Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Come have something cool, Cander,” the older of Alec’s companions said to his musician. “Then go sit and rest. The Emperor will be ready for bowing before dinner, so we have a little while to wait.”

  The two men prepared plates of food and mugs, then went to sit and watch the parade. Alec turned to look at the girl to see what to do. She felt his eyes on her, and looked directly back.

  “What? What do you want?” she said as she finished storing the musical instrument in a trunk beneath the stands. “Speak up. I’m not going to try to guess what you need; has the cat got your tongue?” she asked as she came to stand directly in front of him.

  Alec opened his mouth wide and mutely pointed at the empty cavity, which still feel so strange and awkward without its missing tongue.

  “Oh. Oh, I am so sorry. That was dreadful,” she whispered as she took a step back. She closed her eyes for a long moment, and a trace of revulsion and perhaps pity crossed her face.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  Alec nodded his head. He was hungry, but hadn’t realized it until she asked.

  She took his hand and led him through a partition to another portion of the tent, apparently the storage section. She had grabbed his left hand, and within moments he jerked it away. She looked at him in surprise, with a look of rejection momentarily crossing her face, then looked at the hand and saw the scars on it. “Oh my goodness, you’ve had some problems, haven’t you? Are you alright?” she asked.

  Alec nodded. He hadn’t been hurt when she grabbed his hand, he had been shocked. A sense of her character came flooding into him. It was an enhanced version of his Spiritual ingenaire powers, except that it only occurred during the moment of physical contact with the hand. He had felt the immaturity and impatience of the girl, but also the underlying kindness and decency that defined her.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” she double-checked. He nodded. “Then we’ll get you that bite of food.” She opened a crate and lifted out a loaf of bread.

  “Here. Would you like something to drink with it?”

  Alec nodded again, and she moved to another crate, from which she pulled out a ceramic mug that she handed to Alec.

  “Rief, what are you doing in here?” their leader from the street asked, peeking in through the tent opening.

  The girl jumped, startled as though caught guilty in the act of doing something impermissible.

  “Your new servant, the healer, he was hungry, so I came to give him some food. I didn’t think he should eat from the family table,” the girl promptly said, going down on one knee in a motion of obeisance.

  The man’s hand slapped her cheek hard, rocking her head back. “I didn’t hear him ask for anything,” the man said in a flat tone.

  Rief did not touch her cheek, but kept her head bowed. “He cannot speak, sir. He has no tongue.”

  The man switched his gaze to Alec, and his expression changed from anger to skepticism. “Open your mouth,” he said peremptorily.

  Alec obeyed, upset that he had caused Rief to suffer on his account.

  “Well, I see,” the man replied. “Close your mouth.

  “Rief, he is allowed to eat from the family table. He did us a great service today, regardless of whether he can talk. Can you imagine if our band had failed to perform in time in front of the emperor? The Scarle clan and the Canare clan would have mocked up in court for weeks!” The man stepped back without further comment and left their room.

  As soon as he was gone, Rief placed her hand on her cheek and rubbed it. Alec stepped over and reached his left hand up, but she grabbed it and stopped it. “You’ve done enough, thank you. Go sit and eat and drink with the family. I’ll take care of myself,” she told him in a vehement tone.

  Alec raised his right hand, gently opened her fingers that encased his left arm, then placed those freed finger tips on the reddened cheek and released his healing powers, draining away the pain and color. He took his right hand away from hers, and she raised it to feel the cool surface of her face. She looked at him in astonishment.

  “How did you do that?” she asked.

  Unable to answer, Alec simply bowed his head. He had felt the spiritual powers examining her soul again as he healed her, though without the shock that the first experience had given him. She was a good person; he knew he could trust her.

  “Well, thank you,” she said in a low voice, unaware of his internal ponderings. “Now, let’s get out of here before something else happens.

  He turned, but then she placed a hand on his shoulder, and he turned back. “You know that unauthorized magic is illegal, don’t you? I’m not going to tell anyone about this, but you should be careful about what you do,” she warned him in a friendly tone.

  Alec digested her comment as she passed him and reached back to pull him with her out of the storage space and back into the ornate seating section of the tent.

  Chapter 19 – The Demon Exposed

  Alec sat in a soft chair, holding a mug of berry juice with a plate of warm meats and fruit slices on a table beside him. He watched the performance of a group of acrobats in the parade, the third parade participants he had watched. All of the groups had their backs to the blue and white striped tent as they performed.

  Across the way, a single huge golden tent was the recipient of the parade’s attention. Alec was paying only cursory attention to the back of the performers, as he pondered Rief’s comment. His healing powers were illegal in this land. He thought back to the healing he had given the fallen band member. Apparently the fern and the cooling water were credited with the recovery of that patient, if anyone was even really aware of what had happened. Alec realized he would have to be circumspect in his efforts while he was in this unusual country.

  “The emperor will like that,” he heard one woman say to another as they watched the latest act. To Alec it appeared that a miniature dramatic performance was occurring, as a small mock battle gave way to a worshipful tribute to one of the players, and then the whole group bowed and moved on.

  “The emperor isn’t likely to be persuaded by such blatant adulation,” the other woman said. “He appreciates a subtler mind than Krayo’s excessive exhibitions,” she pronounced.

  The next act caught Alec’s attention as soon as it arrived. A single woman, dressed completely in black, stood before the golden tent and bowed deeply. As she did, Alec noticed two men in black suddenly appear to stand in front of the tent, facing her.

  The woman pulled out a knife, and deliberately cut each forearm, creating a flow of blood. She placed a small jar on the ground in front of her, then held her hands over the jar so that the blood dripped into the jar for several seconds. She followed that by pulling a bundle of sticks from inside her robe, scratching with the sticks to make several lines in the road surface in an intricate pattern around the vessel of blood, then dipping the ends of the sticks in the blood and propping them against one another around the jar.

  The woman began to chant loudly in a high-pitched, sing song manner that made Alec’s skin crawl, even though he could not understand any of the words she used. She paused in her chanting for several seconds, during which no other sound occurred anywhere in the vicinity. She then pulled a small bag out of a pocket, and threw a handful of bright red powder into the air, where it eerily stayed suspended in a cloud directly over her. With that new manifestation of power, she resumed chanting. No one in the tent with Alec was saying a word, and he sensed that tension was rising with each passing minute as everyone watched intently while the performer continued her arcane activities.

  “Mosha!” she called out loudly, and Alec jumped when everyone around ritually repeated “Mosha” in formal voices. A second and third time the call and answer was repeated. The echoes of the words seemed to catalyze the elements of the process, as the lines that had been scratched in the sand began to glow, then began to rise off the road surface, and floated up into the red cloud several feet above. Alec’s left hand began to painfully
throb, though whether it was pain or energy, he couldn’t tell.

  As the shape took its position, the performer began a new chant, that within seconds caused a darkening of the sky momentarily, until the shade coalesced in a cloud a hundred feet above the woman. From the cloud, an impossible rain shower began to fall, only onto the red cloud, which it entered but did not pass through.

  Alec was gripping the arms of his chair as he watched the one minute deluge, after which the dark cloud evaporated. The two dark clad figures across the way seemed to believe something was eminent, as they held their hands out in front of themselves in a warding off posture, and Alec dreaded whatever was to come next. The woman raised her hand over her head and motioned, causing three men to carry out another figure, a naked man, tied and securely trussed, who they lay at the woman’s feet, next to the jar of blood. The woman raised one foot and placed it on the head of the man, then began chanting again, this time in a much deeper voice, using words that were harsh and disconsonant.

  As her voice abruptly stopped, the woman stepped back from the man. The red cloud overhead began to churn and boil, the lines writhing within the mass began to hang from the bottom of the cloud, and small white bats dropped from the tubes, fluttering about in the vicinity for moments, then descending on the man below to bite him. Through his gag, his muffled voice began to scream in agony, as more and more of the creatures began to land on him, covering his entire body in a writhing mass.

  For minutes the creatures held their spots, biting and then drinking his blood, and turning blood red themselves as they did so, while his cries grew fainter and then ceased. As they seemed to sate themselves, they rose and began to flutter again between him and the cloud. Alec felt ill watching, and even worse as he saw that no one else was expressing protest for the death that had just been witnessed by so many.

  At some unseen signal, the flock of bats all entered the cloud simultaneously. The cloud began to thicken, turning into a gelatinous mass hanging in the air, when the woman stepped forward again and called out a single word. The jar of blood still on the ground began to glow, and a ray of light shot up from the mouth of the jar through the touching points of the leaning sticks, to disappear into the red mass, and as it did, his left hand burned so badly Alec looked at it, expecting to see fresh blood flowing from his scars.

  Seconds later, the light stopped, the mass fell gently to the ground, and then rose up in the shape of a hideous, man-like creature, with an animal-like snout and the legs of a goat. The creation walked in a circle around the woman, who stood perfectly still, snarling as it walked. Three times it circled her at no great distance, until she raised her hand and pointed at it to stop in its tracks.

  The creature terrified Alec. It was evil. He could feel hideous energy emanate from it, great power, with malevolence and malice directed towards everything it saw. Its arrival had clearly been what triggered the reaction in his left hand.

  The woman spoke in a low voice to the creature, then pointed at it again, causing it to kneel before her. She spoke again, in a demanding tone of voice, and the creature clapped its hands together three times, then gave a howl, which created a flash of light and a clap of thunder, the loud noise reverberating all around the parade ground.

  There, magically, next to the woman, stood an ugly animal, but one that did not seem as threatening as the horrific creature that still captured the attention of all. In a flash of memory, Alec recognized the creature as the same type of animal that he had seen disappear from the room in Stronghold with Mooreen and Elcome on its back.

  The woman bowed to the evil monster, and said something that may have been praise or thanks. She signaled again, and her group of servants brought out another trussed up sacrificial victim. The servants laid the poor man on the ground next to the monster, then quickly hurried away.

  With that, the woman seemed to have finished her awful ceremony. She stepped back, clapped her hands, motioned to the tied up offering, then chanted for several seconds, and clapped three times again. The monster stepped forward, grabbed the screaming, tied victim, and disappeared in a flash of crimson light.

  Alec sat, stunned and appalled by what he had seen, while his hand returned to a calmer condition. The crowd around the event was clapping vigorously, as the woman stepped forward towards the golden tent on the other side of the parade ground. She reached into the front of her black robe, loosening something that caused it to slide off her shoulders to the ground, so that she stood tall and slim in a tight yellow dress. A cheer erupted from someplace to Alec’s right, and the woman gestured back to the placid animal that remained, then towards the golden tent.

  The two black robed figured in front of the tent walked out with a rope, which they looped around the animal’s head, then led the creature at casual pace away and out of sight. “That was a tremendous performance. The emperor will hold Canare clan in high esteem this season. They may get to lead the invasion,” Alec heard one man in his tent tell another.

  A small bag flew from the golden tent and landed at the feet of the woman in yellow. She picked it up, held it to her lips for a moment, then bowed and walked off the road to the right.

  “No one will top that. Shall we go?” a voice spoke in Alec’s ear. It interrupted his contemplation of the horrific scene that was now over. Alec did not know what the terrible creature was that he had just seen, He knew it was completely evil, and he could not fathom how anyone would be able to confront something like it in battle. The woman who had called it forth had obviously had some control over it, but Alec had no notion what or how.

  “Shall we go?” the voice repeated, and Alec saw that the man he had resuscitated was speaking to him. Alec nodded and stood, walking down to stand beside the man near the entrance they had arrived through.

  Another man came down from his seat at that moment, and as he passed, everyone else in the tent bowed. The short man had deep set eyes, but he caught Alec’s attention. “Who do you have here, Cander?” the man asked.

  Alec’s companion bowed, and Alec did likewise. “This is a healer who helped us just a little bit ago, leader Reast,” Alec’s other companion spoke up, joining their group. “Cander passed out while carrying the pothorn in the band, and this boy treated him quickly. The band was back in formation in thirty seconds none the worse for the incident.

  “We brought him in the tent as our guest,” he added.

  “We’re honored that you accepted the invitation to join us. Has our hospitality been acceptable?” Reast asked.

  Unable to answer, Alec bowed again. “He’s mute, sir,” Alec’s companion said in a kind tone. “He has no tongue, and cannot speak,” he added superfluously.

  Reast looked incredulous. “He’s a mute healer, and you invited him to our tent, Marjet?” he asked in a significant tone.

  “He did save the band from embarrassment, and in front of a large crowd; it seemed best to be generous,” Marjet confirmed.

  “Well, mute healer, if you are to serve the clan, what can you heal me of?” he asked pleasantly, but with an apparent vein of sarcasm.

  Alec looked at the man who was the apparent leader of this group. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be part of this group. Yet he had been dropped from nowhere into this strange land, and already seemed to be inside a powerful group, a position from which he might learn whatever John Mark expected him to learn. And the girl, Rief, inexplicably appealed to him as someone who both needed and would be a good friend.

  Alec focused his healing vision on Reast, discovering that the man’s tonsils were a seething mass of infection.

  Alec opened his mouth wide, then motioned for Reast to do the same. The leader looked in amusement at the men around him, but Alec gestured impatiently for him to open, pointing at his own mouth, pointing at Reast’s, then peering closely at the man.

  Reast opened, and Alec looked in, seeing the red inflammation that confirmed what he already knew. He reached into his sack of herbs and pulled out a bundle of leaves.
He pulled some off and gave them to Reast. He cupped his hands together in front of him, then pantomimed placing the leaves in the cup, and motioned as though pouring water into the cup as well, then blew on it to cool it off.

  “Make a tea? You want me to make a tea of these leaves?” Reast asked.

  Alec nodded, then reached out and stroked Reast’s throat, remembering the warning that he should not seem to practice his healing powers. He used his left hand without thinking, and felt the character of the man revel itself – he was cunning and clever, determined to succeed, but not inherently cruel.

  “This tea will make my throat feel better?” Reast asked.

  Alec nodded.