The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (31 page)

Chapter 28

Alec and Kecil arrived back in the same alley that Alec had used for hundreds of years as his Traveling spot in Chanradala.  Alec felt his energy abilities tested by his decision to make a single jump to cover the long distance rather than make two jumps.  He gave a mental wince, then released his tight grasp on Kecil.

“Welcome home, my friend,” he told her.

“It’s hard to believe I’m really home,” Kecil said wonderingly.  She looked up at him.  “Are you okay?” she asked, noting the gray color and lines of fatigue on his youthful face.

“I brought us a little farther and faster than usual, all at once,” he answered.  “I’m fatigued, but I’ll be better after I rest.  I’m so tired now though, I’m not sure I am seeing clearly.  Everything looks slightly foggy.”

Kecil raised a hand and stroked Alec’s scalp sympathetically, then looked around.

“It’s not just you; it is foggy,” she observed in a puzzled voice.

She sniffed the air.  “It’s not foggy,” she said with rising excitement.  “It’s smoky!”

“Is that good?  Is there a fire?” Alec was puzzled by the tone of her voice.

“The smoke!  It’s from the fires – the fires we burn to celebrate the Passage of the Spirits!  On this day, the spirits of all the good folks who have died in the past year are able to go to heaven.  They have to ride on the rising smoke that carries them up to heaven, so people burn bonfires all day long, and then they hold celebrations all night!” the lacerta girl explained excitedly. 

“And it was a year ago, the day after the Passage, that I ran away!  I’ve completed my year out of the land!  Oh Alec!”  She hugged him excitedly.

“Let’s go to my parents’ home,” she urged.

They exited from the alleyway into a busy city street, one that was full of pedestrian celebrants, buskers, peddlers’ carts, and bonfires.

All activity came to an immediate stop at the sight of the human Alec emerging into the city landscape, an extremely evident foreigner among the lacertii population.

Kecil talked their way past the curious crowd, who held no overt ill-will towards Alec’s human appearance, and the pair made it to Kecil’s family home, a comfortable estate along a river that flowed through the broad valley that held Chanradala, the teeming metropolis that was the center of the lacerta nation.

Alec was a sensational second fiddle to the return of the prodigal daughter, who had been given up as lost over the months of her absence.  He was given a room where he rested and stayed out of the way, and looked out his window as the sun set in the west and the bonfires across the city cast a lurid red color to the smoky haze that enveloped everything in sight.

“My father will send a note to the palace today, to inform the prince that I have returned home safely,” Kecil told Alec the following morning.  She was nervous, Alec could tell, as she alternately sat and stood, pacing and sitting while she ate and talked.

“Will you accompany me to the palace, if I am allowed to return there?” she asked.

“Why would you want me to come?” Alec asked, astonished.

“You are the king of a neighboring nation, you are a great being, you have known historical figures, such as Queen Rosebay, and most importantly, you have been my friend and protector,” Kecil came to stand next to Alec as she said the last, and raised her hands to place them fondly on his shoulders.  “You would be respected, and you would help me feel less nervous during the ordeal.”

Two days later, the pair of them and all of Kecil’s family members were ceremonially received at the palace.

Initially, the guards at the gate to the palace delayed the entrance of Kecil, her family, and Alec for nearly an hour as they debated allowing the human to enter the grounds, and they finally called upon senior officers to make the decision.

"What role do you play in this call upon the royal family?" the ranking officer asked Alec directly.

Alec paused, as he recollected his last visit to the palace, when he'd arrived to rescue Andi.  He'd been in lacerta form, and invisible to boot.  It had been a harrowing adventure, one that had produced great bloodshed before the two humans had escaped.   But there'd been no evidence to indicate that he had been the opponent in that battle a century earlier, and so he let the recollection pass by.

"I am here as the King of the Dominion, and the friend and protector of Kecil Bungacantik," he answered.  "She has been my companion through many travels, and during our campaign against a dangerous and frightening opponent in our northern lands," Alec added.  "I'm here to be as loyal to her as she was to me."

The lacerta officer studied Alex silently for several seconds, then turned to Kecil.

"Tell me about this opponent in the north," he asked the girl.

Kecil was startled by the unexpected question, then stammered for a moment as she collected her thoughts.

"It was a large, deadly black cloud that ran across the land, and killed people who didn't run away," she answered.   "Alec and his ingenairii fought it several times before they finally defeated it."

"You say it was defeated?" the lacerta officer questioned her.

She turned to Alec.  "You killed it, didn't you?" she asked him.

"We did," he agreed.

"You used your ingenairii, the evil wizards?" the lacerta faced Alec.

"They are not necessarily evil," Alec replied.  "Ingenairii are like all people - most of them are mostly good, but some are less so."

"You all may enter the palace," the officer spoke, with a motion to the guards at the gate to raise the pike blocking the entry.  "I would ask your human friend to come separately with me to answer some additional questions."

Alec looked at the leader, then looked at Kecil's family as they nervously shuffled their feet. "I have your word that these others will be treated appropriately as royal guests?" he asked.

"They certainly will," the officer said reassuringly.   "Your young friend is much desired as a visitor."

"And there is some reason you wish to take me apart?" Alec wasn't quite ready to accede to the demand that they separate.

"We too have fought this black cloud you have spoken of, and our high command will have great interest in discussing the matter with you, if you truly fought it, and if you're truly the western human king."

"I'll see you again soon," Alec told Kecil. "If there is any problem, there will be severe consequences," Alec warned his officer escort. "I am one of the ingenairii we just discussed."

The guards around them grew suddenly tense at the revelation.

Alec immediately engaged his Warrior energy at a low level in anticipation of potential trouble.

"As I said earlier, your young friend is much sought after by some elements of the palace establishment.   There will be no ill will directed towards her," the officer said smoothly.

Alec nodded his head in acknowledgment.  "Then lead on, by all means," he replied.

The groups parted ways, and Alec soon found himself strolling through a clearly military area on the palace grounds, drawing startled stares from every lacerta they encountered.

"Ask the senior staff to convene for a briefing with our guest," Alec's escort directed one low-ranking warrior they encountered.

Half an hour later, Alec found himself in the front of a room as more than two dozen lacertii officers hurried in on the strength of the strange rumor that a human was present.

At length, a senior officer stood before Alec and addressed the gathering.

"Colonel Gracloroan has taken it upon himself to call this unexpected meeting," the leader spoke. "Colonel, would you like to explain?"

"My lord," Alec's escort stood at attention and replied. "This human came to the palace in the coterie accompanying Bungacantik, and spun a most unusual tale. I chose to believe him because he and his companion described something that they couldn't have known unless they had seen our northern adversary," the colonel explained.

The audience's attention grew more profound, Alec observed. Gracloroan had correctly guessed that the leaders would want to hear about the black cloud.

"We'll hear your human's tale and decide whether it's of interest or not," the senior officer looked at Gracloroan and Alec.

"In the Dominion, our human kingdom to your west, we lost a great many people to a terrible black cloud that flowed across the land and made our people disappear," Alec began, understanding that Gracloroan had pulled him aside for the purpose of speaking to the lacertii army leadership about the deadly cloud in the north.  The crowd of officers had instantly become riveted by the middle of Alec's opening sentence.

"You know what I speak of?" he asked the collective group.

Heads immediately nodded.

"Many good soldiers went to their deaths trying to fight it," Alec reported, and he saw the nods again.  The lacertii had suffered the losses as well.

"But how does a sword or a spear or an arrow fight a cloud?

"That's why we turned to our ingenairii to try to fight it a different way," he explained.

"And it was still a terrible battle.  I'm not sure how we won," he told them.

"What did your ingenairii do?" a member of the audience asked.

"We used light," Alec answered.  "We made light as bright and hot as possible.   We collected sunlight and focused it, to burn the cloud away.

"About a month ago we used all the ingenairii we have and fought together against it."

"There was a day when we were afraid we were going to lose more territory and fighters to the cloud in our northern.  But we saw a flash in the western sky in the middle of the day, and we felt the ground shake.  And we haven't seen the cloud since then," a lacerta soldier spoke up, standing and addressing the group.   He looked battleworn, like a soldier who had lived with combat, not just a palace-based advisor.

Alec felt an immediate respect for the officer.

"I hope you won't see it again either," Alec addressed him.

"What was it?  Where did it come from?  Will there be others?" questions flew from the crowd.

"We don't know," Alec shook his head. "I wish we had those answers.

"We'll I'm bloody glad you fought it your way and won," the grizzled veteran spoke up.  "We had no way to fight it."

"Let us know if you face it again in the future," Alec offered.  "We will fight it again if it becomes a threat once more."

"So why is this human here?  Did we bring him solely to lecture us on fighting the cloud?" the warrior asked.

"He came with Bungacantik to visit the palace today, but I redirected him here to speak to you all about the cloud," Gracloroan replied.

"If Bungacantik has come to the palace, we should allow him to rejoin his company.   I wouldn't mind seeing the reunion myself," said the commanding officer who had spoken at the beginning of the conference.  "Gracloroan, take him back to his friends."

And so it was that Alec was present a half hour later when Kecil and family were ushered into an audience chamber with the royal family.

Alec tried to watch the royals and guess which had made Kecil the object of his affection, but he couldn't read the faces of the lacertii well enough to know until he engaged his Spiritual energy and found the prince who quivered with excitement at the presence of Kecil once again.

The attention of the other members of the royal family was torn by the competing attractions of Kecil and Alec, two very different, very interesting visitors, and Alec was soon introduced to them all.

"My story is simply that I have been guardian to this young woman, and I'm pleased to see her safely returned to the land where her heart belongs," Alec said, seeking to minimize the attention he attracted so that Kecil and the prince might remain the focus.

After an hour of pleasantries, Kecil's family took their leave, with a mutual agreement that they would return the following day. On the journey back to their home, they all beamed with delight at the successful reintroduction.

And so a pattern developed of daily trips to the palace.  Word within the palace spread regarding Alec's report to the military about the end of the black cloud enemy, and he became a guest honored almost as much as Kecil.  Within days the trips to the palace came to be only the two travelers who had covered so much of the world together and who were warmly welcomed.

Alec began to spend his time sparring in the palace armory with the lacertii officers, while Kecil accompanied the princes and princesses on activities and outings.

"He proposed today!" Kecil squealed enthusiastically to Alec a month later.  "I have to tell my family so that we can return our answer. "

"And what will your answer be?" Alec kiddingly asked.

"Yes, of course!" Kecil answered.  "I'm ready this time.  I've seen enough of the world to know that I want to live my life here where I know my surroundings and obligations."

Alec stayed in Chanradala for the following month to attend the wedding, accepted by the palace society as a member of their circle, though still a wonder to the many everyday lacertii who visited the wedding festivities.