Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian (32 page)

The demon though seemed horribly injured, and the crowd was frozen in terror at seeing something that had never been considered remotely thinkable. With no one to immediately pursue him, Alec stumbled into the barn, and climbed up the rickety ladder to the hayloft. On his left the light from the torches came in through the open door he had jumped out through, and he could now only crawl over to it.

“Rief? Rief, come here,” he called. He found his bag, and pulled out the sealed jar.

“Here I am Tarnum,” she said as she crouched down beside him, placing her hand on his. “What is happening out there?” she asked. “Oh healer!” she cried, seeing the multiple injuries he carried.

Alec broke the seal on the jar. “Rief, I am going back to my world now, and I am taking you with me. Don’t argue or ask questions. Just hold on to me as tightly as you can,” he directed her.

He sprinkled the dust in a wide circle around the two of them, then dropped the jar, and placed the strap of his bag around both of them. There was a terrible scream from the demon outside, and it momentarily froze him with fear. He placed his arms in a wide hug around Rief, and wrapped a leg around as well. “Here we go, dear,” he told her. “John Mark, by the power of Jesus Christ our Lord, I need your help. Please take us away,” he called.

“Tarnum, what’s happening?” Rief cried out as the world began to spin, and then both the injured survivors of the horrific night passed out.

Section 3

The Dominion

Chapter 31 – John Mark Explains

Alec awoke at some point, unable to tell when or how much later. His limbs and Rief’s were tangled together, and they were in the chamber of the cave where he had first received his healer powers two years ago. He relaxed, and laid his head back, looking up at the ceiling, and crying tears of joy that welled up and could not roll away.

“Would you like to talk?” John Mark asked him, and he lifted his head to see that the saint was now in the chamber with them.

Alec tried to delicately disengage himself from Rief, who looked peaceful and content in her sleep. “She won’t wake up yet, don’t worry,” John Mark told him. “Not until it’s time for her to.” Alec removed himself, and stood up. His foot felt fine, as did his chest, but when he looked down he saw ugly scars from the wounds inflicted by the demon.

“I cannot complete erase the traces of the attack you received in Michian, but the power of the cave has healed you better than anything else could. Likewise,” he motioned to Rief, “your friend is also completely healed by the cave’s great energy.

“Ah Alec, you make everything interesting! I never foresaw that you would try to fight a demon, let alone bring a girl back with you from the empire,” the saint said with a sigh.

“It can’t be bad! She is a good person, and if I had left her there, she would have died on my account,” Alec started to object, before John Mark held up a hand.

“No, Alec, it is not bad. It is just unexpected, and perhaps makes one of your next trips awkward. But what will be, will be, as the Lord wants. You did very well in Michian, Alec,” John Mark told him.

“I did not know a place like that existed. Why are they so determined to invade our land?” Alec asked.

“Alec, for some people, wanting more is a way of life. It is sinful, but many things are. And when an emperor wants the glory of conquest, who can talk him out of it?”

“How did Mooreen become involved in this?” Alec asked.

“The Locksforts traders have been long involved in the small amount of trade that makes it across the barrier between your lands, and through those trades and contacts Mooreen came to exchange letters with officials of the empire. At some point she began to help them and inform them, believing that after an invasion, her power and the strength and glory of the Locksfort family would be immensely increased. Then, as you know, they smuggled a restorer by ship all the way to Stronghold, and she came to have direct contact with the emperor,” John Mark explained.

Alec reflected. He had many questions to ask, but he didn’t know which were most important. “What do I do now? How do we fight this invasion?” he said at length.

“You must rally all the armies of the Dominion together, and take them all to the far southern mountains of Bondell, where the invaders are beginning their attack on your land. Your next two missions will give you the ability to set all armies in motion towards that goal,” John Mark said. “I am at a loss though to know how your visitor fits into these trips.”

“She can travel with me here in the Dominion, and be under my protection,” Alec said sharply, seeing no problem. “Is she a healer ingenaire because she is here in the cave now?”

She is almost. She did not enter through the traditional door, and has not been cleansed by the waters of the spring, to prepare her for this experience. She has the knowledge, but not the power, nor the faith yet,” he added sadly. “You may take her to the entrance and let her sins be washed away after your next trip, if you wish,” the saint said. “And hope that she finds faith.”

“What is my next trip?” Alec asked simply.

“Today you will travel back in time to an evening in the Pale Mountains, to visit a small group of travelers who have camped in the forest. You will tell three of them that they must turn around immediately and return to Goldenfields to alert the Duke to the invasion in Bondell’s southern mountains. Goldenfields must send a great army to help its ally. After you send them as your messenger to the Duke, you will return here, and we will send you on your third and final mission, to prepare to rally the other armies of the Dominion to also go to Bondell to fight against the imperial forces,” the saint told him.

“Those seem much easier than the last trip!” Alec said with a smile.

“They should be,” John Mark agreed. “Although your friend’s appearance makes some of the purposes of these trips less likely than I expected. If you are ready, I will awaken your companion, and we will begin. Here is your jar of dust for your return to this cave,” he handed Alec another container. “And if you think prudent, you could ask your companions to take charge of Rief on this trip so that she will not be involved in your third trip.”

“Why shouldn’t she go on the third trip?” Alec asked.

“She may hinder your mission if she is with you. She will possibly change the dynamics,” John Mark said.

“I do not think that I can bring her to the Dominion and then abandon her to the care of strangers. Her life has had enough upheaval now already,” Alec answered immediately.

“You are welcome to do as seems best to you, Alec,” John Mark told him.

Rief yawned, and Alec turned to look at her. He went over and stooped down beside her, looking at her closely. All the bruises, the cuts, and the worse physical injuries had been healed. He hoped her mind and spirit were just as easily cured of the harm she had suffered at the hands of the imperial forces. She looked up, and Alec looked into her eyes. “Tarnum,” she said sleepily, then awakened to the reality of their situation. “Oh healer! Are we safe? Are we free?” And at that moment, as she sat up and she and Alec hugged, they were transported out of the cave.

Chapter 32 – A visit with Friends

Rief screamed in shock as the cave around them became a forest at night. “Tarnum, what happened? Where are we?”

“Sshhh,” Alec tried to calm her. “Everything is okay. This is part of a plan. We are safe, and we are going to remain safe. How do you feel?” he asked.

“I don’t understand anything. But I feel fine. And I know that you fought a battle with a demon to save me! I am so sorry that I ever doubted you. You are just the man I have known, so brave and considerate,” her lips found his, and to his surprise, his lips responded warmly.

He heard a twig snap, and his head jerked up. He used his ingenaire powers to detect the sound of someone several yards away. Beyond the person there was a campfire in the distance, and he suddenly knew where he was. In the dim starlight under the forest canopy, Alec could tell that the person on watch approaching them was too large to be Kinsey. It was either Delle or Armilla.

“Armilla? Is that you?” he called out in a hoarse whisper, disengaging from Rief and placing himself in a position to between her and the watcher in the woods.

“What is it healer? Is there someone out there?” Rief asked.

“Armilla? Is that you? Delle, is it you? It’s me Alec. I need to talk to you,” Alec said in a louder voice.

The other person was motionless. Alec took a step forward, moving cautiously. “Armilla, I remember when we were in Goldenfields, riding back to our camp after one of the Duke’s balls, and you told me I needed to have friends my own age, to live some of what life was supposed to be with friends. You were right, Armilla. Is that you?” he asked again.

“Come no closer,” Armilla’s voice called. “Alec is sound asleep in a blanket behind me. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know how you knew that story. But you’re not Alec.”

“Armilla. Remember how I can travel through time sometimes. That can let me be in two places at once, or in the same place twice at once,” Alec tried to explain. “This is something like that. I and a friend have traveled back here from the future to talk to you. I have a critical message I need to share.”

“Armilla, when you and Delle and Kinsey caught up with me a month ago outside the ruined white city by the river, you didn’t get your boots wet wading into the river to see me,” Alec told her. “And you didn’t try to beat me to a pulp for running away again.”

“If you’re Alec, tell me, who do you love, Bethany or Imelda?” Armilla challenged him.

Alec stood in silence, digesting the unexpected question.

“Do you have an answer, imposter?” Armilla’s voice called out after several seconds of silence.

“I do not know,” Alec said. “I love them both, but neither of them loves me, so it doesn’t matter. Bethany moved on to Tritos when I was gone so long. She told me so herself, when we were in Oyster Bay. And Imelda refused me, you know that. She left me a note that said she was going to go have fun fighting in Bondell.”

“Alec, you fool, she does care for you, but she felt honor-bound to give Bethany first choice,” Armilla said. “Who do you have with you?” she asked.

My name is Rief,” the girl spoke up for herself. “I am the personal extension of the healer Tarnum. And I love him, even if none of your foolish women here know how to value a man like this.”

There was a long moment of stunned silence from all of them. “Why does she speak with an accent like that, where is she from, and boy, you work fast, don’t you?” Armilla asked with sarcasm in her voice, and she stepped forward to embrace Alec tightly. “Come back to the campfire so we can see each other and talk.”

“I mustn’t awaken the other me, the one that is sleeping over there,” Alec told her. “Rief, come here please,” he called, and she was there beside him in two steps.

“Armilla, this is Rief, a girl I met in a great land far away, the Michian empire. Rief, this is Armilla, my bodyguard,” Alec tried to introduce them.

“You don’t need a bodyguard!” Rief said in indignation. “Anyone who can slay a demon can scarcely need a bodyguard! And where was she when you really needed her?”