Visions of Power

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Alec walked over to Lewis’s tent, a trip that took longer than usual because he spent so much time dodging men on errands and loads of goods being sent to their designated locations for travel. When he arrived at his destination he checked the captain and dosed him again so that he would remain asleep. He then left the tent and carefully picked his way to Antonio’s tent, where he found the priest busily packing and preparing his own belongings for the journey.

  “Healer, I’m glad to see you this morning,” Antonio cheerfully said when Alec entered the tent. He showed Alec a canvas sack that was sitting on the ground. “Here. I owe you this and an apology. I was going to bring this to you if you hadn’t come here first. It contains what I had collected from your list of medicine items you wanted. We didn’t get nearly as much as I hoped, and because we started moving, I didn’t send anyone to trade items either.

  “It’s a gloomy day to travel today. The men will be out of sorts when they get all wet and then can’t get into tents at the new site to change or get out of the weather right away. Still, we’ve done this before and everyone knows how to do it.”

  “Good luck in treating Captain Lewis, although I don’t think luck is anything you rely on for healing. Are you feeling well yourself?” he finished as he rolled up his blankets.

  “I may rest this morning but it will be to stay out of the way as much as anything. I feel fine, really. I may go scour the countryside on my own to look for some of the supplies we don’t have yet; otherwise I won’t have a great deal to do for the next couple of days while Captain Lewis sleeps and heals, which is all he needs to do,” Alec replied.

  “Can you tell me how you think the ingenairii feel about me? Are they upset about the way I used their power?” he carefully asked.

  The priest spoke without hesitation. “I was going to say something to you about that. You obviously must suspect something or you wouldn’t have asked. Benjamin, the stone ingenaire, is adamantly opposed to you for using their power. Beware of him. Ryan, the earth ingenaire, doesn’t seem concerned, and probably thinks using the power to heal is positive, but he is a weak personality and won’t speak up. Leslie may not approve of you, but she is fair-minded. I think she will come to believe you’ve done good as she weighs what has happened.

  “Fortunately, they’ve already left camp and are traveling ahead to do some of their work on portions of the road that are prepared. Their servants are doing their packing for them now.”

  Alec felt relief at the thought that he wouldn’t have to face any ingenairii for the next few days. He was beginning to feel homesick for his shop in Goldenfields, and for seeing Leah, but he knew that his return to the city where he could be easily found would place him in greater danger from capture by the ingenairii. Even more, he felt a renewed sense of guilt and dissatisfaction over his lack of initiative to find his friends, Ari and Natalie. His mind lingered over the memory of Natalie for several moments.

  “Thank you for all that you did to help,” Alec told Antonio as he finally lifted the bag of supplies and left the tent. “Good luck with your journey.”

  Antonio finished his own preparations, and went outside to signal the crew that his tent and items could be struck and taken. In a short time they were gone, and Antonio pulled his cloak tighter around him to keep out the rain. He walked to the eastern side of the camp and climbed aboard a wagon to ride to the next location.

  Looking ahead he saw the typically straight line of wagons and troops marching in an atypical loop to the left of the road, slowing as they left the pavement, at a location where progress seemed to briefly slow.

  “Why does everyone slow down up there? Is there a problem in the road?” he asked the wagon driver a soldier he hadn’t met before.

  “It’s the fortune stone,” the driver answered cheerfully, referring to the column of stone Alec had created. “Everyone is touching it for good luck as they go by. The ingenairii tried to make the men stop doing it, but as soon as they were gone the soldiers were right back at it. Its water is charmed too. Folks have filled their skins and canteens from the fountain there. They say it cures tooth aches and canker sores, and some folks have poured it over sores they have.”

  Antonio laughed quietly. He could imagine the anger Benjamin felt at seeing the army’s reaction to Alec’s legacy. He imagined Alec would be amused as well.

  Back in his own tent Alec slept through the morning. When he woke at midday only three tents remained at the debris-littered site of the camp – Capt. Lewis’s, one next to it that had been erected by the remaining guards, and his own, standing a short distance away, now that all the intervening tents were gone. The rain was falling in a very light mist, and brighter skies in the west promised an end to the rain soon.

  During his time in Goldenfields, Alec’s form had filled out from the abundant food that was available in the city. Now, after days of traveling, healing and injury with very little food, he felt hungry, a good sign of his recovering health. He ate the remainder of the crackers in his tent, then walked across the empty space to Lewis’s tent. Inside the patient slept while a guard who stood watch looked up in surprise when Alec entered.

  “Doctor, I’d forgotten you were with us,” the guard said with a smile. “But I wouldn’t be happier to have anyone else stay behind with us.”

  “Has the captain slept all morning?” Alec asked.

  “He hasn’t so much as snored, he’s slept so well,” the guard responded.

  “My name’s Alec. What’s yours?” Alec asked.

  “I’m Guardsman Hills. Speaking for all of us, thank you for saving the captain. He’s too good a man to be killed by the likes of the sneaks and thieves we’ve had to deal with on this assignment.”

  “Thank you Hills. I think the captain’s a good man too. Do you have anything I could eat for lunch?” Alec responded.

  “Go over to our tent and the lads will have a bite of something for you, I’m sure,” Hills replied.

  When Alec lifted the tent flap he found the rain had ended. Upon entry into the guards’ tent Alec found five sets of eyes looking at him warily until the men realized who he was, and they all stood promptly.

  “Welcome, sir,” was the greeting from their leader, who identified himself as Sergeant Mury. “We’re glad to see you up and about. Are you feeling alright?”

  “Honestly, I feel fine myself, after a couple of days in bed,” Alec told them. “About the only thing I need is a bite of lunch, if you could happen to spare something for me.”

  Some bread and fruit was provided. “If the rain wasn’t falling, we’d have a fire to cook something up for you. Here, have some water to wash down your bite, and tell us what plans you have for us here.”

  Alec took a drink of the water, and felt a refreshing wash of comfort in his mouth and down his gullet. “That’s unusually good water,” he commented. “Thank you.”

  He saw the men grin at each other. “You’ll have to thank yourself for it sir,” one Guard commented.

  Alec looked puzzled. He wasn’t even aware of the edifice he had created when discharging the ingenaire power he had perilously held.

  “It’s from the fountain you raised, you know, when you made that column of light two days ago,” the guard explained.

  “I don’t remember anything about it,” Alec admitted.

  All the guardsmen starting talking at once, describing where they’d been, what they’d seen, and what folks had said when Alec lit up the camp with his display.

  Moments later, Alec and the guardsmen were walking across the camp to see the stone that rose beside the road. “I’ll give the ingenairii credit, here it’s rained all day and this road isn’t a muddy bog; it’s nicely shed the water so you could travel all day in bad weather,” one of them commented.

  When they reached the stone, Alec stood for a long time and silently looked at the monolith. After a moment’s respectful wait, the guards walked over to the stone and began to drink from it and bathe in its water, which had
cut a channel in the ground leading to the river.

  Alec could feel something from the stone, almost as if he could feel his own spirit mixed within the stone. He had no recollection of having created it, and barely remembered Antonio leading him to this site to expunge the dangerous powers he had absorbed. But he still clearly remembered his dreamlike experience inside the Cave while his spirit was trapped, and he stood there savoring that memory.

  “The water heals people and makes them feel better,” one of the Guards told him as Alec walked over to the stone and placed the palm of him hand against it. A tone seemed to ring from the stone up his arm into his body.

  As they were returning to the tent, Alec made a request. “While I was in the city, Captain Lewis’s wife Inga was giving me lessons in swordsmanship. I’d like to resume practicing while I’m here, especially since there are so many Guardsmen to train with. Are any of you interested in working with me?”

  They all agreed they’d enjoy working out their weapons with Alec, since they all practiced most days anyway, and the general consensus was that Guard Lampe was the best swordsman of their group.

  Alec returned to his tent and unwrapped the sword Inga had provided for his training on the trip to heal her husband. He carried it to the Guard tent, where he found Lampe exercising and rehearsing his forms. They marked out a square for their exercise yard, donned the protective equipment the Guardsmen had brought, and started working their way up through the rudimentary movements.

  “I’m dealing with a lefthander?” Lampe said. “I think we only have four or five southpaws in the whole Guard, so I don’t get much chance to practice against your kind of sword play.”

  “How long have you trained?” Lampe asked after ten minutes of silent work.

  “Less than a month,” Alec replied, concentrating on his work and completely ignoring the other guards who watched them.

  “You’re pretty sound fundamentally, just not showing instant reflex reactions, but you’re doing very well for so little training. Who’s your teacher?” he asked, and when Alec answered he heard one of the other guards laugh.

  “Captain Lewis’s wife, Inga, has been my teacher. She’s pretty rigorous,” Alec said.

  Lampe stepped back and lowered his sword. “I should have known that. She’ll teach you well; the Duke only selects the best for his bodyguard.”

  They continued for almost two hours of work, and when they stepped out of the yard two others stepped in, eager for something to do on the otherwise boring duty they had at the now empty camp site.

  Alec thanked Lampe for the work. “I’d like to go down to the river to look for some plants and items I need to make more medicines. Do you have a fishing line I could set while I’m down there?”

  Lampe called to his sergeant, who came over. “I’m going to send Hills with you just for peace of mind. We do have a couple of fishing lines, and you can take some dried beef to use for bait. Up river there’s a snag with several large trees out in the water. That’s where you can usually find some fish that’ll bite.”

  Alec and Hills set off a few minutes later, Alec keeping his eyes on the ground while Hills talked continually. Alec wondered if Sergeant Mury had sent Hills to protect Alec or just to get him out of camp so that the others could have some peace. Alec listened with interest to Hills’s meandering comments about the Guard and their assignment so far. As his constantly-talking companion endlessly discussed aspects of life in the Guard, Alec learned that about two-fifths of the total Guard membership was female, although the squad assigned to this expedition was considerably male-heavy.

  As they crested the banks and descended towards the river bottom, Alec began to find some of the things he was looking for, as well as a couple of items he hadn’t intended to pluck. Half an hour after leaving camp they arrived at the waterside tree snag, where Alec left Hills to do the fishing while he continued up the river. He found some of the tubers that he and Leah had eaten with numbing regularity on their river journey, and reluctantly decided he would add some to the fish stew he intended to make.

  He turned around when he noticed the sun starting to set, and found Hills still happily fishing, a good catch already strung up. Together they walked back to camp. Alec offered to fix the fish stew and the others accepted the offer. Sergeant Mury offered to have Alec’s tent moved closer to their own site while the stew was being prepared, and all hands turned to their duties.

  Alec sent two guards to fill a kettle with spring water from his stone fountain, while another gathered driftwood to build up a fire. Alec prepared the fish, tubers, some wild celery and herbs he had found, and set it all to boiling in the fountain water that was brought back.

  “You’ll be nominated to be chef as well as healer for the Duke’s Guard if you prepare meals like this for simple guards like us everyday,” one guard said at sunset as they all enjoyed mugs of the savory stew. Alec himself was surprised at how good it was, and suspected the spring water was responsible for the richness of the soup.

  Alec skimmed some of the broth off the top of the kettle and took it with him to see Captain Lewis. The captain was more awake that Alec had seen him since the surgery. Alec let him sit up, and they talked while Alec spooned the aromatic soup into the captain.

  “So there’s only the eight of us here, and the camp has moved to its next site?” Lewis asked. Alec nodded. “Bring in Sergeant Mury so I can talk to him about setting the guard rotation. And thank you for the soup; it was absolutely delicious,” Lewis said.

  “First I’m going to give you a dose, then I’ll send in Mury,” Alec said firmly, and he did as promised. Mury was able to talk to the captain for about ten minutes before the patient fell soundly asleep.

  Alec himself also slept peacefully that night. He considered briefly, but decided not to offer to join the guard duty rotation, so that his sleep was uninterrupted.

  Chapter 29 – The Camp by the River

  Alec awoke refreshed and happy in the shrunken camp that watched the convalescing Captain Lewis. He smelled toast and bacon cooking over the campfire, and rolled out of bed to enjoy them, along with fresh fruit. Afterwards, he walked down to the tall stone fountain, where he felt refreshed by bathing in the waters, then lugged a large pail back to camp, a portion of which he used to mix the next dose for Captain Lewis.

  “Did I imagine that I heard swordplay yesterday?” the captain asked Alec when the healer fed him breakfast.

  Alec told him that he had asked to resume his sword-training and had practiced with Lampe during the afternoon.

  “You’ll learn well from Lampe, though not as well as you’d learn from my wife, of course,” Lewis said with a smile.

  “I’d like to try something to heal you,” Alec told him. “We have a local spring whose water seems especially healthy, and I’d like to bathe your head in some of it just to see how your healing progresses. I’ve already left the pail by the fire so that it won’t be cold.”

  Alec brought the pail back and had Lewis sit up, with his head held low between his legs so that Alec could pour the water over the back of his head.

  “There may really be something to this. I feel a tingling in my scalp,” Lewis said as Alec finished pouring the water on.

  The healer intensely examined his patient’s head with his health vision, ignoring the protests about wanting to cease the uncomfortable posture of bending over. Alec believed he saw some healing occurring in the brain spots where he had expected memory loss to occur.

  “Okay, sit up now,” Alec told Lewis. “It’s time to take your morning medicine. I think that after today we’ll stop these doses and let you remain awake during the day. Your healing is coming along very well.”

  During the morning two of the guards went out with bows and arrows to capture some small game for their meals while Lampe and Alec banged away at each other in sword practice. Alec observed some similarities between Lampe’s style and Inga’s. Both were aggressive fighters who went on the offensive for the
most part. Lampe though relied on brute strength and ability to punish, while Alec remembered that Inga was a more cunning opponent who appeared to offer openings that turned out to be traps.

  After two hours with Lampe, another guard stepped in and gave Alec a further workout until nearly lunchtime. When the hunting party returned with several rabbits and other small game, they enjoyed roast meat for lunch, and Alec enjoyed the end to his punishing workout; he felt stiff in a good way from taking on such an extended practice regime.

  After soaking his arm in the spring water, Alec spent the afternoon experimenting by soaking several herbs in his spring water (he privately considered it his now) and then carefully saved both the water and the herbs. Afterwards, he volunteered to help feed, brush, and tend the horses that remained with their camp.

  That night the group sat around the fire and ate a casual meal. When Alec, feeling guilty, offered to take a turn at serving watch duty Sergeant Mury laughed and told him that the guardsmen had enough people to do the job; Alec didn’t offer again. Instead, he went to feed and dose Captain Lewis, who made him promise that he’d be allowed to remain awake the next day.

  When Alec awoke for the third day of their small camp, he went first to Lewis’s tent, where he examined the patient and decided to start his morning with a bit of cheer. “Come on out and join us by the fire for a bite of breakfast, and then we’ll put on some swordsmanship for you,” Alec said, and received a broad smile for his efforts. When Lewis stepped out of the tent, holding on to his healer’s arm, he received a warm cheer from the watching Guard, and squeezed Alec’s elbow to show his appreciation.

  “Is that the sun? I’d forgotten how bright it can be?” Lewis said, then added, “I understand there’s been some sword practice, and I wanted to watch.”

  After that, the guardsmen took turns battling each other, with Alec taking his turn in the tournament as well. Lewis complimented him on his efforts, and commented on the tricks he saw that displayed Inga’s influence.