“I’m sure you know best, my lord. And will you be returning to the throne soon?” Olivia’s question echoed his own train of thought.
“I’m satisfied that you are doing a wonderful job as regent, my dear,” he told her with a grin. “Don’t be in a hurry – I’m not coming back for a few weeks or months. But I promise I will come back,” he assured his great-great-grand-daughter.
“I hope you mean it,” Olivia said dejectedly. “I don’t think I’m the best choice for this title. There are so many hard decisions, and sometimes I can’t even figure out if I made the right one or not.”
“I couldn’t figure that out either,” Alec told her, as they reached the entrance to the kitchen. “But I know I tried to make the best decision, and I’m sure you did too.”
Inside the kitchen they found crates and bags filled with food for Alec to carry back, and the kitchen staff watched with bemusement as the regent helped load down the king with the various items, until he was laden with the full amount of goods.
“Enjoy the rest of your audience. I’ll send the ingenairii back to you for a proper heroes’ welcome home,” Alec told her. “Be sure to dispatch supplies and new recruits up to the post there to help Lieutenant Dale maintain order in the city as the settlers start coming back. And give her a promotion to captain, too.”
“When will we see you again? Will you come back with the ingenairii, or at least come back for a visit from time to time?” Olivia asked.
“Perhaps a visit,” Alec agreed. He raised a hand to his face and blew a kiss to the regent. “Enjoy yourself, and don’t take the job too seriously,” he told her, and then he was gone, once again journeying through the dimensions that no other human was able to manipulate.
Chapter 22
When Alec returned to the Gallop guard post with his grand cargo of prepared foods and delicate treats, he was quickly unloaded by many willing hands that were lured by his aromatic arrival. The food was immediately welcome, and the group took up seats in a ring around the courtyard, recounting stories of the battle that day. One of the members of the guard disappeared and then reappeared with bottles of wine from the tavern across the street, and as the sun fell, the atmosphere grew mellow and relaxed.
“The ingenairii should be ready to leave tomorrow,” Alec told Dale, Kecil, and Kalie as the group sat together. “And I asked the regent to send supplies and more bodies up here to support you,” he told the commander of the surviving Guard forces in the north.
“And Kecil and I will leave with the ingenairii, and go our separate way from them somewhere on the way south,” he added.
“Can’t we just use your way of traveling?” Kecil asked.
“We’re not really in a hurry to get anywhere, are we?” Alec asked. “You’ve still got a bit more time until you can return to your own land. We can just travel through the Dominion, and you can practice your healing work on the way.”
The details of the plan were further discussed, and the next morning the departure of the war party began.
“Are you sure the cloud won’t come back?” one of the Guards asked tentatively as the departees were preparing to leave.
“I think we defeated it, fully and completely,” Alec said.
“There was a sensation of finality and defeat in the cloud,” Cuck, the Spiritual ingenairii added. “Whatever spirit lived within the cloud, it knew the battle was over.
“Even though it somehow felt as though the cloud had a bit of Lord Alec’s own spirit within it.
“And the great light, the attack from the sky, it felt as if it was your work as well,” he added.
“I’m sure you felt something, but you saw me standing where I was, outside the cloud,” Alec answered too quickly. He felt unnerved by the claims of the Spiritual ingenairii, coming so close to the words of the lokasennii. He had not done anything to create such an impression – absolutely nothing.
Yet still the reports resurfaced.
“Lair and I agreed,” Cuck didn’t let the point drop.
“If you discover any more information, let me know,” Alec was ready to end the conversation.
“We will. We’ll talk to the other Spirituals when we get back to the Hill; maybe we can even glean something useful from the Prophets,” Cuck had to speak the last word.
“I’m grateful, my lord, for the work you did, knowing how to fight that thing, and bringing the people here who could do it,” Lieutenant Dale spoke up. “There’s no telling where the cloud would have spread to without this battle.”
“The question is,” Kecil spoke up, speaking slowly, “where did it come from and what was it? How do you know it won’t happen again?”
“I pray we never have to find out,” Dale broke the silence.
The group sat in silence for minutes longer, then finally broke up, as other groups did. Individuals formed new groups and pairs, some around the firepit, others disappearing off into the shadows. When Alec was ready to sleep, he found Kecil not far away, speaking with some Light ingenairii; she excused herself and joined him immediately.
“You don’t have to leave just because I’m going to sleep,” he told her.
“I wouldn’t feel as safe sleeping anywhere but with you,” she smiled at him, and they left the post to find a nearby abandoned home. The two mattresses provided more comfort than they’d enjoyed for slumbering in days, and they quickly succumbed to sleep.
The next morning the group of travelers enjoyed a brief departure ceremony from the Guard post, then headed south. They traveled for the next four days, comfortable in one another’s company. Alec twice made trips to pick up supplies from palaces and bring them to the victorious group. On the fourth day they passed the reinforcements who were being sent to Gallop, a large squad of two dozen men and women going north to protect the region and prepare it for the return of the settler traffic that was sure to eventually filter north.
“It’s time for us to go our separate way,” Alec told the ingenairii the day after passing the northern reinforcements. “We’re going to Frame, and then to Stronghold,” he explained.
They all said their fond farewells, and Alec and Kecil started on the southern road towards Frame. Rain began to fall upon them in the middle of their first day alone, which led Alec to form an umbrella of air over them for protection. They spent their first night in the barn of a settler’s farm, and at sunset of their second night of travel through the rainy lands they reached the suburbs of the city of Frame.
“We’ll find a place to spend the night here,” Alec told Kecil. He was anxious to visit the city again, a city that was filled with powerful and poignant memories for him. He had been raised as an orphan in the city. He had reunited with Bethany in the city, and it had been while they had been there together, along with his companion Rief, that he and Bethany had begun to settle their differences.
In Frame they had taken the steps needed for them to live a long and happy life together. And they would have, if fate – in the form of a malevolent demon – had not interfered so cruelly.
Alec had chosen not to return to Frame during his marriage to Andi. He didn’t want to share his memories of Bethany with the wife who could read his mind. Andi would have understood – she had loved him immensely, as he had loved her. And she had known enough of his memories and feelings to know about his unrequited love for the Water ingenaire of his youth. But he had avoided opening the doors of memory wide for that chapter of his life.
Until now.
“We’ll go to the center of the city and see if an old inn still exists,” Alec told Kecil. He remembered the Golden Bough Inn, the elegant establishment where he and Rief had stayed together, at the same time that Bethany had been staying there. They had all run into one another eventually, and the contact had led to his rapprochement with Bethany.
The city was bigger than Alec remembered – perhaps because it had grown, perhaps because he had entered it from the land side instead of the riverside for the first time ever. By th
e time they reached the ancient square at the heart of the city, the skies were dark, and the street lanterns cast only dim light through the rainy murk.
As the pair walked alone in a narrow street, Kecil finally spoke.
“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked Alec. “Do we have much further to go?”
“I thought the main square would be in this direction,” Alec muttered his response, not at all certain any longer about the direction to head.
At that moment, as he was distracted by the question and the lack of visibility, he almost did not see the attackers that leapt out of a narrow alley between two buildings. The attackers reached Kecil and him so quickly that she only had time to begin to scream, and he didn’t even take time to switch from his Air energy to his Warrior abilities – instead he simply swung the overhead umbrella of air down and upon the attacking trio, knocking the men to the ground. Alec then elegantly scooped the invisible structure of air down and beneath the men with a steady motion that lifted them unexpectedly atop the air cushion as he rose.
Only seconds after they thought they had successfully launched a robbery, the hapless criminals found themselves suspended in the air several feet off the ground, frightened and confused, and unable to extricate themselves from their predicament.
“Let us down! For the love of God!” one of the men shouted, as Alec held Kecil’s hand firmly and continued to walk on.
“Tell us how to get to the Golden Bough on the main square, and I’ll let you down when we get there,” Alec replied loudly.
“Who are you? What are you doing?” a second robber asked from overhead.
“We are travelers from Oyster Bay, and we want to go to the Golden Bough,” Alec answered shortly. “Which way do we go from here?”
“Go right,” one of the men immediately answered.
“Then left at the next cross street,” another added.
With the croaking voices from overhead offering advice while they traveled the empty streets, Alec and Kecil approached the city’s central square five minutes later.
“We just go straight ahead to the square?” Alec asked as they stood in the drizzling rain.
“Yes, my lord, just fifty yards ahead,” two men assured him.
Alec swung his air platform off to the side, and lowered it, then dissolved it, and the men tumbled to the ground and ran away without further comments, disappearing in the dark.
“Why did you let them go?” Kecil asked. “They tried to rob us!”
“We put some fright into them. If they hadn’t tried to rob us, someone else would have; we were in the wrong part of town,” Alec explained fatalistically. “But now,” he changed the subject, “let’s go get a room for the night!”
They quickly entered the square, where a few pedestrians and a few carriages did show signs of life in the fashionable center of the damp city. When they entered the Golden Bough, Alec paused at the threshold, overcome with memories of Bethany and Rief, the two women who he had spent time with at the inn during one of the most emotionally warm weeks he would ever remember.
“What is it, Alec?” Kecil asked, as the memories played themselves before his mind’s eye.
“I’m just remembering happy times I enjoyed here,” he said absently, as he turned to look into the dining room. A musician was playing, as if it were an evening four centuries earlier – as if he could expect to look and see his two friends sitting and drinking glasses of Goldenfields Red wine at a table by the window.
“Let’s get a room,” he said softly, rousing himself from the pleasant reverie.
“We’d like a nice room for two nights,” he told the clerk at the desk, and minutes later they climbed to the top of the stairs and found a spacious room with two beds awaiting them.
“This is much nicer that the room I had the last time I was here,” Alec grunted as he lay down on one bed.
“Will we be able to have some dinner?” Kecil asked.
“Of course! I should have thought of that,” Alec assured her.
“Why are we staying here two nights?” Kecil asked later, as they sat down to dinner at a nearby tavern, drinking wine and eating slices of beef. “Where do we go next?”
“I thought we could go sightseeing tomorrow,” Alec told her. “My plan is to book passage on a ship going up the river to Stronghold, and then we’ll probably walk from Stronghold back to the Pale Mountains and return to your homeland. The journey will take us about a month,” he estimated.
“Just as simple as that? Travel for a month, return to my homeland. Will you let me be a lacerta again?” Kecil asked. “It’s been forever since I’ve returned to my natural form. I’m starting to feel comfortable as a human. You know that’s a bad sign,” she grinned at him to show her humor.
“Perhaps we can find the orphanage that used to be here and spend time healing all the children,” Alec offered.
“Could we really? That would be so much fun!” Kecil responded immediately.
“Rief enjoyed it too,” he remembered. “She was like you, still new to her healing power.”
“Can you ever think of a woman without thinking of someone you knew before?” Kecil asked.
“It’s not easy,” he answered contemplatively. “They’re like ghosts now – all the people I’ve known. All those memories are waiting to be triggered by something, anything, in the present. If you live to be five hundred years old, you’ll understand.”
“We’ll go down to the riverfront and find a ship at the docks that can carry us upstream to Stronghold,” Alec told Kecil after they finished their meal and began to walk back to their inn. “It’s a peaceful part of the river; there isn’t a lot of settlement there.”
“There weren’t many people up in the north, there weren’t many around your palace at the Healing Spring, and there aren’t many people along this river of yours?” Kecil asked. “Don’t you have many people in your kingdom?”
“They live where they want to live,” Alec smiled. “And not many of them want to live in the places I’ve taken you to so far. But you’ve seen Oyster Bay and Frame – the cities have people, right?”
“Perhaps you’re not the king of an empty land after all,” the lacerta-in-disguise conceded.
They reached the door of their inn, and as they entered, the man at the desk held up a folded piece of paper.
“This message is for you, my lord,” the man told Alec.
“What message would I receive?” he asked rhetorically. “No one knows I’m here.” He reached over and took the paper from the man, then broke the plain seal, and read the simple message written inside.
“I look forward to your arrival so much. We will find the answers,” the note was signed only with a letter, “K”, and was written in a feminine hand.
“Who left this here?” Alec asked.
“Was it you?” he turned to Kecil.
“Me? Why would I write you a note?” she peremptorily snatched the paper from his hand and read it. “What does it even mean?” she asked.
Who could it be from? He asked himself. “There’s Kale,” he referred to the palace cook who had started the cross-continent adventure with him, then summarily dropped out after just a few days. Kale wouldn’t have any idea of where he was. And Kale’s handwriting certainly wouldn’t look at all like the note that Kecil held.
“Could it be Karalee?” he asked aloud, thinking of the steward at the Oyster Bay palace, a competent and capable – almost intimidating – woman. She would have no reason to write to him, nor would she send any note so cryptic. Nor would she have any idea of where he was.
“Well?” Kecil interrupted his silent musing as they stood in front of the innkeeper’s desk.
“I have no idea who this is from,” he replied. He took the paper back, and waved it towards the desk clerk. “What did the woman look like?” he asked.
“She has very wavy hair, and she was about medium height. I think she was attractive, in her own way,” the man told him.
“No, never,” the clerk said assuredly.
“Thank you,” Alec said, and they went up to their room.
After a brief visit, they left the inn again, and strolled to the riverfront, where Alec began to inquire about ships heading towards Stronghold.
When he found a freighter that had a cabin available for passengers, he asked what the fares would cost, and what the expected travel time would be.
“We’ll need ten to twelve days to reach Stronghold,” the first mate guessed. “And you’ll have to pay for your share of the food each day, or bring your own.”
“What are the chances we can complete the trip in seven days?” Alec asked.
“That’s impossible,” the officer stated flatly.
“Let’s wager on it,” Alec felt suddenly, humorously predatory. “We’ll pay double or nothing on our fares if we make the trip in seven days or less,” he proposed, and stuck his hand out to seal the deal with a shake.
“The captain will give me a bonus for collecting so much from you,” the mate taunted.
“When will you leave the docks?” Alec asked.
“We leave at moonrise tonight,” the sailor replied.
“We’ll be here then,” Alec assured him, as he began to lead Kecil away.
“Be sure to bring enough to pay twice,” the mate’s voice trailed after him.
“I hope you’re ready for the switch from the luxury of the Golden Bough to the squeeze of a river freighter cabin,” Alec warned Kecil.
“How can you be so sure about the speed of this ship?” Kecil asked.
“It’s got sails,” Alec noted the masts on the ship. “I can control the breezes that will push us up the river. And you can be everyone’s friend by practicing your healing arts on the crew members.”
The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) Page 22