Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series (28 page)

“
They lived together in a great civilization here in the mountains, each with their own community, each using their own skills, conversing with one another, trading goods and services with one another, maintaining peace with one another,” Bernadina explained.

“
How long ago?” Alec asked.

“
So long ago that the legends of our ancestors call this a legendary story from time forgotten,” she answered. “There were individuals who were special like you, able to grasp more than one power, who combined their individual abilities to do wonderful things. Eventually, those talented people began to think of themselves as a race apart from the forty nine.

“
I imagine that you would have been held in high esteem in their ranks,” she gently tapped each of the marks on his arms.

“
They built a great temple in the mountains, and set themselves there, and proclaimed that they would study the special powers, to try to understand them and enhance them for better service to the world. But what they really did,” Bernadina explained, “was each of them tried to make themselves the greatest of the self-proclaimed great. They each tried to acquire more powers, and they tried to find ways to make their energies useful as weapons. They fell to feuding with one another. They were jealous of one another’s powers. And their race to individually acquire more powers and to find ways to use them as weapons obviously led to terrible results.”

Alec felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, a sense of disbelief. “I don’t want to believe that people with our powers could behave like that, but I know they can,” he thought back to the coup by the ingenairii in the Dominion, which had killed King Gildevny. “But I’ve used powers as weapons too,” he added as a feeble protest, thinking of the way he had commanded Shaiss and Alder to focus their light energy as a death ray against the lacertii. He looked down at the marks on his arms now, greater in number than his last memories had showed him, and he wondered how he had added powers.

“
Don’t be distressed, dear,” Bernadina told him. “I’ve shared some of your memories, remember, even some that you don’t possess yourself, yet. Your motives and theirs were completely different, and the results were completely different too.

“
Some of the regular members of the races saw the evil that was brewing, and they left over the years, silently slipping away from their communities. Their fates are unknown to us, but I would guess that some of them must have moved far around the world and become the ancestors of you and your fellow ingenairii.”

Alec reflected on that. “Ari told me once that there had been ingenairii who lived in the Pale Mountains long ago, who used their powers before the arrival of Jesus and John Mark.”

“
Perhaps they were the descendants of those emigrants,” Bernadina commented.

“
Another result was that some remaining communities became small, shrinking to the verge of extinction. There were two such races, the Loki, who could speak with their minds, and the Sennai, who could shift shapes to become animals, and as their numbers dwindled, they intermingled. They became the ancestors of our own race,” she explained.

“
The race in the temple, the ones who fancied themselves the master of all the non-mortal races, were very displeased as they saw their perceived followers shrinking in number. One of them, a man named Hellmann, had grown to have the greatest number of powers, and he had devised ways to use them that were brutal.

“
Hellmann insisted that the members of the temple had to prevent any further desertions, and a great argument ensued. The argument led to battle, and terrible destruction of the temple, and unspeakable deaths among the people there. When the death and demolition were over, Hellmann and his wicked crew were triumphant, but they were the lords over a great waste, and they were angry, filled with a terrible bloodlust. They went out among the communities of the races and began to slaughter more, even as they turned on one another and continued to ambush each other,” Bernadina’s story continued. Alec was horrified, but mesmerized by the tale.

“
How did it end, what happened?” he asked.

“
A small number of the members of the communities survived, and came together to try to find some way to stop the destruction. Four of them had a plan: a Warrior, a Healer, a Spiritual, and a Stone member worked together. By then Hellmann was the only one left of those who had lived in the Temple, and he was like a god with the many terrible powers he possessed: he was able to possess and trick and delude others, he could move air and water and light. There were numerous things he could do beyond that.

“
He learned that the four still opposed him, and he hunted them down in a cave in the mountains, then he launched into battle with them. The Healer and the Spiritual used their energies to protect and heal the Warrior, who fought bravely against Hellmann, and managed to maintain the battle, while the Stone member closed off the cave, and brought it all down upon them, burying all five of them deep inside the mountain, clutched together in a battle of bodies, minds and souls.

“
To this day, there remains a fear that Hellmann is only trapped, not dead, and someday he may be able to emerge from the mountain to resume his quest for dominion and control,” Bernadina finished.

“
Those others, they sacrificed their lives to defeat him,” Alec stated.

“
They did,” Bernadina affirmed. “And the survivors who were left, the few bruised survivors created a monument to them somewhere in the mountains, before they abandoned their dead communities and tried to begin life anew.

“
It is quite a legend,” she added, as Alec sat silently, pondering.

“
Will Hellmann ever return?” he asked quietly.

Bernadina looked at him with a level gaze. “Perhaps,” she replied. “But you have many other things you should concentrate on before you start planning how to fight a demigod.”

She smiled, and gestured. “Thank you again for saving my life,” Bernadina said as Alec stood.

He looked at her, and saw the sincerity of her gratitude on her face, and he understood that she had his best interests at heart.
Is it my fate to fight for good in this land?
He asked her.

It is. And you will feel rewarded by your achievements
, she assured him.

He hugged her, then shrugged on his furs, hoisted his pack of traveling supplies, and went outside to follow Baltasar away from the magic of Warm Springs and back into the cold reality of the world outside.

Chapter 19
– Black Crag Hospitality

Alec regained the main highway just as the sun began to fall from its zenith. Baltasar had silently led him in his bear form, on a journey of three hours length. “We’ve packed some of our own food in your pack for you,” the man-shaped Baltasar had told him when they arrived back at the road.

“
Thank you for saving her life, and thank you for whatever you have shared with her,” he said, referring to Bernadina. “Your time with her gave her energy and peace. She is happier and more content with what she now believes the world will bring to our people, and yours as well. Journey safely.” He said as they shook hands, then he turned and became a bear, and ambled back towards his home.

Alec checked the straps on his pack, which he had loosened as he plucked medicinal plants along the journey, then began walking towards the setting sun. The road was less icy, the wind was less frigid, and the journey felt softer, now, some five weeks after he had left the journey. The days will be growing longer, he thought to himself as he walked, and concluded that the mountains had become a gentler place as spring had begun its arrival during his tenure in Warm Springs.

The next day he passed a caravan headed in the opposite direction, carrying goods towards the cities of the Avonellene Empire. He remained silent as the outriders inspected him, and as the wagon rolled past him, but he marveled at the length of the caravan with more than twenty wagons that he counted.

As he walked he burrowed through his memories, reacquainting himself with the life he had lived. There were so many accomplishments, several regrets, and so much, so very much, left undone. Why would God have taken him away from all that awaited him in the Dominion, and brought him to Vincennes without all of his knowledge or memories? There was no explanation he could discern. While in warm Springs, many more of his memories had been restored, but there evidently remained more he did not know; the lovely girl in the pool had promised that he would come to know her, and yet she didn’t match any memory he had recovered so far.

On the fourth day of his renewed journey, he crested a ridge, and saw a mighty fortress dominating a wide plateau just above and a few miles beyond his location. It had to be Black Crag, he knew, judging by the dark stone walls that surrounded the settlement, stark against the wide, snow-covered fields that surrounded it in all directions. Or maybe its name included black in reference to the many dead bodies that hung from the gibbet against the wall, next to the main gate. It was a formidable looking stronghold.

The sun was high overhead when Alec first caught sight of the daunting walls, and it was still high and relatively warm by the time he arrived at the gate. Many people were outside the walls, he noted. A whole caravan appeared to be camped in a field of snowy mush, and there was evidence that others had camped there as well. There were guards at the gate; more than Alec had ever seen in any city he remembered, these guards were vigilant, observing and questioning every person who sought to enter.

Many appeared to know a handshake; others whispered a password, while others were turned away. Those who entered were almost exclusively clothed in styles that were very similar to the style of the uniforms the guards at the gate wore, black with brilliant sky blue trim and yellow waistbands. Those who were turned away were dressed in the variable clothing and furs Alec expected of traders and travelers.

He joined the line to enter the gate with some apprehension, and when his time at the gate came he observed that four of the guards were men, but two were women, women whose posture was just as professional and whose faces were just as sharp as the men’s.

“
Identity and reason for entrance?” a male guard asked when Alec reached the front of the line.

“
My name is Alec, and I’ve come to try to find friends in Black Crag,” he replied cautiously.

“
Do you have a pass?” the man asked, as two of his companions turned to stare at Alec.

“
No, no pass. I just arrived,” Alec answered.

“
Entrance denied. Next in line,” the guard told Alec, dismissing him summarily.

“
How can I find my friends in the fortress? One of them is my sister, and the other is a, friend,” he stammered out the last word, unwilling to reveal the possibly politically charged fact that he sought specifically to find the lady in waiting to the deposed princess.

“
Your sister and your friend?” a different guard chimed in. “Stop holding up the line – move along. Take your foreign accent and go away.”

Alec closed his eyes, and thought of the patience and wisdom he had seen Bernadina exhibit, compared to the brusque manners of the guards here. It was in part the difference between a safe, isolated society on one hand, and a vulnerable, constantly challenged society on the other, although there was of course deeper, more fundamental differences than that involved.

There was a sudden unexpected shove in his chest while his eyes were closed, and he began to flail backwards. He opened his eyes and saw that the guard who had spoke last had stepped forward and pushed him aside to make the line resume movement.

Alec allowed his Warrior powers to engage as he began to fall backwards. He instantly felt in control of his body, and crafted the momentum of the fall to become an elaborate backwards flip, adding altitude to his motion with a leap off his right foot. His hands blurred into action, unsnapping the pack he wore and releasing the tie that held his fur coat on him, while he pulled his sword out of his scabbard, and landed back on his feet, alert, armed, and ready to fight. He felt full of energy, primed by the restful visits to the pools of Warm Springs.

“
That was boorish. Apologize or be punished,” Alec said, but even as he spoke, the six guards snapped out of their momentary state of amazement at his agile display, and drew their own swords. Other residents of the fortress who stood in line, awaiting entry back into Black Crag drew their weapons a well, and Alec stepped back two steps to the side, kicking his pack along with him.

“
Put down your weapon. It is a punishable offense to draw a weapon against a guard at Black Crag,” one of the female guards spoke up, perhaps an officer trying to assert authority to tamp down the potentially violent situation.

“
And is it punishable for a guard to shove a visitor at the gate?” Alec asked, “And then to hide behind the other guards to protect him from the consequences?”

“
The consequences,” the officer began to explain, but was cut off as the offending guard stepped forward.

“
Let me show this uncouth hobo some consequences,” the arrogant guard said. He raised his sword into an attacking posture, and stepped forward into Alec’s field of attack. His sword promptly went flying up into the air following a blurringly fast movement by Alec’s blade, and as it came back down into Alec’s right hand, the guard felt the tip of Alec’s sword pressed against his neck.