The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (14 page)

Chapter 9

“How long will we do this?” Kecil asked two nights after the police had observed them.

“Well, we’re just taking our time so that we don’t get back to Chanradala too early.  You want your year to pass, don’t you?” Alec asked.

“Yes, that’s true,” Kecil agreed.  “But I was thinking: it’s fascinating to watch you do all this healing.  Could you take me to this cave, and let me have this healing power too?  Then I could help you more, and we could heal more people.  Plus, I’d be able to heal people on my own, even after we parted ways, wouldn’t I?” she asked.

Alec studied her closely, then engaged his Spiritual energy and tried to sense her feeling and motives.

She was interested, and she was sincere in her interest in healing.  But something in the concept of taking a lacerta, a person who had never heard of John Mark or Christ, made him hesitate to agree to take Kecil to the Cave.

“Let me think about it tonight,” he equivocated, and he fell asleep as his mind considered what was the right thing to do.

"I could take you to the cave and you'd have a chance to become a Healer too," Alec told Kecil when they awoke the next morning.   He’d come to the conclusion that his faith in his religion could, and should, be shared with a lacerta.  Souls were souls, regardless of the skin that covered their bodies.

Her round lacerta eyes widened, then she sprung up into the air, rising from a prone position in a way Alec hadn't considered possible, and landed on her feet.  She ran across the room and flung herself atop him with an impact that made him grunt.

"Really, truly?" she squealed, then rubbed her flattened nose against his affectionately.  "You are my best friend!"

"I'll need to change you to a human, and we'll have to tell the sisters we're going away for a few days," he explained.

"I'm ready," Kecil enthusiastically replied. She rolled off from the top of him, then stood waiting impatiently.

Alec rose and used his power to quickly transfigure the girl back to the human shape that she wore, and he led the way downstairs.

"We're going to go get breakfast food, then we'll be leaving for a few days," he informed the cooks in the kitchen.

"We'll miss you!" the chief cook replied.  She did genuinely enjoy their presence, Alec knew.  She had helped them prepare several of the healing formulas, and was becoming proficient at preparing them on her own.

"We'll be back, and in the meantime, you know enough to help half the people on your own with the basic remedies you can concoct!" Alec laughed, though his words were true.

He and Kecil shopped at the market and bought eggs and ham for the sisters to enjoy.  Once they delivered the food to the kitchen, Alec led Kecil out the door and around to the alley, out of sight.

"Come hug me tight," he directed.

"This is really for going to this cave, not a way to enjoy the pleasures of this human body?” she asked suspiciously, as she nonetheless obediently pressed herself against him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Well,” he began to drawl an answer, while he simultaneously engaged his Traveler powers, and they ceased to exist in Avonellene, leaving the alleyway empty, as they entered the nothingness of space and experience that existed in the Traveler dimension.

Seconds later they re-emerged at Black Crag, on the western edge of the Empire, where the vast mountain wilderness stretched for hundreds of miles to the west. They were in a courtyard in the military quarter of the city, and a squad of astonished guards stared in surprise at the sudden appearance of the pair.

“You didn’t warn me that was going to happen!” Kecil accused.  “I wasn’t ready.”

“In some ways, you never get ready for that,” Alec replied as he took a deep breath.  “Here we go again.”

He triggered his powers once again, as the guards began to walk towards his location.  With his departure, he did not see the shock that registered on their faces, nor hear the shouts they released.

Instead, he experienced the gray nothingness of Traveling, then returned to the world in a stable yard in Boundary Lake.

“That was a long jump,” he informed Kecil.  “Let’s rest for a moment.”

“How far did we go?” Kecil asked.

Alec mumbled out loud, as he considered the question.  “Black Crag to the Twenty Cities, across the Twenty Cities, up through the mountains.  I’d say over a thousand miles.”

“Where are we?” Kecil asked in astonishment.

“We’re in Boundary Lake,” he replied, as he recollected the time he’d been in the city and had rescued Andi and several hostage girls from captivity by the renegade ingenairii, then raised a fountain of healing water to help the city fight a plague, and finally raised a vast granite barrier that had cut off a lacerta invasion of the city.

And after all that had happened in that long-ago time, he’d continued traveling westward on foot, traveling through the lacerta nation in pursuit of Andi, who’d been captured by their army and transferred to Chanradala, their capital city, for display and execution.  Except for Alec’s timely arrival, himself morphed into a lacerta to facilitate his passage through the land.

And after that, he and Andi had regained the deep integration of love and life and memories and emotions that had lasted for decades, right up until her passing just a month in the past.

“Boundary Lake!” Kecil exclaimed, unaware of the meditative reverie that Alec had descended into.  “That’s where I was going to wait out my year of exile after running from the prince!  That’s where my friend Straystonate was killed and I was taken prisoner.  That was months ago!  We traveled all this way in five minutes?

“Alec?  Alec?” she repeated to draw his attention as he was lost in his memories.

“What, yes,” he answered.  “We’ve only got two more jumps to make,” he informed her.  “Are you ready?”

“Let’s go,” she answered, and he began the process again, taking them to another alley way, one in the outer district of Chanradala.

“Look at them!” Kecil cried, staring down at the opening of the alley, where lacerta were passing by as they strode towards their appointments and friends and businesses and lovers.  “We’re in my land!”

“Not for long,” Alec answered.  “Take one last look,” he instructed, then sent them towards their last destination on the trip.

They landed in a deserted forest dell, tree-covered walls on three sides, and a narrow, dark passage dimly evident at the far end.

“Where are we now?” Kecil asked.

Alec sighed deeply.  “We are in the Pale Mountains, the wilderness that lies between your nation and mine.”  He thought about the change in his life that had come about because he had been a flunky in Richard’s carnival, when Richard had decided to leave the security of the Dominion behind in hopes of garnering big profits in the frontier settlements of the Pale Mountains.  Richard and most of the carnival had perished, while Alec had miraculously been directed to visit the cave that was waiting just on the other side of the dark crevasse.

“Let’s go this way,” he directed.  It was very early in the morning, a result of their westward travel faster than the time of day progressed across the face of the planet, and the dell was dim.  The crevasse was darkness itself, a place that would have been frightening to enter if Alec hadn’t known that it was safe, and that John Mark’s cave waited at the other end.  He stretched his arm out and offered his hand to Kecil as they approached the entrance to the passage, and she accepted the offer as they left the dell and entered the narrow confines.

“This is the magic cave?” she questioned doubtfully as they walked between the dank, stony walls.

“No, this is just the way to get to the cave,” Alec assured her, and minutes later they emerged on the ledge that protruded from the cliff that was just steps away from the entrance to the cave.  They climbed up, and Alec felt his heart start to beat faster as he beheld the round door that was the entrance to the sacred spot.

“We can’t take any weapons inside,” he told Kecil as he carefully placed his knife and his sword on the ground, then approached the door.

“You open it,” he directed, as Kecil came to stand beside him, and he watched as it easily swung open in response to her efforts.

“This looks like a magic cave,” she said in wonder as she stared into the darkness.

“The magic is just beginning!” Alec laughed.  “You go in first, and I’ll follow you,” he gestured for her to enter, and immediately watched in amazement as the power of the cave manifested itself.

Kecil stepped in to the cave, and she immediately stepped under the shower of water that fell from the walls of the cave.  It was a sheet of water, one that drenched every inch of anyone who entered the cavern, and it was a cleansing tool, a means the cave used to prepare entrants for the holiness of the site they stepped into.

Alec remembered how the water had stripped away his fears and pretensions and left him with eyes and heart full of wonder and even innocence as he stepped into the cave.  It was a wonderful experience all by itself, nothing to be minimized, even though it was only a prelude to the vastly greater, life-changing knowledge that the top of the cave would impart.

But at the moment of her entrance into the cave, as Kecil slowly glided through the cleaning sheet of water, it stripped away not only her spiritual and mental failings and falsities, but it even altered her physical appearance, sloughing off her human appearance that Alec had provided.  Kecil reverted to her true form, as a lacerta, and stood in the antechamber, the opening gallery of the cave, from which the incredible view of the endless staircase arose.

“What has happened?  This is wonderful!” Kecil crowed softly, as Alec also passed through the water and joined her in the circular room where the falling water collected and drained away.

“This is only the beginning,” Alec told her.  “Only the beginning,” he repeated softly.

“I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life,” Kecil said.  “This makes everything so clear.”

“Do you see those stairs?” Alec pointed into the dim interior, where the steps rose along the side of the vast cavern, and disappeared in the dark distance overhead.

“Those are incredible!” Kecil exclaimed.  She looked up at Alec.  “Do you mean we have to climb those?”

“We do,” he agreed.  “That’s where the greater magic occurs.”

Without pausing, Kecil immediately stepped forward and began to climb the stairs, her wet, narrow, four-toed footprints on the dry steps evidence of the beginning of her ascent.

Alec followed behind, and watched with a sympathetic grin as the girl began to tread the steps enthusiastically, then slowed imperceptibly after several minutes, and slowly lost momentum as they rose higher and higher past the walls that were covered with the vast library of written formulae and remedies that imprinted themselves upon the minds of the visitors to John Mark’s cave.

Kecil stopped to rest after a long slog, and Alec stopped beside her.  “Here, let me help,” he offered, then reached down and brushed his fingertips across her legs to release a flow of healing energy into the weary muscles.  He felt an ease in the power he wielded, the reflection of his presence in the very cave where he had received his powers, a sink of healing energy and sacred power.

“That is so good!  I’ll be able to do that?” Kecil asked.

“With practice and faith, you will,” Alec answered.  He hoped the girl would be able to receive the full benefit of the visit to the cave, and he hoped she would gain the faith in Christ from experiencing the visit to John Mark.  The faith would be key to the success of Kecil’s potential healing talent.

They resumed their climb up the steps, and stopped one more time for rest, then climbed at last to the top of the stairs and reached the small landing that was the last step Kecil would take before entering the magical chamber where the energy of the cave would descend upon her.

“Now what?” Kecil asked, turning to look at Alec anxiously.

“Open the door, step in, and don’t be surprised,” Alec advised.

Kecil raised her arms and impulsively hugged Alec tightly, then turned to the door and pressed the lever down to open it.  The door swung wide, and as Kecil stepped in, Alec saw the familiar flash of light that denoted the exposure of the power.  He stepped into the room behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder to steady and reassure her during the moments when he knew she would experience temporary blindness.

“Everything is okay,” he said comfortingly.  He felt his own excitement grow, at the thought that he’d see his patron saint again within just a few moments, and he’d bask in the warm love of the holy presence.  John Mark would drive away the lingering seeds of sorrow that still dwelt in his heart as he continued to carry the sense of loss from Andi’s death.

Knowing that Kecil’s body would be completing the adjustment to the exposure to power that it had received, Alec removed his hand and stepped to the side, then watched as Kecil stepped forward to the window that provided the view of the river valley in the Pale Mountains.  It was a view that was forever memorable – the first vision of the world with the Healing vision implemented, a vision of the health of the world itself, a view that mesmerized and astonished.