a dead husband during a time of stress, and Alec’s heart went out in sympathy to her.
Ajacii and Demons: The Ingenairii Series Page 1
