Preserving the Ingenairii (5 page)

             
“The first couple of days we tried bleeding some of them, dousing some of them, letting some just sleep peacefully – whatever someone could think of that wasn’t painful or cruel, we tried,” the medic said.

             
“What’s your name?” Alec asked.

             
“Remsie, sir,” the medic responded.

             
A memory flashed through Alec’s mind.
 
“You were taking care of me after the palace rebellion, weren’t you?” Alec asked.

             
“Yes, sir,” Remsie said with a smile, happy to be remembered.

             
Alec continued to wander among the prone, powerless ingenairii, recognizing faces of friends and acquaintances.
 
He stopped by Merle and held his limp hand, praying.

             
“Well, I haven’t passed out so far,” Alec said a minute later.
 
“So it must not be a contagious illness.

             
“What have we heard from
Oyster Bay
?” he asked, fearful as the implications of his question worked through his mind.

             
“Nothing so far,” Ellison said.
 
“It’s too soon.
 
This only happened here a few days ago.
 
We’ve sent word to
Oyster Bay
to tell them what’s happened here.”

             
Alec sat down in a chair, and considered the options.
 
He hadn’t tried to use his ingenairii powers since awakening in John Mark’s Cave a month earlier.
 
If there was something dangerous to the use of ingenairii power, he was immune only because he hadn’t tried to use the power.
 
He could try to use his healing power to help the victims here, but if he fell under as well, there would be no one to help him.

             
Yet he knew that if he didn’t find a way to treat this ailment, the ingenairii would waste away into eventual death.

                
That reminded him of a warning he had received from Merle in these very chambers, back at the beginning of his training as an ingenairii.
 
Merle had told him about inexperienced apprentices who had tapped into the power of the ingenairii realm, only to be seduced by the whispered allure of the available energy.
 
Such apprentices let their souls inadvertently separate from their bodies, and never came back.
 
The bodies lay in a coma-like state until they wasted away, just as was happening here.

                
“I’m going to go to
Oyster Bay
immediately, Ellison,” Alec said.
 
“Let’s go back to say farewell to the Duke, then I’ll go to Natha and take his fastest ship down the river.”

                
“
Your
Grace,” Alec said minutes later as he and Ellison returned to the Duke’s public meeting room, “I want to go to Oyster Bay as quickly as possible to see if the ingenairii there are in good health, and see if we can find a cure for our people.
 
I’m going to trader Millershome’s to use his fastest boat.”

                
“I’m sorry to lose your company again, but I understand the urgency,” the Duke replied.
 
“We’ll wait to hear word from you.
 
You know,
Oyster Bay
is unsettled these days politically, Alec.
 
The Queen and Rander are having a hard time keeping the city secure with lots of jockeying going on with all the succession intrigue.
 
You need to be careful.”

                
“What if I announced that I intend to take the crown for myself?”
 
Alec asked.
 
“Would Goldenfields support me?”

                
The Duke’s eyes widened, then he grinned broadly.
 
“Alec, what would you like for me to do to help you?
 
The Dominion would be well served by your leadership, and we will do all we can to assist you.
 
Especially if it means I never have to worry about chasing the crown myself; at my age I just want to rule Goldenfields and prepare my son to be a good ruler after me.
 
We haven’t done anything to aid Bethany only because we haven’t been asked.”

                
“I am the grandson of King Gildevny,” Alec said.
 
“I don’t know if I want to spend the rest of my life being king, but if Bethany is queen already, and if the Dominion needs me to take charge and provide peace, I will do it.”
 
He wondered again, as he had often done in recent weeks, why she had chosen to step into the throne.
 
Whatever her reason had been, he knew it must have been sound, supported by Rander as it was.

                
“I can have a battalion of our Guard ready to send to you within days,” the Duke told him earnestly.

                
“I’ll send you a message if I think I need them,” Alec replied, placing his hand in the Duke’s.

                
“I’ll wait to hear from you,” the Duke said.
 
“I know you’re anxious to go,” the Duke looked towards Ellison, and the two were moving out of the palace minutes later.

                
As they began to cross the bridge a group of horsemen came onto the bridge from the other end.
 
“Those look like Bondell riders,” Alec said as he observed the blue coats.
 
A sudden question entered his mind, but before he could ask it, the leader of the horsemen recognized him.

                
“Alec?
 
Alec!” Rashrew shouted.
 
“Thank God you’re alive!
 
It’s so good to see you.
 
How did you come to be here?” questions came rushing one after another.

                
“This is perfect!
 
We need a healer,” he stepped back among his men as they gently cradled a bundle off the back of a horse.
 
“Imelda fainted several days ago and we haven’t been able to revive her.
 
We thought your healers here in Goldenfields would be able to help her,” Rashrew said with deep emotion in his voice, and evident relief to find Alec.

                
“Was she trying to heal someone when she fainted?” Alec asked, again fearing that the illness could have spread to Bethany and the others in far off Oyster Bay.

                
“Yes she was,” Rashrew told him.

                
“All the ingenairii have passed out when they’ve used their powers,” Alec told his Bondell friend.
 
“We can place her with the others; there’s a medic here to keep an eye on them.
 
I’m leaving to go to
Oyster Bay
right now,” Alec said.
 
“I hope the ingenairii there will have an explanation and a cure.”
 
His hopes were diminished by the discovery that Imelda in Bondell had suffered the same malady as the Goldenfields ingenairii, strengthening his concern that all ingenairii were vulnerable to the strange weakness, regardless of physical location.

                
Alec parted ways with Ellison and Rashrew and the rest, as he headed towards the Millershome dockyards.
 
He maneuvered through the familiar streets of Goldenfields until he came to the gates of the yard that he knew so well.
 
“May I speak with any member of Natha’s family?” Alec asked at the gate.
 
He’d done this before, and knew that
it would take a little time and effort, but would win his way into the yard where he needed to be.

                
“Which one?” the guard at the gate asked.
 
“Who asks and why?”

                
“Uh,” Alec stammered at the unexpected response.
 
“Tarkas?
 
“It’s Alec the healer, seeking a fast ship to
Oyster Bay
.”

                
Without further question a note was passed to a messenger boy who left the gate, and five minutes later Alec saw Tarkas approaching, along with his sister Annalea.

                
“See!
 
I told you it must be him!”
 
Annalea squealed.
 
She raced in front of her brother and tackled Alec with a running hug that sent him staggering back three steps.
 
“Oh Angel!
 
You’re alive and you’re here!
 
We heard such stories!

                
“I had a baby!
 
You and your friend healed me so well last year!
 
Rand and I have a little brother for Leah!”

                
Alec kissed her with joy in his heart at her welcome news, held her at arm’s length, and without thinking, he engaged his ingenairii healing vision to inspect her health.

                
The use of his healing vision was so thoroughly a part of his powers that Alec was never aware of the actual process involved in accessing the energy of the ingenairii realm.
 
Even before he had known he had powers, before he had trained and learned the cumbersome lessons needed to find and grasp those energies, Alec had been able to call upon his vision to see the state of health of others.
 
The acquisition of his healing powers from the
Cave
of
John Mark
had seamlessly incorporated the ability to heal as a part of Alec’s talent and personality.

                
But now, as he began to look at Annalea, the automatic transmission of his powers from the ingenairii realm went astray.
 
Alec felt an incomprehensibly seductive lure, a call to use the powers more strongly, and to succumb to the temptation to plunge deeper into the energy realm.
 
He thought of the memory of Merle again, describing the danger of plunging into the energy, intoxicated by its lethal promise of pleasure, and he remembered hearing of those who never came back out alive.

                
He fell to the ground and his eyes rolled back into his head as his soul began to wander away from his body.
 
But his consciousness detected a faint, foul contamination in the energy realm, and he pushed mightily to sever the connection to it.

                
The contamination was familiar, but he could not identify the evil presence that existed like the faint shadow cast by a bright star on a moonless night. Even as he knew he should resist, tendrils of the energy remained engaged within his soul, and he felt himself tempted to give in to the lure of the mystical realm of power, where the spirit could feast on potential in a way that was more satisfying than the real world.

 
               
He happened to think again of Bethany, and imagined her lying unconscious in Oyster Bay, waiting for him to revive her.
 
It was the motivation he needed to reject the temptation of the power.
 
Alec succeeded in breaking the bond, perhaps because his Cave-established connection to the energy was different from the typical bond, and he felt his spirit within his body again.
 
He was aware of voices and sensations, before he managed to open his eyes.
 
He looked without focusing, sensing a ceiling above him.
 
“His eyes are open!
 
Stand back everyone; give him space,” Helen’s voice said.

                
Alec blinked his eyes and raised a hand to rub his forehead, where a terrible headache pounded.
 
“Mother Helen?
 
Is that you?
 
Where are we?” he asked, beginning to regain his senses.

                
Natha’s face suddenly appeared above him next to Helen’s.
 
“You’re in my office Alec,” Natha responded.
 
“We carried you in right away when you fainted.
 
What a relief to see you awake, my boy!”

                
There was a noise to Alec’s right, and he recognized Colonel Ryder’s voice.
 
With an effort, he pushed himself upright and looked around.
 
Tarkas, Annalea, Ryder, Helen, Natha, and another unknown person were in the room around him.
 
“Colonel,” Alec said in surprise.
 
“How’d you get here so fast?
 
How long was I unconscious?”