The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (2 page)

Chapter 1

Alec sat on his haunches, watching the fox cross the open field with a rabbit in its mouth.  The mother was heading to her den to feed her kits.

By the time the kits were mature animals, the hunting might turn more difficult for them, or they might end up being hunted themselves, Alec suspected.

The land was changing.  The population of the settled and sedate Dominion was growing, and settlers were moving out past the frontiers to repopulate the empty lands in the north.  Yet there were recent rumors of settlers who disappeared after going north, people who were never seen again, and Alec had an interest in knowing what was afoot.  But there was no evidence of anything amiss on this day – it was just a good day to be a fox in the wilderness.

There were fewer and fewer such good days ahead.  People were returning, and their return was going to make life less easy for the foxes and some other predators in the northern forest.

It is the way of the world, my love
, Andi’s voice sounded faintly in his mind.

I know
, he agreed. 
It’s good that the Dominion is strong enough for people to want to spread out and reclaim the old farmlands.  But the foxes won’t see it the same way
, he ventured.

That’s one old fox looking out for the others, eh?
Alec heard the gentle humor in his wife’s thought.

I’ll be home to see you soon,
he said affectionately.  He watched the fox’s bushy tail disappear into an opening among the raspberry bushes on the verge of the nearby trees, and then the animal was gone from his sight.

Alec stood up, the brief nature show over.  With an application of his will, he exercised his Traveler power, and jumped through space, leaving the yet-uninhabited forest behind, so that he could return to the castle that sat upon the banks of the Giffey River, far to the south of Goldenfields city, not far from the healing spring, the source of the miraculous water that provided health and healing with a sip or a bath.

The spring and its waters were the reason Alec had moved to that location, and built that castle, just a few years ago.  As Andi grew older, the easy availability of the water helped her body to cope with the inevitabilities that time brought to all people.

All people except Alec himself.  Alec was ageless, with a body that never ceased to repair and rejuvenate itself, so that he was perpetually a healthy adult in his prime.  Over the centuries his apparent age had slowly shifted upward, but he still looked like a vigorous adult, not much more than forty, younger than his own grandchildren.  And he looked much younger than his wife of many decades, Andi.

He quelled his thoughts, before they went too far, became too prominent and came to Andi’s attention.  He played a delicate game, working to keep private the thoughts that he tried to avoid revealing to Andi, the inescapable wanderings of his mind, as he stumbled into idle speculation about the health of the wife who could read his mind to a great degree.  It was better not to think at all than to let Andi know that some part of him would needlessly speculate about her health and longevity.

Alec had watched beloved wives grow old and die before.  It was a curse of the eternal life he seemed to live, and he had no wish to suffer it again.  He’d not intended to fall in love with Andi, but the accidental merging of their souls when he had rescued her from death had created a powerful bond that had overcome his defenses.  And the love had been worth it, he knew.

There had been so many, many good days in the past, when they had both been full of energy and ability.  The memories of those days pressed themselves into his consciousness.  But they could do no more than tempt and remind him; he would not use his incredible ability to Travel back in time and live among those days again.  The saintly spirit of John Mark had told him that the history that had been made was not to be tampered with, unless holy prophecy specifically demanded it.  So Alec remained in his own time, happy to share the time he had left with Andi, and he avoided Time Traveling altogether.

But now, decades of love and partnership and devotion were stumbling towards a sobering conclusion.  And it was painful, even more painful because of the mutual access the two lovers had to one another’s thoughts.  Alec tried so very, very, very hard not to reveal his surprise and pain at the growing gaps he recognized in Andi’s capacity.  He saw it all from the inside and the out, and worked hard to not display his sadness.

He put all that aside, and imposed the brighter, happier thoughts upon himself that he wore whenever he returned home to Andi, to the special palace they had built just in the last few years, a span of time that felt like the blink of an eye to Alec.

The palace at the healing spring was modest by way of comparison to other palaces he and his family occupied.  It had only been constructed a decade prior, when Andi’s fragility had begun to become apparent and insurmountable without regular doses and baths in the spring water.  Alec had ordered the removal of the abandoned fortifications at the spring, and built the palace in their place, then moved with Andi into the relatively isolated home.

It was the place he called home, and it was the place he was heading to.  He would leave behind his thoughts about Andi, and his concerns over the rumors of people who disappeared from the empty northlands.

Chapter 2

Alec arrived back in the special room at the top of the southern tower.  By the rules of the palace, it was the one place he used to arrive or depart with his abilities as a Traveler ingenairii.  His agreement to exclusively use that room prevented others from finding him suddenly appearing in the middle of conversations or meals or other activities in other rooms of the palace.  And all others agreed to stay out of the room so that he was given the opportunity to arrive in peace and privacy and to prepare himself for anything that might be awaiting him.

Not that any stressful issues did await him at the healing spring home, other than the issue of Andi’s health.  He still made sure to travel on a nearly daily schedule to Oyster Bay and occasionally to Michian, to help maintain the fiction of his rule over the two nations and the organization of Ingenairii Hill.  But he did little enough work or governance in any of those places; he simply held seats and titles, and thereby prevented anyone else from claiming the titles of Emperor or King or Head of the Ingenairii Council.

He stood atop the tower, and looked out the window that allowed him to look down at the healing spring not far away.  There was the usual busy traffic there, the water merchants who captured every pint of the water they could manage to, so that they could ship it to the ends of the earth as a commodity that was forever in demand.

Alec had ended the monopoly on the procurement of the water as one of his first actions when he’d seized control of the Dominion, and let different trading companies have turns at the spring – companies that shipped the water to a variety of markets and competed to sell it.  One of the trading companies even had a lacerta partner, while another partner was from the city of Vincennes, capital of the Avonellene empire, the land that Andi had originally come from in the previous century.

You’re here; good
, Andi’s thoughts were clear, without any diminution from distance.

Alec turned his eyes from the spring, and went downstairs to the residential floors below the tower, then walked to Andi’s door, entered the room, and smiled at the nurse who sat quietly nearby.  Alec gave the man a nod, and he discreetly slipped out of the room, leaving the ruling couple of the land alone.

Alec studied the wispy figure that lay in the bed.

“I am not too thin,” Andi said with quiet indignation, speaking aloud.

“I always enjoyed you with a little more meat on those bones,” Alec replied with a grin.  She had been a girl, a young member of the Black Crag guard, assigned to help Alec when they had first been thrown together on the caravan road so many decades earlier.  They and others had traveled across the road through the mountainous wilderness, the thin commercial link between the Avonellene lands and the great civilization of the Twenty Cities.

That journey, a long, desperate race to try to rescue kidnapped girls taken by renegade Ingenairii, had been the cause of Andi and Alec’s match.  They had traveled together and fought together, then even cohabitated a single body at one point, and had become lovers.

“I remember what you enjoyed, you old fox, you,” Andi said with a glint in her eye.

They grinned at one another.

“Maybe I should give you your bath tonight,” he offered.

“Ha, ha!” Andi laughed.  “You just want to rattle these old bones one more time!

“Let’s have dinner early instead, and talk,” she offered.

“I’ll go see if the kitchen has anything ready,” Alec acquiesced, and left the room.  He wore a gentle smile as he walked through the palace, pleased to see his love’s good spirits.  Members of the small palace staff stood aside and bowed as he passed by, pleased to see their master at home and in the halls of the palace.

“Would you be able to deliver some dinner to my lady’s room soon?” he startled the cook by asking as he walked into the kitchen unexpectedly.

“Of course my lord.  We’ve got some nice asparagus and some rabbit stew we were preparing.”

Kale the cook quickly recovered his wits and replied to the king of the land.  He was used to the unexpected at the palace by the Healing Spring.  The chance to see Alec was the reason he’d left the Goldenfields palace kitchen and traveled through the sparsely-populated countryside to come to the small settlement in the first place.  His wife still wasn’t pleased with the relocation away from the glamor or the cosmopolitan experiences of the great city; he promised her that their stay at the Healing Spring location would be a short one, no more than a couple of years. 

And two years would be up soon.  The cook didn’t look forward to telling the king that he’d be leaving service at the castle to return to Goldenfields.

A short time later, the royal couple sat at the table on Andi’s balcony as the servants brought in two trays, two delightful testaments to the abilities of the young chef.  The servants placed the trays on the table where the royal couple sat, and laid out the plates of cheeses, bread, cooked items, and pickled relishes.

Let’s eat in private tonight
, Andi suggested to Alec.

He raised his eyebrows momentarily, then looked at the servants.

“We’ll be able to take care of ourselves.  You’re dismissed,” he told the pair.  “Go and enjoy some time with your own families.”

The two men in the green coats bowed their acknowledgement, then silently walked away from the table.

“Did you see that?” one of them said to the other as they approached the door to the hallway.  “I’ll bet you tomorrow night’s wine bottle they spoke to one another in their minds.”

“How are you going to prove it to win the bet?” the other servant challenged the first one.

They passed into the hall, and the answer to the question was lost to Alec and Andi.

“How will he prove it?” Andi asked with a smile, as Alec rearranged the plates in front of each of them according to what he knew Andi would and would not eat.

“He could ask one of us,” Alec suggested.

“They won’t do that; they never do,” Andi said, as she speared her fork into the relish tray and then daintily popped a piece of cauliflower into her mouth.

“No they never do,” Alec agreed.

“I’m ready,” Andi casually stated.

Alec looked at her, puzzled by the abrupt comment.  He saw that she was staring at him with a direct expression, then he sensed her feelings, and his heart sank.

“Andi,” he said softly, extending his hand across the table to her.  She placed her slender, translucent fingers upon his palm.

“Look at you, and look at me,” she said.  “We can’t argue about this.  I sense how hard you work to not think of it; Alec, you’re kind to try to spare me your thoughts, but the reality of my condition can’t be denied.  I’m ready to go, and I ask that you grant me the favor of letting me do it on my own terms.”

You want to go all the way back there?
He asked in astonishment as she emotionally composed her request.

I have loved spending one hundred and fifty years with you here in the Dominion; I wouldn’t trade a moment of it away.  But I want to die in the village where I was born.  I want to hear the sounds of my native language and smell the breeze blowing in from the port.  I want to go see my mother’s grave
, she told him wistfully.

“You could stay here and live for many more years,” he pointed out, as he fingers gently squeezed hers.

“I have to take four baths a day in your healing water now, plus drink it with every meal, in order to stay alive,” she pointed out just as gently.

At this rate, if I want to stay alive much longer, I’m going to have to live in a tub of the spring water day and night
, her thought was projected into his mind in a tone that conveyed no pain or bitterness.

And you shouldn’t spend all these years locked away in this isolated place because of me, when you could be out in the world doing so much good
, she added.

You forget where I was when we first met
, Alec reminded her as they ate their meal
.  I was living in a village in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, with fewer people around its vicinity than there are here at the spring every day.

But you were active there.  You helped hundreds of travelers on the caravan road.  You gave that mountain village a better life than it ever had before you settled there
, Andi rebutted.

“Let’s sleep on it,” Alec replied in a troubled voice.  He sensed the strength and passion of her decision, and he knew it was one he could not dissuade her from.  But it was one he could not easily accept either.

“Yes, I’m ready for bed,” she agreed.

Alec came around the table and offered his hand, then maintained a worried, loving embrace of Andi as they walked into the bedroom.  As they went to bed, he fell into an uneasy sleep, disturbed by the proposition that his wife had broached.

When he awoke the next morning, Alec sensed the satisfaction Andi felt from having spoken her opinion, and he knew that she had emboldened herself to continue the conversation.  And as he thought about how he expected the dialog would continue, he found that he could not muster a sufficient objection to her decision.  He was going to take her home to the Avonellene Empire, to the distant land where she had been born and raised, so she could fall asleep for one last time.