Preserving the Ingenairii (22 page)

“Can you walk, boy?” an older man behind the freckled girl asked briskly.  “We’ve got to get out of here before the war front catches up to us.”

Alec tried to grasp the situation, and tested his legs.  They were weak to begin with, and he felt ill in addition.  He had made a mistake he realized, in coming out of the healer energy realm while engaging his warrior powers.  It had been something like trying to use both powers in full capacity at once, a mistake he didn’t want to ever repeat.  “If I can have a staff to lean on, I’ll make it out.”

The man looked at him quizzically for a moment.  “Good lad,” he said affirmatively.  He pulled a long stick out of the wagon bed.  “Here’s your staff.  Now everyone carry as much as you can.  Harry, get those horses unhitched.  Stracha, you come up front with me,” the man motioned to the pretty girl, and they climbed down.

Alec shook off the offers of help.  “I’ll get down,” he insisted.  “Help unload the wagon.  He’s in a hurry,” Alec slid off the side of the wagon, hit the ground, and sat on the muddy roadside as his legs failed to hold him up.  He accepted a hand from the freckled girl.  “Thank you,” he said, as the girl patted him on the shoulder then began loading up a blanket of goods.  Alec also reached into the wagon and pulled out a dirty blanket, which he knotted in a loop and flung over one shoulder.  He pulled a bag of roots and a box of herbs off the wagon,
then
stuffed then in the folds of the blanket.

The others were already starting to walk behind the unhitched horses.  There were two armed guards accompanying them, Alec noticed approvingly.
 
Taking a deep breath, Alec pushed away from the side of the abandoned wagon and fell into the rear of the small group that was a part of the much larger stream of refugees fleeing along the beaten road.

Every step was a laborious one for Alec.  Between the native weakness of his new body and the energy weakness he brought to it, he felt exhausted within ten minutes, and breathed heavily and noisily as he struggled to keep up with his group.  He fixed his sight on the checked scarf that hung in a bright triangle on the back of the dark haired girl, and followed it like a beacon.  He didn’t notice the frequent backwards looks others made to check on him.  At a pause in the journey, caused by someone else’s wrecked buggy blocking the road, Alec caught up with the others and stood huffing and puffing, letting one hand and his eyes roam over this body he now inhabited.

There was no sword, nor even a knife on his hip.  The boots he wore were thin soled, made for indoors life, not hiking across the country like this.  Looking around past the crowds, he realized there were ample numbers of abandoned goods along the sides of the road, including a sword he saw sitting in a muddy swale.  Taking a deep breath, he walked over and picked up the sword and sheath.  In a minute’s time he had them on his belt, adding another heavy weight to carry, but making him feel much more secure in the unsteady environment of a retreating mob.

“I’m impressed you’ve made it this far lad,” he heard a voice say.

It was the man who appeared to be the leader of the group.  “I didn’t think you were going to live back there, and I certainly didn’t think you would have the gumption to be able to keep up with us.  We’re in a spot where we’ll have to let the Devil take the hindmost, you understand.  Keep up with us for another day, and we’ll be safely in Three Forks, and I can try to get you some aid.

“In the meantime, don’t you try mucking around in the power any more until we have a trainer with you, understand?”

Alec mutely nodded.
 
“And good thinking picking up the sword; did you come out of the power a different man?” the leader jested as he turned and walked off.

 
          
The group slipped into the flow of traffic that was jostling to pass around the wrecked buggy, and Alec struggled forward, grabbing onto the scarf of the freckled girl to keep in contact with the others.
 
She whirled around quickly, a look of alarm on her face until she recognized the face Alec wore.
 
“Gordon, I am so impressed with you.
 
I thought you were dead back there, and I never thought you would do all this without telling us how unfair it is.
 
You’ve changed since we left the ingenairii compound at Frame.

           
“Can you keep up with us?” she finished.

           
“Just let me hold onto your shawl so I don’t get separated,” Alec asked.
 
“We can make it to Three Forks,” he assured her, recognizing the anxiety that edged her voice.
 
She smiled as she turned away from him to watch where she walked, and Alec held on silently.

           
The sounds of battle had faded behind them, Alec realized.
 
The sounds now were strictly those of a displaced mob, wailing children, cursing women, braying donkeys, and the tumult of thousands of lives completely upset.
 
These were the poor and the working people of Frame, Alec realized.
 
The well-to-do would have fled by boat.
 
Why
had this group of ingenairii
not left ahead of the crowd, Alec wondered.

           
Alec felt his body gradually adjust and recover from his clumsy return to the world.
 
The after-effects of the conflict between his two powers wore away, to be replaced by the simpler, though still uncomfortable pain of a weak body trying to accomplish too much.
 
As the sun set, Alec said a silent prayer of gratitude when the leader of the group motioned for them to move to the side of the road.
 
“We’ll set up a healing station here to help the refugees.
 
Stracha, you and Nestor start the healing over there,” he motioned.
 
“Constanc, you and I will start healing here.
 
Gordon, you stay with the horses over there, and don’t let anyone take them.
 
We won’t have a chance of carrying all these supplies without them.”

           
Alec led the placid animals to the location the leader indicated, and tied their leads around a tree branch.
 
Each of the other healers rifled through the saddle bags to pick out supplies, then began working on patients who massed around the two couples.
 
The guards accompanying the healers worked to organize the patients, while Alec gathered sticks together to prepare a fire that would ignite quickly when the healers were done.

           
He sat down in exhaustion, his eyes glazed over as he thought about what was happening.
 
Time was a meaningless thing for him now, but if it was measurable, he suspected that just this morning he had been in the last minutes of his battle with the demon.
 
Since then he had fled the ingenairii realm, possessed an empty body, and damaged its ingenairii abilities in his use of the powers.
 
He was a weak member of a struggling pack of refugees, fleeing from some disaster in the Dominion.

           
Was is
fifty years later?
 
Was it fifty years, as the curse had warned?
 
And the Dominion was at war, a war it was losing.
 
He shook his head, lost and bewildered by the unknown world he had entered.

           
Alec glanced around him, and saw an abandoned pair of military boots by the roadside, along with a knapsack full of supplies.
 
He stood and walked over to the boots, which proved to be slightly too small for his feet.
  
Drawing out his sword, Alec cut open the toes of the boots, providing the room his toes needed, and slipped his feet back into the boots.
 
He’d have blisters tomorrow he was sure, but after they healed he’d be a much better traveler.

           
The boots were stitched in the Goldenfields style, he realized.
 
Had soldiers from Goldenfields been fighting this far from home, he wondered.
 
Fifty years later – the duke would be gone by now, and Colonel Ryder too, he knew.
 
Perhaps the Duke’s son was the ruler, the son who he had seen in the womb of Princess Rhian once upon a time.
 
And Bethany -- his mind wandered to the place it had so frequently gone during his internment in the energy realm – he wondered about Bethany.
 
Was she alive fifty years later?
 
Who had ruled the Dominion in his absence?

           
Alec looked within himself, trying to judge the state of his ingenaire abilities.
 
He let himself slowly seek the place between, the
way
that led to the ingenaire energy realm.
 
He sensed a route, and there was no pain in trying to follow it.
 
He was glad about the lack of pain – if he wasn’t feeling pain, perhaps his injury would not be as difficult to heal as had been the damage he suffered in Bondell.

           
Ahead he sensed the brightness that was the opening to the energy.
 

“Excuse me sir, can you help my daughter?” a voice abruptly interrupted his concentration.
 
He lost his focus, and reluctantly opened his eyes, irritated by the disturbance.
 
In front of him was a thin woman, whose eyes were bright within dark circles that defined the fatigue in her face.

              
In her arms she held an infant daughter, who sprawled listlessly.
 
Alec looked at the woman and her daughter, and he thought of Leah long ago, who had died in childbirth.

              
“The others over there,” she motioned towards Stracha and Nestor, “they said they couldn’t help her.”
 
The woman had tears in her eyes.

              
“Give me a few minutes to try to prepare,” Alec said, looking at the woman.
 
“I’ll try.”
 
He closed his eyes again, and started over in pursuit of the healing energy.
 
He started to find his way through the netherworld between reality and the energy realm, and after a prolonged search he again found the bright opening.
 
He paused in his efforts to look at it, judging it carefully, then plunged inside, assuming the image he had last held, gowned in a long robe whose pockets held healing items.
 
And then he had the power, it was within his command, and he opened his eyes to see the haggard and forlorn look on the face of the woman before him.

              
Alec reached out and touched the daughter, feeling her infection and fever and malfunctioning kidneys, and sending healing power into the tiny body to correct all the illnesses.
 
His hand shifted to the mother, and he took away the pain he found in her legs,
then
restored her ability to feed her child, and added a boost of energy to her.
 
He watched the lines fade from her face and the shadows disappear, and the smile that arose from nowhere.

              
“That is wonderful!
 
Is my daughter alright?” she asked as she looked down into the pale face.

              
“She’ll be fine.
 
She’s hungry now, if you’ll suckle her she’ll be ready to sleep,” Alec said, bringing a blush to the woman’s face.
 
He reached down and looked into his own body, then ran his hands along his trunk and his legs, improving the nerves that connected his brain and his body, allowing him to better control the movement of these limbs he now possessed.

              
The woman he had just tended was talking to another woman, and pointing towards him.  The new woman motioned to others, and a whole family of six came walking over, the apparent father and oldest son each shouldering large packs on their backs.  “That woman said you healed her and her daughter, with just a touch.  Can you help my daughter?” the woman asked.

            “Let me see her,” Alec said, and he knelt as a small girl limped forward.  She raised her skirt and held out her right foot.

            Alec saw a badly infected cut.  He reached down and cupped the girl’s heel in his hand, then applied his powers to remove the injury.  “Here,” he handed her the shoe he had discarded for his new boot.  “This is too large, but I think you can wear your other shoe,” he placed the girl’s shoe back on her foot,
then
slipped them into his discarded shoe, “inside this one, and it will protect your foot better.  It will feel awkward at first, but you’ll get used to it.”  He squeezed the girl’s hand, then stood and placed a hand on the two pack carriers, relieving the pain and tension in their backs.  “Travel safely,” he told the family, and he sat back down.