“Alec, you look so sweet!” Aja gushed. “I believe you look even younger than you did when I first met you.” She reached over with a twinkle in her eye and gently pinched his cheek.
“Mother!” Smaille spoke in a strangled voice.
“He’s an old friend – he takes no offense, do you, Alec?” Aja asked defensively.
“So, where will we go tonight, Alec? I look forward to singing some lively songs tonight,” she told him.
“Let’s go over to Woven,” Alec suggested. “Or we could go to Yangchoo,” he offered.
“Oh, let’s go to Yangchoo! I’ve never seen the lights there!” Aja grabbed his arm tightly.
“Yangchoo it will be,” Alec agreed.
“You’ll tell Kecil I’ll be back late tonight, won’t you?” Alec asked Smaille as he enveloped the nobleman’s mother in a hug, and then the pair of them disappeared.
When the transition was complete, they stood in an open square that surrounded a set of large statuary figures.
“Where did you come from?” a man asked. He was holding hands with a woman whose eyes were wide with surprise at the sudden appearance of the two travelers.
“We’re looking for a nice place to eat dinner,” Aja answered. “Can you recommend a place?”
The travelers followed halting directions and ate a leisurely meal as the sun set.
“That’s a beautiful dress,” Alec commented after a glass of wine.
“I haven’t worn this in fifty years,” Aja told him, smiling at the compliment. “It’s sat in the back of my closet for the longest time. Amane used to absolutely adore it.”
“I can see why,” Alec said.
The two of them had a wonderful evening in Yangchoo. After dinner, Aja gave an impromptu concert for the other diners. She and Alec left the restaurant laughing after her set of songs, and wandered about, looking at the bedazzling displays of lights in the city, then went to a seedier tavern, where Aja let loose with the bawdier songs she had sung in the distant past, enlivening the audience, who responded with enthusiastic applause time after time.
Alec nearly fought a battle to protect Aja’s honor among the patrons of the tavern, as one drunken man tried to force himself into singing a duet with Aja, an inappropriate song that even Aja declined to join. Alec nimbly handled a knife in a way that did no harm to the man other than to his ego, as Alec cut his belt and left the man’s pants bunched up around his ankles, surrounded by laughter from the other customers.
They returned to the garden of Smaille’s house in the early hours of the morning, and stood in silence for a moment upon their arrival. The sudden transition placed a definitive end on the liberating feeling of freedom they both had enjoyed while in Yangchoo.
They looked at one another, and then Alec impulsively leaned down and kissed Aja, who returned the kiss with passion.
“Do you have a room here?” Aja asked carefully, looking up into his eyes for a moment, then looking away.
“I do, but Kecil is likely to be there,” he answered.
“We share a room, but not a bed,” he added hastily. “Much as you and I have done in our travels,” he explained.
“Would you like to come with me to my home for the night?” she asked. “Or for the day, perhaps?” she gave a nervous laugh as she motioned to the eastern horizon, where the first traces of sunrise were beginning to emerge.
Alec looked at Aja, and took both of her hands in his.
“I told you that Andi passed away just a few months ago,” he said. “I’ve not thought about being with another woman until now. But you know that I’m only passing through here. Kecil and I will be gone in a few days. I don’t think it would be fair.”
“Perhaps not fair to you, but it would do no harm to me to spend a loving moment of time with an old friend who means so much to me, and who shares so many important memories with me,” Aja told him.
“Will your carriage driver even be awake to give us a ride to your home?” Alec asked.
“You can’t just fly us there?” Aja asked.
“I cannot go to a place I’ve never been. I wouldn’t be able to picture where I want to be,” Alec explained.
Aja broke their embrace, then reached down and slipped her elegant shoes off her feet.
“It wouldn’t be such a terribly long walk, not for a pair of youngsters like us,” she grinned, her brilliant green eyes glinting in the fading starlight.
Chapter 27
Alec and Aja spent the next several days together, in Exbury, and they spent several nights together visiting a variety of cities, where Aja performed before numerous crowds, each of them enchanted by her music and stage presence.
And the youthful, ancient pair talked often, reminiscing not only about their past adventure together, but about others in their lives, and the things they had seen through the long years they lived in excess of the lives of the mortals around them.
“I still miss Andi,” Alec told Aja one morning, as they ate breakfast together. “We rarely spoke with words to one another, because we had grown so close and our souls were integrated.”
“That must have been so special,” Aja murmured sympathetically, letting Alec tell as much as he wanted to disclose.
“What was your life like with Amane?” he asked suddenly, not wanting to talk only about himself.
“He was always devoted; he virtually worshipped me until the day he passed,” Aja said carefully.
“But?” Alec probed carefully.
Before Aja could answer, a servant entered the sunny breakfast nook. “A Miss Kecil is here to see you. She is a friend of Lord Alec, I understand?” the young servant asked.
The two senior adults looked at one another.
“Why would your young friend have come all the way out here to see you so early in the morning?” Aja asked curiously.
Alec stood up. “I’ll go see her,” he answered the servant, feeling a slight twinge of guilt over the paucity of time he had spent with his traveling companion over the previous fortnight.
“Alec!” Kecil spoke with a short, staccato burst of her voice. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said, and gave him a tight hug.
“I’m ready to go,” she said as the serving girl left the two of them alone. “I’m ready to go directly back to Chanradala. I’m ready to be a lacerta again.
“Can we go today?” she asked.
Alec studied her intently, and he let his Spiritual energy sense her confusion, aggravation, and even a slight sense of fear.
“What’s bothering you, my friend?” he reached out and took her hand in his. “What can I do to help?”
“It’s Coeur,” Kecil immediately blurted out.
“What has he done to you?” Alec’s voice grew stern.
Kecil was silent, and her eyes widened as she stared at Alec without speaking.
“He kissed me,” she answered.
“Did he hurt you?” Alec asked.
“No,” Kecil was silent for a moment again, then gave a sob. “I liked it. I kissed him back.
“I don’t want to be a human anymore,” she began to cry. “I’ve been wearing this skin and flesh for too long. I’m becoming comfortable. I’m going to become a human forever if I don’t quit now. I want to go back and see the prince. I want to be the person I always was.”
Alec sighed. “We’ll leave today,” he assured her. “I want to go tell Aja, and then we can go back to Lord Smaille’s home and tell them.”
He felt a conflicted sense of both melancholy and correctness. He hadn’t anticipated the need for a sudden departure, and he had grown more comfortable and domestically-settled with Aja in Exbury than he had felt since Andi had departed from his life. Leaving it all on such short notice would create an emptiness in his life, and he worried about what it would do to Aja, how she would feel about him deserting her so unexpectedly.
But he also knew that he wasn’t going to settle in Exbury as Aja’s mate. As close as the two of them felt towards each othe
r, and as devoted as he was to her well-being, he knew that they were not going to be a couple. They each were destined to follow their own paths, wherever they might lead. They might be paths that would cross one another again in the future, but they were not going to be the same path.
“Is everything alright with your ward?” Aja asked when he returned to the breakfast room’s sunshine.
“She’s grown homesick,” Alec replied. “I believe it’s time for me to take her home.”
“And so you’re saying goodbye? Will you be returning here, or are we ready to part ways again?” Aja asked, looking at him earnestly.
“I may not quite be ready to part ways, but,” she paused, “we’re parting while still friends.”
“Yes, we are,” Alec agreed with a sympathetic smile. “I’ll go pack my things and be back to say farewell.”
Minutes later he and Kecil were standing in the breakfast nook with Aja, as each of them gave her a hug, and then Alec engaged his powers, and they were relocated to the garden in Lord Smaille’s home.
They went up to their room and collected Kecil’s belongings, then went down to the parlor, and asked the servants to bring both Lord Smaille and Coeur to see them.
“I’ll speak for myself,” Kecil told Alec, as she sat with her travel-stained small bundle of belongings beside her. “But I’m ready to be who I truly am.”
Alec nodded his head and waited for the two lords of the home to arrive.
“What has brought us all together this morning?” Lord Smaille asked as he entered the room, while Coeur smiled at Kecil and sat in the chair closest to hers.
“My lord, you and your son have been the most hospitable hosts we could have ever asked for,” Alec began. “You have been generous and gracious, and made our visit to your beautiful city a wonderful experience,” he said.
“But the time has come for us to leave, so that we can return to our own lands,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.
“You can’t mean to leave!” Coeur immediately protested, standing up.
He reached down and took Kecil’s hand in his. “Why are you trying to make her leave me?” he asked as he looked at Alec. “We’re just getting acquainted.”
“It was my idea, Coeur dear,” Kecil said, standing up next to him, still holding his hand.
“I have had a wonderful time with you, much better than I ever would have expected or dreamed,” she spoke directly to the youthful Old One. “You have come to be more than a friend and companion in these recent days.
“But I know I’m not the right person for you,” she said.
“How can you know that?” Coeur interrupted. “We seem to be so compatible!”
“There are things about me that you don’t know, things you can’t know. I have to be true to my nature,” Kecil gently disentangled her hand from his, then she sidestepped over to Alec’s side.
“Go on Alec,” she said to him, while still looking at Coeur, “show them who I truly am.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Kecil affirmed.
Alec reached over and placed his arm around her shoulders, then let his Healing energy begin to restore Kecil to her lacerta nature. Within twenty seconds the transformation was complete, and she stood within Alec’s grasp, her skin dark and thick and scaly, her body shape altered, as the two Old Ones stared in fascinated horror.
“What have you done to her?” the words came out in a choking gasp from Coeur.
“This is how I found her,” Alec answered, tightening his grip to press the woman’s body more tightly against his. “I changed her to a human form so that we could travel through many lands undisturbed. But now it is time for her to return to her homeland.”
“We certainly did not anticipate this,” Smaille spoke up for the first time. “But I hope that she will remember our kindness to a stranger, and perhaps she will be able to pay the same favor to some other stranger at some other time.”
“Thank you for your graciousness,” Alec told him. “But now, it is time for us to be on our way.” He wrapped his other arm around his friend. “We wish you and everyone in Exbury the very best of luck. Please tell your mother that I will miss her greatly,” he added.
“Good bye, Coeur!” Kecil’s thin voice called out, just before the two visitors disappeared from the room, leaving their startled hosts to stare at each other for several long, silent seconds.
Chapter 28
Alec and Kecil arrived back in the same alley that Alec had used for hundreds of years as his Traveling spot in Chanradala. Alec felt his energy abilities tested by his decision to make a single jump to cover the long distance rather than make two jumps. He gave a mental wince, then released his tight grasp on Kecil.
“Welcome home, my friend,” he told her.
“It’s hard to believe I’m really home,” Kecil said wonderingly. She looked up at him. “Are you okay?” she asked, noting the gray color and lines of fatigue on his youthful face.
“I brought us a little farther and faster than usual, all at once,” he answered. “I’m fatigued, but I’ll be better after I rest. I’m so tired now though, I’m not sure I am seeing clearly. Everything looks slightly foggy.”
Kecil raised a hand and stroked Alec’s scalp sympathetically, then looked around.
“It’s not just you; it is foggy,” she observed in a puzzled voice.
She sniffed the air. “It’s not foggy,” she said with rising excitement. “It’s smoky!”
“Is that good? Is there a fire?” Alec was puzzled by the tone of her voice.
“The smoke! It’s from the fires – the fires we burn to celebrate the Passage of the Spirits! On this day, the spirits of all the good folks who have died in the past year are able to go to heaven. They have to ride on the rising smoke that carries them up to heaven, so people burn bonfires all day long, and then they hold celebrations all night!” the lacerta girl explained excitedly.
“And it was a year ago, the day after the Passage, that I ran away! I’ve completed my year out of the land! Oh Alec!” She hugged him excitedly.
“Let’s go to my parents’ home,” she urged.
They exited from the alleyway into a busy city street, one that was full of pedestrian celebrants, buskers, peddlers’ carts, and bonfires.
All activity came to an immediate stop at the sight of the human Alec emerging into the city landscape, an extremely evident foreigner among the lacertii population.
Kecil talked their way past the curious crowd, who held no overt ill-will towards Alec’s human appearance, and the pair made it to Kecil’s family home, a comfortable estate along a river that flowed through the broad valley that held Chanradala, the teeming metropolis that was the center of the lacerta nation.
Alec was a sensational second fiddle to the return of the prodigal daughter, who had been given up as lost over the months of her absence. He was given a room where he rested and stayed out of the way, and looked out his window as the sun set in the west and the bonfires across the city cast a lurid red color to the smoky haze that enveloped everything in sight.
“My father will send a note to the palace today, to inform the prince that I have returned home safely,” Kecil told Alec the following morning. She was nervous, Alec could tell, as she alternately sat and stood, pacing and sitting while she ate and talked.
“Will you accompany me to the palace, if I am allowed to return there?” she asked.
“Why would you want me to come?” Alec asked, astonished.
“You are the king of a neighboring nation, you are a great being, you have known historical figures, such as Queen Rosebay, and most importantly, you have been my friend and protector,” Kecil came to stand next to Alec as she said the last, and raised her hands to place them fondly on his shoulders. “You would be respected, and you would help me feel less nervous during the ordeal.”
Two days later, the pair of them and all of Kecil’s family members were ceremo
nially received at the palace.
Initially, the guards at the gate to the palace delayed the entrance of Kecil, her family, and Alec for nearly an hour as they debated allowing the human to enter the grounds, and they finally called upon senior officers to make the decision.
"What role do you play in this call upon the royal family?" the ranking officer asked Alec directly.
Alec paused, as he recollected his last visit to the palace, when he'd arrived to rescue Andi. He'd been in lacerta form, and invisible to boot. It had been a harrowing adventure, one that had produced great bloodshed before the two humans had escaped. But there'd been no evidence to indicate that he had been the opponent in that battle a century earlier, and so he let the recollection pass by.
"I am here as the King of the Dominion, and the friend and protector of Kecil Bungacantik," he answered. "She has been my companion through many travels, and during our campaign against a dangerous and frightening opponent in our northern lands," Alec added. "I'm here to be as loyal to her as she was to me."
The lacerta officer studied Alex silently for several seconds, then turned to Kecil.
"Tell me about this opponent in the north," he asked the girl.
Kecil was startled by the unexpected question, then stammered for a moment as she collected her thoughts.
"It was a large, deadly black cloud that ran across the land, and killed people who didn't run away," she answered. "Alec and his ingenairii fought it several times before they finally defeated it."
"You say it was defeated?" the lacerta officer questioned her.
She turned to Alec. "You killed it, didn't you?" she asked him.
"We did," he agreed.
"You used your ingenairii, the evil wizards?" the lacerta faced Alec.
"They are not necessarily evil," Alec replied. "Ingenairii are like all people - most of them are mostly good, but some are less so."
"You all may enter the palace," the officer spoke, with a motion to the guards at the gate to raise the pike blocking the entry. "I would ask your human friend to come separately with me to answer some additional questions."
The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) Page 26