Preserving the Ingenairii (14 page)

           
“Then you will need to go talk to the lacertii.
 
There is a holy place in a portion of their land that is now under attack by the Michian invaders.
 
Within that holy place is a piece of the One True Cross, a relic I brought to this world with me.
 
You will have to recover that relic.

           
“When you have those two items, you will have the weapons you need to enter the ingenairii realm and battle the demon who has invaded it,” his prophet told Alec.

           
“There’s a demon in the ingenairii realm?” Alec asked in astonishment.
 
“That’s why people are falling ill when they embrace the power?
 
How did a demon get there?”

           
“Yes, a demon has corrupted the source of ingenaire energy,” John Mark affirmed.
 
“It was the smaller one, the imp that attacked you as you brought them back to my holy cave in the mountains.
 
You used your Savior to send the larger of the two back to Hell, but the smaller one escaped.
 
That imp had experienced your use of the ingenairii power, and it used that knowledge to flee to the ingenaire realm when it had to escape from the sanctity of the cave.”

           
“How did the imp know about my powers?
 
It was the large demon,” Alec gave a short stuttering inhalation of breath at the overwhelming memory of the moments his body had been merged with that of the demon.
 
“The large demon knew, not the imp.”

           
“The two of them were really a single entity, sharing a single, evil awareness, Alec,” John Mark responded.
 
“So the imp knew through the large demon what you did and how you did it and where your powers came from.

           
“If you want to cleanse those powers of the imp’s poison, you will have to enter the energy realm and fight it, and only these weapons will make it possible for you to fight and win,” he continued.
 
“So you need to give your respects to Resper-Ka, and then you will need to find the crypt of Carthom Ingenaire Sivis, that last ingenairii king, and plunder it to retrieve that great amulet.
 
After you have done that, you will still have a long journey to reach the lacertii, and to persuade them to assist you in finding the remains of the shrine where the piece of the Cross remains.”

           
“Rosebay will assist me,” Alec said assuredly.
 
“The piece of the Cross; will it really defeat a demon?
 
I don’t think I can even fight a small one and hope to win on my own.
 
They are so malignant and indestructible,” he said, mostly to himself.

           
“Yes Alec, you can defeat the demon.
 
Although even with the tools you will have it will not be easy.
 
It is my time to go now, for this is not my place.
 
Remember, you need to go to the crypt of Carthom, below the chapel on the north side of the narthex, to retrieve the amulet.
 
Farewell, and travel with God’s blessing,” John Mark told him, as he literally faded from sight.

           
Alec stood alone in the dim stairwell.
 
He was shaken by John Mark’s revelation.
 
He climbed the stairs to return to the altar.
“Protector!”
 
“Alec?”
 
“Captain!” he heard the cries outside the ruined house of worship, and realized the others in his group
were
looking for him.

           
He would need to first plunder the royal burial place of Carthom Ingenairii Sivis before he could reply to those who were searching for him.
 
Alec groped his way back up the stairs, and in the better-lit nave of the ruined building, he worked his way among the debris back to the middle of the space, where he saw an opening on the north side, or what he thought was the north side.
 
Without bright sunlight and clear shadows he couldn’t definitively judge directions.
 
Upon entering the smaller space, he saw that a roof was still intact over the large room, and a stony altar at the end of the chapel was peculiarly shaped, with a circular image instead of a cross.

           
Behind the altar Alec moved debris, growing warm and sweaty as he tried to clear off the floor; the way to the underground crypt was likely to be through this area, he felt sure.
  
Some pieces of fallen structure were too large for him to move alone, however, and he realized he would have to seek help from his companions.

           
Walking through a doorway, Alec saw that the ice had disappeared from the ground.
 
“Armilla!” he called loudly to a distant figure, and waved his hand.

           
“Are you alright?
 
Where were you?” his body guard called as she met him.
 
“We need to call in the others; they’re out searching for you.”

           
“I’ve been in the cathedral.
 
I have a mission – I know what we have to do now,” he said with shining eyes.
 
Armilla was glad to see a spark of enthusiasm visible in his eyes; for weeks he had seemed to function only from fear, and it had affected the energy of the whole group.
 
As they called in the others, Alec explained what had happened and a portion of what he had learned, then led them back to the chapel to clear the way into the crypt.

           
“I’ve never broken into a crypt before, how about you, Brandeis?” Delle asked his cousin from Stronghold.

           
“I didn’t break into it,” Brandeis said hotly, then realized Delle was pulling his leg, referring to the time when Brandeis had pined outside Noranda’s burial vault, before Alec had revived her and healed her wounds.
 
He began to hastily explain the situation to the others, but their grins and nods made him realize the futility of his efforts.
 
“Besides, it was Alec who broke into her tomb,” he said at last before dropping the topic.

           
Alec led them through the ruins of the chapel to the spot where a trap door was likely to lead to the burial chamber.
 
With a rope that Armilla carried in her pack, the whole group worked at pulling and lifting several large beams and stones.
 
Berlisle got on her hands and knees to begin brushing away the dirt, trying to find the evidence of the passage Alec sought.

           
The floor was a mosaic pattern of interlocking circles and arrows.
 
There was no obvious entrance.
 
“Maybe the altar is the entrance?” Patrick suggested
,
looking up from the where his fingers were tracing lines on the floor.

           
Armilla stepped over to the blocky stone structure, examining it carefully.
 
She experimentally pushed against it, but the altar showed no sign of moving.
 
Alec stepped over to help Armilla, his toe catching on a piece of the floor mosaic and tripping him as he moved.

           
“What the ..?” Alec said under his breath.

           
“Have trouble walking?” Brandeis asked.

           
“It’s the floor there,” Alec replied.
 
“A stone in the floor moved when I stepped on it.”

           
He knelt to look at the stone, wondering how he could have tripped on a place where there was no discernible gap between the one mosaic piece and the next.
 
“This stone drops when I press on it,” he exclaimed.

           
The stone was an elongated triangle, one of several that formed rays emanating from a large circle in the center of the floor area.
 
Experimentally, Alec pressed down on several other triangular stones, and found some that moved and some that didn’t.

           
As Alec pressed another of the rays, there was a click, and the circular sun on which he was kneeling swung downward on a hinge, causing Alec to suddenly fall through an empty space and land with a thud on the stony floor of a crypt below the altar.
 
He felt a sharp pain in his right wrist, and both knees ached.

           
“Alec?
 
Alec!” he heard several voices calling him from above.
 
Looking up, he saw the hole he had fallen through was nearly twenty feet above.

           
“I’m here.
 
I’m little banged up, but okay,” he called up to where he saw the silhouette of Armilla’s head centered in the bright circle.

           
“Wait just a second.
 
We’ll throw a rope down to you,” she instructed.

           
“Give me a few moments,” Alec countered.
 
“This is where I wanted to come, so let me look around.”

           
He looked up again.
 
“Move your head; you’re blocking the light,” he shouted.
 
He stood up and allowed his eyes to adjust further to the dark gloom.
 
He was in a small room, whose walls were lined with square columns.
 
On the wall behind him was an opening filled with a casket-shaped chest.

           
“I think I found the tomb,” Alec called up as he walked over and examined the casket.
 
It was elaborate, and gleamed with a golden sheen.
 
A ribbon that appeared to be woven of golden fabric was stretched across the top.
 
Alec pulled his sword from its sheath and slid it under the ribbon.

           
A mist jetted out from all sides of the casket, and rose to form a cloud that hovered above the casket.
 
As Alec watched in slack-jawed amazement, the cloud formed a skeletal figure, whose dark, empty eye sockets stared at Alec.

           
“Do not desecrate this tomb.
 
A curse of fifty years awaits the man who plunders here,” the wraith said in a sepulchral voice.

           
“I need something here.
 
I need an amulet to help fight a demon.
 
John Mark sent me,” Alec answered, a quaver in his voice.

           
The spirit did not answer, but dissolved into misty nothingness, leaving its warning as a threat that hung in the air.

           
“Is everything alright down there?” Armilla’s voice called.

           
 
“I think so,” Alec responded after a moment’s pause.
 
He looked down at his sword blade.
 
What was fifty years of a curse likely to be?
 
Pain?
Disease?
 
Hatred by everyone around him?
 
Would John Mark be able to protect him from a curse?
 
Was it worth giving up fifty years to save Bethany?

           
Knowing that he had no choice, Alec deliberately twisted the blade and pulled it towards him, watching its keen edge slowly slice through the ribbon, which fluttered off the top of the casket.
 
Re-sheathing his sword, Alec grunted as he placed his fingertips beneath the coffin lid and heaved upwards on the heavy load.
 
It was lighter than he expected, and Alec realized that the gold must be only a veneer of gold leaf covering a wooden lid.

           
As it rose high up into the air, Alec coughed at the stench of decay that rose and enveloped him.
 
He stepped back and coughed, while the lid fell to the ground.
 
Inside he found a skeleton, with tattered remnants of cloth stuck among the bones, and the glint of rich jewels adorning every conceivable spot.
 
Alec’s eyes were drawn to the skull, which still wore a golden crown, and the dark openings of the eyes, whose nothingness Alec imagined was scrutinizing him, preparing to spring its curse upon him.

           
From the empty sockets his gaze moved to the empty chest cavity, where he saw a round, jeweled amulet resting within the bony confines of the rib cage.
 
Alec carefully reached his hand between the bones to pick up the object, and to make a hasty escape from the eerie crypt.

           
Suddenly Alec gave a shout of panic, as the skull rose swiftly, and the jaws clamped the ivory teeth painfully on his forearm.
 
Alec’s hand clamped around the amulet, and at the same moment he held it in his grasp, the dead teeth pierced his skin, biting into his flesh right through the badge of his Spiritual ingenaire powers.

           
Alec’s mind was sudden awhirl with strange thoughts and a mystifying confusion and fear.
 
He jerked his hand upward, ripping the amulet’s chain through the brittle bones that connected the skull to the bony torso, and sending the skull spinning away to rattle around the inside of the casket.
 
The sight of the spinning skull coming to rest was the last thing Alec remembered.