The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (7 page)

“Forgive me John Mark,” he muttered a quick, quiet prayer of regret.  “I do not want to kill them.  I only want to rescue the girls.”

He felt the energy that surrounded him abruptly vanish.

He turned his head, looking in all directions for the next calamity to descend upon him.  There was none in view in any direction, and he looked back down at the women in the village.  Other women were coming out of the largest hut of the village, increasing the size of the group that faced him.  It grew into a mob as he stood engaged in a silent stare down.

“What did you mean about rescuing girls?” the crone who appeared to be the leader of the village of women asked.

Alec stopped and considered the question, confused by the interest the woman showed in his one short prayer after his earlier pleas and threats had accomplished nothing.  “A girl I know, and many other girls, were kidnapped, by a gang of men – Warrior ingenairii, if you know what that means.

“I’ve been chasing them for weeks trying to set the girls free,” he explained.  “My companions are with me on this quest.”

“Do you speak the truth?” the old woman asked.

“I speak the truth,” he replied.

“Anyone can claim they speak the truth,” some other voice protested from the crowd.

“He is a man.  No man is to be trusted,” another voice shouted.

“Why hasn’t he caught these kidnapers and freed the girls already?  He is a mighty warlock,” yet another doubter called from the crowd.

“I am not a warlock!” Alec denied emphatically.  “I understand how you create the powers you use; I do not use that means of accomplishing my goals.  Your way is a painful one for the spirits you rely on.”

“He is a seer,” a different voice called.  “He knows what we do, he rescues girls.  He is trustworthy.”

“Never trust a man,” came a bitter rejoinder from somewhere in the crowd.

“Enough!” the leader called out, bringing order back to the mob of her followers, just before it careened out of control.

“Do you speak the truth?” the woman asked again.

“I do,” Alec replied.  “My soul grows troubled when I say falsehoods, and I do not wish to carry that burden.  I am telling the truth.”

“The whole truth?” the leader prodded him.

He stopped and reflected.  H
e wondered h
ow much of his story was pertinent to this confrontation, a confrontation he did not even understand yet.  He only knew that it had descended to
mere
ly verbal jousting instead of physical battle, and he was glad for that.

“I have told all the truth that I think you care about,”
he answered, and listened as his words
provoked a murmur of distrust.

“If we could believe you,” she paused dramatically, “we might let your friends go in peace.   We might even let you go in peace.

“We might even assist you,” she said at last, a statement that drew another ripple of murmurs from her followers.

“Come down here, so that we may weigh your truth,” she said.  She held her hand up to him in a gesture of offering to help.

“Why would I trust you?” Alec asked, and at last he recognized the dilemma of his situation.

He was not going to be able to defeat this group unless he slaughtered them, and he could not imagine himself raining death down on all the women who had come to gather there.  But he could not simply run away, to try to return to the survivors of the Exbury Rangers.  The floating spirits of death would follow or even beat him to that target.

And he did not trust the women enough to step down among them.

“I will make myself your hostage,” a woman said.  “I trust you.”

She stepped forward, a woman who looked worn by a hard life, with shapeless brown hair hanging down t
o the shoulders of her coarsely woven
shift.

“What is your name?” Alec asked her.

“I am Celty,” she answered.

“Celty, I am Alec,” he replied.  “Can I trust you, and can I trust your sisters?”

There was a murmur of approval, and he realized that in terming them sisters he had stumbled onto the name they gave eac
h other.

“They will not harm you, nor will I,” she told him.

Slowly, Alec crouched, down on top of the earthen dike, then hopped to the ground and walked to Celty.

“How will you weigh my truth?” Alec asked.

“With this,” she said simply, and she held up her hand in front of Alec’s face.  Her fist was balled shut, and when she opened her hand, he leaned in close to see what she held.  There was only a palmful of powder, and suddenly Celty gave a powerful puff, blowing the powder up into Alec’s face.

His vision immediately grew
dizzy, and before he could even
protest her treachery, he fainted and collapsed.

Chapter 4
– Trial by Fire

Alec awoke when a bucket of cold water was thrown on his chest.  His body jumped and shivered in response to the shock.  He was in a dim and smoky room, lying on the floor, next to a roaring hot fire.  Drops of water that had splashed off his body had hit a circle of stones around the fire, and they sizzled themselves away in tiny clouds of steam that rose and mixed with the strangely-odored smoke of the damp wood on the fire.

Alec was staked to the floor, tight ropes around each ankle and wrist, across his waist and his chest and his neck.  He was unclothed, lying naked in a room so large it could only be the large hut he had observed in the center of the village.

“Don’t exercise your powers, or we will kill the rest of your companions,” the old woman said, squatting on the floor near his head.  “I warn you of that, but of course it doesn’t really matter.  While the smoke from the persimmele tree is burning, you cannot touch the energy you use.”

Alec let his head rest on the ground in stunned disbelief.  He tried to reach for his powers, but could not find his way through the space between the barriers.

“You lied to me!” he shouted.

“No, we promised we would not harm you, and we have not,” the woman said.

“Where is Celty?” Alec asked.  “Celty!” he shouted.  “I trusted you!”

“We are going to test the truth of your words,” the crone said.  “And then we will decide what to do.”

“I don’t want to face them,” Alec said, suddenly
intuitively
realizing what the test was going to be.  He felt real terror of the prospect that was before him.  “It is painful for them,” he said insistently.  “It will be painful for me,” he added more softly.

“That is unfortunate, yet it is our way,” the nameless leader told him.

She stood over him, and faced the flames, then took a handful of powder and threw it into the fire.

There was a vibrant column of sparks that rose in a thin pillar from the flames, reaching to the hole in the center of the ro
of, where the smoke exited.  But the sparks
slowly ceased to move, becoming an immobile collection of energized particles glowing in the air.

They were about to perform necromancy, Alec realized.  They were going to call the dead spirits of people from his past.  He had felt an uneasy familiarity with their energy from the first moment of his encounter with it in the woods, and it had only been when he had reached the village that his mind had finally confirmed the source of the power the women used.  They were in some communion with the spirits of the dead, and they relied on the spirits to unleash energy that the women harnessed for their needs.

“Why would you do this?” Alec asked, pained at the thought of the disturbance the spirits of the dead would endure.

“The dead are our allies.  They give us the power we use to protect the forest and ourselves from men,” the leader told him.  “We know we can trust the dead to tell us the truth.  Now we will ask them about you, and we will learn the truth about you.”

“It hurts them,” Alec protested.  “It pains them to return to our world.”  He remembered the gruesome facts he had learned during his period of insanity, when he had delved into necromancy, trying to resurrect his lost friends and loves, a spell that had only ended when the holy spirit of John Mark had interrupted his madness and rescued him.

“We will force no spirit to come.  Only those who feel great enmity or great affection for you will come if they wish to speak
to us about you
,” he was told.

She took another handful of dust and threw it into the fire.  “We call the spirits,” she said, as red sparks flew up among the white ones that were still suspended.

“To help us judge,” she added as another handful of dust produced blue sparks.

“The honesty of this man on trial,” another handful produced green sparks.

“Alec,” a last handful produced a blaze of purple sparks, and the roomful of women all gasped.

“You did not tell us!” the crone said angrily and fearfully.  “We would not have done this.  Now it is too late.”

Before Alec could even ask
–
too late
–
what he had not said, all the suspended sparks began to twirl rapidly, drawing into a form in the center of the smoke, then expanding to become a thin girl with a head of hair that was long and springy.  The figure looked real, looked solid, like a human figure floating above the fire, undeniably a real person, except for the light that shone from within the body, gently casting its warmth upon all those within the building.

“I come to speak of Alec,” the spirit of the girl said.

“Hello Alec,” the glowing face looked down on Alec, even as women were starting to leave the hut.

“Kinsey,” Alec felt tears in his eyes, big brimming tears of moisture that dimmed his vision.  He tried to move his hands to brush the tears away, but the ropes held him immobile.

“I loved this man,” Kinsey’s spirit said.  “His soul was the brightest star I ever saw.  His love is real and his heart is good.”

“I miss you Kinsey,” Alec said softly.  “I wish I could have spent a lifetime
as a friend
with you, instead of the short time we had.”

“Alec and I had souls that knew each other well.  I had discovered it already; he had not, before duty called him away,” the fiery spirit told the women still in the room.

“Alec, you can have that love with Andi
–
you should have it
.  Go back to her Alec,” Kinsey said.  “Help him.  Help him recover his memory,” she looked at the women in the room.

“Good bye Alec.  I will see you again someday.”  Her spirit dissolved, and the sparks began to twirl again in the fiery smoke.

“I come to speak of Alec,” a new voice spoke, and the sparks formed a new figure, a woman of elder years, one who Alec knew clearly.

It was Bethany, the wife he never wed, the queen who sat on the throne for him for fifty years, and held the Dominion together for him.

“He always put the welfare of others ahead of himself,” Bethany said, though Alec could hardly see her from the steady stream of tears he shed.

“Oh Beth, Beth,” he could only repeat her name.

“Alec, you made me do the greatest thing I could, because I wanted to live up to you, my love,”

“Treat him well sisters, he is the best friend you could ask for, or the worst enemy you could have,” she told the room, and then disappeared.

The sparks swirled again, and Alec realized Celty was there with him, using his own sword to cut the ropes that tied him down.

“I come to speak of Alec,” a new woman’s voice spoke up.

“Inga?” Alec asked in astonishment and further sorrow. 

The figure looked down at him with a kind smile.  “He came to me as a boy.  He is trusting and trustworthy.  Almost gullible at times, aren’t you, Healer?” she said gently.

“I met your daughter, Lewis, you know.  You must have been so proud of her,” Alec told Inga.  There were s
o many thoughts that came to his
mind so quickly, so many messages left unspoken between the two of them.  “I missed you so much as well.”  He sobbed momentarily.  “Thank you Inga, thank you for everything.”

Alec felt the last of the ropes around him cut loose, and he sat up, as the sparks swirled again.

Andi?” Alec asked in horror as he saw the next face take its place.  “No, Andi, you’re not dead!” he shouted.

“I come to plead for Alec.  He holds my heart and soul, and does not even know it,” the spirit said.  There were only a few women in the room now, but they stared at her intently, mesmerized by the inexplicable appearance of a living spirit.  Alec was standing now, freed from the constraints the women placed on him, but held in place by Andi’s words.

“I am not dead, but if you do not set him free, and restore his memories to him, as well as restore him to me, I will be dead within three months; I am the spirit of the death that may come sooner rather than later.  Trust this man, and make him free and whole, so that he will love me again,” Andi’s spirit looked not at Alec, but at the women left in the hut, then vanished.