Visions of Power

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Later, feeling refreshed by the shower waters, Alec traveled quickly to the ingenairii’ suite, where he knocked on the door and was greeted again by Roland. He was taken in and met by Merle at the second chamber.

  An older boy accompanied Merle. “Alec, I’d like you to meet Fayette, and vice versa.” The two shook hands. “Fayette is ready to go to Oyster Bay to take more advanced training. Until he leaves in a few days, I’d like him to help you understand how to create your ingenaire powers within yourself, and how to control the way you use them.

  “Fayette is an air ingenaire, unlike you. But the fundamental ability to call up powers is consistent from discipline to discipline. The basics you learn from him will be valuable when your time comes to go to Oyster Bay as well. How long can you stay today?”

  “I promised Colonel Ryder that I would report back to him by mid-day,” Alec confessed.

  “I’m sure we don’t want to keep the good colonel waiting, so you both make sure you dismiss before noon,” Merle said, and then was gone out the door.

  “I tell you what. For these very beginning exercises, I think someplace relaxed and isolated is called for. Let’s go to an alcove nearby,” Fayette said, leading the way through a small side door. Down a hall and up some stairs they found the place Fayette wanted, a small room with one window set high up in the wall.

  “Now, we’re only going to try to learn some fundamentals you need at first. The way I was taught was to understand where the ingenaire ability is within us, what we have to go through to get it, and what it takes to grasp it when you get to it. After that will come the lessons about how to draw it out, how to use it, how to control it, and so on,” Fayette said. “Beyond that, you’ll have to have warrior ingenairii help you; at least, I think Merle said you would train to be a warrior ingenaire.

  “First, you need to lay flat on the floor, and close your eyes,” he instructed Alec. “Relax. Let yourself sink into the floor, become comfortable with it.” He paused and waited for several minutes as Alec lay prone on the floor, relaxing and trying to get comfortably accommodated to the surface.

  “Now,” he said, and Alec suddenly felt something cover his body, “I’ve covered you with a carpet. You’ve not only become the floor, but now you have a layer over you. You have a barrier above you, the carpet. You have a barrier below you, the floor, but really the floor barrier is within you, not below you. Remember, you’ve relaxed and accepted the floor. You must become completely comfortable in the space between the barriers.

  “This all becomes contradictory later,” Fayette continued, in a soothing voice. “But right now we just have to say these barriers are your definition, and you can find your place between them mentally just like that.

  “Okay, now get up and run up and down the hallway twice,” Fayette ordered. When Alec was done running and had returned to the room Fayette ordered him to find his comfortable zone between the barriers again. They repeated the cycle again, and this time Alec wasn’t even given the carpet to rest under for establishing himself between barriers. By the fifth repetition he understood how to take himself into that state of awareness Fayette was teaching him to find.

  “Time’s up,” Fayette announced as Alec lay composed in his relaxed state. “We made good progress today. Will it be the same time again tomorrow?”

  Alec wondered about the progress of learning to relax, but agreed he’d return the next day. Making his farewell to Fayette, he left to travel back to the Guard quarters.

  In a few minutes time Alec found Colonel Ryder. “Alec, Inga said that you wanted a roster of the medics who work in the Guard, so that you could start training them in how to treat the injured and sick. Let’s go to my office, where I’ve had Elcome put together the roster. You’ll need to plan out how you want to train them, and then present that plan to me so we can take a look at what duty rosters or posting any of them may have currently, or those coming up so that we make sure the greatest number of them can attend. They’ve generally not been given any training in the past, just the title and the duties, so I want you to know what to expect.”

  Together they walked towards his office. Alec felt compelled to let Ryder know that he was in ingenaire training. “Colonel, this morning I went to the ingenaire chambers so that I could begin lessons on how to call up ingenaire powers. Merle has tested me and says that the capacity is within me.”

  Ryder looked sideways at Alec. Many questions appeared to arise in his eyes, but he only asked one immediately. “How long will your training last?”

  “I don’t know. It could be something that I start here in Goldenfields, and then continue at Oyster Bay. Today was just my first lesson,” Alec said.

  “Do you want to be an ingenaire?” Ryder asked as they reached his office door.

  “It’s not something I ever thought about,” Alec said untruthfully, “but Merle says I have the power, and it may stop the ingenairii from pursuing me for capture if I become one of them. And I also hope it will make me better as a healer, and as a warrior,” Alec told Ryder as they sat down.

  “You could become a warrior ingenaire?” Ryder said with a gleam in his eye.

  “That’s what Merle told me,” Alec affirmed.

  “I have some mixed feelings about this, but I look forward to hearing your progress reports. There aren’t many warrior ingenairii out there, and the thought of having one in the service of the Duke whets my appetite, although he’s always said he’d rather have his loyal Guard than a hired ingenaire. Now, here are the rosters of the medics,” Ryder returned to the topic at hand, and he went through several files with Alec for the next hour.

  By the time they finished their survey, Alec began to realize that there would be a great deal of administrative work needed to carry out his task of improving a medic corps that was largely taken for granted and not given much attention. “You’ll need to work with Elcome on supplies for your medics, but I’m sure he’ll pull together everything you need.”

  Alec grabbed some food at the commissary after working up an appetite during the morning, and then headed to the Quartermaster’s office. “Captain Elcome, may I ask a favor?” Alec asked the man behind the large wooden desk. He proceeded to explain what he was going to do and need.

  “Alec, that sounds like a grand plan! How can I help?” Elcome said enthusiastically.

  Alec thought that it seemed obvious how the quartermaster could help – by buying the things he needed. After a moment’s pause, he replied. “I’ll need medical supplies, of course. And the medics will need simple equipment, bandages, etc. If you can acquire them for me,” his voice trailed off.

  Elcome looked uncomfortable. “Well, Alec, the problem is we don’t have much budgeted for medic supplies this year. I’ll spend everything we’ve got, but it won’t get you far.” He seemed to ponder something. “Alec, I’ve got a little saved, and I’ll spend it for you, because this sounds like something that needs to be done,” he said modestly.

  Alec was touched by Elcome’s generosity. “No you don’t need to do that. I can afford it myself, given the circumstances.”

  “I could purchase the items for you, and then deduct the amount over time from your pay, so that it doesn’t all hit at once,” Elcome advised. Alec agreed that would work, and sat down to make out a list of items and quantities he wanted. With that he thanked his friend and left to go back to his shop. He relaxed from the busy Palace activities when he was able to sit with patients and treat their complaints for a couple of hours, helping Leah to end her day earlier than usual.

  He then went to the markets and started buying the medical supplies he could find for the Guard medics he wanted to equip. There were some items he had not asked Elcome to acquire because he was particular about the quality and freshness.

  Among such activities, Alec’s life fell into a routine. In the morning he had sword work with Inga and other guards, followed by training with Fayette in finding how to draw ingenaire powers, then he went back to the shop to
heal ill people, chat with Leah, and continue to try to write his training plan and lessons for the medics.

  Just as Merle had suggested, he grew comfortable and friendly with Fayette, Roland, and some of the other ingenaire apprentices, who enjoyed hearing stories about healing and the Guard, and who shared stories about the places they had come from, mostly from within the Goldenfields duchy. Even though he wasn’t progressing directly towards Oyster Bay, Alec was happy with the richness of his life as it developed in Goldenfields.

  He asked Inga during practice one morning how Lewis and the road expedition were doing. She looked at him strangely for a moment. “He reports that he is completely well, and back assuming all his usual duties. He feels that the Guardsmen may not need to stay with the expedition much longer, because the prince’s men and prisoners don’t need to be watched any longer. They’ve adjusted to army life and are not a problem, and there are only a few left,” Inga told him. “The expedition made it to the sand bars on the river finally, and they’ve slowed down quite a bit. The engineers want to make the road go straight through the swamp instead of around, and it’s slow work building in the swamp.”

  A week later, Inga did not show up for practice for three days in a row, sending others to spar with the student swordsman. Alec spotted her after finishing his training with Merle. “Inga, how are you?” he called out and jogged to catch up with her.

  “Alec, you know we’re friends, but just friends, right?” she asked.

  “Well,” Alec responded, caught off-guard by the question and its tone. “I thought we were friends. You’ve been the best friend I’ve had in the Palace.”

  Inga hesitated, uncomfortable. “You know I will always stay faithful to Lewis, don’t you?”

  Alec was silent, digesting the implications of the question. “I always thought you would be,” he said quietly.

  “I’m sorry, Alec,” she said with agitation. “I’ve heard that there are rumors about the two of us, you and I, being too close. I, I don’t like them. I don’t want them to reach Lewis, while he’s so far away.”

  “I haven’t said or done anything I can imagine to spur such rumors, Inga,” Alec said with sympathy and indignation equally mixed. “I go from practice here to practice with Merle to my shop in town every day, and I don’t have time for gossiping.”

  She reached her hand out to his shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry. I just wish people didn’t act so mean. I wish I knew who started these kinds of things. I’ll see you back at practice again, tomorrow, okay?” she said with a warmer smile, and turned to go on her way, leaving Alec perplexed and pondering.

  One afternoon, as autumn’s arrival was on the near horizon, he decided he had to go search for medical supplies in the woods. Rather than return to their shop to heal patients after his lessons, Alec told Leah he’d go directly from the palace to a forest east of town, a place he’d never been but hoped would have the plants and perhaps some of the minerals he wanted to restore to the shop and add to the Guards’ supplies.

  After lunch, carrying a large sack over his shoulder, Alec walked east through the city, and entered the woods within an hour. The forest grew wilder when he wandered from the road towards the small river, the Bandell, which flowed through the woods. He began to see specimens he wanted, Borage ajuga reptans, calendula, ferns and fungi in particular, and an outcropping of minerals that he had a use for. A point came when he realized that the sun had set, and he needed to start the journey home, so he lugged the heavy sack over his back and returned to the trail that took him back to the city.

  It was after dark when he got back to his shop. He proudly showed his finds to Leah. Before he could go down to the basement supply room to put his material away, Leah spoke up. “One of Natha’s wagons came today and brought two large barrels of your fountain water. They’re out in the back.”

  Alec stepped out and looked at the large barrels. He wasn’t sure how to handle these or how long he would have to stretch their use out, but decided that he would put a canteen of the water in each medic kit he created. “Feel free to offer a cup of this water to patients to relieve some of their symptoms,” he told Leah.

  The next day he happened to run into Merle as he arrived at the palace; he seldom saw the master ingenaire during his training. He blurted out a question about Natalie, who he had dreamed about the night before. “Merle, what have you heard about how Natalie is doing, I think her real name is Noranda? You said the ingenairii had her for questioning a few weeks ago.”

  “Aristotle made sure she was released back to the care of her clan as soon as he returned to Oyster Bay and found out about her. She is still in the capital, staying with an uncle there. The warrior ingenairii had her for a few days, but did not mistreat her other than to question her a great deal about the lacertii and their battle plans and abilities,” he explained. “I don’t think the girl was able to give them much information on tactics,” he added dryly. “I’ve also heard from Aristotle that he had to force the issue, but the grumbling among the conservatives about you has subsided since you began training as ingenaire apprentice. No one has discovered anything about the fate of Belman and his escort, and none of the ingenairii at Oyster Bay have the imagination to consider that you might have overcome them.”

  “Did Ari and Natalie talk with one another? Did Ari tell her I was alive?” Alec broached the heart of what he wanted to know.

  “I cannot tell you. Aristotle didn’t mention any conversations with your young trader friend, and he’s so busy I doubt he’s had time to chat with her,” Merle replied before they went to their respective appointments.

  Alec continued towards the Guard quarters, where Inga was not present due to other duties, but Alec trained with Colonel Ryder. After their first match, a new Guard recruit wandered into the armory. ‘Would you like to take my place? I need to go fill out some paperwork,” Ryder motioned the girl over to the mat. “You two spar with one another,” he directed as he headed towards the equipment room to put away his material.

  Alec looked at the girl speculatively, trying to guess what her skill level was. She appeared to be young, about his own age, with short blond hair and facial features that were familiar but unidentifiable. She took her position silently, grinned and made a mock bow, then sprang into action. Alec was taken aback by her ferocious attack, and he quickly gave ground as he tried to protect himself from her expert and unceasing parries and thrusts. His natural inclination to play defense kept him untouched as he studied her intense focus on attack. Alec played for time, taking a stand at a spot and resolving to retreat no further, working up a hard sweat as he danced and shifted and swung to make the match more even. As he saw patterns develop, Alec began to push back, gaining some ground on the girl. He looked up momentarily and met her eyes; they sparkled with energy, and he felt himself grinning at the obvious joy she took from the all-consuming engagement they were locked in. She grinned back, then stabbed at him quickly, causing him to acrobatically tumble backwards and fly back to his feet in one smooth motion.

  “Bravo!” the girl saluted, and she lowered her sword point to the ground. Alec did the same.

  “That was a workout!” he said with a laugh. “I won’t be good for anything else for the rest of the day.”

  “You’re pretty good,” his partner said as she mopped the sweat off her forehead and close-cropped hair with her forearm. “I’ll bring my best game next time, and we’ll see the outcome.”

  “Are you new?” Alec asked faintly, wondering how much more ability she might bring to bear in a future match. Her style closely matched Inga’s -- only she was more fearless, and even slightly quicker than his usual partner. He would have expected to have trained against her before in his exercises in the armory, yet he’d never seen her before. On the other hand, he was astonished by the thought that a brand new recruit could walk into the Guard bringing so much talent before even beginning training.

  “Just arrived this week,” she confirmed. “Do you pr
actice here every morning?”

  “Almost every morning,” Alec acknowledged.

  “I’ll come back and we can hook up again sometime. I liked trying to match a left-handed blade; you’re a good challenge,” she told him as she walked away to clean up.

  “I’ll look forward to seeing you,” Alec shouted at her back. He had enjoyed fencing with the girl, and had felt a bond of competitive chemistry that he suspected would draw them together again. As he walked towards the showers, his mind was filled with memories of her smile.

  That morning Fayette concluded that they were ready to begin the next phase of training. “Now we’re going to see if you can find the barriers, and this time break through the barriers, so that your spirit travels outside of your body, and outside of this world. From there, you can eventually discover where your spirit must travel in order to find the place where your power resides.”

  Alec found this stage to be relatively easily. He recalled the barriers he had fought through when he was trapped by the ingenairii magic back in the riverside camp. As he lay on the floor in the ingenaire’s alcove, he looked for the same types of cracks and imperfections in the barriers he had established, and wriggled through them.

  Some openings led only to other gray, empty spaces. But through one he glimpsed a light, and followed the light to arrive at a different opening. It was one that felt different from all the others. This opening stood without any door to prevent him from entering the light, but he hesitated to enter it immediately. Instead, he went back to his beginning spot, and tried to find the route again, and again, successful each time. It became a simple journey, faster and easier each time he tried it.

  Alec opened his eyes and looked at Fayette. “I’ve found a bright place on the other side of the barrier, but I didn’t go in. Is it the place I’m looking for?”

  Fayette looked at him in astonishment. “You’ve already penetrated the barrier, and found a spot? Alec, are you sure? It should have taken you as long to do this as it’s taken us to get to this level; this should take weeks, not minutes.”