The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (28 page)

Chapter 24

Alec let his mind wander through the considerations of the next destination they were about to travel to.  He had two options in mind, though he knew which one he was going to select.   If Kecil wanted to see a different human culture, he could take her to the Twenty Cities, or he could take her to Michian.  The climate, the architecture, and the culture of Michian would give her insight into a different way that humans lived.  And Alec had lived in Michian and twice been a leader of the lands; he’d raised a family with Jeswyne, the royal family that had succeeded his wife the empress on the throne.

But he did not want to take Kecil there.  It was a land of memories of evil times, as he couldn’t help but recollect the sorcerers and demons that had dominated the society for so long.  Their values had shaped cruelty and pain into the culture in a way that Alec had felt he had never completely erased.

Alternatively, instead of going to the familiar land of Michian, the two travelers could go back to the Twenty Cities.  Kecil had been transported through the lands once, as a captive lacerta, but she hadn’t had the chance to witness the wonders of the five cities of the Old Ones.  Alec had seen them once, briefly, during his pursuit of renegade ingenairii kidnappers many generations earlier.  And then he and Andi had been tourists a time or two themselves, passing through the a few of cities to see their wonders, and to visit the few acquaintances they had made. 

His last visit to the Twenty Cities had been many decades earlier.  But he was sure that the centuries-old traditions of the Old Ones continued to thrive, creating the defining identities of the five cities that the Old Ones maintained.

The Old Ones were the remainders of the races that had fled from the beginning of Hellmann’s original reign of tyranny, at a time many, many millennia earlier. The lokasennii had told him the stories of how there had been dozens of races that had been able to tap into the Great Energy, the same Energy source that the modern ingenairii tapped.  Those ancient races had used different methods to call upon the energy, but they had achieved essentially the same results as the modern race.  The Ajacii had been similar to the Warrior ingenairii, the Sleagh Maith had been like the Healers, and the Lokasennii had been similar to the Spiritual ingenairii.

A few of those ancient races had remained in or near their original homelands, within the modern boundaries of the Avonellene Empire, and those brave few had been the ones that had banded together to defeat Hellmann at the time of his first grab for god-like dominion over the earth.  Other races had fled as far west as the Twenty Cities, and evolved into the Old Ones.  Yet other races had moved further west, to settle the lost civilization of Boundary Lake, who had left the marvelous legacy of the pendants that conferred access to the Energy upon ordinary humans.

And some races must have moved on further west, to become the ancestors of the ingenairii, or the ancestors of the human kingdoms that had occupied the Pale Mountains before the coming of John Mark, or perhaps some of those migrating races had simply disappeared into the wilderness and vanished, or perished.

Alec shook his head to clear the cobwebs of remembered history.  He had mused for the entire length of their walk back to the inn.  The sun was high in the mid-afternoon sky as they entered the building.

“We’ll gather our things and check out now.   Your rooms were delightful,” Alec told the clerk as the pair of visitors walked past the front desk.  They quickly packed, and Kecil started to walk back out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Alec asked as he pulled his own pack upon his back.

“We’re leaving, aren’t we?” Kecil asked.

“We can leave from right here,” Alec pointed out, as he stood between the two beds.  “Come back here,” he spread his arms wide, inviting her into his embrace.  And as soon as she joined him, he closed his arms around her.

“But how will they know we left?” she asked.  And their travels began.

“They’ll figure it out soon enough,” Alec assured her several seconds later, as they arrived in a narrow urban alley.

“Those are lacertii!” Kecil spoke excitedly as she looked down towards the mouth of the alley.

They traveled again, and arrived at the bottom of a leafy, narrow ravine, below an arched bridge, in a city.

“This is Boundary Lake,” Alec explained.  He looked up at the bridge far overhead.  Once upon a time, Andi had been thrown from that bridge by her ingenairii kidnappers; she had been bound in chains and headed towards death.  But Alec had used his powers to dive over the bridge and break her fall, ending her captivity.  Just days later though, she had been captured by the lacertii who were at war with Boundary Lake, and he had pursued her once again to set her free.

They each took a deep breath, then Alec set them into motion one more time, and they suffered the feeling of nothingness for seconds, until they emerged in a new city.

“This is Woven,” Alec said.  “We’ll start traveling from here.”

“What’s special about this place?” Kecil asked.

“I had a wife here,” Alec smiled softly at the memory, recalling Stacha.  He had killed the girl’s abusive husband during their journey on the caravan road, and she had proclaimed that by custom she had become his wife as a result.  They had not consummated the relationship in any way, and she had come to love Jasel, a young man who had been part of their traveling band in the mountain wilderness.

The Lady Salem had regained the throne in Woven through Alec’s intervention and the accomplishment of a brief and successful coup.  Salem’s son Kane would have been the heir, and had married Hope, the grandasteur of the lokasennii.  Were their offspring still on the throne, he wondered.  He would take a bit of time to find out, and to see what other remnants of his passage through Woven might yet linger in the city.

“Another wife?  Do you only have them one at a time, or do you keep a harem?” Kecil asked incredulously.

“She wasn’t really my wife.  I killed her husband, and for a while she thought she should belong to me, but we got it straightened out,” Alec answered absentmindedly.

“After this, we’ll go to Yangchoo, to see if the lights still sparkle at night, and then we can go to Exbury, the garden city.  And perhaps we can even go to Villadest, the city of fountains and dancing waters,” he thought of the city that he and Andi had visited only once, as a honeymoon of sorts, years after they had finally settled the Dominion and Michian into relative tranquility.

“Let’s find a room at an inn, shall we?” he suggested.

They spend two days in the city, Alec showing Kecil the spots where so many actions had happened, from the palace battles to the street location where he had pulled Andi’s soul back to earth and healed her badly wounded body.

“That’s when we began to unite,” he explained.

“It must have been so wonderful to be so close to someone else,” Kecil sighed.

“It was very positive, but there were sharp edges to the knife as well,” Alec replied cryptically.

He walked past the jewelry shops that continued to occupy the same city street they had been established on decades earlier, and he went to the fashion quarter of the city to observe the many hat fashions that had lingered in the society’s culture as a result of the shop where Alfred had taught Stacha.

They left the city when Alec had seen all the sights he wanted to see, and thought of his moments with Andi while there.  The two of them had entered as two individuals, without a particular relationship, but by the time they left, they had been set upon the path of decades of intimacy.

Yangchoo was just as Alec had remembered it to be.  The lights were sophisticated and elegant throughout the city.   With a display of his own powers and ability to manipulate lights, he garnered them the hospitality of the palatial inn that was reserved for honored guests.  They only spent two days and nights in the city, and then they traveled on once again, towards Exbury, on a leg of the journey that brought a rapidly and inexplicably rising tide of anticipation to Alec’s soul.

So much had happened to him in Exbury during his first visit, in the era when he had been on his quest to set Kriste free from her ingenairii kidnappers.  The visit to Exbury had been fraught with danger, and Alec had suffered a devastating injury in the course of a battle with the ingenairii.  Andi had been with him, and they had spent time among a family of the Old Ones of Exbury, then gone on an expedition with the Exbury Old Ones to try to conquer the ingenairii, a secondary adventure that had also suffered setbacks and battles.

The Old Ones of Exbury were like the Plant ingenairii of the Dominion, able to control the growth of plants, and Alec had felt a degree of kinship with them because of his ability to take their energy and crudely convert it to Healing power, just as he had used Yula’s Plant power back in the beginning of his adventure in the Dominion.  That familiarity and compatibility made Alec feel a certain closeness to the Old Ones, just a little more than he felt towards the Old Ones of the other cities, people of races he had never met.

And most of all, there was Aja.  The girl had proven to be an enchanting beauty that Amane, a foppish member of the Old Ones, had become infatuated with, and become married to.  Aja had been a close companion of Alec’s during a portion of his travels.  And most astonishing of all, she had been a tree.

During the daylight, while the sun shone, the girl had been a tree, but at night she had turned into the vivacious, lovely woman who Alec had enjoyed and admired so much.  She had been a member of a rare race that lived in a village in the mountains, in a place that Alec never visited or knew.  Because of Alec’s care and treatment, she had grown able to remain human during the daylight.

But he had known her, and cared deeply for her, for her love of life and her strength.  Traveling with her had been a joy during their time together.  He hadn’t considered Amane to be worthy of receiving Aja’s hand in marriage, but he had trusted her judgement as to what was best for her.

Alec wanted to see Aja again.  He hoped that her heritage from the long-lived race of the Sylphs would provide her with the longevity to still be alive more than a century after the last time he had seen her.

“We should go claim a room in the palace for the visiting Old Ones,” Alec suggested.  “We’ll have to ask for directions,” he spoke to the guards at the city gate and was told where to find his goal.  At the entry gate to the luxurious hostel he demonstrated powers that earned admission to the inn for the evening.

Once settled into their room in the early evening, Alec proposed that they go for a stroll about the city and a late bite of dinner at any appealing restaurant they might happen to find.

“What’s disturbing you?” Kecil asked perceptively.  “You’ve been restless and edgy since we came within sight of the city.”

“I think there may be a friend in this city who is still alive,” Alec confessed.

“Really?  One of the Old Ones?  They live long lives?” the girl asked.

“There was a girl,” Alec began.

“That’s how your stories always begin,” Kecil interjected sarcastically.

“A girl who was not an Old One, exactly.  She came from a far off village, and she was part tree,” Alec plowed onward with his explanation.

“What did you say?  It sounded like ‘tree’?” Kecil asked.

“Yes, a wooden thing with leaves and branches,” Alec agreed with deceptive calmness.

“Well, how could a girl be a tree?” Kecil asked.

“She was a tree at day, and a girl by night, until I shared my blood with her and altered her nature,” Alec replied.

“Anyway, I was thinking that she might perhaps live as long as a tree, in which case she might still be alive,” he paused, “and I’d love to see her again,” he added softly.

“I’m sure you have some plan for how to find your favorite tree, so let’s go strolling through the town, unless you’d rather go by yourself,” Kecil surrendered to the emotion she detected in his voice.

“We’ll walk together; you’ll enjoy seeing the city,” Alec was ready to move out.  He led his companion out into the streets, where they blended into the crowd as they walked among the many marvelous plantings that covered and replaced building structures along the streets.

Alec wandered for several minutes until he found landmarks that seemed vaguely familiar, and from those locations he gradually found his way to stand in front of the home where he had stayed – along with Andi – with Amane’s family during his convalescence in Exbury.

“Let’s go to the door and ask if Aja is here,” he murmured in a low voice, and he immediately led Kecil to the front of the house.

When the servant answered the door in response to Alec’s knock, the visitor paused for a moment to peer over the man’s shoulder and examine the entry hall, both trying to identify the features of the home as well as catch an improbable glimpse of Aja herself, strolling through the rooms.

“May I help you?” the doorman asked politely.

“Many years ago, I met a lovely lady named Aja.  She was a member of the family that lived here, the last I knew,” Alec explained.

“The Lady Aja?  You must have been here a long time ago,” the man at the door said in a kindly tone.  “You don’t look old enough to have known her in those days.”