Visions of Power

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “For you he’d come this instant. I am expecting mother to stop in this evening, so I will pass your request along through her,” Annie replied. “Would you like to join us for dinner?”

  “Thank you Annalea, but not tonight. I’ve been away and just want to eat at home tonight, but please tell your mother again how much I appreciate all her guidance,” Alec replied, sincerely feeling affection for both Annalea and her mother, Helen. “Thanks Annie. You’re looking great,” he said as he left the shop, feeling satisfied to have taken the first steps on this unexpected mission.

  Alec wasn’t sure what to think about the notion of growing rich. He didn’t know anything about business to know how profits were made or lost, but he knew that the water from his spring would be popular, as he thought about all the patients who came into his shop for simple remedies for the minor aches they suffered.

  As he walked through the city he thought of Natalie, still able to remember the details of her face, the rhythm of her walk, the phrases in her speech. He knew that he had already waited too long to go in search of her; he felt it in his heart, and he searched for an answer to whether it was simply circumstances and luck that kept him from pursuing the girl, or whether he feared being rejected as a suitor. Worst of all, he wondered again if her time away from him had diminished her affection for him, as he sensed it had reduced her allure for him. He realized that he was much changed from the carnival stablehand she had known, perhaps changed in ways she would not like.

  By late afternoon Alec had mused and walked back to his shop. He told Leah that the Duke had made him an honorary captain in the Guard, and that they had talked about a business partnership with Natha to sell the spring water from the fountain up the river. He still did not tell her about how complicated his relationships with the world of the ingenairii had become. He felt reluctant to drag those details into the simpler life he wanted to establish in their comfortable healer shop.

  “Merle has been in communications with Ari,” he later told her. “Ari is alive and well and is an important ingenaire in the councils of their society. Merle thinks he may be able to put an end to their unhappiness with me because I used their powers.” He hoped that a simple peace would be established and no further talk about the matter would have to happen. ‘Merle did ask me to come back in two days to have tests on whether I have the power to become an ingenaire.”

  “Alec, do you want to become a ingenaire?” Leah asked him.

  “No, or maybe yes. I don’t really, although Merle did say there used to be healer ingenairii. I didn’t ask him what exactly they did, but the idea of being able to magically heal people is something that sounds, I’m not sure if it’s intriguing or fascinating or desirable, but it does make me think about it. It sounds like what I’m doing now anyway, to be truthful!” He knew that he had failed to fully explain the conflicting emotions he felt about possibly becoming an ingenaire.

  “That reminds me,” he changed subjects, “I’m supposed to help train the medics for the Guard as part of my duties as captain. I don’t need to go there every day, but I do want to make them better prepared to treat their fellow Guardsmen when they need it.”

  He thought for a moment about the supplies he might want to equip the medics with. “Leah, I may need to go out hunting for medical supplies for the Guard. How are our supplies here? I haven’t thought about it in a long time. Have you been dispensing cures on a pretty regular basis?”

  Together they walked down to the storage room to look through the items and materials they had. Leah talked about the number of this and that cure or powder or lotion she was likely to sell in any particular week, and they calculated which ones were going to run short when, as well as discussing alternatives that could be given with different ingredients for some complaints.

  The two partners returned upstairs, and Alec was struck by how slowly Leah now moved as her pregnancy grew. He looked at her with his health vision, judging where she might have aches he could treat. He decided that a back massage would help as much as anything, and offered her one that she gratefully accepted. He also was disquieted by some potential problems that her delivery might entail, but he knew of nothing he could do to correct them. He remained silent about that nagging doubt.

  The next day Alec awoke early and went to the palace to resume his training with Inga. He took along his new sword, eager to test it to see if the custom design felt as comfortable as he hoped. Inga looked at his sword. “Really, for training like this you shouldn’t use such a fine weapon. Why nick the blade unnecessarily? But since it’s your first time to test it, I think we’ll watch how you swing it. I can’t talk you out of using it anyway, can I?” she asked as Alec grinned.

  They donned their protective gear, and began the usual progression of exercises. Alec felt the sword respond to the flick of his wrist with ease, and it seemed to turn and parry faster than any other blade he’d used. As the forms and exercises grew more complex, he grew more confident in the rightness of the weapon for him. He concentrated all his attention on what he was doing with the blade, and lost touch with everything else in the room around him but himself and his blade, and Inga and her blade. The metal in his hand seemed to focus him on its actions and reactions.

  Abruptly, Inga called a stop. “Alec, you’re doing very well this morning. You could pass for a new member of the Guard. I think part of it may be your new blade, part of it is the training you had up the river, but part of it is within you as well, and the way you’re concentrating. Let’s try two out of three and call it a morning. I may ask other members of the Duke’s Bodyguard to start practicing with you as well so that they can learn to feel comfortable against a left-handed sword, and so that you grow used to seeing different styles of work.”

  When they finished Inga told Alec to clean and sharpen his blade, and not to bring it more than once a fortnight for practice. They said farewell and went their ways, Alec returning to his shop.

  Shortly after he returned, a carriage arrived at their shop, and Natha entered their waiting room. “Alec, it’s good to see you again. It’s some time since we got together; Helen sends her love by the way. I understand from Annie that you wanted to talk to me about business?” he said with a raised eyebrow.

  Alec took him to a private room, then excused himself and went to pour a small cup of his healing fountain water for Natha, and brought it back to him. “I’ve gone up river to treat Captain Lewis of the Guard these past few days,” he explained. “It was why I wasn’t able to see your daughter-in-law about her pregnancy.

  “While I was up there I worked with some ingenairii to use their magic to help heal Lewis, and when that was done, there was extra magic left over, which I really can’t explain easily, but there was. That extra power created a new spring, and the water from the spring has healing powers that are very comforting. To make a long story short, here’s a cup of it, that I think you should try.”

  Natha looked at the cup of water. “You’re telling me that this is a magic elixir that comes from a spring?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose that’s a way to put it. I started using the water to help treat Lewis’s injury, and the men in the army forces there use it to treat small hurts like tooth aches, twisted ankles, and the like,” Alec agreed. “The duke has asked if you would like to have an exclusive right to sell this water throughout the kingdom, in a partnership with himself and me.”

  Natha picked up the cup, looking at the water closely, sniffing it, and then finally tasted it. “It refreshes one, doesn’t it?” he commented. He took another sip, his businessman’s mind twisting the idea around. “It seems hard to imagine that anyone would pay money just to buy water to drink,” he commented. “There’s water at every well for free.”

  “But you’re saying this is more than water to drink, that this is a remedy for any little ailment or ache or complaint. I know I hear people talk about this or that little problem every day. There would be a market for it, especially if it works. You’r
e sure it works right?”

  “I used it and I believe it does work,” Alec replied.

  “Tell the duke to send me a proposed contract,” Natha said, having made a decision. “Give me an idea of how to go fetch a batch of this water so that I can see how well it sells. I’ll have Tarkas send a couple of wagon teams up the road to draw a few barrels that we can ship around to test, and we’ll go from there,” Natha rose to go. “Alec, I look forward to working with you,” he looked at the empty water mug. “I think it will succeed. You’re giving business a bad name you know?” he added. “You didn’t haggle or bargain or try to get the best advantage possible – you were supposed to negotiate for three or four weeks! We’ll have to train you better after you finish learning all your other roles!”

  After Natha left the shop Alec helped Leah treat the patients, and then went to the market to see what medical supplies he could find. When he returned that afternoon, he told Leah that he expected to go browsing in the woods for supplies later in the week to fill the empty pockets in his supply bag.

  On the following day he left in the morning to go to fencing practice and then to see Merle for his test of ingenaire ability. Using a regular practice blade, and unable to overcome the distraction of talking to the ingenaire, Alec did not perform as well as the day before, which he and Inga both noticed.

  “I’m sorry to be distracted; I’m going to be tested for ingenaire powers,” he confessed to Inga as they finished.

  She scrutinized him with expressionless eyes. “Alec, you are the greatest healer in the land. You are becoming a good swordsman, and I’ll admit you have the potential to become a very good one. You are high in the favor of the Duke. Besides all that you’re still quite young, and you’re good-looking as well. With all that going for you, you don’t need to mess up your life by becoming an ingenaire,” she lectured. “Drop this idea. Stay here with us, learn our ways and live the Guard life.”

  “Being an ingenaire will set you apart from everyone else. No one is friends with an ingenaire except other ingenairii. You’ll be treated with respect, but not trusted,” she earnestly told him.

  “The only way I can get them to stop chasing after me is to pass their own test and become one of them,” he explained. “Merle tells me the chances of them continuing to chase me will diminish if I can say that I am an ingenaire, and that being an ingenaire is how I handled their powers when I healed Lewis.”

  Inga’s eyes softened. “I will never forget that you healed Lewis, and I will always be your friend. I know you went there and got into all this trouble because I asked, and I am so thankful. But I still wish you would not step onto this path. You will be seduced into becoming one of them and nothing will ever be exactly the same again. That’s my advice as a friend, but I understand you have to do what you believe is right.” She finished cleaning and racking her weapons, turned and looked at him over her shoulder, then left him alone in the room as he finished putting his blade away.

  Troubled, Alec found his way to the ingenaire’s section of the palace, and knocked on the door of the outermost room. A moment later a young man only slightly older in appearance than Alec himself, someone he’d never seen around the palace before, opened the door. “My name is Alec, and I am here to see Merle the ingenaire,” he announced.

  “Has my master asked you to come visit?” the youth asked politely.

  “Yes, he did, two days ago, when he invited me here to see him,” Alec replied, feeling so nervous now that he answered with more information than he knew he needed to.

  “Please wait here in this room. I apologize for the activity, but there are lessons for the students going on,” the slender boy replied, and let him into the room.

  While Alec stood near the door and waited he observed several youths in the room. Almost all were older than him, and about half appeared to be studying texts and objects alone, while the rest were gathered in a small group where the two oldest appeared to be instructing the younger ones. He didn’t recognize any of them from around the palace, and reflected on Inga’s inference that the ingenairii were not friends with anyone but other ingenairii.

  A few minutes later Merle appeared, receiving a chorus of greetings from the students as he entered the room. “Thank you for coming Alec. You’ve had a chance to see our classes of aspiring young ingenairii,” Merle said as he led him back to the chamber with the window under water. “Usually we have a few more here, but as you know I’ve sent three to the river road expedition, and we’ve just sent a couple from here to Oyster Bay so that they can complete their training there.”

  “Does every court have such a school for ingenairii?” Alec asked, unaware that so many ingenairii might be in training at any place in the Dominion.

  “No, this is the only one besides Oyster Bay. I want to help select and shape the next generation of ingenairii, so I go out of my way to foster the right sort of people to serve. The council conservatives are not happy that I’ve developed this arrangement, so they sent Benjamin to keep an eye on me, but as you know, I managed to assign him elsewhere for a while. Given the size and power of Goldenfields, and the support of our influential Duke though, they cannot stop me from continuing.”

  “Now, Alec,” Merle changed subjects as they took seats in his chamber. “I want to try one simple test on you, and then depending on that we may need more, but it really won’t take very long – an hour at most. Relax and rest and let me prepare the items we need to use.”

  “Come over here with me,” the ingenaire told the healer a few minutes later, where he stood next to an enormously large glass globe, at least three feet in diameter. “Look into the globe, place your hand on it, and let your mind go as blank as you can, then think about ingenairii when you feel relaxed. Let me know when you’re thinking about the power.”

  “What do you want me to think about ingenairii?” Alec asked for clarification.

  “Whatever you perceive to be our power or purpose, and however you interpret the power,” Merle replied.

  Alec looked at the globe, which seemed crystal clear in its outer regions, but cloudy in the center. Merle’s evasive answer slightly irritated him, and he tried to relax his mind, letting it wander over mundane topics like finding medical supplies and treating simple maladies for patients. At last he felt as relaxed as he could. “I’m going to think about ingenaire abilities now,” he announced.

  As Merle moved closer to him Alec stared into that cloudy center of the globe. He realized that the white mistiness in the center was not simply the still glass in the center, but that it was moving like a fog creeping across the ground from a pond in autumn. He watched the fog, mesmerized by the patterns of advancing and receding that developed, like waves washing up on shore as the tide came in.

  All at once Alec realized that he had seen something in the fog, but hadn’t paid attention to it. He focused harder on the center of the fog, ignoring its patterns to try to recognize what sat in the center. Suddenly the fog seemed to be sucked into the center, which grew brighter while the outsides of the globe dimmed, focusing his attention on the object in the center.

  “Let me know when you start to see a moving cloud in the glass,” Merle gently spoke up.

  “I already see some fog, but it is disappearing, and something else is developing,” Alec replied absently, trying to discern what he saw.

  The dark shadow in the center devolved into three parts, two smaller objects on either side of a larger one in the center. Alec felt a tugging inside his mind, as if some part of him were being pulled into the crystal ball.

  The middle spot became a caduceus, two serpents twined around a winged staff, outlined in a thin blue halo. Meanwhile, the object on the right became a sword, and stayed fixed in that form, turning ever so slightly to reveal all sides, glinting with reflected light. Alec recognized that it was the very sword he’d been given by the Duke, his officer’s blade in the Guard. On the left the object suddenly snapped into shape, drawing Alec’s breath i
n a sharp gasp as it drew his attention. It was his savior being crucified on a cross, under a darkened sky.

  “Why did you do that? Have you seen something?” Merle asked intensely.

  “I’m watching three images,” Alec told him.

  “If they are clearly defined, and if you have them fixed in your mind, so that you can describe them to me, then you can step away from the globe,” the ingenaire gently said to him.

  Alec stood a minute longer, looking at the crucifixion, agonizing in the pain he witnessed. He lifted his hand from the glass and forced his face up, away from the ball, and as he did so, a fourth image began to develop above the central vision. He tried to look at it, but all the sights in the crystal were swept up by the suddenly re-appearing fog, and then all was gone.

  The two sat down in chairs. “Tell me everything you saw, and how long the sights were visible,” Merle instructed.

  “When I first looked in the globe I could tell it was cloudy in the center, and then as I tried to relax I realized it was actually moving fog. I realized there was something inside the fog; it was starting to define itself and the rest of the globe darkened, just about when you spoke to me the first time.”

  “The shape in the middle split into three parts. The center one was the largest, and it was a wand, with wings at the top, and there were two serpents that wrapped around it from bottom to top. That one had a slight glow around it, like a blue halo. On the right hand side I saw the sword that the Duke presented to me, and on the left I saw Jesus being crucified. Then as I was finishing a fourth image started to appear on the top, but I never saw what it was,” he concluded.

  Merle sat quietly for a moment with his eyes closed, a look of intent concentration evident. “Were all the images clear? Did they stay clear constantly? Did they ever change places?” he asked a series of questions slowly, waiting for each answer that Alec dutifully gave.

  “Alec, we are done testing you today. This first test alone shows that you have the potential to become an ingenaire. We would have used other, subtler tests only if you had seen a clear glass globe. Once you saw the cloud, you were confirmed, and when you saw those images, we learned what type of ingenaire you will be, if you want to be. In fact, I think we learned that you already are developing the abilities of an ingenaire.”