Chosen

by Jolea M. Harrison

  “So, my father has figured it out,” he said, leaning against the dark wall, his arms folded as if at his ease. “You better think of what you’re going to do about it fast. There are going to be a lot of guards swarming all over the place very soon. They might be a little pissed off.”

  She shook her head, but she was afraid he was right. “He won’t send guards to the Temple based off the story of one man, who in a short time won’t be able to remember what he said.”

  “Is that what you do when the truth gets in the way of your plans?” Dain asked. “Make people forget? That’s convenient.”

  “It’s necessary.”

  “You change a man’s memory and make him seem a fool, or even crazy to suit your purpose. What about changing the Lord Chancellor’s memory? You’re going to have to. He’s already checked this guy out. If he took it to my father, Xavier believes him. Now you have to change the King’s memory, and all the Surrogates too. The entire top tier of Cobalt’s government. Didn’t you people get in trouble a few hundred years ago for this kind of thing? Come to think of it, there were a lot of executions, weren’t there?”

  Carryn wanted him to stop talking. It was hard to think past the terrible list of actions he set out before her, measures she knew she’d have to go along with in order to stop a catastrophe.

  “You need to come up with a different plan, lady,” he said, and turned back to set his hands against the darkness. “The guards are already deployed. When those men think that there’s danger to the King, they act pretty fast.”

  Dain pushed against the barrier and gained a step. He was almost to the corner of the hall with the Room of Orbs. Carryn wondered how they would hide him.

  “So what are you going to do when they get here?” Dain asked. “Have that plan yet?”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked. “Leave?”

  “You people kidnapped me, brought me here, put me in front of this thing, and said stop it.”

  “We had to.”

  “And you nearly killed my brother,” he said. “Exactly what do I owe you?”

  “Dain—”

  “It was the only way to get Dynan where he needed to be.” Maralt was already half way down the hall before they noticed him. Carryn didn’t think he was supposed to be there after what the High Bishop said. “We had to.”

  “We? I seem to remember you were the only one there,” Dain said, leaving the wall again and going right up to him.

  Carryn feared they would start fighting.

  “All right, I had to,” Maralt said without backing down. “If I hadn’t, he would have been taken straight to the Gate. You would have followed him, which is what they want. They sent the talon to your brother to weaken him. It infected who knows how many others to their cause just by being here, in this world.”

  “The talon,” Carryn said. “Where is it?”

  Maralt turned to her. “I have it.”

  “No! Maralt you can’t have it here.”

  “You really don’t know anything,” Dain said, glancing at Carryn.

  “I couldn’t leave it on him,” Maralt said. “He wouldn’t stand a chance with the memory of it. So I took it...”

  For a moment, silence filled the hall, the only sound a distant drip of water and the strange high-pitched whine the darkness emitted.

  “...after you attacked him,” Dain said, his hands balling into fists.

  “So he would know he didn’t have it anymore.”

  Carryn took Maralt by the arm, turning him from Dain to her. “Does the High Bishop know? Maralt, I can’t believe—”

  “I lied about it,” he said. “He’d tell me to give it to him, Carryn. He doesn’t have the strength for it. I’m aware of the dangers. I’m guarding myself against it as best I can. We’ll figure out what to do with it later.”

  Dain was shaking his head, looking back to the wall. “If you can guard yourself against the evil influence of this thing, then why not you instead? You’re older. You’re stronger. You actually know what the hell this is all about. Why did you send Dynan?”

  “I volunteered to go in his place. I was told I couldn’t. You’re different from me. I’m not stronger. And there are other reasons I can’t tell you,” Maralt said while Dain was still talking. “It might make things worse.”

  Maralt glanced at Carryn and she realized he was keeping something from her on purpose and she immediately blamed the talon for the deception.

  “That’s not it,” Maralt said in answer to the thought. “The old man told me I couldn’t tell you, not the talon. It’s not like the thing is sentient.”

  “Why would he do that?” Carryn said, not believing him. She wondered if it was true about Alurn, but managed to keep that thought to herself

  “Because no one knows. Gradyn isn’t going to let me keep the knowledge either. He’s going to take my memory of it.”

  “You’re the only one who can take memories, so how can you take your own?”

  Maralt realized he had given away more than he should. He didn’t understand why it had to be secret anyway, especially since the knowledge would be taken. Carryn read that much before he stopped her.

  “He said it would hurt,” Maralt said in an effort to dissuade her. “If I tell you, he’ll make me take it from you, Carryn.”

  “You’ve never hurt me when you’ve taken my memory.”

  “You let him?” Dain said, and started muttering under his breath.

  “She sees things.”

  “I know,” Dain said, smirking a little over the fact he knew something Maralt didn’t.

  “Some of the things she sees are extremely unpleasant. When they get to be too much, I take her memory so she doesn’t go insane from it.”

  “Maralt,” Carryn interrupted. “Tell me.”

  “They have Alurn Telaerin,” he said. “We have to get him back out before his presence there causes an imbalance we won’t be able to counter, and Dynan is the only who can do it.”

  Carryn glanced at Dain waiting for him to make some snide comment about her knowledge base.

  “So the crazy lunatic with him, the one trying to get to me was Alurn Telaerin?” Dain asked.

  “No, it couldn’t have been,” she said. “How was Alurn even here?”

  “The High Bishop, all of them down through history, has been holding him here,” Maralt said. “You saw him?”

  “When the hole opened, Dynan said he found Alurn, but she says no,” Dain said. “So you sent my brother into the pit of doom to rescue a dead guy. A really ancient dead guy, who you only just found out was wandering around as a ghost. That’s just fucking great.”

  “If Alurn stays there,” Carryn said, “it will weaken the Gods themselves, Dain. Maybe it already has. The day of the Oath when Gradyn collapsed, that had to be when Alurn was taken from him.”

  “And sending Dynan, who knows nothing about what you’re talking about seemed like a good idea?” Dain said, ignoring her. “What if he isn’t strong enough to do this?”

  “He’s stronger than you think,” Maralt said and went to him, standing with him at the wall of dark. “If you could see yourselves from our perspective, the way we see you, you wouldn’t have quite so many doubts. Why do you suppose you’re the only one who can stop this wall, Dain? Carryn can’t. I can’t.”

  “Why can’t I help him?” Dain said.

  “You are helping him,” Carryn said. “Having you there is what they want. Having all three of you there would be...well I don’t know what would happen, but it wouldn’t be good.”

  “Just another road to the end,” Maralt said. “There’s a growing list of ways they can manage it and we have to stop them all. For right now, we have a couple of problems about to come through the door, don’t we?”

  Carryn nodded. “Someone saw you with him.”

  “So Dain,” Maralt said, turning to him. “What are you going to do when the guards get here? They’ll search the whole place. If you want to be found, you will be
.”

  “I’m not leaving,” he said. “Dynan is on the other side of this thing. I don’t know how you’re going to hide—”

  “I can blind them,” Maralt said. “As long as you don’t call attention to yourself they’ll think you’re just another monk.”

  Dain rolled his eyes at that, snorting about pretending to be a monk, and went back to pushing against the darkness. He backed off of it the next instant though.

  “What is it?” Carryn asked.

  “It feels different,” he said, putting his hands to it as if touching it burned him.

  “Dain?” Carryn thought he looked sick.

  “Maybe you two should back off this. Go down the—”

  Even as he spoke, starting to motion them away, a black finger-like band bolted out from the darkness, bunching at its apex before it shot forward. It struck Maralt, hitting him square on the chest and knocked him to the floor. He was in immediate pain from it, eyes rolling back, struggling for air in strangled gasps.

  Carryn reached for him, dropping to her knees beside him, afraid he was about to be pulled through the vortex. The moment she touched him, she too was consumed by excruciating pain. Her arms and legs were being torn off. It felt like a hot knife cut across her belly, spilling out the contents. She couldn’t breathe.

  Through the narrowing scope of her vision she saw Dain lunge forward, his arm sweeping upward, silver arcing along the line of his arm, the glitter of green at his hand. The ability to breathe returned, leaving her gasping on the floor beside her brother. Maralt rolled onto his side, swearing between gulps of air.

  “Are you all right?” Dain asked, looking down at them. He held out his hand to Carryn, but she didn’t take it.

  A crushing desire to run came over her, a thing that reached out and clothed her mind in abject despair. It drilled fear into her, blinding her to reason.

  “Dain run,” Maralt said though his voice seemed weak and inaudible. “Don’t look. Don’t look at it.”

  Instead of heeding that advice, Dain turned around. The sword slipped from his hand, clattering to the stone floor. The great horned head towered above him, filling the hallway. A deformed, gnarled hand reached from the swirling dark and took him by the arm. The darkness surged forward swallowing him the next moment.

  The dark retracted, escaping down the hall back toward the Room of Orbs. Carryn could see, but couldn’t command her body to move. Maralt managed to stagger to his feet, grab up Dain’s fallen sword and charge after the retreating wall. Carryn forced herself to her feet, and followed. She thought Maralt would try to throw himself through the portal before it closed. If he managed it she thought he’d never get out again.

  For it was closing. They had what they wanted now, all three of the Chosen. She wondered how long the world had left.

  She made it around the corner and found Maralt standing just outside the Room of Orbs in strained concentration. He held out his hand toward the last fragments of the darkness, his fingers curled into a fist. For an instant the portal remained. Maralt was soon shaking from the effort. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dampening his hair, and he pulled in irregular gasps.

  A loud snap like a bolt of lightning hitting close by cracked against the stones.

  Maralt fell forward, pulled it seemed like, but he caught himself against the stone. Carryn rushed to him at the room’s entrance and saw that the darkness was gone. It was just a room with six orbs in it.

  “Carryn?”

  She turned at the sound of the High Bishop’s voice. He was at the corner intersection, and then he was beside them looking into the room. He was carrying Dynan’s sapphire sword they had left behind.

  “What has happened?” he asked, putting a hand on Maralt’s shoulder. “How is this possible?”

  “Dain was taken,” Maralt said. “Carryn had a vision. I came to see them. I shouldn’t have. I know it’s my fault. I have the talon, and somehow it struck because of that. It broke through because I have it here. I’m sorry. I was afraid to give it to you. You warned me and I didn’t listen.”

  “Yes,” Gradyn said, his voice calm. “We’ll have to assess the depth of the catastrophe, but in a moment. What else?”

  “They found out about Alurn.”

  Gradyn closed his eyes at that, and only gave Maralt a stern look. “You’ll have to take her memory of it.”

  “The demon came.”

  “No,” Carryn said. “I don’t want the memory taken.”

  “Did you see it?” Gradyn asked, ignoring her. “Did she?”

  “She did. I didn’t look. I tried to hold the gateway open, but...”

  “You couldn’t,” Gradyn said. “It’s beyond our capacity, Maralt. You’ll have to take her memory of the beast, too.”

  “I’m all right. It was barely a second.”

  “And that is all that is needed,” Gradyn said. “It’s only because of the integrity of your soul that it hasn’t overcome you already, but it has started, Carryn.”

  “Eminence!”

  A monk came shuffling around the corner moving as fast as his robes would allow. Gradyn glanced at Maralt and then Carryn because they hadn’t managed to forewarn him about the guards coming.

  “The Captain of the King’s Guard and Lord Chancellor are both here. They demand to see you.”

  “Then let them see me.”

  “But there are guards. A lot of them. I - I think they mean to search the Temple.”

  “Broud, see that they are shown in, directly,” Gradyn said.

  “Someone saw Maralt with Dain,” Carryn whispered.

  “I gathered,” the High Bishop said.

  Maralt looked down to the floor and leaned quickly, retrieving Dain’s sword. He tucked it away out of sight under his arm just in time. He pulled the hood of his robe over his head, rushing to draw it down to cover his face. He posted himself to one side of the entrance to the Room of Orbs acting as a sentry.

  Carryn followed suit, taking Dynan’s sword from Gradyn and hiding it. The High Bishop turned to look into the Room of Orbs as if he’d been standing there some time, even as Xavier Illothian and Melgan Lon came around the corner.

  There was a man with them, who looked uncomfortable and nervous, staring around him at the walls as if he expected they’d close in on him.

  “My Lord Chancellor,” Gradyn said, moving to them. “Captain. What has happened? Is it Prince Dynan?”

  “No, his condition is unchanged,” Xavier said. He had a voice almost as deep as Gradyn’s. “It does concern a matter of some delicacy, Eminence. This gentleman has reported he saw a monk putting Prince Dain in a transfer marked with the Temple seal.”

  While the Lord Chancellor explained, Melgan Lon walked to the doorway of the Room of Orbs, looking inside. He stood by Carryn smelling of leather and metal. It was readily apparent there wasn’t anything, or anyone inside the room except the orbs.

  “Of course you have complete access,” the High Bishop said as Xavier finished. “Broud, have all the clerics and monks gather in the Sanctuary. Look as long as you feel you need to. I wish Dain were here, but I’m afraid, sir, that you are mistaken, or misled.”

  Gradyn gestured them all back down the hall and Xavier turned that way, though Melgan did not. “What about these two?”

  “I would ask that they remain, Captain,” Gradyn said. “It is a function of our faith that this room be tended at all times.”

  “I’m sure that’ll be fine,” Xavier said, glancing back to Melgan. “Our witness should have a look at them. But in a moment. I’d like to ask that the guards who came with me be allowed inside. The weather has turned. There’s an unexpected storm. Thank you for your understanding, Eminence. I want to assure you that there is no disrespect intended toward you or those that serve you.”

  “We all serve the King, and pray for both his sons,” Gradyn said, and gestured the witness to Maralt and Carryn. “Take back your hoods, please, and let this man see you. I do need to ask that you keep to your
self that one of these two is a woman. She was abandoned here with her brother as an infant. We decided not to separate them. But her reputation could be harmed if it came out that she was here and not with the Sisters of Faith.”

  “Well it wasn’t her,” the witness said. He rubbed the cuff of his sleeve.

  “It wasn’t me either,” Maralt said to him, in his mind but so that Carryn could hear him, and the High Bishop too. “The monk you saw was dressed all in black.”

  “The monk I saw was dressed all in black.”

  Melgan nodded. “Yes, and had long black hair.”

  “I don’t know...That’s what I said before but, I’m not sure now. This isn’t the man. I saw his face clearly and this isn’t him.”

  The witness put a hand to his forehead, rubbing the side of his face. He looked at Carryn, but wouldn’t look at Maralt again.

  “Very well,” Melgan Lon said, but he was looking at Maralt along the left side where he had his arm clamped down on the hilt of Dain’s sword to keep it from falling. Carryn saw that his robe had opened, showing a flash of the blade when he moved to cover his head again.

  “There’s nothing there,” Maralt told him in his head.

  Carryn was frightened by how easy it was for Maralt to enter the mind of a non-telepath. It seemed almost second nature to him, as if he’d had years of practice when she knew he hadn’t had any. It wasn’t something he should do at all.

  “It’s a string of silver beads hanging from the belt. Initiates get them when they pass their scripture evaluations.”

  Melgan reached down, picking up the line of beads, perilously close to revealing the sword, but he only frowned after looking at them, watching the light hit them. He nodded abruptly and let them fall.

  Satisfied, the Lord Chancellor and the High Bishop walked away together. Melgan stood for a moment longer before he too turned. Carryn kept her breath pent up until they were all well around the corner, and their voices receding into the distance.

  Carryn stood for a time without moving, recovering from fear they’d be caught and now afraid Maralt would carry out the High Bishop’s demand to take her memory when she didn’t feel it was necessary. At the same time, she didn’t know what was going to happen now that Dain was taken. She kept waiting for something horrific to come, and when it didn’t, she didn’t understand it.