Preserving the Ingenairii by Jeffrey Quyle Page A

the man’s ankle, the tree branches rustled, and a surprisingly cold breeze swept through the forest.   Alec plucked some of the nearby marble leaf ferns, and wrapped them around the ankle.   “Your ankle isn’t swollen too badly.   I don’t think it’s a bad sprain, but you should sit still here for a while.   Don’t try to walk on it.
                     “Joahn, why don’t you stay here with Thomis?   I know it’s still summer, but go ahead and build a fire here since it’s getting chilly,” Alec suggested.
                     “The mountains must have different weather,” Berlisle commented.   “I’ll help gather wood for your fire.”   She strode off to find an armful of kindling.    Minutes later the rest of the group left the two Oyster Bay soldiers beside the first sparks of a fire, and proceeded towards the cathedral.   Several minutes later they came to the end of the trees and were able to look directly at the crafted limestone walls, from their formidable foundation stones all the way up to where they ended in the sky.
                     “Look at those clouds moving in!” Patrick exclaimed as he looked up at and beyond the walls.   As he spoke, they heard the sound of thunder, and a flash of lightning simultaneously cracked a tree nearby.
                     “Look out!” Brandeis called as they watched the trunk of the tree split, and a portion of it came crashing down towards them.   At the same time, hail stones began to pelt downward from the sky.
                     “Take cover, everyone!” Armilla shouted, and the small group scattered out in all directions.
                     “Patrick, come here!” Alec ordered as he fled under a leaning stone slab.   Patrick obediently began to run in Alec’s direction, only to flounder under the painful contact of the large hail stones, and he tumbled into Alec’s shelter in bad shape, with several welts on his back and arms.
                     “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Patrick asked as he gingerly looked out the opening.   The ground already appeared to have over an inch of ice covering it, with more hail falling.   A misty fog was beginning to rise in tendrils from the ground.   In a few minutes time it thickened into a dense fog that felt like a tangible barrier to further movement.
                     When the hail finally ended, along with the repeated thunderous booms in the low-hanging clouds, Alec carefully stuck his head out from under their slab, and then cautiously stepped onto the slick ground.   “It looks slippery,” Patrick politely commented as Alec’s feet went in two directions and he landed ingloriously on the seat of his pants.
                  “Yes, it is.   Be careful,” Alec said absentmindedly.   He stood and looked around, but through the fog he could only see a few indistinct shapes nearby.
                  With great care he walked to a doorway in the main wall of the building.   “Where is everyone?” he called.   “I’m at a gateway to the cathedral.”   He waited several seconds, but heard no response.   “Patrick?”   He hesitated in the silence, then shouted louder, “Armilla?   It’s me, Alec.”
                  Still there was no response.   He heard the sound of the tree branches rustling wildly, although he felt no breeze, and the fog hung still.   Alarmed, he backed into the cathedral.   His foot tapped some debris, and he turned to face forward, into the structure.   The fog was almost non-existent inside the building he noticed.   It was just present enough to create a mystical appearance.   The roofless ceiling let light from the cloudy sky seep down and embrace the translucent air.   Gaunt as the stone structure appeared, it held an atmosphere of true holiness under the conditions, and Alec