The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (5 page)

“Please inform all the houses that I will be gone on a journey for several months, and in my absence I designate Nicholas of the Stone House to serve as the Convener of the Ingenairii Council,” he dictated the very brief statement.  Nicolas was a seasoned veteran of ingenaire society.  He’d worn his marks for over forty years.  And in addition, Alec fancied the notion of relying on the experiences and opinions of a man who not only had seen much in the world, but one whose power involved working with tangible materials, like stone, as opposed to the powers that Alec possessed to manipulate energies, such as with fighting and traveling and healing; there was the potential for a better-grounded, pragmatic perspective.  The change in perspective might lead to some useful changes in activity under Nicholas, Alec suspected.

“That’s all I have.  I’ll go tell a few Houses myself,” he told the scribe, and then he walked out the door and around the Hill to visit the Healing House.  After the Healers, he went to the Water House, always a sentimental favorite because of Bethany’s affiliation with the house, so many centuries ago.  He could think about it again, and go there again, and not have to worry about arousing the jealousy of Andi any longer.

He thought of Andi as he walked.  He wouldn’t go to the Spiritual House, he decided.  They would sense his melancholy and fill his morning with platitudes that wouldn’t do him any good.

And so he spent his morning, shocking several ingenairii as he called upon their houses and shocking them even more as he delivered his news of departure and temporary delegation of duties.  Nicolas was most shocked of all, and tried to beg his way out of the assignment before Alec firmly cut him off.

When that scene ended, Alec was ready to go and he did.  From the front hall of the Stone House, he launched himself into Bondell, and then into the mountains, and finally into the imperial palace in Michian.

Alec only nominally remained the sovereign over Michian.  He’d placed his oldest son’s oldest daughter on the throne many decades earlier, and weaned himself away from governance of the nation in just a few succeeding years, with few appearances or visits.  But he felt he needed to make a visit to share the same information there that he had shared in the Dominion.  And he’d stay away from the Spiritual ingenairii who were permanently assigned to their House’s outpost in Michian, and charged with vigilantly maintaining a watch for any revival of sorcery or the calling forth of any demons – actions that were permanently and completely banned.

By mid-day Alec’s visit with the leaders of Michian was complete, and he began the long, long journey back to the east coast of Avonellene territory, so that he could reunite with Kale, and start the journey home, the old-fashioned way – on foot.  He retransferred his way across the continent, making each stop briefly until he was back in the village of Riberte, on the east coast of the great land mass, reunited with Kale and ready to head west.

Chapter 4

“This is the morning Kale,” Alec announced as he threw back his covers and slipped his feet into his boots.  The pair had shared a room in the Riberte inn, a room with two small beds.

“We’ll walk to Raysing,” Alec explained as they carried their small bundles of belongings down the stairs.  “It’s a large city just a couple of days away.  When we’re there we can purchase proper supplies for our journey – sturdy bags and waterproofed covers.  Then we’ll walk along the coast and up into the Carmen River valley, all the way to Witten.

“From there we’ll cheat and take a river cruiser up to Vincennes, and we can walk the rest of the way from there up into the mountains and all the way home,” he finished.

“And we’ll really walk all the way across the lacerta lands?” Kale asked.  He’d never seen a lacerta from any distance closer than fifty yards, when a small band of their traders came to the Healing Spring to acquire barrels of water to ship to the rough-skinned people’s nation.  They were a mysterious and legendary race in his mind.

“Completely across,” Alec agreed.

They walked along the busy shoreline road for two days, protected for most of the first day by a shield of air that Alec provided above their heads to keep the heavy, drizzling rain off them while they journeyed.  Kale asked a constant stream of questions of Alec as they walked, as the young man seized the opportunity to learn as much as possible about Alec’s life while he traveled on such an intimate journey.

“Raysing is a major port, and we fought over it during the Conglomerate’s rebellion against Caitlen,” Alec explained.  “It provides shipping for a lot of farm products in this region.”

They reached the city in the late afternoon of their second day from Riberte, and Alec got a room at an inn for them.

“We’ll buy supplies in the morning and then head to Witten,” Alec told Kale.  “Down by the harbor we’ll be able to find the supplies we need at the pawn shops.”

They ate supper at a nearby tavern that night, and listened to the music while they drank mugs of ale afterwards.

“I don’t like the sound of their instruments,” Kale said.  “And I don’t understand their words anyway.”

They left the tavern and slept that night at their inn, then went to the used good shops near the docks, where Alec bargained for the traveling goods they needed, and they left the city under overcast skies.

Andi would have enjoyed the trip, Alec reflected.  She would have enjoyed hearing the language, and mingling among the rowdy disorder of the harbor front.  Andi would have appreciated walking through the countryside, seeing the crops grow the foods that were so common upon the plates of the residents of the Avonellene lands.  He should have decided to take the trip twenty years earlier, when she could have come along with him herself, in person, instead of coming along in his memory only.  He felt a touch of melancholy as he walked beside Kale and observed the sights around them on their journey.

At the end of the day, after they had walked and talked over several miles, Kale spoke up when they reached the front door of the small city inn that Alec had decided would be their resting place for the evening.

“My lord, I made a mistake,” the cook told Alec.

Alec’s Spiritual senses picked up a sense of embarrassment, and of regret.

“It was you!” Alec blurted out.  “You’re the one who’s been feeling melancholy this afternoon!” he exclaimed.  “I was thinking of Andi, and I thought it was me, but it wasn’t.

“You don’t want to be on this journey after all, do you?” he asked Kale.

“No my lord,” Kale said in a low voice.  “I don’t understand the people’s talk, and we’re walking in places that all look the same to me, and I miss Kora.”

“Do you want me to take you back to Goldenfields?” Alec asked, knowing that was what he was about to do.  “Here,” he didn’t wait for the younger man to reply.  He reached out and grabbed him, then the two of them disappeared from the front step of the inn to the astonishment of the handful of people who were passing the location at that moment.

They arrived in Black Crag, and Kora took a deep breath.  “I’m so sorry my lord,” he said.

Alec took a breath too.  Each jump through space always produced the same twinge of pain, the same sense of his body being forced to do something it shouldn’t and reacting in protest.  It made sense of course; he had forced his way into the Traveler power.  He had been in desperate need, when Jeswyne had been taken captive.  He’d gone physically to the axis mundi, the very center of the energy realm, and from there he’d gone into the chamber of the Traveler energy, so that his body had absorbed the ability to jump through space.  It was an ability that only a certain breed of a certain beast of burden that lived in Michian had ever exercised before Alec had become the first ingenairii to attempt it. 

Alec had forced his body to adopt the power, and as a result he could do what no other man could.  But the price was that his body rebelled against using the inhuman ability, and he felt a twinge with every jump he made.

But it was a small price to pay for the ability to move around the world.  He prepared himself, and he carried Kale to the next stop, in the Twenty Cities.  Alec paused only briefly, then went to Boundary Lake, and on to the lacerta lands, and to the abandoned city on the west slope of the Pale Mountains, and finally back to Goldenfields.

They arrived in the palace, in a corridor on the fourth floor, outside the room that had long been Alec’s own.

Alec released his grip on Kale, and knocked on the door.

The echo of steps sounded inside the room, and then the door opened, revealing Kora.

“Kale?” she asked in astonishment, as Alec stepped back.  He watched the happy reunion, assured the couple that they could remain in the palace, or they could return to Healing Springs together to gather their belongings there, and he disappeared.  He transported himself to the Healing Spring palace, and surprised the small staff by spending the night there.  In the morning he filled a water skin with the liquid from the spring, then transported himself back to the small village outside of Raysing, and he resumed his journey.

He found that he was lighthearted as he walked along the main thoroughfare through the city streets.  He thought that Kale was a nice young man, but Alec realized that the cook's presence had been an unexpected burden.  Kale had relied on Alec to provide translation services, as well as a guide to local customs and culture, when Alec had really wanted to indulge his own memories.  Alec had wanted to recollect his times with Andi, and the world she had grown up in.

Beyond that, further in the journey there would be places that Alec would visit without Kale that would be reminders of his earlier life in the Avonellene empire.  He could roam the streets of Vincennes freely, remembering the adventures and battles he had endured there.  He could go to Valeriane, where he had been Duke.  He could stroll off the roads known to normal humans, and perhaps visit the Ajacii and the Lokasennii and even the Sleagh Maith.

Beyond even those places he could take his time to revel in the sights of the Twenty Cities, and perhaps visit Aja, who he hoped might still be alive, if her race was endowed with the longevity of the trees that were a part of their heritage.  He’d not ever returned to the Twenty Cities after the conclusion of his long race across the continent.  He’d gone from chasing kidnapped girls to chasing Andi to chasing after the ingenairii who had been commanded by Hellmann; it had all been in one long, exhausting chase.  And when the chase had been over, when he and Andi had settled into their peculiar, dual-personality existence and roles as the rebuilders of the Dominion and Michian, he’d never gone back.

None of those places were likely to be the same after the decades of time that had passed, and none of the people would be the same, but he would recognize enough to feel his memories rekindled.  He would be able to go to Caitlen’s tomb to make sure it was properly tended, he told himself, fondly remembering the empress he had loved and married.

His spirits rose as he traveled alone, and he felt so energized by the prospect of the adventure ahead that when he went through one small village in the afternoon, he impulsively stopped at the local healer’s home.  He recognized the sprigs of healing herbs hung from the porch bannister, the widely acknowledged sign of healing in the lands of the empire.  Alec opened the door and looked in at the handful of patients who sat waiting for attention to their concerns, one of them moaning softly.

Alec walked to the injured man and placed a hand on his head.  He grasped his own Healing energy and called it into use, then released a steady stream into the man, healing the infected and inflamed hand that the man had swaddled in his lap.

“You can go on your way,” Alec told the man, as he walked away from him and down to the woman who held an infant tightly against her shoulder.  Alec touched his fingertips to the woman’s shoulder and the baby’s head simultaneously, and released more healing energy.

“What are you doing?” asked another patient, an elderly woman who had a cane across her lap.

“I’m trying to make everyone’s day just a little better,” Alec replied as he removed his hand from the woman and child.  “Ask them how they feel,” he motioned to his first two healings.

The man with the bandaged hand was no longer moaning, and was rapidly unwrapping the blood-stained cloth from around his injured hand.

“It’s as good as new!” he marveled as he held the hand up and flexed the fingers.

The mother lifted her baby and unwrapped its swaddling to examine its skin.  “The jaundice is gone!” she exclaimed.

“What are you doing to them?” the elderly woman asked. 

“I’m just healing them,” Alec replied.  He stepped over to the woman, and held out his hand, inviting her to take it.  She reached out her own hand in response.  When their fingers touched, he gently wrapped his around hers and gave a soft squeeze, as he released another wave of healing energy, one that was directed towards her hips and knees.  He healed the rheumatism and then strengthened her legs muscles for good measure, and also rejuvenated her inner ears, restoring her sense of balance and hearing.

“You don’t need to stay here, or use that,” he motioned towards the cane.

She stood carefully, and checked herself internally, then broke into a wide smile.  “You’ve done the unbelievable!” she exclaimed.  She kissed his cheek, then left the room and went out onto the street, abandoning her cane in the waiting room.

As Alec attended the last patient left, a man with a stomach ulcer, the healer opened a door and let out the patient he’d just finished consulting with.

The waiting room was nearly empty, as the other healed patients had followed the elderly woman out.

“What’s happened out here?” the healer asked in surprise.

The ulcer patient stood up, unconsciously rubbing his stomach in wonder.

“We’re all better now, thanks to this stranger,” he said.

“I’ll be on my way out,” Alec felt pleased with his work, though a bit guilty for having taken a few coins from the coffers of the healer.  He walked out the door and back out onto the street, then resumed striding towards Witten.

He felt good about the quick exercise of healing.  In the most recent years of his life he’d come to practice healing almost exclusively on Andi, without realizing that he missed the chance to share the gift with others in the world.

Healing had been the first of his ingenaire skills.  He’d gained it when he’d visited John Mark’s holy cave for the very first time.  He still thought of it as his most natural talent, the one that defined him and fit him most closely.  Although he’d come to have three other talents that were his through nature – his Warrior powers, Spiritual powers, and Time Traveling powers – and although he’d been able to pick up additional talents as he’d needed them through his access to the axis mundi of the energy realm, he still thought of himself as a Healer.

Buoyed by the experience, Alec walked with a smile, nodding at strangers he passed on the road.  In the evening, he chose to spend the night in a hayloft in a barn, feeling that the rustic setting was more appropriate to the adventure he had in mind for his travels than the dingy inns he had expected to use while Kale was along.

The following day Alec arrived on the outskirts of Witten, the large metropolis where ocean-going ships swapped their freight for the goods that were produced and shipped from the inland provinces of Avonellene.  Goods from as far away as Black Crag traveled all the way to Witten, where they were mixed and sorted and sold and shipped to the places all around the empire.

Alec had been through and in Witten many times, traveling with Empress Caitlen, his wife, during her long reign.  He remembered the vitality of the city, where traders were constantly trying to add value to their goods and purchases, and businesses grew.  It was a city that also produced entertainments for the masses.  The city had large stadia where performances and fights were held to occupy the sailors and stevedores and longshoremen during the hours they weren’t laboring in the harbor.

With Caitlen, Alec had gone to watch ceremonies performed in the arenas, but always as a celebrity.  As part of his newest trip, he decided on a whim that he’d go to see the real activities, the shows that entertained the crowds when there was no empress in the audience.  It was sure to be different, and he hoped livelier.