The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities (31 page)

“And you have no guard of your own?” Andi asked.

“None that could stand up to Warrior ingenaire or demons,” the duke replied.  “There’s not another Alec come back to protect us, or none that I’ve seen yet.

“After the ingenairii took control, they forced us to disband most of our army and palace guard,” he explained.

“Alright, let’s think this through,” Alec rubbed his forehead slowly.  “The guards outside the door and at the gate to the palace – are they loyal to you or to the ingenairii?” he asked.

“The resident agent of the ingenairii,” the duke began to answer.

“Is he the man outside the door to the hall?  A gray goatee and a burgundy robe?” Andi asked.

“Yes, that’s Karson,” Duke Remton agreed.  “He controls the few guards we have here.  He answers to the ingenairii.”

“Are there still holding cells down below the palace?” Alec asked.

“Yes, indeed.  They’re full of prisoners Karson didn’t like,” the duke affirmed.

“The first thing we need to do is regain control of the palace,” Alec said.   “No, the first thing we need to do is immobilize the restorer, so word of this doesn’t get out too quickly.

“Andi,” Alec turned to his companion.  “You take the men in the hallway down to the palace cells and lock them away.  See if there’s anyone down there now who you can rely on to let out.  I’ll go immobilize the restorer and be back.

“Your grace,” Alec turned to Duke Remton, “would you ask your kitchen staff to prepare a hearty meal for Andi and I to enjoy in half an hour?” he asked, and they all went on their separate ways, as Alec released the men on the ceiling when they stepped out into the hall
, turning them over to Andi
.

Alec walked to the kitchen himself and took some herbs that he knew were forbidden to be fed to restorers because they disrupted the animals’ body chemistry and ability to travel.  He took a generous handful of sugar lumps, and walked out to the yard that he had always known as the precincts of the Goldenfields Guards, where a single restorer stood, with a handler lounging nearby.  “Do you know how much longer they’re going to be here?” the handler asked.

Alec mixed the sugar and the leaves together in his hand, then held his palm out to the animal, letting its snout nuzzle his fingers before it began to greedily eat the leaves that would disrupt its body chemistry, preventing it from traveling for several weeks.  “Quite a while, I imagine,” Alec answered.  “How many animals come here?  How many know the way to come to Goldenfields?”

“There’s only two animals at Oyster Bay that come to Goldenfields, and none come here directly from Michian,” the keeper replied.  “We only get visits a couple of times a month.  There’s not much here that attracts the great ones.”

“That may change,” Ale
c
said softly.  “You might as well take this restorer in to the stables and bed him down for the night,” Alec added as he started to walk back to the palace.  “He’s not going anywhere for a while.”

Alec returned to the palace and went back to the hall where he and Andi had met the duke.  He found them both there already, Andi sitting at a table ravenously eating a plate of food in front of her, and looking guiltily at Alec as she took another bite.

Alec sat down with them and picked up an apple.  “Who will be your allies, your grace?” he asked before he bit into the fruit.

“Allies in what?” the duke replied.

“In this rebellion.  You’re going to need body guards, palace guards, an army, and who knows what else, once we really start to fight,” Alec replied.

“I’m not leading a rebellion!” the duke replied.  “My city will be destroyed if I do.  I know that I will be personally flayed alive to pay for the death of Camet, and that frankly doesn’t upset me, though the death of my family will break my heart.  I’ve lived a long life, and it’s worth it to know that butcher is dead.  But I don’t want to cause further trouble that will bring a horde of ingenairii, sorcerers and demons into Goldenfields, laying waste to the city and massacring the people here.”

“That’s not likely to happen, at least not any time soon,” Alec replied.  “You’ll have time to set your defenses up, above and beyond whatever Andi and I are able to do in the meantime.

“I’ve already disabled the restorer that’s here.  It won’t be able to transport in or
out of the city for weeks.  It
s handler told me there’s only one other restorer that knows how to come here, and we can disable it tomorrow.  Then we just need to disable the herd at Oyster Bay, and maybe at Michian too, and the ingenairii and sorcerers will be isolated at their locations unless they want to travel like everyone else,” Alec explained.  “Do the ingenairii have an army in the Dominion?”

“Not that I know of,” the duke answered.  “They don’t need one with their ability to use demons against cities.  The army they do have is busy fighting the lacertii along the Michian border.  But I don’t see how you think you’re going to disable the restorers in Oyster Bay and Michian.

“Who are you two?  What does it mean that two strange ingenairii,” he paused, “I know you’re a Warrior,” he said to Andi, who had silently continued to eat.  “But I don’t really even know that you’re one.  Are you?” he asked Alec.

“He is the pre-eminent ingenaire of the world,” Andi replied as Alec took another bite of his apple.

“His name is Alec,” she said.

“Named after the hero?” the duke asked.

Andi reached over suddenly and jerked Alec’s sleeve, revealing the line of marks that rose up his forearm.  “Not named after the hero,” she said, “he is the hero,” she finished in a dramatic whisper.

The duke’s eyes widened, and his face grew pale.  “You’re jesting, my lady.”  He paused as he examined Alec’s arm, “I’ve never seen an ingenaire with so many marks,” he said.

Alec finished the apple and set down the core, then reached for another.

“When I returned to help the Dominion defeat the Michian invasion in the first real war, before I married Jeswyne, the myth of a returned Alec was a powerful symbol that helped the moral
e
of the people and the soldiers in the fight against the invaders,” Alec said.

“And after I drove the sorcerers out of Michian, the myth
of my name remained with the surviving sorcerers
even as they migrated across the ocean and wound up on the periphery of the Avonellene empire,” he added.

“So I know the name of Alec would have some impact on the campaign we wage.  Don’t you think so, your grace?” Alec took a bite from the second apple and waited for the man’s comments.

“You truly are Alec returned?” the duke asked.

“He is the Demonslayer and King,” Andi said for Alec, who was chewing the apple, a soft one that had spent the winter in storage somewhere in the bowels of the palace.

“If you are the Demonslayer, I will pledge my city to support you in any way,” the duke cried.

“Good,” Alec said.  “So that brings us back to the question of who can you call upon to be your allies?  The church?  The merchants?  The people?  The traders?  Who do we have to work with?”

“The traders, the native traders who are left, they would support you,” Remton answered.  “The ingenairii gave preferential treatment to the Michian clans they brought with them.”

“How much control of your own palace do you have right now?” Alec probed.

“There are some guards who are loyal to me, and most who are loyal to Karson,” the duke replied.

“What did you see in the cells down below?” Alec asked Andi.  “Are there any there we should set free?”

“I thought that with your Spiritual abilities you would be a better judge of that than I am, so we released none of them,” Andi answered.

“I will go sort through the prisoners right now.  You two go and round up any that the duke thinks are not trustworthy, and bring them down to the cells,” Alec said.  “But first, if you have closets, your grace, may my lady fin
d more suitable clothes to wear?
  She’s been in my s
pare s
hirt
for two days,
and I’m sure she wants something more substantial.”

Andi grinned at him.

“There are many closets upstairs where my daughter’s wardrobe is located.  We’ll go look there immediately,” Remton answered.

“Will you be able to set them
free, my daughter and grand-daughter?” he asked Alec.

“Where are they?” Alec responded.

“Every great city has hostages held in the palace at Oyster Bay,” the duke replied.  “Those two are my hostages, held to assure my cooperation.”

“What are their names?” Andi asked.

“Tonshire is my daughter, and Pegot is my granddaughter,” he replied.

Alec stood.  “I’ll go check the prisoners, you meet me there, and then we’ll run one more errand before we call it a day,” he said.  He grinned conspiratorially at Andi, then left the room to go down into the depths of the palace.

Alec had gone down to the ingenairii quarters under the palace many times, when Merle had been the court ingenaire of Goldenfields, and Alec had been a student of his.  He had been to the
prison
cells of the palace as well, but only very seldom.  The Duke Toulon of Alec’s youth had seen little need to keep many prisoners in the palace when they could easily be sent to civilian jails.

Nonetheless Alec went past a few servants and entered the lower level where the cells were located.

He carried no lantern or torch, but instead created a string of bulbs of light that flew through the air in front of him, and when he arrived at his destination they circled lazily around the common space that all the cells’ doors opened upon.  Alec engaged his Spiritual energy as well as his Light energy, and he stood in the center of the space, allowing dozens of pairs of eyes to stare at him from the doors around him.

“Inge
naire!  Ingenaire!  We’re your
true followers!  Protect us; release us,” voices called loudly from one cell.  As Alec approached it he realized it was the very guards who he had consigned to the cells earlier.  “Oh Lord, it’s you!” one of them sobbed.  “The others here have already killed Karson.  They’ll kill us too if you don’t protect us.”

Alec fetched the keys from the empty desk, and opened the door.  “Everyone who wasn’t just put in the cell with Karson, come out and line up,” Alec ordered.  “Don’t try to run away, or you’ll pay the consequences,” he warned them, sensing a slippery sense of ethics in someone who was approaching.

As the dozen men filed out of the small cell, much to Alec’s dismay at the overcrowding, one man did dash towards the stairs.  Knowing that he had to set an example among the dozens of men trapped in the prison, Alec directed one of his balls of light to streak at the man and strike him, setting him ablaze for just a moment before the man flashed into a pile of ashes.

There was stunned silence, and then murmuring and whispers. “I warned everyone.  I need absolute cooperation, or there will be costs to pay,” he spoke loudly.  The men in the cells heard him, and the men lined up outside the cells looked nervously at the remaining balls of light that continued to circle overhead.

Alec touched each man in the line briefly.  Some he questioned, “Who do you support, the ingenairii or a free Duchy of Goldenfields?”  Others he only sensed their character remotely.  Most of the men he sent back into the cell, but three he instructed to wait by the stairs.

He opened another cell, and questioned those men as well, setting four of them free and reinterring the others.  As he opened the third cell Andi and the Duke entered the prison, the duke watching the balls of light circling overhead as the men in the
third
cell obediently filed out and lined up.  Two more joined the little cluster of free men while the rest went back.

“These are your men, your grace,” Alec pointed at the men he had set free.  “I’m sure you’ll have more soon.  Have you sorted out the guards on duty?” he asked as he walked over to stand close to them, trusting the prisoners to remain in their assigned places.

“We came down to show you my new outfit first,” Andi said, showing off the tight leather pants and dark red shirt she wore. 

Alec looked at her appreciatively.  “The wrapping is almost as lovely as the gift,” he told her, producing a shy smile.  “I’ll look forward to seeing more of you soon; we’ll have a couple of errands to run tonight,” he told her before they separated to finish their duties.

He finished sorting through the prisoners, producing almost three dozen reliable men and women who he trusted.  Andi and the Duke brought over a dozen members of the guard down to the cells and jailed them in turn. 

As he rose b
ack up out of the depths of the dungeon, Alec led the newly freed forces up to the guard armory, where they were introduced to th
e existing members of the guard
deemed trustworthy
by the Duke
, and then assigned to three squads with a promise that organization and training would begin in earnest the next day; Alec and Andi each armed themsel
ves fully from the weapons in the armory
.  Once that was done, Alec and Andi went to the kitchen again and Alec raided the herbs again, taking all of the crumbled homewort leaves and more sugar lumps, throwing them all in a sack that he gave Andi to hold as he placed his arms around her.