Preserving the Ingenairii (20 page)

“Alec?
 
Where are we?
 
What a dream!” he began.

“Ari.
 
Listen.
 
There is a demon in the ingenaire realm.
 
That’s where we are now – I am speaking to your spirit.
 
Your spirit has been asleep here for days and days, and your body back in reality is sleeping, wasting away.
 
The demon has put every ingenaire to sleep when they’ve come to get the power,” Alec explained.

Recognition dawned in Aristotle’s eyes.
 
“Alec!
 
That’s it!
 
I remember now.
 
All the ingenaire were falling unconscious.
 
And you’ve come back!”

“Look around you Ari,” Alec directed, lifting the old man and shifting him to see the bodies arranged all around.
 
“The demon will be back here any second.
 
You’ve got to awaken everyone and tell them to release the power.
 
That way they can return to their bodies and live.

“Wake them up, Ari, and I’ll fight the demon,” Alec said.
 
He heard a sound nearby.
 
“Please do it.
 
Find Bethany, and tell her that I love her.
 
I’ll come back if I can; I miss you Ari.
 
I wish we could talk again.
 
I need your help.

“Go now Ari!
 
Wake them all.”
 
He stood, and turned to see the demon.
 

The hateful monster spotted his movement.
 
Furious, the creation of evil charged towards Alec, who stepped away from Ari and the other ingenairii, trying to protect them from the demon’s arrival.
 
The creature jumped impossibly high, and impossibly fast, and landed on Alec, tying him up in combat.
 
The fragment of the cross was safely secured in a pocket.
 
The two began to roll and
tumble,
and Alec felt thankful as they moved farther away from the ingenairii.
 
He prayed that Ari had grasped the situation and had started liberating the unconscious spirits.
 
The rough embrace Alec had with the demon ended as they flew apart, and Alec sprawled out on his back momentarily.

 
The malevolence of the monster permeated his body and soul.
 
Alec rose and ran towards the demon to put space between it and the ingenairii.
 
Alec raised his swords, accidentally knocking loose his critical talisman from the ancient crypt; he heard it clang on the ground, and as he started to look down, the demon struck him.

The monster was stronger because of the power in the energy realm, and Alec knew within seconds that his previous battles with demons that had seemed unwinnable were nothing compared to the combat he faced now.
 
Yet he felt an unquenchable, joyful strength because he could tell that the ingenairii souls were moving behind him, returning to the real world.
 
His great mission was accomplished, and his guilt was erased; he only hoped that he could find a way to pull loose the fragment of the Cross and apply it quickly before the demon overwhelmed him.

Chapter 15 – The Ingenairii Revived

Rander and Tritos sat in the room where so many of the ingenairii lay.
 
They would attend another funeral later in the day, for another of the thin bodies had ceased to breathe the day before.

“Alec has been gone for two months now,” Tritos finally broke the silence.
 
“We’re lucky so many of them managed to hang on this long.”

“There’s still hope.
 
Until Alec returns and tells us he failed, there’s still hope,” the haggard Rander replied.
 
He’d spent little to no time at the army base as he waited beside Rief’s slumbering body for weeks.

“What did you say?” Tritos asked.

“I said there’s still hope until Alec returns,” Rander answered.

“No.
 
What did you say after that?” Tritos asked.

“That’s all I said,” Rander said sharply.

“I heard another word,” Tritos insisted

Just then they both heard a voice.
 
“Kill it, Alec,” the voice called from across the room.

Both of them stood in shock.
 
“It’s Nathaniel!” Tritos exclaimed.
 
He sprinted across the room, as an attendant
came
racing in from the next room over.

“One of them just spoke!” the attendant shouted euphorically.

A chorus of moans arose from eight or nine throats at once.

“Rander?”
Rief’s scratchy voice called.
 
The Steward of the Dominion burst into tears and grabbed her hand.

“Are you back?
 
Are you alive?” he asked.

“Where are we?” Rief asked in confusion.

Two other ingenairii tried to sit up, but their weak bodies collapsed.

Aristotle’s voice rose above all others as he spoke for the first time.
 
“Tritos?
 
Tritos,
help me up,” he called.

A week later, the last of the feeble ingenairii were released from the makeshift infirmary.
 
Wheelchairs were being regularly pushed up and down the Hill by uncomplaining servants, still delighted to see their ingenairii masters restored to life.

In the week since their simultaneous awakening, all the ingenairii had been under strict orders not to attempt to grasp the power, and all had been more than willing to obey.
 
Rief and Bethany had remained on the Hill, living in the Healer house under the care of Hingis and Rander.

Aristotle had held many conversations from his bed, as palace, church, and military leaders all came to the Hill to see that the ingenairii were restored to life.
 
He’d held one conversation that had been the best and the hardest conversation simultaneously.

The day after their revival, Aristotle had been carried on a litter up to Healer House to see Bethany.

“We are all
alive
thanks to Alec,” he told her.
 
“It almost feels like a dream, but I remember he woke my spirit in the ingenairii realm.
 
He told me there was a demon there that had been capturing our spirits, putting them to sleep.

“He especially said to tell you that he loved you, and he’d come back to you,” Aristotle softened the uncertainty about returning that Alec had implied.

“How did he do it?
 
How did he manage to get to the ingenairii realm and fight a demon while the rest of us were knocked out?” Bethany asked from her bed.

“I don’t know.
 
Rander and Tritos indicate that Alec took companions with him on a trip to save us.
 
My hope is that they return and he returns, and we learn the answers,” Ari told her.

Section 2

The Life After

Chapter 16 – The End of the Curse

Alec felt the sting of his muscles struggling in the unending battle with the demon.  There was no end to his labor; it stretched on ceaselessly.  There was no end to the pain; seconds became hours and days and months.  The moments passed, and added up to years and decades, as Alec was tormented by the demon’s incessant grappling.
 
He had long since learned to ignore the shadowy flitterings that he knew were the spirits of the ingenairii who came to draw upon the powers of the energy realm.  They were ignorant of the two towering entities that grappled with one another in another dimension of the realm, the axis mundi, as the ingenairii came and went with their quests for energy, taking for granted the access they had again, just as Alec had always taken it for granted.

In the recesses of his mind, Alec knew that a co-inhabitant, the ghostly presence of
Carthom Ingenaire Sivis,
resided and watched.  The kingly curse remained upon him, not interfering with his battle, but remaining a presence that he could feel, a distraction of sorts, weighing him down in a fashion but not causing him concern.

As moment passed into moment and moment and moment, there came one further second when he registered a change in the curse.  “Your term of punishment is complete now, grave plunderer.  Your cause was just, but the crime required the sentence to be served.  I return in peace to the tomb, while you may continue your struggle here.  You can succeed if you surprise the demon by making the ultimate sacrifice, but then you will need God’s love to give you your own future.”  And with that there was a whispering sigh, and he felt his mind emptied of his curse.

            Alec felt suddenly emptier and lighter.  The fraction of change that the removal of the curse made was an enormous difference in the finely balanced battle he waged against the demon.  He staggered forward a step, and the hot, stinging breath of the demon gave a snort of surprise at something new happening, a change in the long conflict that had tied the two combatants together.

            The piece of the One Cross still rested in his pocket.  He’d never been able to free a hand so he could bring it out and apply it directly to the demon, as he was certain he must.  Its presence was enough to allow him to battle against the demon on equal terms, but its isolation prevented it from fulfilling the service Alec had hoped for so long ago.

            With this new change in circumstances, could Alec bring the remnant out for use?  And if he did, what would occur?  The curse had implied that Alec was going to have to make a sacrifice, “the ultimate sacrifice” it had said.  Would Alec need to apply the Cross and also die?  Here in his experience of the reality of the energy realm he was occupying his physical body.  If he gave it up to the demon, he would have no body to occupy for a return to the Dominion.

            His leg twitched with more concentration, and the demon shifted slightly in response, bringing Alec closer to a dominant position.  He looked at the enormous red eye that was so close to his own, and saw the hatred that perpetually resided there.  Beyond the hatred and loathing though there seemed to be something else; it wasn’t fear, but it was awareness that somehow Alec was bringing a new element to the entanglement after so much time had passed.

            Alec considered again what he would have to do.  He would have to achieve enough advantage to open up space between them, so that he would be able to disengage from his grasp on the demon’s throat and reach into his pocket to pull out the Cross fragment.

            Gathering up all of his will, Alec shoved with the intent of sending the demon falling backwards, so that Alec could bring out the fragment.  The shove though only put the demon at an extended arm’s length instead of the present bent arm’s length, and accomplished nothing more.  The demon roared in response, and Alec felt its claws tighten their grip on his shoulders.