Rescuing the Captive: The Ingenairii Series (27 page)

“
Our first question must be regarding this boy,” she gestured towards Alec. “We must consider how to apply our law to him. Alec,” she said, facing him alone, ”in our law, there is a tradition that no person from the outside who comes to Warm Springs is ever allowed to leave. Our secret is never to be allowed to be revealed to the outside world. By the custom of our law, you will forever be held here in this village.”

Chapter 18 – The Blue Pool

There was a murmur of assent from the dozen other people in the room. “You can’t hold me here as a hostage. I have a mission,” Alec stood and protested.

“
We must obey the law,” one of the council members replied. “Our secret here must not be revealed. Only our own people are allowed to walk away, because we know they will never expose our village’s existence.”

“
And it is because of our law that we shall allow this boy to go free, with the Council’s blessing,” Bernadina said aloud. All heads swiveled to look at her, and the room became silent. Alec waited for someone to speak, for some Council member to ask a question, or protest her comment. The silence stretched into a long series of minutes, Alec full of tension, as Bernadina’s head moved from looking at one Council member to another.

“
I have shared with my friends the reasons I believe we must allow you to leave Warm Springs, and they concur,” she said at length, her gaze directed to Alec from eyes above a placid smile.

“
What reasons?” Alec asked with relief, astonished at the speed the Council changed directions.

“
The first reason is that you have already met the grendasteusse, the person who will be my successor some day, hopefully far in the future, as she lives out in the world, learning its ways,” Bernadina told Alec. “And I foresee that you will meet her again, out there in the world.

“
The second reason we shall allow you to leave is that it would not be a violation of our law to do so. You,” she paused dramatically, and Alec unconsciously moved forward onto the edge of his seat, “are in one respect allowed to leave simply because you are one of us. There is lokasennii blood in your veins.”

“
How can that be?” Alec asked in astonishment. He rose to his feet unknowingly.

“
There were other communities of our race in the very, very long ago days, though we are the only one left. Though you do not have the ability to change shapes, there are traces of your lokasennii heritage evident. Your ability to hear my thoughts so clearly and easily the first time we met in the cave proves it. Somewhere in your ancestry, I would guess on your mother’s side, there was lokasennii.”

“
Do, do lokasennii and normal humans, you know, have babies together?” Alec asked, embarrassed to ask such a question in front of so many people.

“
Since we believe lokasennii are normal people, yes, we do have babies with each other,” Bernadina smoothly used humor to cover Alec’s faux pas. “But as it happens, several of our people have gone out into the world and brought back mates from your race, who never leave here again, of course,” she explained. “And they often have children, who inherit the lokasennii characteristics.”

“
Are there children that don’t have lokasennii characteristics?” Alec asked.

“
Yes, and they are taken to orphanages,” she answered. “We are a small community, and we try to find the delicate balance that brings in fresh blood but does not dilute our unique characteristics.”

The answer left Alec vaguely unsettled, but without a sure objection. “So there may be many people around this nation who have lokasennii heritage, who could hear your thoughts or answer them?”

“
Ah,” Bernadina answered, as there was some shuffling among the Councilors at the line of questioning. “There would be very few if any at all, and yet you are here with us. Only the grendasteur or the grendasteusse can project thoughts, as you have done with me, and we know of no case in which a child of either has ever been left among your people as a foundling, not to mention that you are a male, which defies our knowledge of the practice. But as I say, you are here, with your extraordinary abilities, a mix of our race and yours, and other races as well, I suspect.”

“
Other races?” Alec asked, stupefied by the notion. “But I’m just a boy.”

“
No, my healer, you are an extraordinary man. I believe that you are a living descendant of many races, some still living, some that are otherwise gone – the Sleagh Maith, Sylphs, Hermeticans, Ajacii and huldra. In my poor understanding, it is the only way to explain the many talents I detect in you. Some should not be able to co-exist in a single body. You should not be a healer like the Sleagh Maith and a warrior like the Ajacii together, and yet you are.

“
And so, for a number of reasons Alec, we are going to let you leave our community. My own beloved Baltasar will lead you back out to the highway, along with some fresh supplies to help you on your way,” Bernadina told him. “You can leave the council house now, and Baltasar will lead you back to your building. After the Council and I finish our other matters, I will come to say farewell.”

Dismissed, Alec left the building, and found his guide waiting for him. Baltasar guided him along the trails to the house where Alec’s furs and belongings were stowed. “May I look around while Bernadina is busy?” Alec asked.

“
You’re more than welcome to explore. She will call you when our time to leave arrives,” Baltasar replied, looked at him with a gaze of inscrutable patience, and walked away.

Alec immediately left the building and walked in the other direction. On this trip he passed many other people who seemed busy in their treks about the community, hauling goods or carrying tools, while others ambled placidly along. None seemed aware of Alec’s status as an outsider in the isolated community, as he turned at random and followed paths that grew larger or small, went among empty tracts of forest, and those with several homes. He found himself on a path that grew narrower, less traveled, and appeared to approach the very edge of the greenery.

After many steps, Alec came to a stop. He was atop a bluff looking thirty feet down at a deep blue pool. At one end of the long, narrow body of water was a plume of steam from a thermal spring, while at the other end a silver, threadlike waterfall of melting mountain snow fell melodically into the water. Alec scrambled down the side of the bluff, along a way that could be called a trail only with great generosity, and placed his hand in the water at three locations along the bank of the pool; all were different temperatures, according to their nearness to either end. Slipping out of his simple short white robe, Alec slid into the middle of the pool, and paddled towards the warm end, until he found the hottest water he could stand to soak in.

“
Come down here,” a girl’s voice called, and he saw a head with wet streaming hair pop out of the water at the cold end.

“
Wouldn’t you rather come to this end?” Alec asked, intrigued by the sudden appearance of the girl, but unhappy with the prospect of entering the cooler water.

“
In discomfort there often is discovery. Come on,” she urged, causing Alec to sigh, then stroke through the water, every stroke changing the temperature.

“
Why do you like this water?” Alec asked as he pulled up next to the girl. “The warm water feels so relaxing.” He studied the girl’s face closely, fascinated by her nearly golden eyes.

“
You look so young again, Alec,” the girl, approximately his own age, told him.

“
Do I know you?” Alec asked. Her words frightened him, his instincts telling him that they portended something extraordinary.

“
You have, and you will, but right now, my consort, no, you do not know me. But it is time that you took a step in that direction,” she said. Her hand rose out of the water and touched his forehead. “Go to the shore and rest, and someday I’ll be a part of your memories again.”

Under a geis, Alec turned and swam to the edge of the water, then climbed onto the bank, and promptly fell asleep. When he awoke, he opened his eyes and looked up at the starry night sky above, and gasped at the dreams that had filled the holes in his memory.

He had dreamed of the successes in Stronghold, and the horrible battles against the lacertii, in which he had fought as never before to preserve the lives of his friends. There was the foolhardy, reckless ego he showed in the cave in the Pale Mountains, when he had tried to heal the preternatural wounds on the holy body in the cavern crypt. His dreams had moved on to his journey to the Michian Empire, and his struggles to protect the Dominion from an invasion by the demon-led forces of the empire. He thought tenderly about his reconciliation with Bethany in Frame and afterwards, and he tried to grasp the realization that he was the King of the Dominion. His dream had ended with his costly success in the horrific battle against the demon in southern Bondell, and the trap he had laid to spirit it away to its doom in John Mark’s cave, where he had swooned after his triumph.

And then he awoke again, back by the pool on the edge of Warm Springs. He lay and tried to comprehend it all, to integrate his new knowledge into his view of his life in this different nation.
Are you awake yet, my friend?
He felt the voice of Bernadina within his mind.

I am awake. I need time to think; please let me be
, he replied bitterly. His memories told him he had come so close to a happy life with Bethany. It had seemed his fate assured his marriage to the wonderful water ingenaire.

He held up the ring on the chain around his neck. In the darkness he could not read the words, but he knew what the ring said: Dominion and Empire, King and Consort. The girl in the pool had called him her consort. She was a lovely girl, and seemed a gentle one, yet she was not Bethany. What had happened? Had Bethany rejected him, had she died, had he found it politically necessary to marry into the Michian Empire?

He lay on the stones, and listened to the water, watched the stars move overhead, and wept. Why was he in this land? What had brought on his exile, and how had his memories been purged?

Your time to depart is at hand
, Bernadina spoke to him again.

Do you know why I am here?
Alec responded.

Yes and no
, she replied enigmatically.

The sky above the overhanging bluff showed faint streaks of pink, promising the arrival of a new day.

You are here because you needed to break from your past, and you are here because our nations need you. You are healing, and will continue to do so, day by day, little by little. Take comfort, my special friend
, Bernadina spoke again.

The light overhead was brighter, and the head of a bear looked down at him. As he vacantly stared, the bear’s head became that of a man. “Are you ready to go?” Baltasar asked.

“
I must move on,” Alec said mechanically. He rose and donned his robe and climbed the ledges and crannies in the bluff to return to the top. He felt weak, and extremely hungry, and silently followed Baltasar, who resumed his bear shape as he ambled through the woods, until they had traveled far along the way towards the community again.

“
Strolling on four feet always feels more natural to me in the forest,” he explained to Alec. “And in the mountains, too,” he added after a pause. “But here among the people of the village it feels better to walk as a man. I suppose each portion of the world calls for its own treatment.”

They journeyed the rest of the way in silence, and Alec found Bernadina waiting for him in his cabin, a tray of fruit and a jug of water on the table. “Have a meal with me before you go,” she suggested gently. She still looked as beautiful as before, and her beauty was a result of the transcendent peace she projected, he realized.

“
Do you know what I learned last night?” Alec asked aloud.

“
I do,” she replied. “But you do not know all, yet. There is still great unknown joy in your hidden past, as well as tragedy,” she consoled. “But now you are on your way into the future, Alec. You have journeyed far to get here. There are many struggles ahead for you, some in which you will be the deciding factor.

“
Eat and nourish yourself Alec. You have slept by the blue pool for over a month. Your body needs to regain strength,” she said. “And I know you are worried about Caitlen, but you cannot hurry without the energy to make the journey. Let me entertain you with an old, old story, one that might interest you, and perhaps might someday be of use to you.”

Alec cocked his head with curiosity, granting tactic acquiescence to her suggested storytelling. He sat and ate the fruit, flavorful and juicy.

“
I mentioned the six non-mortal races that are still in existence, or were within recent memory,” she began. “The lokasennii, of course, and the Sleagh Maith, Sylphs, Hermeticans, Ajacii and huldra. But the oldest stories, perhaps no more than myths, tell us that once upon a time, these mountains were home to many more races of people with skills or abilities.”

“
How many?” Alec asked without prompting.

“
Forty nine,” Bernadina replied.

“
Forty nine?” Alec asked in astonishment. He paused, contemplating so many, then intuitively began to wonder if he would find there to be forty nine energy realms connected to the axis mundi.

“
The legends say that only forty eight powers were ever discovered, but that a forty ninth remained unfound,” she briefly added.