Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Twelve years, Alec thought to himself. Jeswyne had been gone twelve years. At least twelve years, he corrected himself. How long ago were we married? Has she passed away too? The guards had not even come close to recognizing the notion of a couple named Jeswyne and Alec on the throne. He was in a time far from his own apparently. He laid on a wooden bench in his cell, and wondered where he could find the answers to the many questions he had, of what era he was in and what had happened to Jeswyne.

  Alec awoke with a start. Somehow, amid his worries and confusion, he had fallen asleep, and now his cell door was open and a voice was telling him to get up. The door slammed shut, leaving a small tray of bread and water. Alec sat up, and tried to assess the state of his abilities. He felt he could use his powers a little, any of his powers, but not for very long. He hoped he would be able to convince his interrogators today to take him seriously, and answer questions for him. And then he would know something, something that would let him begin to think about what came next. He was already halfway convinced in his heart that some great passage of time had occurred, another passage of time he did not yet remember or know about, a time when Jeswyne would have passed beyond him, just as Bethany had.

  He sat down in a small windowless room with three men, perhaps the same three who had been with him the night before, though he couldn’t be sure. “I feel better after sleeping last night,” Alec decided to speak first, to take control of the session if he could. “I don’t know what has happened in Michian in the many years since I was here. I have powers,” he discretely examined the men, who had grim smiles on their faces, “that have made it possible for me to do many unusual things. For instance,” he reached out and gently touched a rash on one man’s hand, making the rash vanish, “I can heal people.

  “I can do other things too,” he continued as the man lifted his hand and stared at it. “I can move like a restorer,” he translocated himself to a corner of the room behind the men. “That’s how I got into the lady’s room last night,” he spoke, making the men jump and twist in shock at his display. He walked back to his chair and sat down, as the men edged away from him.

  “I didn’t come here to hurt or scare anyone. I came to find my family, who were the imperial family, when I was last here. That may have been many years ago. When I find them, or find out about them, I will leave. Will you help me?” he finished his explanation, pleased that he had not been interrupted. He was already sensing how wounded his abilities were just from the two mild demonstrations he had given.

  “Are you a demon?” the officer of the group asked quietly, as if he thought he was facing his death.

  “No, I am just a man with special gifts,” Alec replied. “Will you answer my questions?”

  There was no answer, which Alec took as a positive answer. “None of you have heard of the Empress Jeswyne, daughter of Emperor Sergey?”

  The men all looked at Alec with blank faces. “I didn’t study history, sir,” said the man whose hand had been treated.

  “Do you know of a land called the Dominion?” Alec asked.

  “Yes sir. Your accent sounds a bit like theirs, but harsher too,” the officer answered.

  “Are the Dominion and the Empire on good terms?” Alec asked a different question.

  “We trade with one another through the mountain pass, and sometimes a restorer goes up there,” the third man replied. “My uncle is a trader.”

  “Do you know when the Dominion and the Empire were at war?” he tried to hone in on something the Guard members might relate to.

  “Oh, I think there was a war, but it was before my grandfathers’ days --- long, long, before,” the oldest man in the group, the officer answered. “We haven’t had a war, except for pirate skirmishes, in generations.”

  “I see,” Alec slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  “Sir?” he heard one of the interrogators ask.

  “Yes,” he looked at them.

  “You really just want information?” the youngest guard asked.

  Alec nodded his head.

  “I’ll take you to the old emperor’s great aunt Lessla. She knows all about the old times of the dynasty, I’ve heard,” the guard said. He looked at the officer.

  “It’s a little late now to ask me, isn’t it?” the man responded with over-exaggerated sarcasm. “I think that’s a good idea, but her highness is not an early riser. Would you like to rest for a few more hours?”

  “I’d appreciate that, and to make it easy on everyone, I’ll go back to my cell,” he intercepted the nervous expression on the officer. He stood up, and the others did as well.

  “This will go down in my career history as the strangest interview I’ve been in,” the officer said. “Carmil, please take him back to his cell. When the dowager duchess awakens, you may request an audience,” he said as he held the door open.

  Back in his cell, Alec lay on the bench with his hands beneath his head, wondering at the situation, wondering what to do. The elderly duchess would tell him something, he couldn’t be sure what, and when he was done listening to her, he realized, he would be no closer to seeing Jeswyne than he had been before. He apparently was years too late.

  He hoped she had enjoyed a good life with him. He thought again of Bethany, abandoned while he had been trapped with the demon; she had deserved a better life than he had left her. They were both evidence of the costs he had suffered for himself, and worse, inflicted on the women he loved. Now that he believed he was free to go to Caitlen and try to have a relationship with her, he realized that he didn’t want to subject her to the likelihood of also being disappointed in him, of being led into a life of expectations that would never materialize.

  There was a noise, and Alec realized he had fallen asleep. The door was open, and Carmil was waiting for him. “The duchess is having lunch, and would enjoy telling you the history of the dynasty,” the guard said.

  Together they walked through the corridors of the palace, which, at times, felt very familiar to Alec. They entered a room, where a woman was sitting at a small round table, many utensils laid out about her plate and its twin that awaited him to sit. A pot of tea was sitting on the table, and Alec was struck by an impulsive memory of sitting with Jeswyne in the forest of primeval Oyster Bay, learning to perform the tea ceremony. He looked at the room again, stopping to intently take in the shape and configuration of the dining room. It had been a parlor once, the room in which he had proposed to Jeswyne by carrying out the tea ceremony of affection.

  Overwhelmed by the memory, he took his seat, and before speaking to the duchess, a tiny lady, wrinkled and gray, he began performing the traditional tea ceremony with her, arranging his silverware, then waiting for her to respond. Her eyebrows shot up, and she held her glasses close to her eyes, examining what he had done, then she responded with the proper rearrangement of her own utensils. Alec poured her cup of tea, then replaced the pot, and she poured his cup, and so the intricate steps followed one another, as a pair of servants with the food waited discretely.

  When the last step was complete, the duchess looked at a servant and nodded, then waited as bowls of soup were placed before the two diners. Carmil remained standing at the door, observing, satisfied that no violence appeared likely in a meeting where spoons were swapped silently.

  “I was told I was going to recite history to a young visitor,” the duchess finally spoke, in a voice that has high-pitched and quavered. “I didn’t know that I would be tested in high court etiquette. You are clearly a master of the ancient traditions; I could probably learn more from you than you will learn from me.”

  “I wish that were true, my lady,” Alec replied, giving a gentle smile. “But there is a great deal that I don’t know, and I hope that you will share what you know with me.”

  “Try me. I’m as old as dirt; if anyone here knows any of the family history, it will be me. My own great-aunt Tressma made me learn all of her old family stories, and she was old when I was born. I was the y
oungest child of the emperor Lyman, you know.”

  “Did you hear of an Empress Jeswyne, who had a foreigner as a consort?” Alec asked.

  “Jeswyne the Long? Married to the King of the Dominion, Alec the Demonslayer?” Lessla said. Alec nodded his head.

  “Aunt Tressma told stories about Jeswyne, but she was already in the crypt before Tressma was born,” Lessla told Alec.

  “Why was she called the “Long?” Alec asked, his heart dropping at the confirmation of Jeswyne’s passage in the distant past.

  “Because she ruled for such a very long time; she was empress for over sixty years, along with her consort,” Lessla told him.

  Alec smiled. “Was her reign a happy one?” he pried.

  “She tried to do several great things; some of them worked and some didn’t, but the empire was at peace during her reign, and it prospered,” the elderly noble answered as she sipped the tea Alec had poured.

  “Do you know if she was happy?” Alec asked, drilling down to the only thing left that he could hope to find on this trip.

  “There is a portrait of her, smiling as a young girl. Would you like to see it?” Lessla asked. She motioned away the servants, who were about to bring the second course, and carefully stood up. “Give me your arm,” she commanded in the matter-of-fact manner of an elderly person who expected to need help and receive it. They started to walk towards a wall, not the door to go into the hall, and Alec stopped, as he realized the picture was right in front of him. “I always think that she must have been a happy person, to have such a painting made as a portrait – no furs, no crown, no throne and scepter, just great joy in life at a happy moment.”

  The picture was a recreation of the tea ceremony that had taken place in this very room. It was very nearly in the exact location where Alec had sprung the ceremony on the unsuspecting girl. The lonely ingenaire did not think of that at the moment he saw the portrait though; he only looked at the wonderful strokes of paint that so faithfully captured the face of the girl he remembered. There was a sparkle in her eyes that looked across the table at him above the rim of the tea cup she was holding. Every muscle that was portrayed evocated a sense of active energy and passion. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Alec perceived the eyes to be looking out of the canvas at him, standing in the room.

  “That is right when she said she would stand in her room in her party dress,” he said softly to himself.

  “How old is this painting?” Alec heard Carmil ask. The guard has stolen up softly to look at it with them.

  “I would guess it to be two hundred fifty years old or more,” the duchess said, not removing her eyes from the picture. “They claim this is a tea ceremony that really happened,” she added.

  “It did,” Alec confirmed softly. “See the servants in the background? They all came in quietly as the word spread that it was happening. Jeswyne wasn’t expecting it at all. It happened right there, in the spot where the picture is hanging.” He left the duchess to step forward, wanting to feel that he was standing in the space where Jeswyne had sat in that delirious, happy moment.

  And he had thought he was old back then, when he had lost fifty years of his life, and lost Bethany. Now he was standing here probably three hundred years after he had been born.

  “It’s really you, isn’t it?” Carmil asked, standing at an angle from which his eyes could swing back and forth from Alec to the portrait. “This was really the woman you came back to find.”

  “I dreamed of finding her, and in a sense, I suppose I have. I’m glad the imperial family can remember her like this forever, the charming girl with the sparkling eyes,” he told them. He turned and took the duchess’s hand in his. He released a burst of healing power, taking away some of the arthritis that plagued her joints. “Thank you,” he told her. “Please pick a favorite niece and pass this story along, so that Jeswyne is always remembered. “I will trouble you no more Carmil. Thank you for your hospitality,” Alec said, and then, recklessly, despite knowing how weak his powers were, he launched himself back into the long dark nothingness of the space that existed between locations.

  Chapter 27 – Mulvane’s Squad

  Although he wasn’t sure he cared, Alec finally felt substance again. He felt himself fall to the ground, unable to stand. He had landed exactly where he wanted to, next to the red pool of water. He slid into the water, clothes still on his body, and laid his head back against the rim of the large pool of warm water. Bernadina, his mind called out weakly, I’ve come to visit.

  There was a startled exclamation. Healer-fighter? Are you here?

  I’m at the red pool, he told her. I’m fine now.

  The warm water felt so good and relaxing and energizing that he closed his eyes, and let the gentle currents ripple the clothes he wore. He thought about Michian and Jeswyne, remembering the sparkle in her eyes in the picture he had seen. He had loved her and kissed her and touched her, and now his most vivid memory was a painting, a portrait that was two hundred years past her time. What had happened to those years, and why had he lost the memory of them?

  And now there was Caitlen, another woman who had entered his heart, a woman who he had bitterly hurt yesterday. And furthermore, she was one who needed his help. He was prophesized to drain her blood, and she was prophesized to deny him, in that strange, inverted order. She was sincere and complex, in need of his help, and undoubtedly not interested in letting him stretch her emotions as he had done twice now, when he had discovered his memories of Bethany and Jeswyne.

  Who knew what else waited in untapped memories? Could there be another wife or love still waiting in those years he did not remember? He sighed a deep breath, knowing that the fear of an unknown past would strangle him emotionally, putting him in a box that left him without any way to enter a new relationship.

  “Your body is healed, and your talents are healed. It’s just your heart that hasn’t healed,” a voice spoke.

  “Bernadina,” he said without looking. “This place is a good place. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  “I know you used one of those extraordinary talents to reach our home. Do you wish to stay here among us longer? You’re welcome to remain as our guest for as long as you wish. But I encourage you to take nourishment. I have a tray of food here by the pool if you would like to eat a little bit,” she said.

  Alec opened his eyes at last. The sky overhead was blue, and the mountains showed a layer of light green growth below the slow lines high above. “How long have I been here?” he asked.

  “Two weeks,” Bernadina said simply. “You are here in the spring time, the best time of the year, when the mountain flowers bloom and the snow retreats to the high glaciers and the fields begin to sprout our crops.”

  Together they left the pool and sat at a table nearby, silently picking items of food off the tray. “I need to go back to Caitlen,” Alec said after several slow bites, holding a dried apple slice up to his lips. “But I want to serve her only as a friend and a retainer; I don’t want to break her heart.”

  “Or your own?” Bernadina asked.

  Or my own, Alec agreed.

  You will find peace, I foresee it, his friend told him. You’re ready to go, aren’t you? She asked.

  “I am,” he agreed out loud, preparing to translocate back to Vincennes.

  “Would you like to wear dry clothes?” Bernadina asked, following Alec back to verbal dialog. “You’re welcome to wear some of ours.”

  Alec looked down at his damp clothes, still the same clothes he had worn since Abelard had sent him to the palace days before, and for the first time in their conversation he smiled. Together they strolled down the pathways back to the village, where Alec put on white pants and a black shirt. He had no weapons with him, and he felt as though he were starting over in a sense.

  “Thank you Bernadina. May I come back here again if I need to heal?” he asked.

  She reached out and took his hand, and he felt their souls come together again. Always, she
whispered within him, and he felt the sincerity of the reply more than he heard it.

  He released her hand. Goodbye for now, my friend, he called, and then he left.

  Alec landed by the spring on Gottfried’s estate, and stopped for several minutes. He picked a sprig of agrimonia and chewed on it. Down here in the river valley below the mountains the evidence of spring was farther advanced, with azaleas blooming and the carpet of forest greenery hiding the sticks and mud of the earth. The sun was past the zenith here; already it was late afternoon. His next jump would take him back to the palace, to the room where he had recuperated, where he had seen Caitlen for the first time.

  Taking a deep breath, he jumped through space again, and landed standing up in the small room behind the throne room in the palace that was meant for visiting monarchs. He checked himself; he felt good, with no strains or feelings of weakness. There was noise outside the window, he realized as he shifted his attention from himself to the rest of the world. The sounds were violent and hostile – screams and weapons clashing. Alec ran to a window and looked. Outside a group of a half dozen women in Black Crag uniforms were surrounded and falling to a group of over a dozen men in red and green uniforms. Alec closed his eyes, engaged his Warrior energies, and jumped through the glass of the window, ready to return to battle in Vincennes on behalf of Caitlen.

  He picked one man out of the back of the pack of attackers, punching the man into unconsciousness, then took his sword and began to hack through the Conglomerate forces without regard for the severity of the injuries he inflicted. Three men fell from his first wide swing of the sword, and more started to collapse as he stabbed and hacked at them from the rear, turning the attention of the others away from the Black Crag force. Within five minutes the odds were nearly even, and the Conglomerate forces bolted away en mass, leaving their wounded and dead on the lawn of the palace.