The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (30 page)

Chapter 26

The next morning, Alec told Kecil about healing the young boy, and the opportunity to start healing others in the city.

“That will be wonderful!” she enthused.  “Healing and garden tours with Coeur!  We might just stay here forever!” she laughed.

They went to the market early in the morning and purchased items and goods they thought they would need to attend to the medical needs of the residents they expected to meet in Exbury.  Upon their return to the mansion of Lord Smaille, as they sat down to eat the breakfast prepared by the kitchen staff, a note was delivered for Kecil.

“It’s an invitation from Coeur to go on a garden tour,” she told Alec, with an amused shift of her eyes as she glanced sideways at him.

“We could go try healing in the morning, so that your calendar is clear to go garden-hopping in the afternoon,” Alec suggested.  “I’m sure the staff can provide paper and a pen for you to send a note back to your early morning invitation.”

He asked for writing supplies, then spoke to the staff while Kecil penned her response.

“I helped treat Kerles’s son last night, and we’d like to go treat other ill or injured people in his neighborhood this morning,” Alec began to explain.

“I heard that he left suddenly last night; is his boy okay?” the head matron asked.

“The boy is going to be fine, but he was very ill,” Alec explained.

“Can someone lead us to Kerles’s apartment so that we can start our service there?  I’m not sure I can find the way back on my own; it was dark when he led me there last night,” Alec asked for a guide.

One of the servants agreed, and after Kecil finished her note, the two visitors followed their guide through the city.  The trip to Kerles’s home was relative short, but it left the main street of the city and passed through a more ordinary-appearing district, bereft of the elegant house and plantings that the Old Ones maintained.

“His home’s on the ground floor here,” the servant began.

“I know, on the left,” Alec finished the directions.  “We’ll find our way from here, thank you,” he shook the kind man’s hand, releasing a trace of healing energy.

That morning Alec and Kecil proceeded to use the front stoop of the apartment building as their impromptu healing clinic, providing better health to a number of patients who were summoned by Kerles to be healed of a variety of ailments.

“It’s nearly noon; perhaps we better return so that I can go on the daylight garden tour,” Kecil suggested as the line of patients began to diminish.

We’re finished for the day,” Alec spoke loudly to the crowd.  “But we’ll come back tomorrow,” he promised, as he looked questioningly at Kecil, who nodded her affirmation while the crowd groaned at the loss of the medical care.

“Come to me,” Alec directed Kecil, and when she did, he waved farewell, then hugged her and made the crowd gasp in surprise as he engaged his Traveler energy and transported the pair of them back to the garden behind Lord Smaille’s home.

“That was certainly a quick trip home,” Kecil smiled.  “And it will give the crowd something to talk about.  Do you think they’ll be afraid to see us tomorrow?”

“They’ll just want to be healed all the more, now that they’ve seen such an amazing thing,” Alec answered.  He felt mildly fatigued as a result of the use of his powers throughout the morning followed by the Traveling.

“You run off and enjoy the gardens.  Remember to tell Coeur that your favorite color is green,” he teased her.  She responded by sticking her tongue out, then entered the home and was gone from view.

Alec strolled over to take a seat in a shaded bower and rest, enjoying the quiet solitude of the garden for several minutes, until Lord Smaille left the house and walked over to see him.

“I’m anxious to see my mother,” he began abruptly, as soon as he reached Alec.  “I understand you’ve had some influence on her, and I’m concerned.

“She shouldn’t be shaken out of her respectable and cautious life,” the nobleman lectured Alec.

“I believe she is capable of making her own decisions about how she chooses to live her life,” Alec replied.  “I met your mother a long time ago, and she is a vivacious and lively personality.  If she wants to go about and see the world and laugh once again, I would be the last person in the world to stop her.  It’s in her nature; it’s who she is.”

Smaille’s face grew red.  “I don’t want to see her getting hurt by trying to recapture her lost youth,” he told Alec, “and I don’t like to see some stranger come in to woo her to get access to her fortune.”

Alec began to laugh.

“What do you find so humorous?” Smaille demanded.

“Money is the last thing in the world I need or want.  Your mother may ask me for money if she needs any, but otherwise, that is not a topic we are ever likely to discuss,” Alec said haughtily, tired of the foolish pettiness of the conversation.  He rose to his feet, but as he did, a servant called Lord Smaille to return to the house.

“I’ll see my mother this evening, and we’ll discuss this matter personally,” Smaille asserted, and then he turned and left the garden.

Alec shrugged and watched the man walk away.  After two minutes, he walked into the house himself, and went up to his empty room, where he laid down for a nap, and dozed through the afternoon. 

A murmur of voices from elsewhere in the house roused him from his slumber in the late afternoon, and he went downstairs to find Aja being confronted by the astonished Lord Smaille.

“How can you possibly be my mother?” Smaille was demanding of the youthful appearing Aja.  She stood in the hallway wearing a green gown made of a shimmering material that draped itself elegantly upon her figure, and was cut to display décolletage that made Alec’s heart momentarily flutter.

“I begin to wonder that myself,” Alec said from atop the stairs.  “She is so warm-hearted and full of laughter and kindness.  Would you say those describe your nature, my lord?  It’s hard to find evidence of the relationship between the two of you.”

“Alec!” Aja castigated him as he descended the steps.  “Be nice to my boy.  He’s dealing with a shock to his expectations.

“I imagine it’s hard for him to realize that his stodgy old mother was once a limber young woman,” Aja explained.

“How could you possibly be my mother and look thirty years younger than I do?” Smaille asked.

“Alec used his powers to rejuvenate my body,” Aja answered.

“She looks the way I remember she looked, when she and I traveled together across the land, long, long ago,” Alec added.

“If you can make her look so young, while don’t you make yourself look young, instead of middle-aged?” Smaille asked triumphantly, sure that he had found a flaw in the claims that Aja was his youthful mother.

The taunt was like a challenge that Alec couldn’t resist.  It reminded him too much of the too many times he had been told he was too old to travel with Kecil.

“You mean like this?” Alec asked, as he focused his Healing energy inward, and began to intentionally rejuvenate himself.  His body had mended and tended itself for centuries, causing him to age at a fraction of the rate of an ordinary person, but he’d never tried to deliberately add youth to his own physical status before.

“Great heavens!” Smaille exclaimed loudly.  His face turned pale as he watched Alec’s age appearance creep rapidly in reverse.

“That is what I did for your mother,” Alec said moments later.  “Now do you believe her?”

“Even seeing it with my own eyes, I don’t believe it,” Smaille said in a hushed voice filled with astonishment.

“Alec, you look so sweet!” Aja gushed.  “I believe you look even younger than you did when I first met you.”  She reached over with a twinkle in her eye and gently pinched his cheek.

“Mother!” Smaille spoke in a strangled voice.

“He’s an old friend – he takes no offense, do you, Alec?” Aja asked defensively.

“So, where will we go tonight, Alec?  I look forward to singing some lively songs tonight,” she told him.

“Let’s go over to Woven,” Alec suggested.  “Or we could go to Yangchoo,” he offered.

“Oh, let’s go to Yangchoo!  I’ve never seen the lights there!” Aja grabbed his arm tightly.

“Yangchoo it will be,” Alec agreed.

“You’ll tell Kecil I’ll be back late tonight, won’t you?” Alec asked Smaille as he enveloped the nobleman’s mother in a hug, and then the pair of them disappeared.

When the transition was complete, they stood in an open square that surrounded a set of large statuary figures.

“Where did you come from?” a man asked.  He was holding hands with a woman whose eyes were wide with surprise at the sudden appearance of the two travelers.

“We’re looking for a nice place to eat dinner,” Aja answered.  “Can you recommend a place?”

The travelers followed halting directions and ate a leisurely meal as the sun set.

“That’s a beautiful dress,” Alec commented after a glass of wine.

“I haven’t worn this in fifty years,” Aja told him, smiling at the compliment.  “It’s sat in the back of my closet for the longest time.  Amane used to absolutely adore it.”

“I can see why,” Alec said.

The two of them had a wonderful evening in Yangchoo.  After dinner, Aja gave an impromptu concert for the other diners.   She and Alec left the restaurant laughing after her set of songs, and wandered about, looking at the bedazzling displays of lights in the city, then went to a seedier tavern, where Aja let loose with the bawdier songs she had sung in the distant past, enlivening the audience, who responded with enthusiastic applause time after time.

Alec nearly fought a battle to protect Aja’s honor among the patrons of the tavern, as one drunken man tried to force himself into singing a duet with Aja, an inappropriate song that even Aja declined to join.  Alec nimbly handled a knife in a way that did no harm to the man other than to his ego, as Alec cut his belt and left the man’s pants bunched up around his ankles, surrounded by laughter from the other customers.

They returned to the garden of Smaille’s house in the early hours of the morning, and stood in silence for a moment upon their arrival.  The sudden transition placed a definitive end on the liberating feeling of freedom they both had enjoyed while in Yangchoo.

They looked at one another, and then Alec impulsively leaned down and kissed Aja, who returned the kiss with passion.

“Do you have a room here?” Aja asked carefully, looking up into his eyes for a moment, then looking away.

“I do, but Kecil is likely to be there,” he answered.

“We share a room, but not a bed,” he added hastily.  “Much as you and I have done in our travels,” he explained.

“Would you like to come with me to my home for the night?” she asked.  “Or for the day, perhaps?” she gave a nervous laugh as she motioned to the eastern horizon, where the first traces of sunrise were beginning to emerge.

Alec looked at Aja, and took both of her hands in his.

“I told you that Andi passed away just a few months ago,” he said.  “I’ve not thought about being with another woman until now.  But you know that I’m only passing through here.  Kecil and I will be gone in a few days.  I don’t think it would be fair.”

“Perhaps not fair to you, but it would do no harm to me to spend a loving moment of time with an old friend who means so much to me, and who shares so many important memories with me,” Aja told him.

“Will your carriage driver even be awake to give us a ride to your home?” Alec asked.

“You can’t just fly us there?” Aja asked.

“I cannot go to a place I’ve never been.  I wouldn’t be able to picture where I want to be,” Alec explained.

Aja broke their embrace, then reached down and slipped her elegant shoes off her feet.

“It wouldn’t be such a terribly long walk, not for a pair of youngsters like us,” she grinned, her brilliant green eyes glinting in the fading starlight.

Chapter 27

Alec and Aja spent the next several days together, in Exbury, and they spent several nights together visiting a variety of cities, where Aja performed before numerous crowds, each of them enchanted by her music and stage presence.

And the youthful, ancient pair talked often, reminiscing not only about their past adventure together, but about others in their lives, and the things they had seen through the long years they lived in excess of the lives of the mortals around them.

“I still miss Andi,” Alec told Aja one morning, as they ate breakfast together.  “We rarely spoke with words to one another, because we had grown so close and our souls were integrated.”

“That must have been so special,” Aja murmured sympathetically, letting Alec tell as much as he wanted to disclose.

“What was your life like with Amane?” he asked suddenly, not wanting to talk only about himself.

“He was always devoted; he virtually worshipped me until the day he passed,” Aja said carefully.

“But?” Alec probed carefully.

Before Aja could answer, a servant entered the sunny breakfast nook.  “A Miss Kecil is here to see you.  She is a friend of Lord Alec, I understand?” the young servant asked.

The two senior adults looked at one another.

“Why would your young friend have come all the way out here to see you so early in the morning?” Aja asked curiously.

Alec stood up.  “I’ll go see her,” he answered the servant, feeling a slight twinge of guilt over the paucity of time he had spent with his traveling companion over the previous fortnight.

“Alec!” Kecil spoke with a short, staccato burst of her voice.  “I’m so glad to see you,” she said, and gave him a tight hug.

“I’m ready to go,” she said as the serving girl left the two of them alone.  “I’m ready to go directly back to Chanradala.  I’m ready to be a lacerta again.

“Can we go today?” she asked.

Alec studied her intently, and he let his Spiritual energy sense her confusion, aggravation, and even a slight sense of fear.

“What’s bothering you, my friend?” he reached out and took her hand in his.  “What can I do to help?”

“It’s Coeur,” Kecil immediately blurted out.

“What has he done to you?” Alec’s voice grew stern.

Kecil was silent, and her eyes widened as she stared at Alec without speaking.

“He kissed me,” she answered.

“Did he hurt you?” Alec asked.

“No,” Kecil was silent for a moment again, then gave a sob.  “I liked it.  I kissed him back.

“I don’t want to be a human anymore,” she began to cry.  “I’ve been wearing this skin and flesh for too long.  I’m becoming comfortable. I’m going to become a human forever if I don’t quit now.  I want to go back and see the prince.  I want to be the person I always was.”

Alec sighed.  “We’ll leave today,” he assured her.  “I want to go tell Aja, and then we can go back to Lord Smaille’s home and tell them.”

He felt a conflicted sense of both melancholy and correctness.  He hadn’t anticipated the need for a sudden departure, and he had grown more comfortable and domestically-settled with Aja in Exbury than he had felt since Andi had departed from his life.  Leaving it all on such short notice would create an emptiness in his life, and he worried about what it would do to Aja, how she would feel about him deserting her so unexpectedly.

But he also knew that he wasn’t going to settle in Exbury as Aja’s mate.  As close as the two of them felt towards each other, and as devoted as he was to her well-being, he knew that they were not going to be a couple.  They each were destined to follow their own paths, wherever they might lead.  They might be paths that would cross one another again in the future, but they were not going to be the same path.

“Is everything alright with your ward?” Aja asked when he returned to the breakfast room’s sunshine.

“She’s grown homesick,” Alec replied.  “I believe it’s time for me to take her home.”

“And so you’re saying goodbye?  Will you be returning here, or are we ready to part ways again?” Aja asked, looking at him earnestly.

“I may not quite be ready to part ways, but,” she paused, “we’re parting while still friends.”

“Yes, we are,” Alec agreed with a sympathetic smile.   “I’ll go pack my things and be back to say farewell.”

Minutes later he and Kecil were standing in the breakfast nook with Aja, as each of them gave her a hug, and then Alec engaged his powers, and they were relocated to the garden in Lord Smaille’s home.

They went up to their room and collected Kecil’s belongings, then went down to the parlor, and asked the servants to bring both Lord Smaille and Coeur to see them.

“I’ll speak for myself,” Kecil told Alec, as she sat with her travel-stained small bundle of belongings beside her.  “But I’m ready to be who I truly am.”

Alec nodded his head and waited for the two lords of the home to arrive.

“What has brought us all together this morning?” Lord Smaille asked as he entered the room, while Coeur smiled at Kecil and sat in the chair closest to hers.

“My lord, you and your son have been the most hospitable hosts we could have ever asked for,” Alec began.  “You have been generous and gracious, and made our visit to your beautiful city a wonderful experience,” he said.

“But the time has come for us to leave, so that we can return to our own lands,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.

“You can’t mean to leave!” Coeur immediately protested, standing up.

He reached down and took Kecil’s hand in his. “Why are you trying to make her leave me?” he asked as he looked at Alec.  “We’re just getting acquainted.”

“It was my idea, Coeur dear,” Kecil said, standing up next to him, still holding his hand.

“I have had a wonderful time with you, much better than I ever would have expected or dreamed,” she spoke directly to the youthful Old One.  “You have come to be more than a friend and companion in these recent days.

“But I know I’m not the right person for you,” she said.

“How can you know that?” Coeur interrupted.  “We seem to be so compatible!”

“There are things about me that you don’t know, things you can’t know.  I have to be true to my nature,” Kecil gently disentangled her hand from his, then she sidestepped over to Alec’s side.

“Go on Alec,” she said to him, while still looking at Coeur, “show them who I truly am.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Kecil affirmed.

Alec reached over and placed his arm around her shoulders, then let his Healing energy begin to restore Kecil to her lacerta nature.  Within twenty seconds the transformation was complete, and she stood within Alec’s grasp, her skin dark and thick and scaly, her body shape altered, as the two Old Ones stared in fascinated horror.

“What have you done to her?” the words came out in a choking gasp from Coeur.

“This is how I found her,” Alec answered, tightening his grip to press the woman’s body more tightly against his.  “I changed her to a human form so that we could travel through many lands undisturbed.  But now it is time for her to return to her homeland.”

“We certainly did not anticipate this,” Smaille spoke up for the first time.  “But I hope that she will remember our kindness to a stranger, and perhaps she will be able to pay the same favor to some other stranger at some other time.”

“Thank you for your graciousness,” Alec told him.  “But now, it is time for us to be on our way.”  He wrapped his other arm around his friend.  “We wish you and everyone in Exbury the very best of luck.  Please tell your mother that I will miss her greatly,” he added.

“Good bye, Coeur!” Kecil’s thin voice called out, just before the two visitors disappeared from the room, leaving their startled hosts to stare at each other for several long, silent seconds.