Preserving the Ingenairii (38 page)

He sheathed the sword in his left hand and crouched down over the girl, still waving his right hand sword.
 
“Pull the glove off my hand,” he said as he waved his left hand in front of her face.

Without comprehending why, she reached up and tugged hard on the glove, removing it.
 
Alec stood up and raised his left hand high, then engaged his spiritual powers while his warrior powers remained in use simultaneously.
 
He felt his body shudder, and pain wracked him.
 
He dropped his right sword, which clattered on the ground, until Jeswyne reached out and desperately pulled it in next to her body.

Alec’s left hand began to glow with pure, intense white light.
 
He felt an extraordinary energy building up in his hand, and he bowed his head to concentrate on keeping it held high even as his body trembled in pain.
 
Three shining ropes of light burst out of the wound on his
palm,
each beam striking a demon and causing them to cry anguished screams of hatred.

Alec felt the beams radiating the purity of purpose that was God’s plan, and the light was destroying the hatred and emptiness that composed the demons.
 
The demons were glowing and pulsing as the beams began to create fractious realignment within them, freezing their ability to control their own movements.
 
The beams controlled the demons, and began to pull them closer and closer to Alec.

They moved in as they continued to circle, and their rate of movement increased.
 
They were speeding around Alec’s
hand,
drawing in so close Alec could hear only the sound of their screams and feel the movement of air as they passed.
 
The energy level in his hand ratcheted up another level, and Alec realized a climax was about to occur.

He knew what was about to happen, and he felt a key turn in his mind, revealing what he had to do.

“Stand up!” he screamed at the girl on the ground.

She looked up fearfully, questioningly.

“Stand up! Stand up!
 
Now! Now!” he said and he stretched his right hand down, shuddering with pain and the anticipation of what was about to occur.

The imperial niece took his hand and was yanked upward, off-balance.
 
She was light as a feather, and the force of his pull made her fall against Alec, after which he instinctively wrapped his arm around her.
 
“
Ecce elongavi fugiens:
et
mansi in solitudine
,” he prayed.

And as soon as he did, multiple actions occurred virtually simultaneously – his hand sent out a tremendous surge of energy that travelled as a bursting wave of spiritual healing and loving reconciliation.
 
The demons collapsed inward towards Alec and into one another as the wave of energy transformed the malign nullity that motivated them.

Alec focused his mind on a calendar of dates, and made the mental image spin backwards in a blur, moving as fast as he could imagine, looking for a date that would be safely away from this moment.
 
The other energies around his hand were starting to set off their chain-reaction, and he abruptly triggered the capacity to move through time.
 
Then there was a momentary flash of blue light, but few people who were watching saw it.

For there was almost simultaneously an enormous explosion, and a pillar of energy and light erupted upward.
 
The ground shook, and the stones within it thrust towards the sky, jetting a fountain of water above them.
 
The demons disappeared completely, their hatred converted to nothingness by the spiritual power of God.

And Alec and Jeswyne were gone, transported by Alec’s time ingenaire capabilities a split second before the demonic explosion occurred.

Chapter 31 – The Return of the Queen

Bethany sat side saddle atop a white horse, leading the ceremonial procession of Dominion dignitaries who were officially returning to restore Oyster Bay to the control of its rightful ruler.
 
The army had been in the city in force for three days, marching in unmolested as Michian forces had mysteriously abandoned the city through withdrawal.

There was a story, and Bethany believed it.
  
The Dominion forces outside the city had seen a group of soldiers appear and walk unarmed towards the Dominion lines, waving a white flag.
 
They had claimed to be Dominion soldiers who had infiltrated the enemy-occupied city.
 
The story they told was fantastical, beyond belief.
 
Yet Bethany had met with them herself, and believed what they told her.
 
Worn out and tired though she was, her heart was full of both joy and renewed sorrow after hearing the story.

One of the five soldiers was acknowledged to be a captain in the Goldenfields Guard.
 
Bethany had recognized the woman as the daughter of Inga and Lewis, officers she had known in Goldenfields.
 
The familial resemblance was evident.
 
“I knew your parents,” Bethany said as they were introduced.

The story Lewis and her companions told was unbelievable, yet Bethany did not doubt it.
 
Alec had returned to Goldenfields, and in only a few short months of battle, had defeated demon after demon, just as he had defeated the demon in the ingenairii energy realm.
 
His cataclysmic battle there had led to the return and renewal of the
ingenairii,
though he had never returned to receive the thanks he was owed.

Bethany felt tears in her eyes when she heard the story of Alec emerging healed and whole underneath the cathedral in Frame, and she laughed when she heard the story of his being drunk in a tavern in Oyster Bay
 
“He got drunk one time with some sailors in a small port once,” she shared.
 
“He got a tattoo on his shoulder.”

“I saw that!” Stracha said.
 
“I asked him about it once, but he didn’t talk about it.”

“I’m sure he didn’t!” Bethany laughed.
 
“He and I and most of our friends were on a ship going to Bondell.
 
There was a sailor on board who had seen the whole thing; Alec getting drunk; Alec singing in the bars; Alec flirting with the barmaids; Alec getting the tattoo.
 
And poor Alec couldn’t remember the first thing!
 
All he knew was that he had the tattoo!
 
We teased him mercilessly!

“And then a few days later we were in the mountains of Bondell, and he fought the demons, and I never saw him again,” she whispered.

After a pause, the conversation continued, and she listened to the rest of the story.

She had lived long enough to learn of his return.
 
He had survived through who knew what.
 
But she hadn’t seen him.

He had returned young and whole and healthy.
 
What would he have thought if he had seen the elderly woman she had grown into?
 
He had saved her life, and the lives of all the other ingenairii.
 
What had it cost him, Bethany wondered.
 
He’d needed fifty years to return from that battle; it must have been incredible.

And now she was leading the Dominion back into its capital, where he had been just days ago.
 
He’d been that close to her, and they hadn’t seen or talked to or touched each other.
 
The day she had dreamed of for most of her life had been just outside the door, but she hadn’t known to open it.

The city was in dismal condition, she noted, as they approached the palace plaza.
 
Then she rounded a corner and came into sight of the plaza, and forgot all her other thoughts, as she saw the stony monolith that interrupted the stony pavement.
 
She rode her horse directly towards the fountain, ignoring the plans to ride to the doorways of the palace.
 
She felt drawn to the upthrust monument that bubbled with water.

It was Alec and it was her.
 
His energy and her element, she decided to herself.
 
She halted her horse and dismounted, then walked over to the stone.
 
With her eyes closed, she used her other senses to be aware, and she stretched out her hand to touch the stone.

There was a serene euphoria.
 
The water was washing down over her hand, running along her arm, dripping from her elbow.
 
The water gave spiritual peace.
 
It was calming and tranquil.
 
And the stone brought a sense of Alec.
 
She could feel some elemental remnant of his presence in the stone.

Bethany opened her eyes, with a blissful smile on her face, and walked regally towards the palace doors.

“The Dominion has returned to Oyster Bay, and the rule of the Tarnum dynasty is restored to our city,” she shouted out to the assembled crowd as she faced her audience.
 
It was not what had been planned for her to say, but her connection with that spirit of Alec had reminded her of his claim to the throne.

“We thank all our allies for their good works and great sacrifices on our behalf,” she said.
 
“We will hold a mass of thanksgiving and commemoration in this plaza tomorrow morning, and then resume our duties of removing the invaders from our land while cleaning up and restoring this great city.”
 
And with that she walked into the palace.
 
She hadn’t seen Alec, but she would carry on her reign in his name, as his queen.

Chapter 32 – Stranded Without Rescue

Jeswyne was screaming and stunned and frightened.
 
Her senses were momentarily numbed by whatever had happened, and she couldn’t gain a feeling of control over her limbs.
 
She was suddenly surrounded by trees in a forest that was thick and lush, with an understory of shrubs and ferns and plants that made it hard to see far in any direction.
 
Then the warrior collapsed, and she weakly fell with him.
 
On top of him.
 
He was unconscious, and possibly bleeding to death.

Jeswyne stopped screaming, and heard a beast snarl somewhere in the botanical distance.
 
The world was whirling around in her head, and she thought she was losing her mind.
 
Minutes ago she had been practicing her imperial dignity, representing her uncle in the ceremony to make the city of Oyster Bay an integrated participant in the Michian Empire, to forever be incorporated and represented in the Councils.
 
The sorcerers had been calling forth the three demons of the greater gods of Michian.
 
It was a rare ceremony, and she was honored to be the imperial witness; it spoke well for her father and brother in the scheme of succession to the throne.

Then death had run through the plaza.
 
Guards had begun to fall.
 
This warrior had blurred into the plaza.
 
The demons had emerged, called to perform ceremonies, and suddenly battling as though in combat.
 
And this warrior had battled back against them.
 
She had heard vague rumors that the natives had a demonslayer; it was apparently a demon
who
arrived in human form.
 
She didn’t know or care much about warfare, but she had heard that her uncle’s army had suffered defeats.
 
Humiliating defeats.
 
She had seen the heads on the pikes, and knew that leading men had been punished for the losses.
 
But she had never experienced a war scene, or cared to know anything about battle other than to daydream that a great leader might return victorious someday from a successful campaign to sweep her off her feet.