Ajacii and Demons: The Ingenairii Series

by Jeffrey Quyle

  You will do it, Alec, he heard a ghostly rendition of John Mark’s voice reply, and he felt a burst of growth at his shoulder. He sat down on the ground and closed his eye as he focused on the bone and muscle he was extending away from the shoulder. His energy worked to develop the multitude of types of cells needed, and he lost track of time as he slowly spun the energy of the Healer dimension to convert it to the matter he needed to make his flesh whole again. On and on he labored without awareness of the passage of time, slumped down as he slowly rebuilt the arm, slowing even more as he reached the complex assortment of delicate bones in the wrist and hand.

  When he finished at last he paused. He needed to do much more work, but he needed to rest as well, and he fell asleep in the healers realm, where day and night were not present. He had no idea of how long he slept, but when he awoke he began to work on repairing his injured eye, a delicate healing operation that seemed to take as long as the replacement of his arm had taken. When that was finished, Alec blinked his eyes and stared at his hands, marveling in the simple joy of restored stereoscopic vision again. Upon the completion of his optic work, he started the next major rebuilding project, recreating his leg below his knee. Again the work stretched out for an interminable length of time as Alec recreated the limb and the delicate bones, tendons and muscles that provided power and balance.

  Last came an effort to try to heal away the scarred scalp and facial tissue he carried; he wanted to look suitable to be the consort of Caitlen, but as the time passed he grew impatient and stopped his work. Whatever was done would be enough, he decided, because there was another important aspect of his healer ability he wanted to focus on.

  He grasped the Healer energy soundly, and held onto it as he focused on the Warrior image as well. His body began to move towards the Warrior realm and began to try to shed its incompatible ties to the Healer realm. Alec hoped to find a spot where he would be able to use both powers simultaneously, able to fight as a Warrior and to enjoy the benefits of a Healer while battling. The two powers were inimical, and he knew there was little chance to find a way to combine them, but he imagined the potential great benefit he would have if his body could self-heal while he was engaged in battle.

  Alec hovered between the two realms, feeling both energies painfully grinding and jostling with each other as they both occupied his body, but he could find no location where his hoped-for balancing would work. The two types of energy were so alien to each other that there was no way to allow them to come into contact without enduring pain. He pondered the problem, reluctant to admit that it couldn’t work, because he felt so drawn to the idea of being able to heal injuries even as they occurred.

  Alec thought about his third power, his Spiritual power. He wondered if he could draw upon it at the same time as he used his other two powers, and rely on the Spiritual energy to act as an insulator between the other two, preventing them from making contact with each other. Alec called upon his third power, and felt his body move within the ingenairii realm as it tried to find the suitable point to receive all three types of energy.

  And then it reached a point where Alec felt the energies align themselves as he wanted! The pain dropped instantaneously away, while Alec felt able to call upon any of them.

  Satisfied, Alec dropped the connection to all three powers and found himself again in the axis mundi. He said a prayer of thanks for all that he had been allowed to accomplish; he felt ready to return to the world of Vincennes and then take the long journey to the battle front where he would wage war against the demons. He closed his eyes, and sent himself back to the summer lodge outside Valeriane.

  The building was empty. It was empty in a way that showed it was shut up, closed and left behind. Alec wondered how long he had been gone from the world. Back in it again, he felt weak and ravenously hungry, but also joyous at the whole body he had again, one that didn’t bear constant pains and aches from the demonic injuries.

  He laughed ruefully as he strolled over to a mirror and looked at himself. Virtually all of the scarring was gone; he had only failed to heal a thin stripe that began on his cheek and crossed his eye to run up into his scalp. Above that it disappeared into the short hair that was growing back, hair that included a widening streak of bright white bristles beginning where the scar disappeared.

  That was nothing to complain about, nothing compared to the joy of having a whole arm and leg, and the vision of two eyes to use, not to mention the absence of pain.

  He opened the door and left the lodge, climbed over the fence and began to run, using his Warrior powers on a low setting. He felt the joy of two legs working in harmony, two arms rhythmically pumping, and he settled into a hypnotically soothing running stride, letting his muscles work while he ran along the roads and highways, passing people and carts and horses, noting the passing of the sun across the disc of the sky and the arrival of clouds as the sun set. He continued to run as a light rain fell, darkness set, and the highway emptied of traffic.

  Caitlen, I’m back, he sent a mental message. I was in the ingenairii realm healing my body, I’ll be at the Palace at sunrise.

  Alec? Alec! he heard her respond. You’ve been gone for weeks. I knew you had to be off doing something crazy! I’ll be so glad to see you again. Where are you now?

  Somewhere between Valeriane and Vincennes, but getting closer all the time, he answered. Are you alright? Is Elisan doing well?

  We’re well, but we’ve missed you; I’ve even been worried from time to time, knowing what foolish stunts you can be bound to pull just so you can run away from me, she chided him kindly.

  I’m running to you, not away from you! he laughed. I’ll see you soon, my love.

  After that he focused simply on running. The light rain was refreshing, helping to rinse away sweat and grime, and he continued to enjoy the simple pleasure of feeling his body operate.

  Alec entered the precincts of Vincennes late at night and arrived at the palace over an hour later, before sunrise. He had traveled in the rain all night long, and as soon as he reached the palace gates he stripped off his soaking shirt and stood facing the guard. The guard failed to recognize at first that the gaunt man before him was the crippled consort of the princess.

  “Who else would have an accent like this?” Alec asked with good humor. “Or who else would know that you have a tendency to raise your forward foot to telegraph when you intend to thrust high with your sword?” he asked, remembering the time he had spent training the guard in the armory.

  After a flurry of back slaps and abbreviated explanations, Alec entered the palace grounds. He went to the armory and bathed fully, then went to the kitchen and gorged himself. He loaded a tray full of breakfast foods, and wandered through the halls to the royal residential rooms, where his new appearance was marveled at by the guards on night duty, and at last he opened the door to his room with Caitlen, and saw her sitting contentedly in a rocking chair nursing their son. A wide smile broke across his face in reply to the gentle smile and quiet tears of joy on hers, and he knew he was home again.

  Chapter 17 – Alec in the War Zone

  Alec slept in late in the morning, missing Elisan’s next meal, but when he arose he and Caitlen had a long conversation about how life was treating the princess, as she found the challenges of an infant difficult to balance with her life as a ruler.

  “How is the war going?” Alec asked at last, after they talked about everything else.

  “That’s what all this has been about, hasn’t it?” Caitlen asked. “You’re going to go on a crusade against the demons.”

  “I am,” Alec acknowledged.

  “We’re losing,” Caitlen admitted. “We can’t stand against a demon, and now our soldiers are afraid they’ll see one at every battle, whether it shows up or not.

  “But I don’t want to lose you Alec. You nearly died after the last battle with one of those monsters,” Caitlen said. “Elisan deserves a chance to meet and know his father; I don’t want him to grow up
without ever knowing you.”

  “If we don’t, if I don’t go out and defeat these demons soon, he may not even get to grow up,” Alec countered. “My own land suffered decades of constant defeat by demons that destroyed our armies. If I hadn’t fought them myself and won, we never would have stood a chance.

  “I’d like to leave as soon as possible,” he said as he stood up. “And I’d like to come back to you as soon as possible after the war ends.”

  “There’s nothing I can say,” Caitlen sighed fatalistically. “I know you want to go, I know the nation needs for you to go. But I want to ask you to stay for my own selfish reasons.”

  Alec was mobbed by scores of guards and members of the palace staff as he and Caitlen strolled through the corridors to a room where an impromptu homecoming was held, after which Alec went out to the plaza in front of the palace gates. Caitlen stood on a high balcony and watched as Alec began offering healing services to any and all members of the public who walked by, until three hours later he ended the session, exhausted from the amount of energy he had used.

  That night and the next day Alec and Caitlen remained alone, isolated in their rooms, talking only to each other, and emerged sober-eyed the next morning. Alec went to the stables and emerged with three horses, loaded them with supplies, weapons and messages, made his farewells to numerous people, then last of all to Caitlen and Elisan in her arms, and rode out of the gates of the palace.

  He switched horses often and stopped only if the night weather promised to be bad. He reached the port city of Witten in three days, and rode on to Raysing in another four days. Around Witten he passed the boundary of Caitlen’s strength in sending messages through her Spiritual powers, and thereafter he could only send her messages of his love, without hearing replies. At Raysing he began to catch up with the tail of the army, riding past supply depots and wounded soldiers. He showed the passes he needed to show in order to ride forward towards the front without delay, and within a day he had reached the headquarters, where a long conversation ensued one morning.

  For the leaders of the Vincennes forces, the reports that the consort of the princess had beaten a demon were preposterous, once they had seen the monsters in battle with their own eyes. And the reports that the consort had lost limbs and nearly lost his life added to the dubiousness of the man who arrived and claimed to be the Demonslayer, restored to health and sent back to do further battle.

  “You tell us that you can kill a demon single-handedly?” Field Marshal Stocker, still the leader of the Vincennes forces said in their first long meeting. “That’s impossible. We’d be doing ourselves a favor to send you out there to be the first one slaughtered, just to get rid of your foreign insanity.”

  After a long verbal battle without resolution, Alec left the tent and went towards the front. He managed to find a Black Crag unit, who had members who knew the members of his own Black Crag squad, and Alec settled in among them, questioning them about the battles they’d been in and the strategies they’d seen.

  “Here’s what we have to do next time,” Alec told them his second evening in camp, as they sat near a fire pit. “I will go out to face the demon, and keep it away from an attack on our people. You need to put your best archers in place, and look for people who are dressed all in black, perhaps with a dead body near them.”

  Alec explained the means by which a demon was called to the world, and how the death of the sorcerer or sorceress would diminish the monster, making it more vulnerable to defeat. The squad of Black Crag soldiers he settled in with were more seasoned than those he had worked with in Vincennes; not only had they seen demons three times in the past month, but they had guarded a score of traders’ caravans that had ridden into the western wilderness, and had fought bandits and opportunistic villagers countless times while protecting the goods the traders carried in either direction.

  “They use children, a lot,” explained Adelmo, the squad leader, talking about the caravan bandits.

  “Sometimes the kid is the thief and sometimes she’s just a deliberate distraction,” agreed Hector.

  “And you really can’t do much to a kid,” added Claudia, “even when you want to wring his neck!”

  “I expect we’ll be happy to chase kids after all this is over,” Hector reflected.

  “They won’t seem so bad,” Alec agreed.

  “The next time we face a demon, we have to stop it,” he emphasized, smacking his palm against his knee. “The opposing army is probably getting lazy now, thinking that they will win every time a demon fights for them.”

  “I would,” Adelmo agree.

  “So if we show that their greatest weapon can be defeated, they will panic; they’ll be ripe for plucking – I saw it before when I fought the demons of Michian,” Alec told them, leaning in close to the fire and speaking in a lower and lower voice.

  “It’s going to take Black Crag to show our army how to fight when the time comes; the field marshal doesn’t understand how to do this,” he continued. “But once the sorcerer is dead and the demon is defeated and Black Crag charges into the front of the rebels, Vincennes’ army will follow us to victory.

  “Is the army of Krimshelm here?” Alec asked.

  “The rumors say that they will be soon; they’re sailing down the coast, so we don’t know exactly when we’ll see them,” Hector said.

  “I want to use them,” Alec muttered as he continued to consider ways to implement his alternative leadership of the army. Major Perry, we’ll need your forces at the front soon. I look forward to seeing you again, Alec sent a message to his former companion, and hoped they would meet in person very soon.

  The next day Alec approached the field marshal again in hopes of making his case for a battle against the demon, but the marshal and his staff remained obstinately opposed to Alec’s plan. Still convinced of his chances to succeed, Alec returned to the Black Crag contingent, where he spent the afternoon practicing his sword work with a variety of guards.

  As the practice was winding down into desultory jousting, Alec felt an enormous pain in the back of his head. “They’re doing it! They’re calling a demon,” he shouted. He started to run, then stumbled and fell to his knees in weakness, before he arose and started running towards the front again.

  Black Crag archers, look for the people in black robes, and aim for them, he sent out a command. He was wearing dark clothes to hide any blood he might shed, so that neither his opponents or supporters would know when he suffered injury. He focused on grasping his three powers, engaging his Spiritual energy first, then his Healer energies, and then last he called upon his Warrior energies. None of them were as strong as they would have been had he only grasped one, but he counted on the Healer power to overcome any injuries that might be inflicted as he fought the demon.

  Alec thought of Caitlen back at home, perhaps nursing their son peacefully. I love you, he sent a soft message to her.

  He reached the front line, and saw the nervous Vincennes and Valeriane forces already starting to edge back, ready to retreat when there was no demon in sight. “Stand still! Stand and fight!” Alec shouted at the men. “We can win this battle if you fight!” he shouted again before he turned and faced the front line of the rebellious forces, on the far side of a shallow valley.

  He felt another staggering psychic blow, and then heard a bellowing, and saw the demon appear on his right. The sorcerer will be near where the demon is now, he told the archers, as he began to run at an angle through the empty plain between the two armies.

  The demon was coming out into the open as well, not yet paying attention to Alec. Already a part of the Vincennes line was starting to retreat, and Alec knew he had to take action to prevent them from breaking. He leaped into the small brook that ran through the center of the valley, then pulled two knives loose and threw them at the demon to make sure it paid attention to him.

  The creature knocked both knives down into the ground without suffering harm, and turned to approach Alec rapid
ly. He pulled both swords out and continued his rush towards the demon wielding the blades with a flourish as the two adversaries collided. The demon swiped at Alec, but each paw that reached towards him was summarily stabbed with a blade that moved with lightning speed and strength. After a prolonged series of jabs that accomplished nothing, the demon paused, then opened its mouth to belch a small flurry of bats at Alec.

  Alec backpedaled, swinging his blades constantly above his head to protect himself from the small vampires. The demon dove at him, trying to take advantage of his distraction, and swiped a set of claws across his calf as he back-rolled away from the monster. Alec felt pain in his leg, and he landed in a kneeling position, but as he raised his head to find the demon’s location, his leg self-healed. He stood erect and began throwing knives, one from each hand, in a rhythm that the demon easily blocked, until Alec pulled four and aimed them all at its eyes.

  The third knife penetrated the demon’s defenses, plunging its blade into the right eye socket, and making the monster roar with pain.