The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (16 page)

“My lord!” she spoke in surprise.  “To what do we owe this wonderful honor?  Have you come back to do the nation the favor of resuming the crown and relieving my unworthy head of its weight?”

“I came to ask you questions about these mysterious disappearances in the north,” Alec replied.  “And then I’m going to go back to my travels in the east and you can remain on the throne for the next six months or so.”

“Six more months of this?” Olivia asked in horror.

“Let’s go someplace appropriate so that you can tell me about this matter,” Alec suggested.  He motioned for Olivia to lead, and she began to briskly weave among the passages of the palace, as a pair of discreet bodyguards strode rapidly behind the royal pair and tried to keep up.

Olivia quickly led him to a small parlor, where the two of them sat in silence for a moment as Olivia struggled to compose her message to him.

"A strange problem in the north has raised alarm; there are hundreds of people who have disappeared, and no one knows how or why.  The places that are losing people are growing more numerous and the disappearances have shifted further south.  Whole settlements have begun to disappear and there are no clues, no evidence, no blood to give us any idea of what is happening.  I sent a patrol of guards - good guards - up to restore confidence, and there's been no word from them in three fortnights," Olivia's words gushed forth in a torrent, a release of the impotence and frustration she felt.

Alec listened to the words and tried to imagine what they could signal.

“Perhaps we could go up there to take a look,” he suggested.

“That’s a long journey,” Olivia protested.  “If you’re coming back to assume the crown, then I’ll go as your eyes and ears though,” she offered.

“Let’s go get your sword, and a full bandolier for me,” Alec said abruptly, taking her arm and then leading her towards the armory.

“Do you mean to go right now?  Will you travel the way that you can – instantly?” Olivia asked with growing concern as they strolled along.

“It’s the fastest, easiest way to go,” Alec replied.  “You’ll be delighted when we go there and come back and you realize that you haven’t missed dinner,” he grinned.

Olivia stopped on the threshold of the armory, as all those within and without the building stopped and stared in amazement at the pair of royal personages walking about the palace grounds like two ordinary people.

“You mean to take me?” she blurted out.

“You’re the ruler,” Alec answered.  “You need to see the circumstances on the ground so that you can make the best decision.  I’m only here for the day, and then I’ll be on my way again,” he told her as he picked up a bandolier of eight knives that hung from a peg.  He looked at the attendant who watched over the weapons.  “May I borrow these?” he asked.

“They’re yours to possess,” the man nodded quickly, while Olivia strapped a sword on each hip.

“You know that there will be nothing going on when we get there,” she challenged Alec, as he wrapped his arms around her.

They disappeared from the armory floor, adding to the story that the others in the building had to tell, as Alec took them north to investigate the mystery.

Chapter 11

The pair arrived in an alley besides a wooden building, in a climate with cooler air.

“We are in Gallop,” Alec said.  “It’s the northernmost town I know that I can visit; I can’t travel to a place if I haven’t been there before,” he explained.  “I’ve looked around Gallop a time or two.”

Olivia took in a deep breath, and then exhaled.  “That was frightening,” she said.  “So just like that, we’ve traveled from Oyster Bay to Gallop?”

“It’s as simple as that,” he agreed, not bothering to mention the drain on his use of the energy that the Traveling ability caused.  A simple string of five or six movements done in rapid sequence would amount to a full day’s work, depending on their lengths.

“Can you lead us to the local leaders?” he asked.

“I’ll have to ask.  I’ve never been here.  I’ve lived a sheltered life compared to you, apparently,” she replied.

They stepped out into the dwindling light of the city’s dusk, and saw the flag of the Dominion flying from a pole in front of a building.  “Let’s begin there,” Olivia suggested, and they walked to the brick structure.

The settlement had been a bustling frontier location when Alec had visited it months earlier.  Settlers who headed north to claim new lands and establish new farms had produced commerce and traffic in the streets of Gallop, but on this evening, as the two royals walked towards the army post, there was only a handful of people strolling.

The doors were closed at the building they sought, but shadows were visible moving within the illuminated interior.

“Allow me,” Alec said.  He placed his hand on the door, engaged his Warrior energy, and twisted the handle quickly and powerfully, wrenching the door open.

“Here now, we’re closed and you’ll have to leave.  How did you get that door open in the first place?” a junior officer looked up in annoyance at their entry and spoke before anyone else.

“We’ve just arrived from the palace at Oyster Bay,” Alec answered as the pair entered the room.  There were a half dozen men and women present.

“We want to learn more about the troubles you’ve been having with missing settlers up here,” Alec explained.   The people in the room were anxious to finish their work and be released from duty for the night, he sensed, and he realized the situation could prove difficult.

“I am the King, Alec, and this is my regent on the throne, Olivia,” he introduced them to the army personnel.  “Here are my marks,” he lifted his arms so that his sleeves fell down and revealed the multiple ingenairii marks that decorated his flesh.  “I’d be happy to provide Healer service to any of you who have troubles,” he added mildly.

Heads swiveled to look at him, and then the staffers looked at one another.

“Your majesty,” one woman was the first to demonstrate belief in his claim, as she knelt on the floor beside the stool she sat upon.

“Where’s your commanding officer?” Olivia asked, as the others followed the lead of the first junior officer.

“He went up north on horseback with a handful of guards to look into the problem himself,” one man volunteered.   “He hasn’t been back for two days.”

“Did you expect him to be gone so long?” Alec asked.

“He told us he was only going out for one day,” the man replied, casting a somber tone over the room.

“Who can we talk to who knows the most about what is going on?” Alec asked.

“The bartender across the street,” one person blurted out, partially in gest.

Alec looked at him with a hard stare.

“He’s probably right,” spoke up the woman who had been the first to kneel.  “Anslow does hear everything from everybody,” she said.  “If there have been any stories told, he’s probably heard them.”

“We’ll go to the bar then,” Alec replied.  “Thank you, and good luck,” he told them, as he started to step towards the door to leave.

“Sir?” one of the officers spoke up.

Alec looked at him with a quizzical expression.

“I’ve had a rash.  Would you heal it while you’re here?” the man asked, to a round of groans.

Alec ended up applying healing energy to every one of the people there, in one small form or another, then followed Olivia out the door ten minutes later.  The sky was almost completely dark overhead.

They crossed the street to the tavern on the other side, where a moderate, but not overwhelming crowd was drinking quietly, again, without displaying the boisterousness of a frontier settlement, Alec thought.  He and Olivia walked and took seats by the bar, unknown and unremarked upon by any of the denizens of the establishment.

“Two mugs of wine,” Alec told the bartender, as he placed a coin on the table.  “And I’ll need to get more money from you, by the way,” he told Olivia.  “My travels have taken more cash than I originally planned.

“What can you tell us about the disappearances in the wilderness?” he asked the keeper as the man placed two mugs before them.

“There are so many rumors, you don’t have enough time tonight to hear everything I’ve heard,” the man said dismissively.  “I probably heard three new ones today.”

Alec lifted his arm before the man, then tugged his sleeve down to reveal the shiny ingenairii marks.

“We might take a more than casual interest, and we might be able to help,” Alec responded, as the man stared at the marks with fascination.

“The stories that I’ve heard that I think carry the most truth came from two different people, on two different days,” the man said, growing quiet and intent.

“The first was a fortnight ago.  A man came in, looking pale as death.  He sat down right there,” Anslow the bartender nodded his head at the spot where Olivia sat.  “He sat there for three or four drinks, completely silent.  The night grew old, and the tavern emptied out, and he stayed here.

“When I told him it was closing time, and offered him one last drink, he just looked at me.

“‘I don’t want to go out in the darkness,’ he said.

“‘The darkness took them all; I saw it,’ he told me.

“I thought he was just not holding his liquor and speaking nonsense.  It was late, and I was ready to leave,” Anslow recounted, and Alec thought the man’s own eyes looked haunted.

“So I tried to jolly him along, making light of things.   But the man put his hands out flat on the bar, and he finally looked me straight in the eye.

“‘This morning I was in a train of settlers heading north,’ this man said in a deadly quiet voice, just the two of us here.

“‘My horse threw a shoe while we were in a woody copse, and I stopped to tend to it.  I told the others to go on, my brother and his family and the people we were traveling with.  They kept moving, and I figured to catch up to them quickly. 

“‘They rode out of the woods, and into a nice bit of pasture.  By the time I got the shoe pulled free, and was back in the saddle, and moving towards the start of the pasture – I could see out into it, all sunlit and such – they were about all the way across, and ready to ride back into the next patch of forest, when a darkness came rolling out of the trees.

“‘It was like a giant wave of blackness, and it was all around them.  I heard some screams and shouts, and then the darkness pulled away.

“‘And the trail was empty.  Completely empty.

“‘I sat there on my horse in the shadows, and sat still and silent.  I just stared for the longest time.  But I never rode out to see the spot.  I never went to see if my brother was there.  Never went to check on my sister-in-law – such a sweet woman, or my niece or nephews or any of the others.  I just sat there trembling, and then I finally turned the horse, and rode straight back here.’

“That’s what he told me, and then he drained his last drink, and he walked out the door, and I’ve never seen him again,” Anslow told them.

Alec felt a chill run along his spine.  The story carried a heavy dose of truth to it.

Anslow walked away, to tend to the needs of another customer, as Alec and Olivia looked at one another.  Seconds later, he came back.

“Then three – no, make it four – days ago, a man came in, and told an almost identical story.  His saddle had come loose, and he’d fallen behind when he stopped to try to fix his strap.  He talked about seeing a black cloud swallow the people up, and he never saw them again.

“He hung himself that night,” Anslow recounted.

The bartender left again, and poured a pair of flagons of ale for the waitress, then came back to Alec and Olivia.

“So what can the ingenairii do about that?” he asked solemnly.  “I don’t feel safe anymore.”

“I don’t have an answer,” Alec replied.  “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“We could use some answers,” Anslow said.  “They say it’s getting closer.”  Alec reached out with his Spiritual energy, and tried to sense the feelings of the man; he was sincerely depressed by the stories, and fearful, Alec could tell.

“I’m starting to think it might be time for me to move south,” he added, and he went off to serve other customers.  He didn’t return to their location.

Olivia drained her mug of wine.  “Let’s go back to Oyster Bay,” she suggested in a low voice.

“We might as well,” Alec agreed.  He’d only tasted a small amount of his wine; it was acidic and unpleasant.

“Come here,” he stood up, embraced the regent as she came into his arms, then returned with her to the palace, leaving the patrons in the bar wondering what had happened to the pair of strangers who had disappeared.

“Will you come and discuss this with my advisors?” Olivia asked.

“It certainly seems like a good idea,” Alec agreed, as they began to walk through the palace halls.

Olivia spoke to servants as she found them while walking through the halls, and sent them off to find her advisors and direct them all to meet together.

“I am at a loss,” he said to the half dozen men and women who gathered around a table a half hour later.  “It sounds terrifying.  We only heard from the one man, the bartender, and I know that doesn’t sound like a reliable source, but the man believed what he told us.

“I will go back there tomorrow morning to see if I can learn more,” he proposed.   He turned to Olivia, “And now, with your permission, I’ll return to the Healing Spring for the evening.”   Without waiting for her answer, he engaged his powers and left the meeting in the palace at Oyster Bay.

“Well, you heard him; everyone is dismissed,” Olivia helplessly echoed, and she stayed in the room as the others walked away.

“I hope you find better news tomorrow,” she said softly to the spot where Alec had disappeared, and then she too left the empty meeting room.

When Alec returned to the intimate palace at the Healing Spring, the aroma of the cooked meal wafted through the air, and he remembered that he had told Kecil he would not be gone long.

He dropped his Traveler energies, then grasped his Time Travel energies, and propelled himself back two hours earlier in time, to see that the sunlight was still fading from the sky overhead.  He felt only slightly guilty, and wondered what had made him switch times; he hadn’t done so in many years.

“Kecil, are you ready for dinner?” he asked as he knocked on her door.

The lacerta opened the door herself a moment later.  “I’m ready, and hungry!  Did you have a good visit to your other palace?” she asked.

“It was actually a bit troubling,” Alec answered.  “There are some disturbing things happening.”

“Just as you were told at the cave?” Kecil asked, as they walked down the hall.

“You’re right; I was told that at the cave!” Alec exclaimed.  “It can hardly be a coincidence, can it?” he asked.  “That makes it even more serious.

“We may delay our return to the mission by a day or two, if that’s okay,” Alec told her.  They reached the dining table, and Alec held the chair out for Kecil to take her seat.

“We tried to prepare some dishes that we felt your guest would enjoy,” the waiter said nervously as he served a platter of very rare meat, barely cooked.

“She eats the same things I do, Geral,” Alec said with a grin.  “We’ve been eating together for the past several days.

“She’s fond of baked goods,” he added in a mock whisper.

The man immediately retook possession of the platter of meat and took it back to the kitchen.  He returned with baked tubers.

“Perhaps this will be a better, more thoroughly prepared item for a first course,” he said with a straight face.

“May we have some butter to put on the tubers?” Alec asked.

“Certainly, majesty,” the man went back to the kitchen, and returned with butter and greens.

Moments later he brought back the more thoroughly cooked meat.

“How was your work?” Kecil asked.  “Did you have anything interesting?”

“Well,” Alec hesitated for a fraction of a second, then decided to tell what he had learned. “I found out there was a problem in the kingdom, so I went to the capital and then went up north to learn more about this matter of people who are disappearing, by the hundreds.”