The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  The sight of Alec’s action seemed to arouse the rest of the group, and a dozen flares of light flashed across the field, hitting the cloud with a volley that stopped the progress of the entire front line of the cloud, and caused momentary flashes of red light to luridly glow within the darkness.

  “Kalie!” Alec called the Light ingenairii who he hoped would deliver the telling blow against the cloud. “Are you ready?”

  At the same moment, the two Warrior ingenairii apprentices engaged their powers with an overabundance of exuberance, and each ran towards Kalie with some notion of protecting and assisting her. In their enthusiasm and clumsiness, they each managed to collide with her, and knocked her unconscious.

  “The darkness is over here too!” one of the Light ingenairii on the right side said, and a volley of light beams shot in that direction as well.

  “Kalie!” Alec exclaimed in shock, as he rushed over to try to revive the injured woman.

  “Oh my lord, I’m so sorry!” both Gleese and Pranger said abashedly.

  “It’s closing in on us!” the Spiritual ingenaire shouted. “I feel its anger.”

  Alec looked up from his kneeling position next to Kalie. The Light ingenairii were firing bolts of energy in a disjointed manner, slowing the cloud in some spots, but not stopping it anywhere. And the cloud was drawing dangerously close.

  “Fall back, everyone!” he called. “Let’s retreat towards the village and set up a new defense at the entrance there.

  “Gleese, you and Pranger carry Kalie back to safety,” he ordered the apprentices. “Kecil, you go with them,” he told his companion, “and the two of you as well,” he told the two Spiritual ingenairii.

  The Light ingenairii were turning tail and running, terrified by the turn of events and the approach of the black cloud.

  “Stay with me,” Alec reached out and grabbed the arm of a young man running past him. “We’ll slow this thing down.”

  The Light ingenaire jerked to a stop in Alec’s clutches, and he turned to face the approaching cloud, wide-eyed.

  Alec fired a long, steady beam of energy across a wide portion of the front of the cloud, backpedaling slowly as he did.

  “You shoot at the edges,” he told his new assistant. “I’ll keep attacking the front.”

  Alec fired another splash of Light energy into the center of the cloud, and he was gratified to see his companion begin to shoot numerous bursts of energy as well. They slowed the advance of the cloud and kept in front of it as they backed towards the others and the village.

  There was a sudden, long beam of Light energy that flew past Alec’s shoulder and struck the cloud, causing it to churn and withdraw with violent activity as it widened the gap between itself and the small band defenders who were pressed against the boundaries of the village.

  Alec looked back and saw that Kalie was sitting up on the ground, supported by Kecil, and the Light ingenaire was firing the beam that pained their dark adversary. Kalie ceased her activity, and then Alec saw her eyes close and her head slump forward as the girl passed out again.

  The cloud ceased its withdrawal, but did not begin to advance again – instead it seemed to sit warily in place, awaiting the next step from the small band of humans that sat before it.

  “Everyone, fire now!” Alec shouted. He pointed at the huddled group of Light ingenairii. “All of you – draw as much energy as you can and shoot at the cloud!” he directed.

  “You and I are going to aim at the spot that Kalie hit,” he told his companion, as he raised his hand and pointed at the cloud. A series of bursts of light energy began to fly towards the front of the cloud, striking it in various spots as the ingenairii obeyed Alec’s command.

  Alec pulled the Light power into the world, and began to release it in a steady stream of repeated bursts of concentrated energy, hitting the same spot repeatedly. He felt his abilities being tested by the ongoing efforts, and then he felt relief, as the young man next to him began to fire at the same spot as well, causing a dull red glow to begin to throb within the cloud for the length of three breaths. And then the cloud withdrew pulling all its wisps and streamers and dark mass back into the forest. The forest darkness receded, and then there was only a silent scene of an otherwise ordinary northern forest, the trees standing tall and straight, no birds or animals making any sounds, while the small band of ingenairii and their human companions stood in the open field and stared.

  “Should we chase after it?” the man next to Alec asked.

  Alec shook his head.

  “We didn’t beat it; we battled to a draw. Without Kalie, we couldn’t have done that, and she’s in no shape to chase after that monster,” he wearily waved a hand back at where the strongest Light ingenaire still slumped unconscious, her chin resting on her chest, held in the embrace of Kecil’s arms.

  “Dale,” he called to the guard officer. “Let’s go back to the south side of the settlement and let everyone rest, then we can evaluate what to do next time.”

  The two Warriors lifted Kalie from Kecil, and began to gently carry her along Gallop’s main street. The rest of the group began walking along as well, the Light ingenairii huddled together, talking intently as they moved. A pair of the civilians who had returned to the settlement joined them as they walked through town, but nothing else of note occurred and everyone found the same part of the camp site they had sat or slept in during the previous night.

  The sun was halfway down towards the western horizon, indicating that there were still hours of sunlight before nightfall.

  “Everyone drink some of this water,” Alec began to distribute the skins of water from the Healing Spring. He wanted to go back to his palace, to gather more food to serve out for the evening meal, but his energies were too strained from the battle to allow him to easily use the Traveling energy.

  “Gleese, Pranger, Dale, come talk to me about what happened today. Cuck, come join us too,” he called together the team to carry out the analysis on what had gone wrong. Many things had, Alec knew, but he wasn’t sure if he knew everything.

  “My apologies, my lord,” Gleese immediately began the conversation as they all sat down on a pair of fallen logs near the campsite. “We panicked,” she nodded towards Pranger. “We’ll perform better next time. We’ll know what to expect.”

  “I know you’ll do better,” Alec told them encouragingly.

  “We can do this,” he told them all. “The cloud was chased off with Kalie hardly involved. We just need to watch out to make sure that it doesn’t try to out-maneuver us; it knows now that we can hit back hard. Lieutenant Dale, are there any reports of it doing anything tricky or unusual?”

  “We haven’t gotten many reports from survivors of attacks by the cloud, and none of those reported anything unusual,” the officer answered.

  “But no one has ever fought back against it to make it need to be clever,” she added. “I don’t know what to tell you my lord.

  “I’d set a guard watch if you want, but no one’s going to see a black cloud at night until it is already in the camp,” she explained.

  The group discussed little more, then separated for the night, and settled into the camp routine.

  In the morning, following an uneventful night, the ingenairii and the guards traveled back through Gallop to the north side of the settlement, while the civilians chose to remain at the southern campsite, fearful of another attack by the cloud.

  The ingenairii all assumed the same positions they had held the previous day, each of them promising Alec that they were better prepared and ready for the confrontation to come.

  And when noon came, the cloud returned, bent on conquering its feisty nemesis.

  Wide fronts of the darkness approached from both the right and left sides, rolling through the forest with a steady, silent approach that was unnerving. The ingenairii, prepared by the previous day’s experience, began to fire their bolts of Light energy at both sides immediately. Kalie withheld her energy, then shouted to A
lec.

  “Where should I attack it?” she asked, looking both right and left.

  “Go to the right,” Alec picked a direction at random; he saw no difference in the two sides, as the many bolts of Light from the ingenairii squad intermittently struck the wide target area. They were doing no discernable good; the cloud was not appreciably slowing as it approached the defenders in front of Gallop.

  “Hold your positions and keep fighting!” Alec shouted to the ingenairii.

  And at that moment, Kalie began to burn a hole in the right side of the dark cloud. Her bolt of Light energy was powerful, large and bright. The air sizzled noisily as the energy passed through it, and the dark cloud immediately ceased advancing on the right side of the confrontation, then began to swirl actively.

  Alec pointed at the left side, where the cloud was still moving, and he called upon his connection to the Light energy, ready to fire his own power at the side where more support was needed.

  But the power failed him. He felt no connection, no ability to carry it from the energy realm back into the tangible world.

  “Ingenairii on the right side – reinforce the left side!” he shouted, and was pleased to see the half dozen men and women dutifully shift their aims to support their companions on the opposite side, while Kalie’s power on the right side was developing the dull red glow inside the cloud that Alec recognized as a sign of damage to the evil enemy.

  “I can’t send much more, Alec!” Kalie shouted. “Add your power – help me!”

  Alec tried to reach for the energy again, and again found that he was unable to assist.

  “What are you waiting for?” Kecil asked.

  Kalie’s beam flickered suddenly, and abruptly ceased to brighten the vicinity as it stopped flowing, and the red glow in the darkness immediately ended.

  And then it seemed as if the world was coming to an end.

  An unendurably bright light beam dropped down from the bottom of an overhead cloud, a beam that was vastly wide and deep. It struck the cloud on the right side and the left, from the nearest front back into the unseen depths of the cloud as its bulk remained hidden in the forest. The ground quaked violently under the force of the battle, and the ingenairii struggled to keep their feet.

  The cloud released an unearthly scream of anguish, and it roiled and evaporated upward and away in just seconds. As it went, Alec thought he saw figures revealed within its former boundaries, but then they too evaporated, and a sudden string of explosions began, occurring in the spots where Alec thought he had seen figures standing, and cascading backwards. Boom, after boom, after boom – the detonations traced a path away from Gallop, growing fainter and farther, and then ceasing to occur.

  And the brilliant power from overhead disappeared. All that remained was a stone monolith.

  “My lord! That was extraordinary!” Cuck called out.

  “It was astonishing,” Alec agreed warily, baffled by the unimaginable amount of power that had been drawn from the Energy realm for the overwhelming display.

  “How did you do it?” Cuck asked.

  “I didn’t – I don’t know how it happened,” Alec answered momentarily turning from facing the man to look at Kalie, who was slumped over with weariness, held up by support from Preeble.

  “But I felt your presence in the power, and even in the cloud,” Cuck protested. He turned to look at Lair, who nodded in agreement.

  “Without question, my lord,” the second Spiritual ingenaire agreed. “Look at the monolith; it is your signature.”

  “I was not even able to grasp the power!” Alec blurted out his admission, drawing gaping stares from the ingenairii around him.

  “I tried, but I could not touch the energy,” he repeated.

  “Yet we felt a sense of your involvement,” Lair asserted.

  “Even before the great blast, I sensed you within the cloud, somehow,” Cuck asserted. “And my eyes were on you at the same time; it defies explanation.”

  Alec looked over at where Kalie was being triumphantly lifted atop the shoulders of her fellow Light ingenairii, as Lieutenant Dale and her small contingent of guards cheered them on. He walked forward to the monolith, and placed his hand against the stone. He felt a sense of peace and tranquility come upon him while he made contact with the stone.

  “It feels as if it’s truly over,” Alec said as he returned from the obelisk. “I don’t know how it happened, or why, or who did what, but I have a sense that the battles with the dark cloud have ended. It will not be a threat any more, and the north is open to be safely settled once again.

  “Is that a prophecy, my lord?” Cuck asked. “We seldom hear of true prophecies being uttered.”

  “The Prophets are really just an off-shoot of the Spiritual ingenairii,” Alec told them. He began walking back towards the village, back towards where the rest of the small battle party was headed. “The Prophets just have a peculiarly-tuned avenue of access to the truth.”

  “This calls for a celebration,” he decided on the spur of the moment, as he looked ahead and saw the jovial playfulness of the Light ingenairii. “I’m going to go to Oyster Bay and gather some supplies for a feast tonight.” He stopped walking.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he told Kecil.

  “I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same to you,” the girl replied. “Safe travels,” she said with a mocking smile, and then he was gone from Gallop.

  “That is extraordinary!” Cuck marveled softly. “I’d love to try that someday.”

  “You’d find that it’s very convenient, and very unsettling,” Kecil counseled him as they hurried to catch up with the others.

  Chapter 21

  Alec arrived in the spot he had chosen – the roof of the palace armory at Oyster Bay. He paused for a moment to savor the views of the palace grounds. He was going to enjoy spreading the news that the ingenairii had defeated the horrific threat in the north, even though he would be short of details if anyone asked him to explain how the ingenairii had won, or what the nature of the cloud was, or how he was sure the battle was finished. But no one was likely to ask for such details.

  Despite the complete absence of access to the energy just minutes before, he felt in complete control and grasp of the power once again, even having just completed a jump through space using his Traveler energy.

  He created a cushion of air and lowered himself from the roof to the ground, then went in search of the regent.

  “My lord,” a servant of the palace awaited Alec as he descended to the paving stones in the courtyard below, “how may we help you?”

  “Would you please tell me where the regent is?” Alec asked, and he was led to the palace wing that housed the working rooms, where Olivia was sitting in court, receiving visitors from throughout the lands of the Dominion.

  The foreign dignitaries were delighted to be in the room to capture a glimpse of Alec when he arrived. He was a seldom-seen icon in the Dominion, a figure at the center of three sets of legendary eras – the lacerta wars of his youth, the Michian wars when he had returned from his cursed exile in the Energy Realm, and then finally his days of the final battle with Hellmann, when he had conquered the demigod and restored the Dominion to the self-rule it presently exercised.

  But over the most recent generation’s decades of life he had withdrawn from public appearances as he and Andi had semi-retired to their life at the Healing Spring. To see him at the palace created an opportunity for the visitors from Frame and Red Water and Stronghold to make a claim that they could proudly take back to their homes and boast about long after they returned.

  “Your majesty, shall we retire immediately?” Olivia asked as soon as she saw Alec directed to the stage she sat upon.

  “Please continue to recognize your visitors,” Alec had said, “And I’ll join you. While I do, please have your kitchen staff prepare a meal that I can carry back to your victorious battle group in the north. After the proceedings here are finished, I’ll be happy to pro
vide a report on the success in the north.”

  “Oh no you’re not!” Olivia cried indignantly. “You’re not going to keep your court waiting for a report on the fight in the north! Tell us all – your subjects are eager to know!”

  Alec grinned; he had known that there would be demand for the story of the battle against the mysterious enemy in the north. Even though he could not tell the court the nature of the enemy, or even truly explain how the ingenairii had won – thanks to the mysterious energy that had won the day at the end – he could nonetheless tell a good tale that everyone would appreciate.

  “We were a small force – a half dozen guards, a dozen Light ingenairii, and a handful of others,” he began to tell the tale, and then proceeded to mesmerize the audience hall for the next several minutes as he recounted the events around Gallop, and the final retreat of the ominous opponent from the field.

  “Say what you will about Warrior ingenairii, it was a band of Light ingenairii that won this battle on behalf of the people of the Dominion,” he finished.

  “And now, I’m due to return to them and I want to take a celebration feast back to the heroes,” he told Olivia.

  “I’ll walk with you,” she said as she rose from her seat. “Our audience will resume in an hour,” she told the assemblage, and then the two of them walked out a side door and strolled through the palace.

  “We don’t really know what goes on up on Ingenairii Hill,” Olivia spoke after they had begun to walk through the halls. She cast a sideways glance at him, as he remained silent.

  “But even we have heard rumblings that the Warrior ingenairii are not pleased at being passed over for this campaign you have reported on,” she told him.

  “The Warriors,” Alec mused. “I haven’t kept an eye on them for years, and I did have a bit of a run-in with one of them,” he acknowledged. “But I imagine they will calm down when their egos have a few days to recover.”

  He would come back to the Dominion and resume a more active role in the governance of the kingdom and the ingenairii, he promised himself once again. But first he would finish his protection of Kecil, and take her back to the lacerta lands. And perhaps he would finish his cross-continent travels to see the Twenty Cities and other places from his past life.