Preserving the Ingenairii

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “In the meantime, don’t you try mucking around in the power any more until we have a trainer with you, understand?”

  Alec mutely nodded. “And good thinking picking up the sword; did you come out of the power a different man?” the leader jested as he turned and walked off.

  The group slipped into the flow of traffic that was jostling to pass around the wrecked buggy, and Alec struggled forward, grabbing onto the scarf of the freckled girl to keep in contact with the others. She whirled around quickly, a look of alarm on her face until she recognized the face Alec wore. “Gordon, I am so impressed with you. I thought you were dead back there, and I never thought you would do all this without telling us how unfair it is. You’ve changed since we left the ingenairii compound at Frame.

  “Can you keep up with us?” she finished.

  “Just let me hold onto your shawl so I don’t get separated,” Alec asked. “We can make it to Three Forks,” he assured her, recognizing the anxiety that edged her voice. She smiled as she turned away from him to watch where she walked, and Alec held on silently.

  The sounds of battle had faded behind them, Alec realized. The sounds now were strictly those of a displaced mob, wailing children, cursing women, braying donkeys, and the tumult of thousands of lives completely upset. These were the poor and the working people of Frame, Alec realized. The well-to-do would have fled by boat. Why had this group of ingenairii not left ahead of the crowd, Alec wondered.

  Alec felt his body gradually adjust and recover from his clumsy return to the world. The after-effects of the conflict between his two powers wore away, to be replaced by the simpler, though still uncomfortable pain of a weak body trying to accomplish too much. As the sun set, Alec said a silent prayer of gratitude when the leader of the group motioned for them to move to the side of the road. “We’ll set up a healing station here to help the refugees. Stracha, you and Nestor start the healing over there,” he motioned. “Constanc, you and I will start healing here. Gordon, you stay with the horses over there, and don’t let anyone take them. We won’t have a chance of carrying all these supplies without them.”

  Alec led the placid animals to the location the leader indicated, and tied their leads around a tree branch. Each of the other healers rifled through the saddle bags to pick out supplies, then began working on patients who massed around the two couples. The guards accompanying the healers worked to organize the patients, while Alec gathered sticks together to prepare a fire that would ignite quickly when the healers were done.

  He sat down in exhaustion, his eyes glazed over as he thought about what was happening. Time was a meaningless thing for him now, but if it was measurable, he suspected that just this morning he had been in the last minutes of his battle with the demon. Since then he had fled the ingenairii realm, possessed an empty body, and damaged its ingenairii abilities in his use of the powers. He was a weak member of a struggling pack of refugees, fleeing from some disaster in the Dominion.

  Was is fifty years later? Was it fifty years, as the curse had warned? And the Dominion was at war, a war it was losing. He shook his head, lost and bewildered by the unknown world he had entered.

  Alec glanced around him, and saw an abandoned pair of military boots by the roadside, along with a knapsack full of supplies. He stood and walked over to the boots, which proved to be slightly too small for his feet. Drawing out his sword, Alec cut open the toes of the boots, providing the room his toes needed, and slipped his feet back into the boots. He’d have blisters tomorrow he was sure, but after they healed he’d be a much better traveler.

  The boots were stitched in the Goldenfields style, he realized. Had soldiers from Goldenfields been fighting this far from home, he wondered. Fifty years later – the duke would be gone by now, and Colonel Ryder too, he knew. Perhaps the Duke’s son was the ruler, the son who he had seen in the womb of Princess Rhian once upon a time. And Bethany -- his mind wandered to the place it had so frequently gone during his internment in the energy realm – he wondered about Bethany. Was she alive fifty years later? Who had ruled the Dominion in his absence?

  Alec looked within himself, trying to judge the state of his ingenaire abilities. He let himself slowly seek the place between, the way that led to the ingenaire energy realm. He sensed a route, and there was no pain in trying to follow it. He was glad about the lack of pain – if he wasn’t feeling pain, perhaps his injury would not be as difficult to heal as had been the damage he suffered in Bondell.

  Ahead he sensed the brightness that was the opening to the energy.

  “Excuse me sir, can you help my daughter?” a voice abruptly interrupted his concentration. He lost his focus, and reluctantly opened his eyes, irritated by the disturbance. In front of him was a thin woman, whose eyes were bright within dark circles that defined the fatigue in her face.

  In her arms she held an infant daughter, who sprawled listlessly. Alec looked at the woman and her daughter, and he thought of Leah long ago, who had died in childbirth.

  “The others over there,” she motioned towards Stracha and Nestor, “they said they couldn’t help her.” The woman had tears in her eyes.

  “Give me a few minutes to try to prepare,” Alec said, looking at the woman. “I’ll try.” He closed his eyes again, and started over in pursuit of the healing energy. He started to find his way through the netherworld between reality and the energy realm, and after a prolonged search he again found the bright opening. He paused in his efforts to look at it, judging it carefully, then plunged inside, assuming the image he had last held, gowned in a long robe whose pockets held healing items. And then he had the power, it was within his command, and he opened his eyes to see the haggard and forlorn look on the face of the woman before him.

  Alec reached out and touched the daughter, feeling her infection and fever and malfunctioning kidneys, and sending healing power into the tiny body to correct all the illnesses. His hand shifted to the mother, and he took away the pain he found in her legs, then restored her ability to feed her child, and added a boost of energy to her. He watched the lines fade from her face and the shadows disappear, and the smile that arose from nowhere.

  “That is wonderful! Is my daughter alright?” she asked as she looked down into the pale face.

  “She’ll be fine. She’s hungry now, if you’ll suckle her she’ll be ready to sleep,” Alec said, bringing a blush to the woman’s face. He reached down and looked into his own body, then ran his hands along his trunk and his legs, improving the nerves that connected his brain and his body, allowing him to better control the movement of these limbs he now possessed.

  The woman he had just tended was talking to another woman, and pointing towards him. The new woman motioned to others, and a whole family of six came walking over, the apparent father and oldest son each shouldering large packs on their backs. “That woman said you healed her and her daughter, with just a touch. Can you help my daughter?” the woman asked.

  “Let me see her,” Alec said, and he knelt as a small girl limped forward. She raised her skirt and held out her right foot.

  Alec saw a badly infected cut. He reached down and cupped the girl’s heel in his hand, then applied his powers to remove the injury. “Here,” he handed her the shoe he had discarded for his new boot. “This is too large, but I think you can wear your other shoe,” he placed the girl’s shoe back on her foot, then slipped them into his discarded shoe, “inside this one, and it will protect your foot better. It will feel awkward at first, but you’ll get used to it.” He squeezed the girl’s hand, then stood and placed a hand on the two pack carriers, relieving the pain and tension in their backs. “Travel safely,” he told the family, and he sat back down.

  The use of the energy was wearing him down already, after just a few patients. He sat down to rest, when a man came to see him. “That man said you healed his daughter. Can you come over to look at my son? I know it’s too late for him, but if you could ease his pain, that’s all I’m asking,” the man pleaded wi
th a heartfelt catch in his voice.

  “Is he far?” Alec asked as he stood to rise.

  “Just a minute over here,” the man said, gently tugging on his shoulder.

  Alec followed the man along the road, where many people were now falling out along the roadside to sleep for the night, the sounds of children whimpering and adults crying diminishing as exhaustion caused them all to sleep. The man stopped next to two boys, one the age of the body Alec now had, the other slightly younger. The older boy was on the ground, moaning, and the removal of a wad of cloth showed a nasty, bleeding stab wound in his stomach.

  “He tried to protect Ailan, and a thug stabbed him this morning. We’ve carried him all day,” the father explained.

  Alec saw damage to the liver and kidney and internal bleeding, as well as infection setting in. The boy was in bad shape indeed, and a brave one to not be screaming loudly in pain. Alec placed both hands over the wound, and released his powers, noticing as he did so that his right hand tingled slightly, in a way that he guessed suggested an uneven distribution of his energy.

  Experimentally, Alec removed his left hand, and allowed the right hand to solely provide the healing energy to the wounded boy, sealing off the punctures to the organs, and draining away the blood that was pooling. The energy flowed smoothly, to Alec’s surprise, as he realized that this body was right-handed, and functioned best when used that way, despite what he expected to do. Alec healed up the laceration on the skin and stopped his work, leaving a scar that he suspected would always remain. He felt the need to save his energy after such a comprehensive healing.

  “Your son needs to sleep tonight, and give him assistance tomorrow. Feed him meat if you can find any, he lost a lot of blood. He’ll pass that tonight and tomorrow by the way, so don’t be alarmed,” Alec told the father. “Good luck,” he said with exhaustion, turning to leave.

  “What’s your name, doctor? You have carried out a miracle. You’ve done more than we thought anyone could do,” the man hugged his younger son tight. “We’ll do anything you want for the rest of our lives.”

  “My name’s Alec,” Alec replied without thinking. “You just take care of each other. That’s all I want you to do.”

  “That’s awfully mature advice for someone so young,” the father replied. “And it’s good advice. We’ll take it, but we’ll be ready to help you any time, any way.”

  Alec wearily nodded his thanks, and left the family behind. He was musing about the strange preference his body had for its right hand. He drew his sword from its scabbard with his left hand, and swung it experimentally, cutting, thrusting and parrying, then he flipped it to his right hand, and began again.

  The saber felt heavy in both hands, evidence again, Alec realized, that the arms he now had were not strong. But the right hand movements felt smoother than the left-handed movements. Standing alone in the dark in the middle of an empty spot in the road, Alec tried to engage his warrior powers. He closed his eyes again to find his way between the barriers, and as he did, he had a momentary recollection of Moriah sitting with him on Rubicon’s porch, training him to engage his powers with his eyes open.

  But that was fifty years ago now, Moriah was possibly dead, and he was far away from Ingenairii Hill.

  His warrior powers inhabited the image he created, and he returned to the world of the Dominion. His powers were reduced. He knew he did not have the ability to pull the energy he formerly had, but whether that was a case of fatigue, or like left-handedness, something different about this body, he did not know.

  Alec opened his eyes, and adjusted the scabbard to the left hip so he could draw it with his right. His senses were enhanced, and he could hear and see the details of the world around him, something that was nearly overwhelming in this unprepared body.

  “Where has Gordon gone?” he heard Nestor ask.

  “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Stracha answered, apparently not too fond of this person he formerly had been.

  “He held up well today,” Constanc answered. “I thought he was dead in the back of the wagon this morning.”

  “He was dead,” the leader’s voice spoke. Alec had not heard the man’s name yet. “You all saw his body, right? There was no heartbeat, no brain activity. I don’t know what happened to him or why, but he’s not the same boy this afternoon as he was yesterday when he got lost in the energy.”

  “What happened to him there?” Stracha asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard stories about apprentices who wander away and never return. There was one in the stone house when I was an apprentice on the Hill. His body lasted for days before it passed. I’ve never heard of someone being out of body for that long and coming back though,” the leader said. “You’ll have to ask him if you want to know.”

  There was a silent pause. Alec heard another voice, from a different direction, away from the ingenairii. “You four go that way, and take out the guard when you hear my yell. We’ll take out the near one. You can kill the male healers if they resist, but we want to capture the females; they’ll bring a good price from Michian.”

  Alec felt horrified at the thought of ambushing and capturing healer ingenairii to sell as slaves. “Constance, Nestor! Watch out! There’s an attack coming! Someone’s attacking the healers!” he shouted loudly. With his warrior powers feebly engaged, Alec ran towards the small fire that he knew was the healers’ campsite.

  Chapter 19 – The First Battle

  A voice shouted out, “Who said that?” and as Alec approached, he heard the clash of steel on steel as swordplay began. Alec spotted the cluster of four ingenairii together with two guards on either side. As he reached the scene, the guard closest to him was brutally skewered, and the girls in the center cluster screamed at the sight of the sword-pierced body.

  Alec raised his sword and slashed down on the neck of one attacker, severing his head, and swung his blade back upwards through the forearm of another attacker. He hacked down again on a third member of the attackers, but his sword became stuck in between the ribs of his victim, and slipped from his grasp as the body collapsed.

  There were no other foes on his side of the camp, so reaching down he picked up a dead man’s knife and hurled it across the way, striking an assailant in the throat. Alec scooped up a sword, and heard a new chorus of screams as the ingenairii recognized what was happening. With a few swift steps he was beside the remaining guard, and together they killed the remaining three attackers.

  Alec looked down at the dead bodies splayed across the ground. He released his warrior energies, and felt the total exhaustion of over-exertion strike him. His knees buckled, and he slumped down, then fell face forward, still conscious but unable to support himself.

  The girls continued to scream, and then there were shouts and screams from others who were camped in the area, unsettled by the outbreak of violence in the lawless domains of the refugees. “Harry! Help me carry him over by the fire,” Alec heard the leader call. Hands grabbed him and rolled him over, then picked him up and laid him down near the campfire.

  “Healers! Are you alright?” Alec heard several voices calling.

  “We’re fine,” Nestor’s voice replied loudly. “Nobody tries to harm ingenairii and lives to tell!”

  “Lord help us! Look at his arms – he’s got healer and warrior marks!” Alec heard Stracha exclaim, and he felt fingers touching his forearms. “He’s Alec come again!” he heard and with that he passed out.

  Alec awoke with a terrible headache. He blinked his eyes, then raised a hand to shield them from the sunlight that was filtering down through a leafy canopy overhead. He heard the sound of traffic moving nearby, and in the distance he heard the noise of a battlefield. “Oh, my head hurts,” he said out loud, not certain where he was or what was happening.

  “Bring some willow bark tea!” a girl’s voice shouted loudly next to him, and he winced at the pain of the shrill sound penetrating his skull.

  Suddenly memory came flooding ba
ck to him. He was no longer locked in the horrific combat with the demon in the ingenairii realm. He was no longer Alec.

  A hand brushed the hair off his forehead, and he opened his eyes again to look. Both the female healers, Stracha and Constanc, were hovering next to him. “Please help me sit up,” he requested. Each girl placed hands behind his back and helped raise him.

  “Thank you,” he told them. He raised a hand to his temple, and applied a small stream of healing power to his headache, banishing it from his awareness.

  “Did you just heal with a touch?” Stracha asked in a voice that was filled with awe. “Are you really Alec the Lost, come back to save the Dominion, just as the legends promise?”

  Alec looked closely at her, then turned his head and looked at Constanc, whose face was also only a foot from his own. Were there really myths about him, he wondered in amazement.

  “Lad, here, take this, it’ll make you feel better,” the leader of the group knelt beside him and offered him a warm mug of bitter willow bark tea. “We don’t have sugar for it, sorry.”

  “It’s in my blanket,” Alec looked around and then pointed to the blanket he had carried yesterday. “I pulled some sugar and other goods out of the wagon. They’re in the blanket over there.” He set the mug carefully down on the ground.

  “Whatever happened to you Gordon, it is like nothing I’ve ever heard about or dreamed of. You were extraordinary! You’ve saved our lives, for sure, and perhaps some others, if the rumors of healing families are true.

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell us? We need to get moving before the battle catches up with us, but we’ll make time to hear your story,” the man said deferentially.

  Alec sat silently for a moment, rubbing his hands across his face, trying to judge what to say. He thought about all the implications of trying to explain that he was Alec, that he had come back from a battle with a demon in the energy realm, that he had taken over someone else’s body because they had died. It was a fantastic tale, one that would be hard for anyone to believe. The story wasn’t one he wanted to try to tell, at least not right now.