Visions of Power

by Jeffrey Quyle

  In the following days Lewis regained much of his strength, even joining the daylong sword tournament a couple of days later; Alec began to think it would soon be time to okay Lewis’s return to duty with the full camp, while he pondered what his own next step would be. In the afternoon, following two rounds of fencing in which Alec felt proud of his efforts, Alec went down to the river with Hills to repeat their fishing and herb gathering activities.

  As they returned to the camp, they came over the rise of the river valley and observed that a large group of new men were at their camp. “Let’s wait here for a bit and see what goes on,” Alec said. He felt a strong, inexplicable sense of danger coming from the group, a sense of personal danger.

  After an hour, the group departed from the camp. Before they left sight though, they went to the monolith fountain. Three of the group went over to the fountain, and examined it. They stepped back from it, and stood looking at it and conversing for a long time. Eventually they rejoined their companions and headed eastwards along the road.

  After they were completely out of sight Alec and Hills returned to their camp. Captain Lewis met them with a grim face. “Come into my tent to talk about these visitors Alec,” he said as he stepped through the flap.

  “Hills and I saw them, and stayed away until they were gone,” Alec began.

  “You made the right decision. That was one hundred soldiers from the regular army, plus twenty-five more prisoners, accompanying new supplies to the expedition main camp. They also had three ingenairii who attached themselves to the group when they came up river. Ingenairii at Oyster Bay, not Merle, sent them and I don’t think there is unity of opinion between Merle and these others.”

  “I didn’t like the ingenairii’s questions or attitude. They’re looking for you, and not with friendly intentions. We told them you had gone up river, so you’ve got a little breathing space,” Lewis warned him.

  “I suggest we send you downriver back to Goldenfields as fast as possible to keep you safe until we better understand what they want.”

  “The ingenairii with Major Abraham are not happy that I was able to use their ingenaire powers to heal you, and to create the fountain we’ve been using,” Alec said. “I agree that Merle and these ingenairii are not on the same page. I think Merle will be friendly to me, although I don’t know if even he will accept the fact that I handled ingenaire power – I think I’ve violated one of their very basic rules.”

  “The army folks accepted the fact that the camp had moved and were ready to move on to the next location. But the three ingenairii were less gracious about it. I asked how Merle was, as a way to break the tension, and they responded that they hadn’t spoken to him, didn’t know, and implied they didn’t care,” Lewis expanded his explanation. “They insisted that you must be close by, that they could detect some evidence of ingenaire power, but they kept looking in the direction of the fountain down there,” he nodded towards the monolith.

  “We were over along the crest there,” Alec indicated, pointing in a different direction, “So they didn’t get that right.”

  “I’m going to send you and Lampe to the city as soon as you can get your packs ready. You need to move fast and keep moving along the road. It’ll take that crew the rest of the day to get to the new camp, and then the ingenairii will be on their way back here after that, so you’ve got a good ten or twelve hour lead on them,” Lewis instructed.

  “You’ll be traveling on the road, so you’ll move fast, but so will they. Hills, saddle up two of the horses. Lampe, you and the healer are leaving,” Lewis said loudly.

  “Healer, you’re my ticket to the big city!” Lampe said with mock pleasure. He had not liked the attitude of the ingenairii who had visited the camp.

  “I’ll be ready in ten minutes,” Alec told Lampe. He turned back to Captain Lewis, “You’re healing faster than I expected. I think it’s fine for you to rejoin the main camp now if you move at a slow pace.”

  “I imagine we shouldn’t be here when the ingenairii come storming back looking for you,” Lewis agreed. “We’ll break camp and move up road some, then maybe go down into the river bed to stay out of sight until the ingenairii are past us, so that we can move on to camp,” Lewis plotted out his strategy. “When we re-join the camp I’ll express regret to Major Abraham that there was some mix-up in communications.”

  Alec went into his tent and hurriedly stuffed several items into his pack, and slung it over his shoulder. He gathered up an armload of things to give to the captain and went back out. “Here, take this and this tonight, and this each evening until it’s gone, and drink plenty of that water from the fountain, and bathe your head in it daily for three more nights.

  Don’t press yourself too hard,” he concluded his instructions.

  “Thank you for saving my life, Alec,” Lewis said as he shook his hand. “I know I wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t come out here. Give Inga my love. Watch yourself. The Guard will always be your friends, Alec. Count on that,” he concluded, and then Alec and Lampe were on their horses and headed off.

  Chapter 30 – A Chase Through the Wilderness

  Lampe and Alec rode their horses at a steady, brisk pace that afternoon and into the evening. When the night’s middle stars started to rise over the eastern horizon the travelers slowed to a gentle walk but kept their animals moving. Lampe tied Alec to his saddle, placed a long lead on his horse, and they continued to walk through the night until it was Alec’s turn to lead his sleeping companion. By dawn they had covered a great deal of distance, but their horses were spent. They decided that even though there were farms and homesteads visible, they were better off not seeking shelter among people, so they found a grove of trees in the river bottom, and picketed their animals there. Lampe took first watch up on the crest of the river’s bank, watching the road, while Alec slept.

  When Alec woke just before mid-day he ate the rations they had stuffed in their packs and then went to relieve Lampe, who went below to move the horses to a new patch of grass and then to sleep himself. Alec watched the road. He saw two local people who hauled wagon loads of grain towards the markets. The road would surely change the way people out here lived in years to come, he realized. More and more settlers would come out, crowding the isolation these people had, and then the nobles would establish their domain on large estates, bringing order and control that would probably cause these pioneers to move further away.

  Alec thought about those changes to come. How would he change in that time, he wondered? Would he have any of the things he dreamed about – power, recognition, friends, a relationship with a girl? Would he survive his brush with the ingenairii, who he had wanted to join, but now feared?

  He saw nothing else of note when Lampe came back up to him in late-afternoon, leading the horses. They climbed aboard their mounts and took to the road again, starting as they had yesterday at a brisk pace that they kept up for several hours. They were traveling light and the horses weren’t carrying heavy loads of tents and supplies, so Lampe reasoned they could repeat yesterday’s course of riding throughout the night.

  As the next morning began to dawn, they looked for a place to camp again. They saw another riverside grove of trees and went down to unsaddle the horses. A small pasture between the trees and the sandy riverbank provided a good place to hobble the mounts. Alec walked them down to the waterside to let them drink, while Lampe went up to establish a place to keep an eye on the road.

  The young healer tried to figure out what course to take when he got back to Goldenfields. He wanted to go to Merle, in the hopes that the ingenairii who were hunting him would be less influential than the Duke’s ingenaire, and could be turned away. Plus, Merle might be able to place him in contact with Aristotle, who he felt sure would help him win his freedom from potential ingenaire imprisonment. Alternately, he could go to the church or the Duke for help, but he couldn’t judge how effective they would be in keeping him safe if the ingenairii were determined to have him. Going
to Ari seemed most appealing, because it would not only give him access to a voice in the ingenaire community, but it would also give him a chance to see if he could go to Oyster Bay and find Natalie. If she was still there, he reminded himself, worried that he was waiting too long to pursue the girl who meant so much to him.

  Why were the ingenairii chasing him? Alec couldn’t remember the explosive use of power that had created the healing fountain in the monolith. He did remember how he had used the tiny bits of power that had flowed through his hand into Captain Lewis’s brain when he healed his injury. There had been pleasure in achieving such a remarkable result, but the exercise of the magical power itself had not been important to him. He wondered if the ingenairii would accept that he was not trying to enter their domain, but had just reached out to them as useful tools for helping to heal someone.

  He heard a loud shout and came out of his woolgathering to grab his sword out of the saddle and charge up the bank, leaving the horses behind. He ran through the trees that blocked his view of the top of the river bluffs until he was almost out of the trees. There at the top of the bluff were three men lying on the ground, including Lampe, who was motionless. Another man stood among them, apparently one of the ingenairii in pursuit of Lampe and Alec. Alec remained in the shadows of the trees uncertain what to do. Lampe and the ingenairii had come in contact somehow, although Alec couldn’t imagine how the ingenairii could have seen the crafty Lampe, who had taken his evasive skills very seriously to this point in the journey. With two ingenairii down on the ground, the Guardsman had made a good accounting for himself against the three, but had fallen eventually.

  Alec knew he could stay in the trees to see if the ingenaire would come down to him, and perhaps then the healer could ambush the ingenaire. He could try to run up to the battle site and take the ingenaire on, but he was not sure how good his sword-handling skills were, and he did not know whether the ingenaire would simply attack him with magical powers before he got close. There was also the possibility that Lampe was only injured, not dead, and Alec might be able to save him if he could get to him fast enough.

  For Alec there was no obvious choice. He felt frozen with indecision, until he saw the ingenaire stare at the grove he was in, then turn to look back up at the road. He could see that the ingenaire was carrying a sword, so apparently magic wasn’t the weapon he needed to worry about.

  He decided to go out in the open, to meet the ingenaire in sword battle and pray that he could win, and hopefully find Lampe still alive, only injured. Holding his sword in his right hand to try to surprise his opponent if swordplay came, Alec began running up the hill to get as close to the ingenaire as possible before he was detected.

  In fact, Alec was more than half way there when the ingenaire turned again and saw him. Alec saw the man jump, startled by his approach, and bring his sword up to fight. “Who are you, and why have you attacked my friend?” Alec asked as he stepped past the first body on the ground.

  “I’ve coming looking for a person who has practiced ingenaire powers without training or approval from the Ingenairii Council,” the middle-aged man replied, looking coolly at Alec. “I suspect you are the young healer I was sent to talk to.

  “Your friend attacked my companions and I when we left the road to follow someone, evidently you, who we saw silhouetted in the dawn light. We fought back but he caught us unaware and was a very good swordsman. I am sorry he wouldn’t even listen to us before swinging his sword.

  “Are you Alec the healer?” the ingenaire asked, still using the same calm, conversational tone of voice.

  “I am. What is your name, and why have you been hunting for me?” Alec replied, feeling anger build up inside him as he stood there in the increasing light of the morning.

  “I am Belman, a fire ingenaire from the Ingenairii Council at Oyster Bay. We were told that you were using ingenaire’s powers without being a trained ingenaire, something that is strictly prohibited. We have come to offer you a chance to share our training and learn how to control your powers so that you and the world around you will be safer.”

  “I am not an ingenaire, and I did not create any ingenairii powers. I just helped direct where the power from your ingenairii went while in the process of healing an injured man. I haven’t learned how to create ingenaire’s power, and I don’t want to. I just want to heal people and help them have the best health they can. I want to be a regular person doing my own job without interference or threats from ingenairii,” Alec said, feeling even more heated as he thought about the threat of capture and confinement by the ingenairii.

  “You may climb on your horse and leave now,” he finished.

  “I’ll leave soon, but you’ll come with me,” Belman said with a look of disdain. “Let’s go get your horse and be on our way. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

  “You shall go alone. I’m not an ingenaire and I’m not going with you,” Alec said, gesturing with his sword in his right hand.

  “Your friend has created a difficult situation for me, Alec,” Belman said. “These other ingenairii with me would have made it much easier to take you against your will without injuring you. Without them, and without your cooperation, I’ll have to make you take this journey in a less comfortable fashion.

  “Or, as an alternative, I could kill you here and now, which would be easier for me and no loss to the Council,” and with that Belman pointed his finger at Alec’s sword and sent a thread of fire at the blade.

  The instant the beam hit the blade the sword turned blistering hot. Alec dropped it and scrambled away. He stopped next to where the body of Lampe lay on the ground. The Guardsman’s sword lay next to him, but Alec didn’t pick it up yet, waiting to see what Belman would do next.

  The ingenaire moved towards him, and Alec decided to pick the blade up, now in his left hand because of the burns he had suffered on his right palm and fingers.

  “Still game to fight, are you?” Belman said appreciatively. “Well, I’ll give you a minute of fighting just to be fair.” He advanced and swung his sword at Alec.

  Alec concentrated all his attention on the opponent trying to kill him. He parried the lunge by the ingenaire, which was respectable, but not up to the level of ability he had trained against. He responded quickly and the ingenaire took a step back. There was surprise on Belman’s face; he clearly had not expected such potentially lethal left-handed movement by Alec.

  Alec remembered Inga’s comment that he was a defensive swordsman, not one who was inclined to attack. He knew that in this instance he had to do what he was not comfortable doing; he had to attack as aggressively as possible. If he failed to do so he would be dead or a captive, and he preferred death to captivity. If the ingenaire kept to his promise of a minute, Alec had to go on the offensive immediately and achieve victory without hesitation.

  He closed in and attacked, Belman clumsily adjusting to the attack from Alec’s left side. The clumsiness left an opening, and Alec lunged for it.

  Belman’s sword moved too slowly to completely protect the ingenaire, but did lessen the impact of the stab, and Alec’s sword dealt a cut across the ribs that began to bleed.

  The ingenaire looked in astonishment at Alec, then at his wound, and then at Alec again. He dropped his sword and reached for Alec’s arm. “I hadn’t expected it to come to this, but you leave me no choice,” he explained as he sent a stream of power into Alec’s arm.

  Without even thinking about what to do, Alec captured the lethal power that was meant to kill him and channeled it, just as he had learned to do when healing Lewis’s brain injury. He captured it and held it, feeling it accumulate in him.

  The satisfied look on Belman’s face grew incredulous, then panicked, then fearful. “How can you do this? You should be dead!” he screamed. “No one can withstand ingenaire’s power like that. What are you doing?”

  Alec felt the way the power was entering him. He reached into Belman and drew more of the power out, sapping his reservoirs
. Then he pushed the ingenaire away, so that he fell to the ground, clutching his injured ribs. “What did you intend to do with me?” Alec asked him with deceptive calmness. “Who sent you to capture me?”

  Belman, in shock from the turn of events, stifled a groan. “I was sent by Fallion. He and several others agreed that you needed to be brought in for questioning regarding how you handled power from others, as, as you’ve just done to me.”

  Alec stood for a minute, filled with anger and driven by the emotions of the moment. He felt the fire magic streaming within him, seeking to escape. He concentrated on the energy, felt it, tried to understand it, felt its urge for escape into the world. It suddenly eluded him, and he felt an involuntarily release in a tremendous blast that emanated in all directions.

  Alec was blinded by the light that seemed to flare out of his own body. He shut his eyes and held them tightly closed. When he opened them, the ground around him was smoking, and small fires danced in some places. The bodies of Belman and the nearby dead combatants were reduced to ashes.

  Alec looked at the destruction he had released and fell to his knees. He began to cry, his hands beating the earth in sorrow and anger and confusion. He hadn’t wanted anything like this to happen. None of this death made any sense; he was just an orphan carnival worker who had fallen into circumstances he didn’t expect, and now life was handing him difficult, painful events and choices.

  After a long time he stopped crying and looked around at the darkened ground that spread out for yards in all directions. He stood up and walked back down the hill, still carrying the sword that he had taken from Lampe’s dead body. When he got to the horses, still standing between the river and the grove, he walked into the river water and scrubbed himself, wishing that he could cleanse away the memories of the morning.

  Although the horses had been ridden all night and needed rest, Alec was unwilling to remain in the vicinity of his battle. He saddled one steed, secured the supplies on the other, and walked them back up the hillside and onto the road, skirting around the blackened area that spooked the horses. Once on the road, Alec climbed on the saddled one and let the horses walk along the road, encountering no traffic. After an hour, Alec felt he had left the tragic spot far enough behind, and he began looking for a new place to rest. He found a swampy delta at the mouth of a small stream that joined the river, and he led his steeds into the area. When he located a grassy spot he hobbled the horses, and then laid himself down and fell asleep, emotionally and physically exhausted.