The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  The Warrior in the air suddenly screamed, as he began to plummet downward.

  Alec watched passively as the man dropped fifty feet, then one hundred feet, then two hundred feet, falling with increasing speed.

  “Save him!” the boy apprentice shouted at Alec.

  Alec re-applied his Air energies to the support of the Warrior, and arrested his descent, then began to calmly lift the man back up to the level of the balcony.

  “What did you intend to show these apprentices?” Alec asked as he maneuvered the man over the balcony railing and gently landed him on the stone patio. Despite knowing that he shouldn’t taunt the man, Alec couldn’t help himself. The Warrior’s discourteous behavior had merited the treatment, he told himself.

  Knowing that some display of belligerence was likely to explode next, Alec released the Air energies and grasped his own Warrior energies.

  As soon as the Warrior felt his feet touch the ground, he reached for his knife and threw it at Alec. “I’ll show you what…,” the man’s angry outburst stopped mid-sentence as Alec caught the flying knife in midair.

  “We only came up here to enjoy the view. Perhaps you should turn around and look out at the peaceful scene, and ask yourself if there was any reason for you to try to murder someone over such a trivia matter,” Alec told him. He reared his arm back and threw the knife with all his might, causing it to fly high out over the hill and the beach and the water, where it eventually landed with a white splash.

  “We’re going to leave now. I hope you two have learned the lesson that was taught here, even if it wasn’t the lesson this man intended you to learn,” Alec turned to the two apprentices. “Be humble, kind, and gracious whenever you can. You’ll be a better person.”

  Alec embraced the Air energies once again and created a protective curtain of air around himself, then walked with an unconcerned stride back over to Kecil. “We need to move on,” he told her, and the two of them left the patio.

  “You don’t usually show such an aggressive response,” Kecil said once they were down the Hill and safely away from the patio.

  “I don’t usually face such boorish behavior,” Alec answered. “I can’t stand bullies. That’s why I ran down and saved you!”

  “I’m not complaining,” the transfigured lacerta grinned.

  “Let’s go in here,” he gestured to the building they were passing.

  “Is it going to be friendlier than the last house we visited?” Kecil asked.

  “I think they will be. This is the Healer house. They should welcome two members to the house,” he replied.

  “Pull up your sleeve,” he instructed as they entered the hall. There was only one patient sitting in the waiting room, hoping for treatment.

  “You may have to wait; most of them are getting ready to go to the big convocation,” the patient told them as he held his left arm cradled against his body.

  “Here, let us take a look at that,” Alec answered, as he walked into the waiting room. “Kecil, you take care of it; I’ll help you,” he instructed. He placed his hand on her shoulder as she examined the badly strained wrist.

  “I’ll let my energy flow through you if you know what you want to do,” he told her quietly.

  Kecil finished examining the injury, then placed her palms around the joint, and began to release her own powers.

  “I’m ready for you now,” she told Alec, and he let his energy flow through her. He sensed her use of the energy, as it removed the damage from the tendons and rewove the capillaries that had suffered, while easing the stress on the muscles and reducing the swelling, his power smoothly integrated into hers.

  “There, you should be as good as new,” Kecil released her grip and patted the man’s shoulder.

  “I’m going to make it to the convocation in time!” the patient said cheerily. “How much do I owe you?”

  “The usual,” Alec spoke up. “You can come back and pay tomorrow when the clerk is here,” he offered. The man happily accepted the proposal and was out the door.

  “Are you the last patients?” a weary-sounding girl’s voice behind them caused the pair to spin around.

  “No, the patient just left to go to the gathering. You should go to,” Alec told the girl. She was young, and fresh-faced, though the expression on her face was haggard.

  “I’m too exhausted to do anything but wait here for the next patient. But who are you two if you’re not patients?” she asked.

  “I’m Alec and this is Kecil. We’re Healers too. Kecil is my apprentice,” Alec answered.

  “I know all the Healers, and I don’t know you. I know all except,” the girl answered, began to correct herself, then stopped, as a glimmer of suspicious understanding dawned.

  “May I see your arms, please?” she asked.

  “She handled this all so much better than the Warrior did,” Alec pointed out to Kecil, as they each exposed their marks to the girl.

  “You are the king!” she said softly. She knelt on the floor, until Alec reached out and lifted her back to her feet.

  “Would you like to go with us to the gathering?” Alec asked.

  “If there’s no one else waiting, then, yes,” the girl said. “Thank you, your majesty.”

  Alec, Kecil, and the Healer, whose name was Mara, walked across the Hill together, and entered the side door of the large building that had been the gathering and entertaining space of Ingenairii Hill for centuries.

  “There are the Healers, over there,” Mara pointed across the room at where the Healer standard was raised on a pole above a small pocket of ingenairii. All the Houses appeared to have standards raised, and the ingenairii seemed to have banded into their tribes around the poles. They hadn’t been so segregated when Alec had been young, he thought, and he hadn’t restored Ingenairii Hill with any such expectations or directions. He wondered if he’d been too hands-off, too ready to turn the ingenairii over to their own governance too soon after having tried to restore the Dominion and Michian to their traditional ruling societies.

  Working with the ingenairii might be a satisfying way to spend his time, once the battles of the north and his journey with Kecil were complete. He could provide the leadership and the example to help the ingenairii develop a healthier culture, or healthier than at least one of the Warriors seemed to think appropriate, he thought to himself.

  But that was in the future.

  “Kecil, you go with Mara over to the Healers,” Alec directed. “I’ll go up front, and you can come join me after the meeting,” he told her.

  “Come along,” Mara urged. “We want to get there before the king starts his speech.”

  Alec smiled at the women, then parted from them and walked up the aisle to the front of the room, where he climbed the short flight of steps up to the stage.

  “It’s good to see you arrive, my lord. I was growing nervous,” Nicholas greeted him with a smile. The man probably was genuinely nervous, Alec guessed.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. We just took a stroll around the Hill to see the sights,” Alec assured him. He glanced out over the audience. The Warriors were standing in the front, and Alec spotted his antagonist from the balcony, as well as the two apprentices. The fighter was scowling at Alec, while the apprentices, who were standing apart from the man, looked from Alec to the fighter and back.

  “Let’s get started. There’s no reason to keep folks waiting,” Alec suggested. “Go introduce me and let me do the rest.”

  The Stone ingenaire nodded, then stepped out to the edge of the stage, as the audience ceased its chatter and focused its attention on the front of the room.

  “We are rarely gathered together for serious matters,” Nicholas began. “And I thank all of you for coming to the Hall for this speech.

  “The greatest ingenairii who ever lived, Alec the Long-lived, the Demonslayer, the King of the Dominion, a member of at least eight Houses, including some that only he belongs to, has asked to speak to all of us regarding a matter of
the greatest importance.

  “Your lordship,” Nicholas ceased to shout out his comments to the wide open hall, and spoke in a more conventional voice to Alec.

  “Thank you,” Alec told the man as he stepped forward. He seized the Air power once again, and created a gentle breeze to help carry his voice slightly further within the space. There must be a Sound ingenaire energy, he thought fleetingly to himself; I’ll have to go investigate that someday.

  “My fellow ingenairii,” Alec began. His eyes surveyed the crowd, beginning with the Warriors, and circling around among the Houses. Stone, Water, Spiritual, Prophecy, he saw lined up on the left side of the Hall – and he wondered if he should perhaps go talk to the Prophecy house about the matters in the north, to find if there was any information or warnings they could deliver. Ari had been the only Prophecy ingenaire Alec had ever found to be useful, but that was a powerful testament by itself.

  “I was recently in the northern lands, where many settlers from the Dominion have been moving and beginning new lives. There are troubles up there, serious troubles. Something unknown is taking people, making them disappear,” he began, hoping his words were sailing to the far corners of the room.

  The Warriors were shuffling their feet, and Alec’s antagonist was whispering to one of his fellows.

  “While I was there, I saw something, something unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I tried to fight it,” he told the crowd. They were all paying attention to his surprising story.

  “I could not defeat it by myself,” he added after a pause. He let that sink in. They all knew the legends about him – the man who fought demons repeatedly, and beaten them. Some of them even knew that he had beaten Hellmann – twice – and had an inkling of understanding of what a terrible challenge the self-proclaimed demigod had provided.

  “I need help,” Alec said after another pause. “I believe this strange and dangerous enemy can be beaten, and I believe there are ingenairii in this room who can accomplish the victory. They can go up there and make the northern lands safe again, so that settlers can go and raise their crops and their families and can help make the Dominion a bigger, stronger nation.” The Warriors were whispering among themselves fervently, spreading some message from one to another.

  “So I am here today to speak to you, my fellow ingenairii, to ask for assistance from those who have the ability to win this battle,” he continued his speech.

  With that sentence, the Warriors began to move en masse, nearly the entire gathered group. They made a show of their movement as they turned away from Alec and began to walk towards the door. They evidently had been persuaded by the bully from the balcony to refuse to assist Alec, and he felt his blood pressure rise.

  “I need the ingenairii who are best suited to assist; I need the ingenairii who can be winners for all of us,” he raised his voice and tried to deliver a cutting comment.

  “I need the Light ingenairii to volunteer to come with me on this journey to fight for the Dominion,” he gave the name to the group who he wanted, as he watched as the Warriors, who had nearly reached the doorway, froze in their tracks, then unanimously turned and stared at him, some faces showing disbelief, others showing incomprehension, and one or two faces showing beet red anger.

  “And I would like to have a Spiritual ingenairii along as well – one or two,” Alec added. “We won’t need any others to fight this important battle.”

  He looked down and saw that the two apprentice Warriors he had seen on the balcony had not walked out on him with the others. They had stayed in place and respectfully listened to the rest of his plea.

  “And the two of you, would you like to come along with us as well?” Alec directly gestured to the pair.

  They nodded affirmatively.

  “This is a serious request, and I know that your houses will want to discuss this. Go back and hold your conclaves and make your decisions, then send your thoughts to Nicholas, so that he may coordinate with the palace to send our strength up to the north along with the Guards that will be sent as escorts,” he released them all.

  “I thank you all for coming together today,” he finished.

  There was a rising tide of murmurs. The disbelieving Warriors remained in their unlikely location near the door, still unable to believe that a call to battle had specifically excluded them.

  “Maybe you two will earn your marks, eh?” Alec asked the Warrior apprentices who still stood in the front of the room, as the rest of the attendees began to chatter loudly and shuffle towards the door.

  “What’s it going to be like for you to go back to the Warriors’ house for the next few days while we wait for our group to depart?” Alec asked.

  “Unpleasant,” the girl said.

  “Why don’t you come live in the palace for a few days, until we go?” Alec suggested. “Kecil and I have to go on an errand, but you could remain in the palace and then ride north with the entire contingent, and we’d meet you in the north. I could even be your trainer while we’re up there,” he offered.

  “Your majesty, are you serious?” the boy asked.

  “What’s your name – Gleese or Pranger?” Alec recollected the names the elder Warrior had bellowed when he had called the two up to the balcony.

  “I’m Pranger, my lord,” the boy said immediately. “This is Gleese,” he motioned to the other apprentice. The girl was dark-haired and taller than the fair-haired boy.

  “We’re both pretty close to calling our ingenaire powers out into the world!” the boy said enthusiastically.

  “Come with me to the palace,” Alec urged. He saw that Kecil was saying her parting words to a small group of Healers, and was weaving through the crowd, coming to the front of the room. Communicating with the girl would be much simpler if they could speak mind-to-mind, Alec had the random thought, as he had done with Andi for so many years. And then he grew silent for the rest of the walk, as he thought about Andi again, and how she had grown to love Oyster Bay as her adopted home when she and Alec had lived in the palace and ruled the land.

  When he and the others walked through the gates of the palace grounds, Alec shook himself out of his musings, and began to explain to the young apprentices what they would experience.

  “Kecil and I will leave to return to Avonellene for the next few days, while you wait here for the palace to collect provisions and manpower for the campaign in the north, and then you and the others will ride with them,” he offered. “You can practice at the armory here in the palace – it’s been a favorite place of mine for centuries – and of course you can practice your ingenaire skills anytime and anywhere.” He introduced them to the members of the palace staff who would take care of them, then prepared to bid them farewell.

  “In just a few days we’ll be together again, and we’ll work together to protect the northern borders of the Dominion,” he told them as he bid them farewell.

  “Are we going to leave now?” Kecil asked as the two of them strode away from the dazed youths, who were being taken to their new quarters in the palace, as the staff members with them over-explained too many things at once.

  “We are going to find the person who maintains the records,” Alec replied.

  “Do you have any records on the things that have happened in the north?” Alec asked the elderly woman when he found her in a dusty room at the end of a dusty corridor. He had asked several questions of others before he received directions, and he was sure he wouldn’t be able to find his way back again without more assistance to renegotiate the passages.

  “I imagine that over the years we have many things reported about the north. Why do you ask?” she queried Alec when he finally found her and offered her a question.

  “There is something unpleasant, something evil, disturbing the peace in the far north, in lands that haven’t been settled in a long time; people are disappearing. Were there problems there in the past? How did the old timers battle this?” he put his concern more plainly.

  “I k
now of no accounts that mention such problems, your majesty,” the keeper of the records replied. “But I will examine the records to seek some hint. How shall I inform you of what I find?” she asked.

  “I will return in five days,” Alec told her. “I look forward to anything you may have to tell me.”

  The researcher gave a bob, and the two visitors left her dusty room to return to the more active portions of the palace.

  “Are you ready to return to a different life for a few days?” Alec asked. “I suspect we need to use these next few days to wrap up our time in Avonellene,” he told Kecil.

  “Hold on,” he warned, and they transported back to the palace by the Healing Spring. Once there, Alec informed the staff they were departing for several days, and he asked for several skins full of water from the spring, then resumed the long journey to the east. They traveled to the ruined city in the Pale Mountains, then to Chanradala, and to Boundary Lake, followed by a long journey to Black Crag, where Alec paused to relax, and finally made the late night jump in the eastern hemisphere that took them back to Avonellene, and the alleyway next to the mission building.

  “Let’s get inside and go to sleep,” the weary Alec said to his companion as he released his tight grasp of her body and began to lead her around the corner to the front door.

  “It’s locked,” he said with mild irritation, as he found the door bolted from the inside. “Come here,” he spoke without waiting, clenched the surprised girl in an embrace once again, and used his teleportation ability to move them back to their upper floor bedroom.

  “That was a surprise,” Kecil said, as Alec slumped down on his bed and closed his eyes, his head hanging with fatigue.

  Kecil looked at him in the dim moonlight that entered through the window. “Why would a man of your power bother to sleep in a place like this, when you could be in so many places more comfortable?” she asked, as she knelt in front of him and began to pull his boots off his feet.

  “When I was younger, I could have made this trip and still had enough energy to go dancing with you,” Alec told her as he lay back and felt the relief of his feet being freed from confinement.