Chosen

by Jolea M. Harrison

  “I’ve got this,” Maralt said. “Go get some sleep.”

  She shook her head again, but dragged to her feet. “What’s happening at the Palace?”

  “Nothing. They spent the rest of the day in their rooms yesterday. Dain was drawing and Dynan was...I don’t know exactly.”

  “Does he have it?”

  “I couldn’t tell. It’s hard to get near him without Dain coming right in. It’s like they never separate. Since yesterday, every time I tried to reach Dynan, I ran into Dain instead. I’m not sure I could stand that kind of over-protective, constant presence.”

  “You’re the same way with me,” Carryn said.

  “I am not.”

  “Are too,” she said. “You don’t even realize you’re doing it. I don’t mind. I imagine that Dain is the same way toward Dynan. Watching over his brother is a part of who he is, just like you watching over me is part of you. There are some things it’s just not worth arguing about, Maralt, and this is one of them. What about the orbs?”

  “The same. No worse. No better.”

  “What are we going to do?” Carryn asked.

  “I could get to Dynan, and find out if he has the talisman, but I might not be able to make him forget the intrusion. Dain will be all over me so I’ll have to make him forget too. It would hurt them both to force it, quite a lot.”

  “I can’t believe we weren’t warned,” she said.

  “It isn’t your fault, Carryn. You haven’t ever had any control over what you see.”

  “I feel like I’ve let everyone down.”

  “You haven’t,” Maralt said, looking down at the High Bishop. “He would say the same thing. Go get some sleep. If things change, I’ll need you here.”

  “Don’t try to reach Dynan,” she said when she reached the doorway, and nodded to Gradyn. “He wouldn’t want you to.”

  “The alternative is to wait for him to tell us. In this case, I’m not so sure waiting is a good idea.”

  “I think until we know who’s gone, especially since it isn’t Dynan or Dain, we don’t have a choice,” she said.

  “You sound just like him,” Maralt said.

  “I do not.”

  He nodded instead of answering and she rolled off the door, leaving him to the watch.

  “I do not,” her thought reached him, and Maralt laughed over her stubbornness. She would argue if he answered, so he blocked his thoughts from her until she let it go.

  He settled back in the chair by the High Bishop and waited until Carryn was asleep in her room. Maralt thought about not reaching Dynan for a moment or two, but didn’t listen to the internal arguments for long. He concentrated. It was a little like tiptoeing up behind someone, hiding back in the shadows of other thoughts.

  It wasn’t quite dawn yet so he didn’t expect either of the twins would be awake, but Maralt found Dynan looking out one of the windows of his rooms. He was dressed for the day. Dynan wore a cloak over a coat and gloves. Maralt knew their schedule. There wasn’t anything on it to suggest they would be going out at this hour.

  Again, being this close to Dynan was like standing in a pool of liquid flame, not quite being burned but not entirely comfortable either. The eddying glow was distracting. It was intoxicating being inside it, throwing Maralt into a state of near euphoria that made thinking clearly difficult.

  Dynan turned around sharply, searching his room. Too close, Maralt concentrated on the wall paneling, studying the way the grain of the wood ran in lines and loops, the shade of stain and how it saturated one area and not another. It was difficult but not impossible to hide this way, invisible to Dynan by making him see what was familiar instead of Maralt.

  The Prince was sensitive, but untrained. Maralt managed the visual cover for a moment or two. Dynan frowned over it, staring hard at the wall, but then went back to looking outside.

  Maralt meant to look for the talisman in Dynan’s thoughts, but found he couldn’t get any closer. A palpable wall kept him out. He couldn’t get by it without using force and making Dynan aware of him. The shadow was still there and Maralt wondered if it was self-propagating. He shook his head at the thought. The talisman was an object, not a living thing.

  Sensing Dynan was about to discover him, Maralt backed off. He realized too that he was using a huge amount of energy to stay hidden. He felt himself shaking. Fatigue flowed through him. He couldn’t stay much longer and remain unseen.

  Dynan pulled a comboard from a pocket and looked at it briefly before setting it down on the table by his bed. Everyone carried one, so leaving his behind was deliberate. Without it, he couldn’t be traced.

  Dynan turned from the window then and left his bedroom. He moved down the hall toward the kitchen, but stopped about halfway, across from a guest bedroom where a chair stood in an alcove with its high back against the wall. The next instant, Dain was there. He was wearing his sword and Maralt realized Dynan was too.

  “Did you get the gold?” Dynan asked as he approached. Dain nodded, but his expression changed as he looked hard at his brother.

  The surroundings melted and frayed, blending with the stone wall of the High Bishop’s room. Maralt’s body shook as he sat by the old man, trying at the same time to stay at the Palace.

  Dain was tucking away a bulging leather coin purse into an inside coat pocket. He wore a heavy cloak too, and drew on a pair of gloves before stepping up onto the chair. He attached a small spanner to the back, which then sealed the chair to the wall with a click. Maralt didn’t understand why until Dain climbed up onto the upholstered high back, and perched there while he popped the alcove ceiling out of place. He lifted the piece up above the roof beams of the Palace, sliding it out of the way. The next moment, he pulled himself up into the hole. Dynan followed him.

  Maralt meant to stay with them, but his strength failed right as he caught sight of the Palace rafters. Dain was already making his way along a thick beam aiming for the far corner of the building. Maralt wanted to know where they were going, but Dain looked back. It was like getting body slammed and Maralt’s vision blurred. When it cleared, he was sitting beside the High Bishop again.

  “You’ll find staying with them increasingly difficult,” Gradyn said and startled Maralt. “They’ll see you eventually.”

  “Maybe it’s time they do,” Maralt said, and poured a glass of water. His hands were shaking when he held it out.

  Gradyn pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing as he moved, and took the glass. He sipped the water and shook his head. “Not like this, no.”

  “I think Dynan has the talisman,” Maralt said.

  Gradyn only nodded, setting the glass on the table and drew his legs over the side of the cot.

  Maralt knew it was true before this confirmation, but it still came as a shock. “How?”

  “Does it surprise you that enemies of the light have the means to so easily change what we know?” Gradyn shook his head. “I’m too old for these times, Maralt. This shouldn’t have happened.”

  “But it has, and we have to do something to counter it.”

  Gradyn shook his head again. “Some things can’t be changed back.”

  “I can take the talisman from him,” Maralt said.

  “The talon was a catalyst, a way to weaken the boundary so they could break through.”

  “I can stop this.”

  “No, Maralt, you can’t. Not alone. You were never meant to do this alone.”

  “Then with who?” Maralt asked. He didn’t think Gradyn meant Carryn and the old man seemed reluctant to explain. “You said yesterday that someone was gone. Who?”

  Gradyn frowned over it, holding an internal debate visible in his aged face. He said often enough he was afraid of revealing something that could change the future. It was the same reaction he had when Carryn had a vision they had questions about. All his life, Maralt had seen the High Bishop struggle with this burden. He didn’t want to add to it.

  “It’s all right,” Maralt said. “Tell
me or not. I’ll take what comes and what help anyone wants to give, or has to give if that’s the case. You needn’t fear for me either way.”

  Gradyn smiled at that and patted his shoulder as he pushed to his feet. He moved to the narrow window that opened onto the central courtyard, a small sheltered square that divided the Temple sanctuary from the rest of the building. He stood there for a time in silence, leaning his hands against the window ledge.

  “The fact of his existence is probably the greatest secret ever kept,” the High Bishop said finally. “There’s a danger, Maralt, in knowing too much. There’s a greater danger in acting on that knowledge. The balance of our existence could swing too far the other way, and our actions give aide to our enemies.”

  Maralt wasn’t sure what he was talking about, or who, trying to think whose existence was so secret. It didn’t seem like Gradyn would say.

  “They’ve done something I didn’t foresee,” Gradyn said, turning from the window. “Our primary concern for so long has been for Dynan and Dain, and rightly so. Never before have our enemies been able to cross the boundary between us. I’m not sure which one of the Six came here. Not that it matters.”

  Maralt suppressed a shudder, closing his eyes against welling fear. That one of the Six could cross the barrier that had contained them for countless ages was almost beyond contemplation. One of them crossed the endless dark and handed Dynan Telaerin a thing of evil. All of it was intended to pull Dynan into their realm of existence.

  “It’s one of their goals,” the High Bishop said, reading Maralt’s thoughts. “Another means to an end, the end. They have to have both Dynan and Dain, and one other.”

  “Another?” Maralt said.

  “There are others,” Gradyn said. “In my singular concern for Dynan and Dain, I’ve overlooked this danger, perhaps a greater danger. I didn’t believe it was possible they could take him. I’m going to tell you something that is extremely dangerous for you to know. Once it’s no longer necessary for you to have this knowledge, it will be taken from you. Do you agree to this? It’s important that you do so willingly, Maralt, or the extraction will be the most painful thing you ever endure.”

  He was taken by surprise by the demand and the warning, but Maralt understood it, though he wasn’t certain how he’d take a memory of his own. When he saw Gradyn biting back a smile, he realized the High Bishop would do it himself even though the High Bishop wasn’t a telepath.

  “I didn’t know you could,” Maralt said, and then he nodded. “All right. You know I’ll do anything I can to help you.”

  “Even when you hardly believe any of it is real?” Gradyn said with another slight smile.

  “Yes,” Maralt said. “Call it blind faith if you like.”

  “A thousand years ago, Alurn Telaerin died in a terrible struggle to preserve the world. He failed to stop the demon’s rise. It came into the world. The Gods responded. The world was cleansed and very nearly destroyed as it has been so many times beyond count.”

  “I know the story.”

  “You don’t know this. Alurn survived. He was given the opportunity to exist, not in the physical world, but here in the Temple.”

  “Alurn Telaerin is a ghost?”

  The High Bishop pulled in a sharp breath, reminding Maralt to be careful of his choice of words. Being called a ghost was nearly as bad as being called a wraith.

  “Soul spirit is the preferred term,” Gradyn said with an arched brow, but then he shook his head. “But yes. Alurn is the reason I can do the things I can. Down through the ages, each High Bishop has carried this weight and this power, all to bring Alurn here to this time.”

  “So he can face the demon again.”

  “Only the Gods can face the demon. With Alurn, it’s more a question of balance and order, and most importantly, knowledge.”

  “What’s happened to him?”

  “He’s gone,” Gradyn said. “The greater majority of his presence in this realm is missing. I’m not sure how it happened. He’s been taken, or most of him anyway.”

  “I don’t understand,” Maralt said.

  “Since the beginning of my tenure as High Bishop, through the years I’ve known of him, he’s left before, to heal the destruction he feels responsible for. He leaves something of himself behind to maintain the connection to me, so I have that still. When I fell yesterday, I felt as though I was being ripped in half, only it wasn’t me, it was that part of Alurn that resides with me, being torn in two. They’ve taken what they can of him and I fear the worst.”

  “What’s worse?” Maralt asked, a little afraid to find out it could be more. Dynan having the talisman in his possession was horrible enough.

  “Alurn is trapped at the Gate,” Gradyn said. “Maralt, he was the strongest telepath the world has ever known. If the Six have him, the balance of power could shift.”

  “They’ll have the strength to counter the Gods,” Maralt said.

  “They may gain the strength to destroy them if we can’t get Alurn back. You can’t imagine the kind of life we’ll be left with.”

  “Carryn’s vision,” Maralt said, standing to move to Gradyn’s side. “What would you have me do?”

  “It’s a terrible choice we must make, a horrible risk to take,” he said. “If I could send you after Alurn I would. It doesn’t matter your bravery or your strength, both which you have in ample supply. It isn’t possible. This place, the very gateway to hell, would break your mind, Maralt, and then they’d have you as well. There’s only one who can go and come back without taint.”

  “Dynan.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not Dain?”

  “We can’t let both of them be taken,” Gradyn said. “One of them, one of the Chosen has to go to them willingly.”

  “And Dain would go. If Dynan was in trouble, he’d go without thinking.”

  “We can't let him follow his brother.”

  Maralt nodded, wondering how they could stop him if it came to it. “You knew this would happen. It’s why you had Dynan go through the ceremony.”

  “The prophecy is never quite so clear or direct as to name a place or time or specific action. Alurn feared they would try to take Dynan, and meant to give him some protection.”

  “But the prophecy warns they have to have them both,” Maralt said. “The Six need them to open the gate.”

  “Yes, and they will try to do just that. I believe it will be today, in fact. They intend to take Dynan, and lure Dain after him.”

  “What?”

  “Some things can’t be stopped, Maralt. They can only be managed, and perhaps, with a large amount of luck they can be altered enough toward our purpose so that their purpose is thwarted.”

  “Dynan is going to be attacked and you’re saying it can’t be stopped?”

  Gradyn nodded. “It can’t, and now we don’t want to, but Maralt, there is a difference between them taking him and us sending him.”

  Gradyn explained then what he meant, and at first Maralt couldn’t believe it, or think he could do what was being asked of him, all for the nebulous reason of retrieving a man a thousand years dead. Maralt had a hard time believing he even existed or could possibly be worth the risk.

  Gradyn looked at him, and Maralt knew he’d heard the thought as clearly as if he’d said it out loud. “I need you to believe.”

  The High Bishop leaned back, using the window ledge to half sit on. The contours of his face started to change, the stance of his body straightening from stooped to upright. His hair darkened from gray to black and lengthened to his shoulders. Sagging skin tightened against the line of his jaw. His eyes sharpened to the acute blue quality his descendants all carried with them. Maralt found himself drawn in by them and the man who now leaned at his ease before him.

  The blue eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re very much like him,” Alurn Telaerin said, watching Maralt in a way that was direct and unsettling. Maralt didn’t know what he meant either. Was he like the High Bishop
or someone else?

  “I thought you were missing.”

  “I’m the connection,” he said in a tone indicating Maralt should have known that and indeed, Gradyn had already told him. “I haven’t the time to explain it all. You should trust him. He trusts you.”

  “I do trust him.”

  “Then don’t doubt him.”

  Before Maralt could ask a single question, Alurn was gone, returning in quick reversal to the High Bishop of Cobalt, who swayed where he stood.

  Maralt lurched forward to catch him.

  “This thing I ask of you,” he said, his voice hardly a whisper. He hadn’t any strength and Maralt eased him over to his bed. “There’s danger to you as well, more than you think.”

  “I understand.”

  Gradyn rolled his eyes closed at that; the usual response to any claims of perception. “I’m not talking about physical danger, though there will probably be that too. It’s the threat to your soul that concerns me more. You have to be careful.”

  “I will be,” Maralt said, hoping to ease Gradyn’s anxiety. His face was a sickly shade of white. “Tell me what I should do and I’ll do it.”

  Gradyn nodded and indicated he wanted to stand. Maralt wasn’t sure he could, but helped him up and then held him steady until he could manage on his own.

  “You mustn’t tell Carryn of this,” Gradyn said. “Doing so could alter what she sees, or even alert the other side to our plans. I’ll explain it to her when the need comes. I’m going to show you how to give a part of yourself to Dynan and Dain. It’s the same thing Alurn has done with me, but Maralt, you mustn’t ever do it again. It weakens you, the core of who you are. Twice is more than a man ought to manage, but you’re young yet. You’ll have time to recover. Hopefully. Once it’s done, I don’t think you can reverse it either. I don’t know for certain. I’ve never tried.”

  “Dynan and Dain Telaerin are going to have a part of me with them for the rest of their lives?” Maralt said, stunned by the idea of it and a little concerned too.