Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series (40 page)

The picture was a recreation of the tea ceremony that had taken place in this very room. It was very nearly in the exact location where Alec had sprung the ceremony on the unsuspecting girl. The lonely ingenaire did not think of that at the moment he saw the portrait though; he only looked at the wonderful strokes of paint that so faithfully captured the face of the girl he remembered. There was a sparkle in her eyes that looked across the table at him above the rim of the tea cup she was holding. Every muscle that was portrayed evocated a sense of active energy and passion. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Alec perceived the eyes to be looking out of the canvas at him, standing in the room.

“
That is right when she said she would stand in her room in her party dress,” he said softly to himself.

“
How old is this painting?” Alec heard Carmil ask. The guard has stolen up softly to look at it with them.

“
I would guess it to be two hundred fifty years old or more,” the duchess said, not removing her eyes from the picture. “They claim this is a tea ceremony that really happened,” she added.

“
It did,” Alec confirmed softly. “See the servants in the background? They all came in quietly as the word spread that it was happening. Jeswyne wasn’t expecting it at all. It happened right there, in the spot where the picture is hanging.” He left the duchess to step forward, wanting to feel that he was standing in the space where Jeswyne had sat in that delirious, happy moment.

And he had thought he was old back then, when he had lost fifty years of his life, and lost Bethany. Now he was standing here probably three hundred years after he had been born.

“
It’s really you, isn’t it?” Carmil asked, standing at an angle from which his eyes could swing back and forth from Alec to the portrait. “This was really the woman you came back to find.”

“
I dreamed of finding her, and in a sense, I suppose I have. I’m glad the imperial family can remember her like this forever, the charming girl with the sparkling eyes,” he told them. He turned and took the duchess’s hand in his. He released a burst of healing power, taking away some of the arthritis that plagued her joints. “Thank you,” he told her. “Please pick a favorite niece and pass this story along, so that Jeswyne is always remembered. “I will trouble you no more Carmil. Thank you for your hospitality,” Alec said, and then, recklessly, despite knowing how weak his powers were, he launched himself back into the long dark nothingness of the space that existed between locations.

Chapter 27
– Mulvane’s Squad

Although he wasn’t sure he cared, Alec finally felt substance again. He felt himself fall to the ground, unable to stand. He had landed exactly where he wanted to, next to the red pool of water. He slid into the water, clothes still on his body, and laid his head back against the rim of the large pool of warm water.
Bernadina,
his mind called out weakly
, I’ve come to visit
.

There was a startled exclamation. Healer
-fighter? Are you here?

I’m at the red pool
, he told her.
I’m fine now.

The warm water felt so good and relaxing and energizing that he closed his eyes, and let the gentle currents ripple the clothes he wore. He thought about Michian and Jeswyne, remembering the sparkle in her eyes in the picture he had seen. He had loved her and kissed her and touched her, and now his most vivid memory was a painting, a portrait that was two hundred years past her time. What had happened to those years, and why had he lost the memory of them?

And now there was Caitlen, another woman who had entered his heart, a woman who he had bitterly hurt yesterday. And furthermore, she was one who needed his help. He was prophesized to drain her blood, and she was prophesized to deny him, in that strange, inverted order. She was sincere and complex, in need of his help, and undoubtedly not interested in letting him stretch her emotions as he had done twice now, when he had discovered his memories of Bethany and Jeswyne.

Who knew what else waited in untapped memories? Could there be another wife or love still waiting in those years he did not remember? He sighed a deep breath, knowing that the fear of an unknown past would strangle him emotionally, putting him in a box that left him without any way to enter a new relationship.

“
Your body is healed, and your talents are healed. It’s just your heart that hasn’t healed,” a voice spoke.

“
Bernadina,” he said without looking. “This place is a good place. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“
I know you used one of those extraordinary talents to reach our home. Do you wish to stay here among us longer? You’re welcome to remain as our guest for as long as you wish. But I encourage you to take nourishment. I have a tray of food here by the pool if you would like to eat a little bit,” she said.

Alec opened his eyes at last. The sky overhead was blue, and the mountains showed a layer of light green growth below the slow lines high above. “How long have I been here?” he asked.

“
Two weeks,” Bernadina said simply. “You are here in the spring time, the best time of the year, when the mountain flowers bloom and the snow retreats to the high glaciers and the fields begin to sprout our crops.”

Together they left the pool and sat at a table nearby, silently picking items of food off the tray. “I need to go back to Caitlen,” Alec said after several slow bites, holding a dried apple slice up to his lips. “But I want to serve her only as a friend and a retainer; I don’t want to break her heart.”

“
Or your own?” Bernadina asked.

Or my own,
Alec agreed.

You will find peace, I foresee it,
his friend told him.
You’re ready to go, aren’t you?
She asked.

“
I am,” he agreed out loud, preparing to translocate back to Vincennes.

“
Would you like to wear dry clothes?” Bernadina asked, following Alec back to verbal dialog. “You’re welcome to wear some of ours.”

Alec looked down at his damp clothes, still the same clothes he had worn since Abelard had sent him to the palace days before, and for the first time in their conversation he smiled. Together they strolled down the pathways back to the village, where Alec put on white pants and a black shirt. He had no weapons with him, and he felt as though he were starting over in a sense.

“
Thank you Bernadina. May I come back here again if I need to heal?” he asked.

She reached out and took his hand, and he felt their souls come together again.
Always
, she whispered within him, and he felt the sincerity of the reply more than he heard it.

He released her hand.
Goodbye for now, my friend,
he called, and then he left.

Alec landed by the spring on Gottfried’s estate, and stopped for several minutes. He picked a sprig of agrimonia and chewed on it. Down here in the river valley below the mountains the evidence of spring was farther advanced, with azaleas blooming and the carpet of forest greenery hiding the sticks and mud of the earth. The sun was past the zenith here; already it was late afternoon. His next jump would take him back to the palace, to the room where he had recuperated, where he had seen Caitlen for the first time.

Taking a deep breath, he jumped through space again, and landed standing up in the small room behind the throne room in the palace that was meant for visiting monarchs. He checked himself; he felt good, with no strains or feelings of weakness. There was noise outside the window, he realized as he shifted his attention from himself to the rest of the world. The sounds were violent and hostile – screams and weapons clashing. Alec ran to a window and looked. Outside a group of a half dozen women in Black Crag uniforms were surrounded and falling to a group of over a dozen men in red and green uniforms. Alec closed his eyes, engaged his Warrior energies, and jumped through the glass of the window, ready to return to battle in Vincennes on behalf of Caitlen.

He picked one man out of the back of the pack of attackers, punching the man into unconsciousness, then took his sword and began to hack through the Conglomerate forces without regard for the severity of the injuries he inflicted. Three men fell from his first wide swing of the sword, and more started to collapse as he stabbed and hacked at them from the rear, turning the attention of the others away from the Black Crag force. Within five minutes the odds were nearly even, and the Conglomerate forces bolted away en mass, leaving their wounded and dead on the lawn of the palace.

The Black Crag fighters, stood panting, and three of them were kneeling with injuries, but all of them looked at Alec with wary eyes. “I come as a friend and ally of the Princess Esmere,” he told them, dropping his sword to show that he meant no harm.

“
She needs more friends like you,” one of them said.

“
Let me see your wounds,” Alec suggested, walking towards them now.

“
Don’t come closer,” said one, whose posture indicated her leadership of the embattled fighters. “Why are you here? Who do you fight for?”

“
I fight for whomever I chose,” Alec replied. “And right now I chose to fight for the princess. Now, if you are allies of hers, she needs your help. Let me attend to their wounds, before we take the next step.”

The leader grunted assent, and Alec joined the group.

“
She took a bad stab,” one of the women said as she knelt to comfort a companion. Alec knelt beside the wounded woman too, noting the many slices she had suffered on her arms, in addition to the deadly penetration of her stomach; she had fought a determined battle, clearly. He slid his hand underneath the other caregiver’s, then released his healing powers into the injured girl’s gut, repairing the liver that was sliced, rejoining the muscles that were severed, and then reuniting the skin on the surface.

“
She’ll need to rest. She lost a lot of blood, but she’ll survive,” he explained briefly, then moved to the next girl. “Tell me what the situation is,” he spoke to the leader who was standing alongside, as he began to heal a wounded shoulder on his next patient.

“
Are you healing these soldiers just by touching them?” the standing girl asked in reply.

“
Yes. Now please tell me why there is fighting here on the palace grounds. I thought Caitlen had this area secured when I left a few days ago,” he answered.

“
Are you Alec, the one they talked about?” the girl asked.

“
My name is Alec. I’m sure someone talked about me sometime, somewhere – if they said something unkind, it’s probably true. Now what is going on? Where is the Princess? Is she safe?” he asked again.

“
She’s probably in the main palace structure. Yesterday a wave of new Conglomerate forces came into the city, and we’ve been losing ground ever since,” the girl explained, as Alec healed the last of the soldiers who had been badly wounded. “Today they came right into the palace, and it’s been chaos all day long.”

“
Do we need to go help the Princess?” Alec asked, standing up.

“
She needs all the help she can get. We were cut off before we could join the forces that were under siege in the palace,” the woman answered.

“
She is not able to fight,” Alec pointed at the first girl he had healed. He started picking knives off of the bodies of the dead soldiers that were clustered around. “You,” he pointed at the third girl he had healed, “need to stay with her and protect her.

“
Will the rest of you come with me to save the Princess?” he asked, stuffing his seventh dagger into his waist band.

“
You’ve just fought away a dozen soldiers by yourself, and healed the wounds of three others, and now you’re ready to go to war against the whole Conglomerate army? This is what I signed up for!” another soldier eagerly said, and the others chimed in enthusiastically, won over to Alec’s side.

“
Let’s go grab some bows and arrows, and see what we can do,” Alec suggested, and he had four soldiers ready to go in search of Caitlen. They raided an armory on the way, and soon were crouched behind some shrubbery, looking at the main palace, where a heavy flow of Conglomerate forces were constantly moving in and out of the main entrance. “We don’t know where they are within the Palace?” Alec asked, to negative responses.

“
I’m going to go over there,” he pointed out a grove of trees, “and I’ll start shooting arrows to draw their attention. As they come past you, starting shooting your arrows at them in a crossfire. Then I’ll come over here and we’ll retreat around the corner and find a back way into the building while they’re all focused on the front.

The soldiers all looked at him dubiously. “Trust me, we’ll make this work. They don’t think they have any problems here – look at how careless they are. That means we’ll be able to catch them at their weakest,” he motioned towards a group of men who were laughing as they walked, none of their weapons drawn.

Without waiting for confirmation, Alec raced from bush to column to corner to take his spot in the grove of trees. He emptied out his quiver of arrows, laying them on the ground next to a tree trunk, where he knelt and prepared to let loose a rain of death. Two men were standing still, talking, providing an easy target, while three others were leaving the palace doors. He picked up the arrows, and began firing them in rapid, smooth motions, all five arrows in the air at the same time for a moment, then the arrows fell from their heights, and men started to fall.